Food and Wine Bash in Newport

Hello lovelies! It is once again Sunday evening, and instead of sitting at home dreading work, I am out with my hubby at Ten Tables hopefully having a great dinner. I am so tired today, and after walking dogs this morning, am spending the day working on the blog and writing copy for my big work catalog. In case you missed my post on Friday, I joined Twitter, and you can now follow me here:

http://twitter.com/TraveleatloveMM

I need to work on my page, but one thing at a time! I am officially a Twitter addict, and I spent most of the car ride home from Newport on it. Speaking of Newport. . .

We drove down at around 9:30 yesterday morning to make it in time/early for the 12:00 start time of the Food & Wine Magazine sponsored Grand Tasting at the Newport Mansions Food and Wine Festival. On the way, we stopped at one of our favorite bakeries, Green Hills, in the Adams Village neighborhood of Dorchester. If you are looking for real Irish scones, go here. They are amazing and taste just like the ones that we get in Ireland. They make a great cup of tea and a bunch of other delectable baked treats too.

We arrived in Newport at Easton’s Beach at around 11:30. The festival was so well organized and provided free off site parking and a shuttle bus which made everything easy. It was a GORGEOUS day.

I was very glad that I wore a jacket in the evening. Brrr!

The Grand Tasting was held at the Marble Mansion, which was only incredible. I can not even imagine the decadent lives that the residents of these mansions had. They are straight out of The Great Gatsby and The House of Mirth, two books that I love.

The tasting was out back under a giant tent with the most amazing views ever. Table after table featured wine, food, cocktails, event planners, you name it. I was in heaven and a little overwhelmed. Luckily my foodie friend Jill was there too. We started with bubbly, then made our way around for whites and then reds. I had some Mumm Napa which brought back memories of our recent trip. Then stopped for a nibble of cheese. I had a couple of delicious cheeses from Champignon North America, including a creamy, rich cambazola.

We got a couple of classic St. Germain cocktails and decided to sit outside to enjoy the view for a little bit, and to pace ourselves at this incredible feast.

Can you even imagine this being your lawn? I could certainly get used to it. . .

After resting for a bit, we went back inside and continued tasting. Overall I would say I tried about 15 wines, ate 3-4 small plates of the most amazing lobster macaroni and cheese ever, a few cups of tuna tartare with a delicious, gingery, chili flavor to it, a few bites of cheese from Kerrygold and Cabot Creamery, some chocolate from Pure chocolate, and a cup of hazlenut gelato from Gelato Giuliana. Oh yeah and a couple of shots of delicious, black coffee from Pierce Bros Coffee. Everything I had was in small portions, perfect to get just a taste. . . or in the case of our repeat visits for the lobster mac and cheese, a few amaaaaazing tastes!

One of the really cool things about the event was the Celebrity Chef area, where Jacques Pepin and Joanne Weir were both stationed at one point or another. I enjoyed browsing through Joanne Weir’s cookbooks while she talked to another event attendee about how great Julia Child was and how much she missed her! It was amazing. . . I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to know and be a colleague of Julia Child.

I grew up watching Jacques Pepin on public TV, and seeing him brought a tear to my eye. I really can remember loving food and cooking SO long ago and watching Jacques and his daughter in the kitchen

Not the best photo of him, it was crowded!

At the end of the day we discovered the Mionetto table which ended up being our very favorite. For some reason it was not at all crowded, and we got to chat with the helpful and knowledgeable rep while tasting all of the prosecco that he had to offer. I really fell for the gold label prosecco, and I will definitely be hunting it down very soon. It is a really affordable, ultimate celebration bubbly with a nice fruitiness that I think guests with all palates would enjoy. It is very easy to drink 🙂

After the event was over, the hubs and I ended up walking back to get the car, a nice 15 minute walk which led us back to the beach. I was feeling carefree and took my shoes off to walk in the ocean. It was SO warm!

I just love that space between summer and fall in New England where you just have to be outside, and it is just perfect. I would have gone swimming if I had brought a swimsuit.

We walked on the beach for  bit, saw a wedding about to take place as sun was going down, got a little weepy at this, oohed, aahed, then got in the car for some water and a Pure bar. The Healthy Living Summit swag bag just keeps on giving! 😉

We drove back into town to the hotel where our friends were staying and decided on sushi for dinner. We walked a very short walk from the hotel to the Newport Tokyo House. I had a Kirin Ichiban.

And then a LOT of sushi. We had this, times two.

In addition to tempura vegetables and bowls of salted edamame. Honestly, I was still a little hungry after we were done! It was so good, especially the spicy tuna which was given to us in abundance and was very spicy. It was the perfect way to end a day full of culinary delights! I will definitely be attending this event again next year!

Don’t forget about my Get Well Stay Well giveaway which will stay open until Friday evening. Have a relaxing night!