Local chef to cook at James Beard House
Cafe Kandahar Chef Andy Blanton will be the featured guest chef at the renowned James Beard House in New York City today, and he will cook with local products ranging from Flathead cherries to buffalo processed by Lower Valley Meats.
The James Beard House — purchased by James Beard Foundation creator Peter Kump at Julia Child’s suggestion — hosts frequent dinners featuring selected chefs working the Beard kitchen in the company of foundation members and industry professionals.
The Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau has been working with the Montana Office of Tourism on making the dinner into a Montana media event and have 10 New York journalists attending, said Lisa Jones of Whitefish, who does public relations work for the bureau.
Upon arrival, guests will be invited to walk through the Beard House kitchen to meet the night’s chef at work. After hors d’oeuvres that include buffalo carpaccio with dried tomato confit — served throughout the ground floor and in the garden — guests ascend to the second-floor dining room for a multicourse tasting menu with wine pairings.
Blanton will serve specialties such as oyster and brie soup with fennel-cured bacon, chartreuse, porcini and fennel pollen; and foie gras cappuccino with Flathead cherries, whipped duck emulsion and cracklings.
Other featured local products are Montana Coffee Traders coffee, elk raised by the owners of Scotty’s Bar and locally picked huckleberries.
The evening concludes with a question-and-answer session with the chef.
Blanton was nominated in 2010 and 2011 as one of 20 semifinalists in the Northwest in the “Best Chef” category for the James Beard Foundation awards, the nation’s most prestigious recognition program. Cafe Kandahar on Big Mountain at Whitefish Mountain Resort also has received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and the Wine Enthusiast Award of Unique Distinction for several years.
”It has always been a dream of mine to cook at the Beard House," Blanton said. ”I had no idea that a small-town chef from a seasonal restaurant in Whitefish, Montana, would be compared with the distinguished eateries of Portland and Seattle and I am equally honored to cook as a guest in this storied New York kitchen. It's a privilege to share my passion for this art."
Blanton will pair his Montana-inspired cuisine with wines from the Doubleback, part-time Whitefish resident Drew Bledsoe’s wine project, FIGGINS, Abeja and Leonetti Cellar, all from Washington's Walla Walla Valley.
Blanton’s full menu can be viewed online at http://www.jamesbeard.org/events/montana-unleashed-052412.