Photos by Evie Carpenter
This weekend, foodies, culinary enthusiasts and hipsters alike gathered for one of the most highly anticipated events of the year — the Devoured Phoenix Culinary Classic at the Phoenix Art Museum, which hosted the event on both Saturday and Sunday along with Local First Arizona and Devour Phoenix.
Attendees were able to sample some of the greatest food and drinks that Phoenix has to offer. They also viewed culinary demonstrations and participated in meet-and-greets with the chefs. When one was pleasantly stuffed or needed a break from the onslaught of cuisine, guests were given general admission to the Phoenix Art Museum to browse the exhibitions and galleries.
I grabbed my press pass and bee-lined through the museum until I hit the first table, which, lucky for me, was decked-out in brownies. JJ’s Brownies sent me into an ecstasy that lasted throughout the entire event thanks to all the restaurants and local eateries that participated.
Following my initial walk-through of the vendors, I sat in on a couple of demonstrations to learn a bit about some select chefs and new ways of preparing restaurant-quality meals from home.
Sunday’s demonstration lineup included many local chefs and bartenders: Chris Newstrom from The Windsor, Payton Curry from Brat Haus, Chef Bernie Kantak and Mixologist Richie Moe from Citizen Public House and Keenan Bosworth from Pig & Pickle.
The first demonstration was given by Bosworth, who made a salmon dish with lemon cream and shaved fennel. He used fresh, locally grown ingredients that he had picked up that morning from a farmer’s market.
The third demonstrator, Curry, made an organic and locally grown salad with rainbow chard, kale, beets, greens and veggies that suited his vision of eating raw and healthy. Curry used vegetables from Duncan Family Farms, located in Goodyear, Arizona.
Curry pressed the issue that buying organic and healthy food is not as expensive as people seem to think. He said to get the most value out of healthy food, you must cook it in a way that you will enjoy, but also use the entire vegetable and not throw away the parts you may not know how to use. In the salad that Curry made before the audience’s eyes, he used the top leaves of beets and the fronds of some fennel to show that every part of a vegetable can be used.
“People are starting to understand that if we eat better we live longer. Imagine that,” Curry said, half jokingly. “We deal a lot with raw eating, we believe in a raw-volution — buying directly from the source and creating a farm to table concept.”
Curry may not be a rock star but he said he believes that the farmers in Arizona are.
“It’s not only about buying local,” Curry said. “It is about getting the food with the highest nutritional value to the customer, and those foods happen to come from our local farms. With events like Devoured Phoenix we can inform the public and by tonight if you stop by the Brat House, we will be packed all because of events like these.”
Restaurant owners and managers were not only excited to share their visions but also to get opinions on their dishes. While some like Pig & Pickle sampled a customer-favorite dish of pork shoulder tostadas topped with ginger aioli and kimchi, other restaurants dared to introduce items not currently on their menus.
Brad Moore from Short Leash Hot Dogs was fresh out of the new Crispy Dog just two hours into the event.
“The dog is not on the menu yet, it may make some guest appearances but we’re still working out some bumps,” Moore said.
The Crispy Dog included a jalapeño-cheese-stuffed wiener rolled in a fresh corn tortilla, fried and served with an avocado cream sauce.
Blue Hound Kitchen & Cocktails was also serving up something new — a wild steelhead trout, which was lightly cooked, topped with a Meyer lemon and fennel puree and served with an apple, radish and parsnip salad. Manager Sarah Inglis said the dish was not yet on the menu but will be making its way on very soon.
Chef Jason Peterson of Switch Restaurant & Wine Bar was whipping up a limited edition dish of a blue crab cake with a sweet corn, fennel and frisee chili coleslaw. As attendees crowded around the table, the frenzy did not stop Peterson from photo-bombing and cracking jokes.
“There could be a pig on a spit and there still wouldn’t be a bigger ham here than me,” Peterson laughed.
The joy and passion Peterson has for his food translates into his dishes, and as attendees popped the crab cakes into their mouths, I overheard attendee Michael Foree say it was the best dish he’d tasted all day.
“My wife and I came down from Yuma just for this event and I’ve tried just about everything,” Foree said. “Switch by far has the best dish I’ve had. You can’t go wrong with a good crab cake.”
While many people were avidly involved in Devoured Phoenix for many years, some attendees were fresh faces, experiencing the event for the first time. Darryl Fields, a northern Phoenix local, was excited to try foods from restaurants sprawled throughout the city all in one place.
“I’ve never eaten at some of these great upscale restaurants in the valley, so having this event bringing them all to one location is great,” Fields said.
Fields was saving his spot at one of the highly sought after tables, which were rare to find in the hoards of people attending the event.
“The only criticism I have is to make more room for all these people,” Fields said.
Devoured Phoenix was sold out soon after tickets were put on sale. With the anticipation and popularity of the event I have to agree with Fields that the elbow-to-elbow crowd made it rather hard for this reporter to maneuver her way through the throngs of food enthusiasts while balancing plates, notes and a voice recorder.
Of course seeing a packed event did not deliver an overall negative impact; quite the contrary. Locals, restaurant owners and myself included enjoyed seeing so much of the community gathered together to experience not only local eats but a gradual food movement of people who care about what they put on their plate.
A loyal Devoured Phoenix attendee, Jade Shiya, is happy to see more local eateries in the downtown Phoenix area and says the concept is important no matter where you are.
“I think it’s great to buy local and to promote the movement because so many cities are doing it and I’m glad that Phoenix is making the push in that direction,” Shiya said.
Contact the reporter at angoe@asu.edu
