PEBBLE BEACH + PERFECT FOOD: The old saying "gilding the lily" is a pretty good one, as many tried-and-true adages tend to be. But sometimes it simply does not apply, especially when a really fine setting and a really fine happening come together. That's more like placing a lily next another lily, right? Which is how we like to think of the annual Pebble Beach Food & Wine gathering, which happens every spring in the spectacular, golf-course-y, ocean-close location. If we are to be totally honest here, and we want to be, we'd say that locations don't come more beautiful than the P.B., for golfing, for ocean-viewing, and for hobnobbing with other foodies and top toques. And if we are to be totally honest here, and we want to be, we'd say that cuisine-focused gatherings don't come starrier, what with the brightest stars of the kitchen in the mix. See what we're saying? No gilding here. Just two beautiful flowers, placed together in one vase. (Yep, we're feeling poetic, but please, Pebble Beach brings out the poet.)
APRIL 4-7, 2013: The Thursday-to-Sunday soiree spreads out, generously, over the first weekend in April. The biggest events of the food spectacular, which marks year six? They're plentiful. Highlights include the Founders' Dinner, the Celebrity Chef & Winemakers Golf Tournament, a seminar on rieslings from around the globe, a Belgium beer lunch, a mushrooms & pinot noir talk, and cooking demonstrations with greats like Carla Hall and Anne Burrell. Food & Wine magazine is the presenter, so count on a whole mess of luminaries on both sides of the stove (cooks and eaters) being in the house. Oh, and that house? Well, there's more than one venue, but everything is clustered in the Pebble Beach area.
