jason and i from the food & wine best new chefs 2011 cover

seattle has long been on my list of favorite cities. i actually thought about moving there until the goat started to come along and i decided i would stay in chicago for good. it is beautiful and surrounded by such amazing natural resources for local products that it makes it a chefs dream-city in which to have a restaurant. i figured a one night goat tour dinner with my new friend jason franey from canlis restaurant would fill my craving for now.
jason was one of the other ten chefs chosen this past year by food & wine magazine for best new chefs. one of the best parts about being chosen is the chance to meet a group of young chefs from around the country that you might have not met otherwise. all of the chefs are a ton of fun, but jason is one of my favorites. the night after the big gala in aspen, we hot tubbed till about 4am then jason his sous chef patrick and myself spooned for an hour till i had to go cook brunch. so i thought doing a dinner would give us to cook together and perhaps spoon together once again.
since seattle is so close to my favorite little wine town, walla walla, i asked my good friend charles smith of k vitners to provide wines for the dinner.  if you happened to have seen my personal facebook page, the profile picture of me with the cat in the hat top hat is from the last dinner charles and i did together. so much fun that the other chef at the dinner and i dressed up in costume for every course that went out… possible we were sipping on a bit too much of charles’ amazing wines during the dinner. i remember one pairing of charles’ viognier going out with a chilled walla walla soup that i had made. it honestly was as though the two were created to be served together. i have not been able to make such a perfect pairing since, but hoping that this dinner brings out some amazing matches as well. 
fingers crossed that charles’ schedule allows him to join us at canlis… charles, jason and myself in one space together means trouble. or just means a delicious meal paired with amazing wines, depending how you want to look at it.

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