another common threads world festival has come and gone, and this year was bigger and better than ever!  the best part is that art was able to celebrate his 50th birthday by raising close to a million dollars for the charity.  pretty sweet present.

i know i talk about common threads a lot.  i have been a huge supporter over the past few years, primarily because i have spent time with the kids and have seen how beneficial the program is for them.  not only do they learn about various cultures and healthy eating, but they learn new skills that they can bring home and share with their families.

not only did we celebrate art’s big birthday at the main event, but this year was the first addition of ‘sunday supper’ the night before.  a group of chefs including myself, ming tsai, ray villalobos of table 52, and gavin kaysen of cafe bouloud.  we all gathered in the small upstairs kitchen (felt like i was back at scylla) and created a wine dinner based on some of art smith’s southern favorites.  i decided to go with the goat version of shrimp and grits… why not stuff shrimp with goat sausage and wrap it in caulfat, serve it over a spoonful of grits, and top it with a mixture of kalamatas, preserved lemon, fermented beans and mint.  i do have this new obsession with fermented black beans, so i could not resist.  the evening was a success, and thanks to our friends at david burke’s primehouse, was smooth and painless.  a great way to recover after our stressful time at SOBE a few days before.

plus to make the night an even bigger success for common threads, oprah made an extremely generous donation (i think i will invite her to my next birthday party and see what happens when she can’t make it .

world festival itself was next and was at a new venue this year at soldier field.  the space was huge, which was good since there were close to 60 chefs participating and over 900 guests.  i must say the best part of the night for me was the dj… i would like to hire him just to follow me around and play music all day.  had they busted out some disco balls there would have been quite the dance party.

for world fest, each chef picks a different country to represent, so we went with cambodia.  i figured i had been there, and though i have no recollection of what i ate in those three days (aside from the pineapple i had on the side of the road when i was riding a bike around ankgor wat in the 95 degree weather and felt like i was going to keel over), i remember the balance of flavor in all of the dishes i had throughout southeast asia.  decided to make a ‘cambodian stew’ with allen brothers steak and triggerfish from sea2table.  we made a beautiful shrimp and fish stock, finished it with some coconut milk, and topped it all off with some fresh lime.  the result was comforting with balance and bright flavors.

just got an email confirming our participation in next years world festival.  so if you missed it this year, see you march 7, 2011 at soldier field!