A Perfect Bite: November 2008

For those of you who have been wondering where I was after my Diwali post. Here is an explanation, with due apologies. I was off consulting with a group of European Food and Wine producers called Opera. They were in Mumbai 10 - 15 Nov to showcase themselves to the Indian Market. I was given complete creative freedom and it was an experience, that I fully enjoyed. Here's the beef on it (or should I say Salami!)

Me with Opera Products.

Òpera is a consortium of cooperative agricultural enterprises and Italian food-farming institutions, was created in 2007, with the aim to the promotion, enhancement, and popularization of quality food-farming, cooperative products around the world within the framework of the European Excellence Program – Excellence from our Fields, a promotional campaign funded by the European Union, the Italian State, agricultural cooperatives and companies working in the agro-food sector.

Awesome Fondue

Events kicked off with a Press brunch organized by Ms. Monica Vazirali at a South Mumbai restaurant, Olive (newly opened) on the 10th of Nov. It was a lovely afternoon of food, wine and press bonding! Highlights included meeting Javed Gaya, a fellow food writer whom I had heard much about, an excellent Fondue, followed by a delicious salad of greens topped by a filo pastry stuffed with zuchchini and salami and a prawn and pasta dish flavoured with herbs (parsley I think). By this point I was too busy eating to note names and all. After picking through a few dessert platters which were delicious I rather reluctantly sped back to the Intercontinental to meet with the chefs and sommelier to finalize things for the workshops I was organizing for Opera.

On the 12th, I took the delegation around three supermarkets, to help them better understand the Indian market and buyer. My objective was to illustrate price points and competition. I believe that the tour was very well received.

I explain price points of Olive oil.

12th evening saw us back at Olive for a grand Gala dinner hosted by Opera and organized by Ms.Monica Vazirali. Very 'Page 3' with a lot of the movers and shakers from the F&B industry in attendance. In fact a foodie friend said "It was a great event to network at" but I have ever been good at 'networking' (somewhat shy) so I just said HI to friends who were there and ran off to my kids!

Opera Products displayed at Olive

13th was the first day of the Annapoorna World of food expo at NSE grounds, Goregaon. The Opera Consortium showcased itself at a pavilion the size of a 1 bedroom house! There was a Chef at one end dishing up some delicious Italian food, a large display of products in the Middle and a section for conducting meetings at the other end.

While all of this was happening at Goregaon, I was settling things for the Professional workshops I was hosting for Opera at the Trenz restaurant. I was extremely nervous because I had chosen to do things somewhat differently. With 54 products to showcase, it would have been an unnecessarily long and boring session if I had elaborated on each product individually. Also with a mixed audience of press, F&B press and members from the HORECA sector, I needed to strike a balance between dissemination of information and elements of interest. I decided to break up the showcase into a Wine session, followed by a lunch and a food session.

Opera products on display at Trenz

The wine session was conducted by the charming Shagun Mehra, wine educator with the KBR school of wine. She showcased 10 wines from the Opera Winerack. With so many the traditional accompaniments to wine available from Opera's lineup, I also chose to round off the wine session with a small selection of Antipasti. Platters of antipasti with cheese, salami, Olive oil, an assortment of breads and a selection of vegetarian antipasti were laid on each table.

Shagun Mehra

This was followed by lunch to which major layers from the F&B sector were invited. Those who have limited time. A major grouse I have with most food events is that little attention is paid to the meals accompanying them. Perhaps the organisers choose to cut costs or just do not think it important but most buffets are standard banquet fare adorned by limp salads, heavy gravies and mismatched dishes.

I wanted the buffet lunch hosted by Opera to be well planned and also showase their products. I consulted with the chefs at the Intercontinental and laid out a spread that showcased Opera products in a manner that not only illustrated that Opera Products are perfect for use in their pure form to set an Italian table, but also lend themselves to use in the Indian kitchen in a myriad ways. They have more economic wines in tetra packs that make it easy on the pocket to savour a glass of wine on a regular basis with one's daily dinner, while their high end wines accompanied by some excellent meats from their range can grace any occasion. The fresh fruit and vegetables could enliven all manner of Indian dishes from salads to desserts, tomatoes canned at the height of their season can replace fresh tomatoes in any Indian dish, the canned lentils can be easily used to cook Indian Dals, effectively cutting cooking times in half (since they are canned in their cooking juices), the excellent cheeses can be used in any cheese based recipe (and hopefully replace the horrible generic stuff we eat as cheese) and the sweet and savoury packaged creams can replace cream in any Indian recipe.

Here is a virtual tour of lunch...

At the soup station was Minestrone soup using canned tomatoes from the Opera range, slightly spiked to suit the Indian Palate. Then came a salad station featuring loose leaf lettuce, ruccola and other salad stuff, ready to be tossed with Opera EVOO and Parmigiano Regiano cheese on request. (Premixed salads are what go limp on buffets, so I was insistent that all greens were properly presented. The salads also HAD to be freshly tossed! The salad counter also showcased vegetarian antipasti, fruit shots and glazed fruit using fresh fruit from the Opera range.

At the salami station we offered salamis from the Opera range, sliced and laid out alongside Opera cheeses and freshly baked Focacia.

The Pasta station offered pasta freshly tossed with Opera Pasta sauces, Olive oil and other condiments.

A Mains section offered a selection of hot main courses, Chicken Parmigianna to showcase Parmegiano Regiano, Fish roulade in Caper butter sauce to showcase the butter and Lasagna to showcase their Tomato and Bechemel sauces and Canned Chickpeas. And an Indian section showcased Rogan Josh made with canned tomatoes, Dal made with canned lentils and Matar Pulao and Methi Malai Matar made with canned peas, all from the Opera range.

The dessert counter was my favourite bit though. It showcased a few of Opera's ready desserts, some desserts made using Opera products, like their cream and fruit, and also had fruit on offer alongside whipped cram cans so that one could "create their own Sundaes if they wished.

Opera products were also attractively displayed throughout the buffet so that the diners knew that they had been used in the dishes they were partaking off.

Post lunch we had a food session, which doubled up as a late lunch. The session was conducted by Chef Rahul Davale and constructed around the Italian way of eating. The chef demonstrated each course at a table in front of the audience, while the kichen worked in tandem with him to serve each course as it was demonstrated. Anti-pasti was preplated and ready on the tables and chef talked about arranging platters at home. He then went on to demonstrate a Minestrone soup an a classic Ruccola salad to showcase the great cheese, and Olive Oil on offer. We created an element of food theatre by demonstrating a crispy Parmigiano Regiano chip to garnish the dessert. The main course of Lasagna was served to the audience while the chef took a break and then he went on to the dessert competition in which spray cans, sliced fruit, sweet provolone cheese and an assortment of dessert decorations were placed on each table. The audience was given time to create their own dessert which was judged by Chef Rahul. We gave away two hampers of Opera products as prizes.

And it has to be said, the entire orchestration of this event would have been impossible without the awesome backup extended to me by Chef Mark Wilson, Executive Chef and Chef Amit Choudhary of the Intercontinental the Grand. They understood exactly what I wanted and delivered it to the T despite some terrible gliches! In fact, I thought all of the food I ate at the Intercontinental in the duration of this event was really good, especially their lunch spread. I am looking forward to going back to savour it all at a more leisurely pace!