ROANOKE - Stonewall Resort's annual Culinary Classic has traditionally given guests the opportunity to taste the talents of some of West Virginia's finest chefs and culinary students during one glorious, gluttonous weekend.
But this year's festival added a new twist by featuring the chefs and cuisine from two of Stonewall's nearby sister properties in Virginia - Hotel Roanoke and The Inn at Virginia Tech.
And while all three resorts served up some killer food, one of them clearly walked away as the weekend's winner in my book.
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During Friday night's opening dine-around, guests wandered from station to station sampling food prepared by the chefs at these three properties, along with offerings from The Greenbrier, Gordon Food Service, Noteworthy Sweets, Carver Career Center and Northern Community College.
Morgantown, Big Timber, Rivertowne and Yuengling breweries served up frothy libations, and nearly a dozen different wines were available to sip and savor as well.
During my breaks emceeing the evening, I sampled a lot of great food that night.
Stonewall's tender braised beef brisket over creamy grits was topped with a delightfully tangy celery and blue cheese slaw, and the resort's shooter of smoked Gouda and roasted red pepper soup was divine. The Inn at Virginia Tech received kudos for its strawberry rhubarb parfaits and decadent bread pudding, too.
But it was Hotel Roanoke's two dishes that garnered the evening's most praise.
Chef Stephen DeMarco's salt-cured duck salad with pomegranate, shaved manchego cheese, dressed baby spinach and fig balsamic glaze was phenomenal (the duck so tender, salty and delicious that I initially thought it was ham) and his candied bacon was crispy, brown-sugar-glazed, salty, chocolate-drizzled nirvana.
At the formal dinner the next night, it was also DeMarco's opening course that scored highest in my book - unbelievably tender and tasty herbed lamb loin medallions atop a roasted cauliflower puree black mission figs, microgreens and an edible orchid.
The pecan-crusted rainbow trout (with roasted beets and herbed goat cheese) and roasted Denver leg of venison (with smoked cipollini onions, Brussels sprout petals, slow grits, spicy cherry jus and pistachio crumble) that followed the lamb were both nice, but not nearly as good as that starter.
My second favorite dish that evening was the dessert from Noteworthy Sweets, a macadamia mousse cheesecake with salted caramel, toasted macadamia nuts, macadamia liqueur and fresh berries.
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Before dinner Saturday evening, the afternoon was filled with a variety of wine tasting seminars and cooking demonstrations, an Iron Chef-like throw down featuring two culinary schools, and a "Man vs. Food" challenge with five brave contestants vying to be the first to consume an entire two-pound, bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed meatloaf sandwich topped with crispy onion strings and doused in brown gravy. (The sammie was larger than most of their heads, no joke.)
Watching that spectacle was every bit as gross as it sounds, so I stuck to the soup and sandwich buffet (featuring Stonewall's standout smoked poblano cheese soup) while watching the culinary teams cook and plate some pretty phenomenal looking dishes.
Earlier that morning, guests attended a fun and informative wine tasting, cooking and ice carving demonstrations and - the highlight for me - a fascinating beer pairing seminar by the great crew from Big Timber Brewing in Elkins.
I'm already a big fan of Big Timber's beers (and the passion they put into brewing them) but this specific seminar was especially eye-opening. For example, we all tasted the brewery's Sluice Dry Stout, an Irish-style beer featuring predominant coffee and chocolate notes.
"Do you taste both of those flavors?" the brewers asked.
Some did, some didn't, so here's what they did.
They had everyone take a bite of chocolate, which essentially neutralized that flavor in our mouths, then had us take another sip of the beer. All you could taste was the coffee. Next, they had us bite into a coffee bean, which basically nuked our tastebuds with that flavor. When we sipped the beer this time, all we could taste was the chocolate.
In another experiment, the super-fruity Double Bit IPA was mouth-puckering at first taste, but after chewing on a piece of dried mango that neutralized those tropical flavors, the beer became much smoother and more mellow.
The moral of the story was just how drastically a beer's taste can change depending on the food you're eating at the same time. It was such an effective and fascinating exercise.
"I can't believe that worked," one older man from Pennsylvania told me afterward, shaking his head. "The beer's flavors did exactly what they said they would do after every taste!"
Nicely done, Big Timber.
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During Saturday night's closing dinner, resort officials also announced the news that Shane Hawkins, Stonewall's evening lead line cook, was named North America's Junior Chef of the Year at last month's International Association of Conference Centre's "Copper Skillet Cook-Off."
To earn the North American title, Hawkins previously won the U.S. cook-off held in Chicago last November, then beat out Canadian champion Jessica Neville from The NAV Centre in Ontario at last month's event. He'll now go on to compete in the group's world finals competition next month in Los Angeles.
"Shane is an exceptionally skilled chef and a true West Virginia talent," said Mike Hager, general manager at Stonewall Resort. "Guests can take pride in knowing that we have one of the best up-and-coming chefs in the country working here in Lewis County."
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Finally, if you thought I'd be satisfied with a mere two food-filled days at Stonewall, you'd be wrong. I made sure I got back in town Sunday afternoon in time to judge Celtic Calling's first-ever Guinness Cooking Competition, which took place at Adelphia Sports Bar & Grill downtown.
I'm sure glad I made it back in time.
I would have hated to miss Larry Snidow's first-place Colcannon Hash (featuring Guinness-boiled potatoes, cabbage, kale, ground mustard, garlic, crispy bacon and Irish cheddar) or Maureen Cremeans' second-place Guinness Draught Chocolate Pudding (decadent tiny cups of cream, milk, eggs, vanilla, butter, sugar and Guinness whipped to sweet perfection).
Slainte!
Steven Keith writes a weekly food column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and an occasional food blog at blogs.wvgazettemail.com/foodguy. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or by email at wvfoodguy@aol.com. You can also follow him on Facebook as "WV Food Guy" and on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest as "WVFoodGuy."
1 cup Guinness Draught
2 1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 egg and 2 yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
Combine milk, eggs, vanilla, butter and sugar. Whisk until smooth. Set aside.
Combine Guiness and heavy cream in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Whisk occasionally until mixture begins to gently bubble. Then remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk continually until smooth.
Combine mixtures from Steps 1 and 2 above, whisk to blend. Return to medium hear and whisk until mixture thickens (approximately 10-15 minutes).
Use immersion blender to blend final product.
Pour finished product into individual containers. Refrigerate, covered with plastic and wrap until set. Serve with fresh whipped cream.
4 cans of 14.9 oz Guinness Draught
5 large organic red-skin potatoes
1 bunch curly kale
4 handfuls cabbage
1 yellow onion
1 lb. fried bacon
Garlic, to taste
Salt
White pepper
Mace
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Ground mustard
Irish cheddar
Chop potatoes into about ¼ inch pieces.
Blanch de-stemmed kale, place in cold water.
Chop onion and green cabbage. Mince garlic.
Drink a Guinness (but not all of them - good luck).
Mix mace, ground mustard, cayenne and white pepper.
Boil potatoes in Guinness then simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Don't cook until soft, it needs firm texture.
Place olive oil in pan. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, then add spice mix.
Add onions on medium heat. Add cabbage on medium heat then set aside.
Deglaze with 1/3 cup of Guinness.
In the same pan, add bacon grease and garlic, then drained potatoes. Add salt and pepper, to taste.
Fry potatoes and add approximately 2 oz. of Guinness.
Add the vegetables back in, and fry them all together.
Add the blanched kale mix.
Toss with bacon, add cheddar on top and serve.