Today, due to popular demand, we are adding a second night to the Chalkboard Satellite Dinner! Sponsors Nueske’s Bacon and Templeton Rye will be there, rockin’ the tasty bacon and savory rye whiskey.

The second dinner will be at Chalkboard Restaurant on Tuesday 9/14 at 6:30 PM.

If you’d like to attend, please book through Open Table:

Choose 9/14 at 6:30 PM:

http://www.opentable.com/chalkboard

The dinner costs $45.00 per person  plus tax and tip.
Payment will be collected at the restaurant.
There is a $10 per person cancellation fee.

When the event is sold out, Open Table will no longer accept reservations.
To be added to the waitlist, email seth@baconfestchicago.com

Ticket cost includes:

- Aperitif of Bisol Jeio Prosecco

- A Four-Course Prix Fixe Bacon Feast.

- A delightful mini-cocktail featuring Templeton Rye paired with dessert.

Ticket cost does NOT include tax, gratuity, or additional beverages.

Note: Capacity is extremely limited; your party may be seated at a communal table. We can accept reservations for parties of 4 or fewer.

Planned Menu

Passed Appetizers
-Pickled bacon lollipops
-Bacon hush puppies with tom yum
-White bean and bacon crostini with truffle and cilantro

First Course
Roasted scallops and bacon with preserved watermelon, vanilla mayonnaise and mint

Second Course
“Malt and Salt” braised pork belly with celery root puree, grape jelly, toasted almonds and fried pickled ginger

Dessert
Templeton Rye bacon bread pudding with bacon ice cream in a toasted curry crust, drizzled with aji amarillo caramel sauce

Menu subject to change without notice.
Substitutions are not available.

——-

We’re starting up the bacon-wheel for the coming year’s bacon events.

The first bacon arrow in our quiver: Baconfest Chicago’s Satellite Dinner #1, at Chalkboard Restaurant. Our satellite events give the Baconfest chefs a chance to dig even deeper into the bacon subconscious – a multi-course meal, each course starring bacon.  Think of them as a chance to taste the results of each chef’s romp in a bacon playground.

Chef Gilbert Langlois wowed Baconfest attendees with his bacon ice cream and aji-amarillo caramel sauce.  That dessert will make an encore appearance at our Chalkboard Dinner.  We’re throwing Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Meats, Tenuta Santome Prosecco and Templeton Rye into the mix.  It should be a memorable meal.  See below for the full details.

Baconfest Satellite Dinner #1

Chalkboard Restaurant
4343 North Lincoln
http://www.chalkboardrestaurant.com/
Chef Gilbert Langlois

Presented by
Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Meats
Tenuta Santome Prosecco from Candid Wines
Templeton Rye

Monday, September 13
6:30 PM – passed appetizers and Santome Prosecco
7:00 PM – seated dinner

Cost: $45 / person

Cancellation fee: $10 / person

Ticket cost includes:

- Aperitif of Santome Prosecco: A sparking Italian white wine presented by Candid Wines.

- A Four-Course Prix Fixe Bacon Feast.

- A delightful mini-cocktail featuring Templeton Rye paired with dessert.

Ticket cost does NOT include tax, gratuity, or additional beverages.

Reservations exclusively through Open Table
http://www.opentable.com/chalkboard
Reserve for Monday, September 13, 2010 at 6:30 PM.

When the event is sold out, Open Table will no longer accept reservations.
To be added to the waitlist, email seth@baconfestchicago.com

Note: Capacity is extremely limited; your party may be seated at a communal table. We can accept reservations for parties of 4 or fewer.

Planned Menu

Passed Appetizers
-Pickled bacon lollipops
-Bacon hush puppies with tom yum
-White bean and bacon crostini with truffle and cilantro

First Course
Roasted scallops and bacon with preserved watermelon, vanilla mayonnaise and mint

Second Course
“Malt and Salt” braised pork belly with celery root puree, grape jelly, toasted almonds and fried pickled ginger

Dessert
Templeton Rye bacon bread pudding with bacon ice cream in a toasted curry crust, drizzled with aji amarillo caramel sauce

Menu subject to change without notice.
Substitutions are not available.

For More Information
BaconFestChicago.com
twitter.com/BaconFestChi
facebook.com/BaconFest

Press inquiries: james@shoutchicago.com, 773.852.0506

Shift 1

Shift 2

ADDENDUM: Daniel Zemans of SeriousEats.com took a look at our menus and cross-checked them against his reporter’s notebook. He let us know about a few changes that chefs made between when we went to print with the menus and the day of the event. For you completists, here are his notes:

-Paddy Long’s did not include the quail egg
-Lula made bacon from the pork belly from Gunthrop Farms – there wasn’t separate house-cured bacon and pork belly
- Big Jones replaced the buckwheat shortbread with bacon fat seared sweet potato biscuit. Big Jones also swapped out the passionfruit and apricot and replaced it with sorghum and pickled mustard seed.
- Socca replaced the planned asparagus with lemon thyme sugo with a pork belly and foie gras sugo.
- Veerasway didn’t have separate cashew and green chili upmas. There was one upma made with both cashews and green chilis.

Thank you Dan for helping us keep the record straight for posterity.

In the first shift, Mike Gebert, king of Chicago’s spectacular food video podcast Sky Full of Bacon, will show attendees how to prepare a pork belly to make bacon at home.

http://skyfullofbacon.com

In the late shift, Gary Wiviott, BBQ life coach, author of the Baconfest-approved BBQ bible Low & Slow, and founder of Chicago’s premiere culinary chat site, LTHForum.com, will demo his version of Atomic Dragon Turds, a bacon-wrapped smoked jalapeno treat.

http://www.lowslowbbq.com

We recommend that you check out Sky Full of Bacon and buy 1/2 dozen copies of Gary’s book!

Baconfest Chicago Cookoff Recap: Well, No One Died

The Golden Rashers

Baconfest Chicago proper won’t be for another six months, but if Saturday’s VIP pro cookoff is any indication organizers Seth Zurer, Michael Griggs and Andre Pluess might want to have some ambulances at the ready. Or at least some Lipitor. We won’t get into another debate about how played out the bacon meme is; haters will hate, lovers will love. But there was a sense of fun among the crowd Saturday. As vocal as the pro- and anti-bacon folks can be, the overall vibe was lifted from Alfred E. Neumann: “What? Me Worry?” Few took themselves seriously at the cookoff and levity reigned. So did excess.

The chefs taking part in the cookoff embraced that spirit in their dishes. You can count on the Signature Room’s Patrick Sheerin to make a carbonara with bacon, pork belly and guanciale. Goose Island’s John Manion used a bourbon barrel to cure, then smoke his own bacon, while one sixtyblue’s Michael McDonald paid tribute to Chick-fil-A with chicken-fried bacon on a pretzel bun. Chalkboard’s Gilbert Langlois had arguably the most decadent dish at the cookoff with his vanilla bacon ice cream topped with a swirl made from caramel and lard, and topped with shiitake bacon crumble. Now do you see why I think an ambulance might be necessary? More than one guest and chef expressed surprise that someone didn’t collapse.

In the end the “Golden Rasher for Best Use of Bacon by a Culinary Professional” went to two chefs who expressed restraint with their simple dishes. Troy Graves of Eve was an overwhelming winner for the Peoples Choice Rasher with his pumpkin-bacon waffle with pomegranate glazed pork belly and apricot syrup. Breakfast braciole from the Bristol’s Chris Pandel was awarded the judges Golden Rasher. The judges panel included LTHForum’s Gary Wiviott, the Reader’s Mike Sula, Moveable Feast’s Louisa Chu, the Baconfest brain trust and myself.

By Chuck Sudo in Food on October 26, 2009 10:40 AM ]]> http://baconfestchicago.com/2009/11/15/1026-chicagoist-com-baconfest-chicago-cookoff-recap-well-no-one-died/feed/ 0 http://baconfestchicago.com/2009/11/15/1026-chicago-reader-baconfest-pro-cookoff-we-have-a-winnah/ http://baconfestchicago.com/2009/11/15/1026-chicago-reader-baconfest-pro-cookoff-we-have-a-winnah/#comments Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:50:40 +0000 seth http://baconfestchicago.com/?p=400

Baconfest Pro Cookoff: we have a winnah

Posted by Mike Sula on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:20 PM

Ron Kaplan
Chris Pandel’s “breakfast braciole”

In terms of attendance, Saturday’s Baconfest Chicago Pro Cookoff at the Publican (the precursor to the main event in April) was a bit of a sausagefest, with dudes (quite a few of them in matching meat couture) outnumbering females by about two to one. Apart from that, it defied most stereotypes of the supposedly moribund bacon fad, with ten chefs turning out thoughtful, creative dishes accompanied by smart beer pairings, with nary a hint of gratuitous looniness (even though attendees were given bacon lip balm in their goody bags).

Chris Pandel of the Bristol won the Golden Rasher for the Best Use of Bacon by a Culinary Professional, judged by me, Louisa Chu, Gary Wiviott, Chuck Sudo, and the Baconfest Triumvirate. His dish, a maple-sage-sausage-stuffed, alderwood-smoked bacon braciole, was simple, straightforward, and powerfully delicious, with braised greens saturated in lightly sweet maple-scented juices. Troy Graves of Eve won the People’s Choice Rasher with a pumpkin-bacon waffle and belly, whose fatty richness was offset with a judicious use of tart pomegranate.

But nearly every dish entered had something to recommended it, from Rick Gresh’s implausible sounding but buttery good bacon beer to John Manion’s plate, which deserved some kind of award for sheer effort, since he brined his bellies in one of Goose Island’s bourbon barrels, then smoked them over the chopped-up wood.

Ron Kaplan
Nathan Sears’s bacon boudin blanc

Vie sous chef Nathan Sears turned in the least baconlike dish of the day with this bacon boudin blanc with lentils and butternut squash aigre doux. Along with Pat Sheerin’s fresh bacon in the style of carbonara, below, it caused the greatest amount of dissension among the judges, and very nearly took the day.

Ron Kaplan
Pat Sheerin’s fresh bacon in the style of carbonara

Ron Kaplan
Gilbert Langlois’ vanilla bacon ice cream

I ran into a few people in the midst of their tasting attempting to use Chalkboard chef Gilbert Langlois’ vanilla-bacon ice cream as a palate cleanser. It was booby-trapped with an explosively decadent “swirl” of maple-lard icing that would have destroyed me if I hadn’t tasted it near the end of my tour.

Ron Kaplan
Jason Paskewitz’s “Belly Up Breakfast”

Posted by Daniel Zemans, October 26, 2009 at 5:15 PM

“If any attendees walked out of Baconfest disappointed, 100% of the blame falls on their defective palates.”

Inside-out pig in a blanket from David Burke’s Primehouse. [Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

You never know when inspiration is going to hit. For Michael Griggs and Andre Pluess, it came early this year after seeing the Neo-Futurists perform Beer, a puppet-filled musical about the visions of a ten-year-old boy who gets drunk after sneaking into a brewery. The play left Michael and Andre wondering what they loved as much as the playwright loved beer. Before long, they had their muse: Bacon.

Once that realization hit, the wheels started turning and they decided to plan a huge tribute to bacon. Late that night, they called Seth Zurer, their food-loving friend who is one of the founders of LTH Forum. Seth immediately recognized that they were onto something and from that conversation, Baconfest was born.

Described at times as a bacon version of Burning Man, the Taste of Chicago and Lollapalooza, Baconfest would include bacon to eat, bacon to buy, bacon classes, bacon music, bacon theater, and bacon paraphernalia.

Baconfesters.

After some helpful consulting with Ellen Malloy at Restaurant Intelligence Agency, a public relations firm that specializes in restaurants, they settled on a two-day event that would feature a professional cook-off the first day and a bigger, more varied event the second day. The initial plan was to have both events in one weekend, but the group decided to postpone the big event until next April so they would have more time to flesh it out and procure more sponsors (Baconfest is both a public service and a for-profit enterprise).

On September 21, 75 tickets for the cook-off went on sale for $75. On September 22, the event was sold out. Chefs from ten of Chicago’s best restaurants rewarded the enthusiastic bacon lovers handsomely. Every one of them clearly put thought and effort into their dishes and they all succeeded, most incredibly well. In addition to the outstanding food, each dish was paired with a beer. Bottom line: If any attendee walked out of Baconfest disappointed, 100% of the blame falls on their defective palates.

Gemini Bistro

Until the bacon/pork belly craze took over a few years ago, I don’t think I was alone in thinking of bacon primarily, if not exclusively, as a breakfast food. Chef Jason Paskewitz of Gemini Bistro was the only chef to pay homage to bacon’s breakfast past with his “Belly Up Breakfast,” which featured glazed pork belly, an over-easy quail egg, apricot glaze and a vanilla buttermilk blini. Other than my blini being a little cool, this was an exceptional dish.

One Sixty Blue

Chef Michael McDonald of One Sixty Blue brought an outstanding rebuttal to those who advocate restraint in eating bacon and fried foods: Chicken-fried bacon on a pretzel bun with garlic chili mayo and house-made dill pickles. Even better, he served them with bacon french fries (french fried strips of bacon) and a concord grape ketchup that I could have eaten by the spoonful. While every chef was generous with their portions at the event, this thing was a filling lunch on its own.

Signature Room at the 95th

Chef Partick Sheerin of Signature Room at the 95th had some fun with carbonara and everyone was better off because of it. He cooked egg yolk on a very low heat and emulsified it with olive oil. On top of that: guanciale, onions, garlic, and pecorino romano emulsified with butter, all of which was tossed with pasta cooked in bacon water. And on top of all that: a nice piece of seared smoked pork belly, which was in turn topped with a very crisp, glistening piece of dried house-cured guanciale. This was an incredible dish, probably my favorite of the event.

The Bristol

Chris Pandel of The Bristol came in with one of the more creative dishes of the event, a “Breakfast Braciole,” a four-part dish that featured a piece of house-cured alderwood-smoked bacon wrapped around maple-sage breakfast sausage, which was wrapped around a hard-boiled egg. The rich, lightly sweetened treat was topped with cavalo nero, or black kale, that was braised in bacon fat and bacon juice. As good as the braciole was, and it was outstanding, the ridiculously rich braised kale was even better.

David Burke’s Primehouse

Chef Rick Gresh of David Burke’s Primehouse showed up with four different bacon treats at the event. In order to figure out what he was going to bring, Gresh held a competition in the restaurant kitchen for his staff. Two of those dishes made the final cut: the reverse pig in a blanket (pictured above) consisted of buttermilk biscuit dough mixed with bacon bits, all wrapped in bacon and then griddled. That tasty morsel was served with bacon mustard that was so good, I finished it off after the reverse pig in a blanket was long gone. The bacon and apple fritter was a bit more straightforward (a regular fritter filled with apple and bacon) but every bit as good.

[Photograph: Rick Gresh, via Twitter]

Gresh brought two of his own creations (along with the bacon mustard, which is actually served on occasion at Primehouse). Rather than rely on the Publican to select the beer pairing for his treats, Gresh, who is an accomplished home brewer, brought his own bacon beer. His final contribution was Bacon Fun Dip: a strip of bacon pastiage and a dip made from bacon fat and a little bit of bacon.

Vie

Vie sous chef Nathan Sears made a bacon boudin blanc: white sausage made from bacon. Served braised lentils, sweet and sour butternut squash, grilled onion, pickled garlic and crisp rye sourdough toast, this was one of the lighter dishes of the night. The flavors were excellent, but I was not a huge fan of the texture—soft sausage with soft squash and soft lentils.

Goose Island Brewing Company

John Manion of Goose Island Brewing Company started with some bacon that he smoked using wood from an oak bourbon barrel. He cut thick pieces and served them with City Farm carrots and chiles en vinagre, along with absolutely exceptional frijoles charros that were highlighted with multiple kinds of chiles that hit the taste buds in mouthwatering succession.

Boka

Boka chef Giuseppe Tentori’s featured hunks of bacon braised in black mole for four hours, leaving behind a tender and incredibly flavorful piece of meat. He trimmed and cooked so much of the fat out of the dish, that, combined with the mole flavor, I don’t think I would have identified the meat as bacon. Much more importantly, I still would have identified it as delicious as was the paired quince sauce. The dish also included semolina gnocchi.

Eve

[Photograph: Seth Zurer]

Chef Troy Graves represented Eve well with his pumpkin bacon waffle with pomegranate glazed, maple syrup infused pork belly. The waffle was excellent both in taste and texture, although I couldn’t taste the bacon that had been cooked and crumbled into the batter. The sweet pomegranate glaze worked really well with the pork belly and waffle. The brussel sprout and apple salad nicely lightened the dish.

Chalkboard

Gilbert Langlois of Chalkboard may well have been the most talked-up chef at the event. Not only did he and his staff wear specially made aprons that read: “Bacon: The Candy of Meat,” but he transformed into a mad scientist, creating the only dessert of the event.

The base of the three-part dish was vanilla-bacon ice cream. On top of that was “frosting” that he made by roasting two pigs’ heads on low heat for 12 hours, collecting the fat drippings and emulsifying them with maple syrup and vanilla bean. He also made a crumble for the top by crisping some bacon in a coffee grinder, recrisping it with butterscotch chips, then letting it rest until it became a brittle. After the bacon butterscotch concoction crystallized, he sprinkled it with curry powder and then shattered it into the crumble that topped the dessert.

The Golden Rasher Trophies

There were two Golden Rasher trophies given out at the event, one for the best dish as selected by the judges, the other selected by everyone else. The judges, Louisa Chu, Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist, Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader, and Gary Wiviott, founder of LTHForum and barbecue life coach, chose The Bristol’s Breakfast Braciole.

The people chose Eve’s pumpkin bacon waffle with pomegranate-glazed, maple syrup-infused pork belly. I can’t argue with either choice. The chefs all went above and beyond and I’d say more like seven or eight dishes were my favorite.

Bacon Swag

In addition to ten excellent dishes, each of which was paired with a different beer, Baconfest Cookoff attendees were all rewarded with a nice bag of bacon swag. The bag included chocolate covered bacon from Bleeding Heart Bakery, bacon bourbon caramel corm from Salted Caramel (not pictured as my bag didn’t have it), bacon salt (vegetarian and kosher!) and bacon bip-balm from J and D’s, bacon maple man-bait lollipops from Das Foods, bacon maple doughnuts from Glazed Chicago Donuts, bacon sea salt caramels from Floriole Bakery, and bacon peanut brittle from Fig Catering.

As much as I love sweets and bacon, I have to confess—I’m not a huge fan of the candy bacon movement. Even with that prejudice, the bacon sea salt caramel and the bacon peanut brittle were both really good.

The next Baconfest will be on April 10, 2010. Event details still need to be worked out, but if the preview cookoff is any indication, all serious bacon eaters in Chicago need to mark the date on their calendar right now. For those who want to keep up with all things Baconfest, follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

Bacon reaches new heights of popularity

Two top chefs bring home the bacon at Pro Bacon Cook-Off

by Therese Ruiz
Oct 28, 2009

Pan fried. Seared. Braised. Slow roasted. Deep fried. Sliced and served to perfection.

Ten Chicago area chefs whipped up a variety of bacon dishes last Saturday, filling the lofty main room of The Publican with the meat’s smoky, distinct smell.

It was the inaugural edition of The VIP Pro Bacon Cook-Off. Held at the restaurant in the Fulton Market district, it was an opportunity for the chefs to show off their bacon-wielding skills.

For the 75 guests in attendance, it was a day of bacon-tasting merriment, during which they sampled 10 dishes, variations on the main bacon theme. In the spirit of the day, some bacon-eaters scrounged the recesses of their closets, their friends’ closets, and the Internet to find bacon-related items to wear. “I heart Bacon,” “BACON!” and “Bacon-fied” were among the expressions displayed on chests, purses and hats. One group wore matching team shirts declaring, “Bacon. Everything Else is Just a Condiment.”

For the chefs, however, the day resembled the Food Network’s “ Iron Chef America.” Only one bacon-themed creation would reign supreme in the People’s Choice and Judge’s Choice categories.

At 2 p.m. Seth Zurer, Baconfest Chicago co-founder, announced the winners. Troy Graves, executive chef at Eve in downtown Chicago, won the People’s Choice Award, and Chris Pandel, chef at The Bristol on North Damen Avenue, was the Judge’s Choice winner. Both walked away with Golden Rasher awards, a small golden pig perched atop a wooden pedestal.

“Each was delicious and used bacon in a unique way,” Zurer said.“The two that won were delicious, not too complex [but] had a lot of textural complexity. Pretty much straightforward and complicated all at once.”

Coincidentally, both winning chefs served up a version of breakfast favorites. Chef Grave says he was inspired by the sights and smells of autumn. His dish combined pumpkin and bacon into a crisp waffle. Topped with pomegranate-glazed pork belly, it was infused with maple syrup and, of course, more bacon. A small garnish sprig and pomegranate seeds finished the plate.

“It’s a tribute to the season, with the orange of pumpkin and the brown of bacon,” Grave said. “The flavors paired well together.”

Chef Pandel opted for something a tad more traditional: meat rolled around more meat rolled around a hard-boiled egg. His “Breakfast Braciole” included house-cured, alderwood-smoked bacon with house-made maple-sage breakfast sausage, braised greens and a hard-boiled egg. He drizzled the tops with spoonfuls of maple-scented juices.

There was a genuine camaraderie among the chefs as they tasted each other’s dishes, learning new techniques, new flavor combinations and new pairings.

Zurer, who is self-employed, was almost giddy by the end of the event.

“We had a lot of good feedback ,” he said. “A guy from Serious Eats [a food blog] said if there wasn’t anybody who didn’t leave 100 percent satisfied, the fault was with their palate and not Baconfest.” Many guests noted how flavorful the dishes were, though they admitted that their cholesterol levels had increased by the end of the two-hour event.

The Cook-Off was a preview of a larger event, Baconfest Chicago, to be held in April next year. Tickets for the preview were $75 and sold out in a record 36 hours.

For Zurer, the event reinforced what he calls “the capacity of bacon to contribute to sensual and interpersonal pleasure.

“Everyone there was so nice and so happy,” he said. “I can’t help but say bacon fat was a big part of that.”

Therese Ruiz/MEDILL
Seth Zurer (right), with event co-founder Andre, denies being caught with the bacon in his mouth, despite  photographic evidence. Afterall, all the bacon was supposed to be for attendees.

Therese Ruiz/MEDILL
The two winning dishes both emphasized rich bacon flavor and added a unique textural element to entice the palate, said Seth Zurer, co-founder of Baconfest.  Chef Troy Graves’ dish (left) featured autumn flavors of pumpkin, pomegranate and bacon.The winning chef serves up creative dishes at Chicago’s Eve restaurant. The Bristol Chef Chris Pandel’s dish (right) combined beloved breakfast favorites baked together for flavor packed with juices.

Related Links

Slideshow: A peek at the chefs, dishes, and venue for the Bacon VIP Cook-Off

During our video shoots, we tried to get the chefs to act macho and competitive about the Golden Rasher competition. We thought it would make good Baco-TV. But almost to a one, the chefs declined to crow and posture.

Giuseppe Tentori of Boka put it particularly well when he said, “It’s not really a competition. It’s fun. I’m just excited to see what the other guys come up with”.

That spirit of respect for the cook’s craft and respect for bacon as an ingredient made our event a special one. Every dish that was there was delicious; each one used bacon in a creative and exemplary way; each chef opened our eyes a little further to what is possible from our favorite smoked meat.

That said, two chefs did take home Golden Rasher Awards for Best Use of Bacon By a Culinary Professional, one selected by the judges and one selected by the people.

The winner of the Golden Rasher Judges Award was Chris Pandel of The Bristol, whose “breakfast braciole” endeared him to the judges’ hearts – his dish was simultaneously one of the most focused and one of the most complex entries with layers of bacon and pork fat mingling with bitter cavolo nero and unctuous breakfast sausage.

The winner of the Peoples’ Choice Golden Rasher was Troy Graves of Eve Restaurant. I think Mike Sula put it aptly in his recap: Graves won with a “pumpkin-bacon waffle and belly, whose fatty richness was offset with a judicious use of tart pomegranate.”

These guys may have taken home the trophies, but all of the chefs deserve great praise for their ingenuity and hard work.