Chop, Chop! Behind the Scenes at a Celebrity Chef Event

I have so many great celebrity chef moments to share from this month's super extravagant Pebble Beach Food and Wine Experience; tasting caviar with Jacques Pepin, cracking up with Ming Tsai, getting bear hugged by Michael Chiarello ( ladies, I know, I know. He is even better looking in person.), lots of flash and panache! Yet, in the midst of all this glamor, I am also truly enamored with the "back of the house" process. It is incredible to even try and envision how much planning and work goes into creating such an event. This is a four day annual event across two massive resort properties with thousands of well-heeled guests, huge food and  wine tastings, gala dinners, golf tournaments, lots of celebrities and, I am sure, many egos in the mix. Our focus was the Lexus Celebrity Chef Demonstration Tents. Yes, two back to back football field sized tents seating 300 guests apiece with a small but mighty prep tent in the middle.


It was so fun to arrive, walk up to the huge tents and be immediately greeted by the faces of all the world famous chef demonstrators... on the covers of their books! The reception tent was stocked to the rafters with cases of shiny new cook books to sell over the weekend. I looked at all the glossy covers, eagerly anticipating the exciting days ahead. I found the "secret room", our prep tent, stocked with refrigeration units, prep tables, all types of equipment and the almighty Speed Rack. Next to the chefs knifes and the Sharpie marker, it was arguably the most important item of our little makeshift kitchen.

I love this picture of a speed rack in its full glory. Note the green tape from the top: Pepin, as in magnificent Jacques, below that is the "mise en place" ( fancy term for prepped items) for his demo Caviar & Potato, then Divine Omelet, Salmon with Caviar and more. For each chef we prepped racks like this and for some we prepped 300 samples. For Jacques, we made 300 plates with 3 separate caviar appetizers and for internationally known cheese expert Laura Werlin we prepped 300 cheese platters paired with 5 wines, using 1500 wine glasses for that 2 hour event alone!


In the uber-over the top $175 per person Grand Tasting Tents there were over 5000 guests, so I am guessing about 10,000 wine glasses for that event alone. As I walked through the underbelly of the Inn at Spanish Bay Resort I kept passing by huge rooms dedicated to one just thing. It was a bit like flipping through some weird 24 hour cable channel: The Wine Glass Channel "24-7 Glass Polishing", The Linen Channel "Non- Stop Ironing and Folding", The Floral Channel "Massive to Tiny Arrangements Made Around the Clock" and on and on. I have not even mentioned the banquet kitchens, prep kitchens, employee cafeteria, on site restaurants, room service, loading docks, valets, oh, enough!


The one thing though, that knit all of these scenes together were the hard working people making it all happen. Kudos to the big cheeses and V.I.P.'s that created the "sizzle" but what a joy to share 1,000 warm, knowing smiles with the legions of bus boys, prep cooks, dishwashers, porters, maids and janitors that show up day after day to clean, wash, prep and polish so that the "show goes on. These are the true unsung heroes of the food world. Thanks for all you do...