Rocky Mountain Winefest: WCCC creates delicacies

Paintings, pasta, Aussie hats, cheesecake, and wine filled the vendor booths this Saturday at the 21st annual Rocky Mountain Winefest.

The winefest, held each year in Palisade’s Riverbend Park, is the biggest showing of Colorado wines in the country. Over 50 wineries turn out year after year to let thousands of connoisseurs sample their wines and meads.

Along with the fine wines are, of course, fine foods.

“I have a parmesan panko crusted chicken tender seasoned with fresh herbs served alongside a ricotta spinach ravioli with marinara,” WCCC culinary student Haley Macdonald said. She was talking about the dish she prepared and served in the VIP tent on Saturday.

Macdonald was part of a large culinary team dispatched from WCCC to cater the VIP section of the event as well as prepare box lunches to sell to regular ticketholders.

Striped bass wrapped in pancetta with green onion and cheddar polenta, cold tomato soup with tuna tartare and lamburger with tzatziki cucumber cranberry yogurt and sour cream were some of the other exquisite dishes the students prepared.

“The food is amazing,” attendee Vanessa Soltare said. “It is the reason I get the VIP pass every year.”

WCCC has been catering the event for “so long, I don’t even remember,” Professor Wayne Smith said. “It is good experience for the students, giving them the volume you’re typically going to find in a professional setting.”

Some of the students were required to work the festival for class, while others were there to gain the experience of cooking in a real-life setting and to help make money for the Culinary Club.

This event is one of the club’s main fundraising events of the year with all proceeds going to the competition team.

“Having to practice for culinary competitions is not cheap,” Smith said.

The club competes within with the American Culinary Federation and has won the Regional competition two years in a row.

Along with the back-of-house staff working the event, the culinary program also had students who are training for serving and restaurant management careers bussing tables and talking to guests about their experience.

Categorised in: Features

This post was written by critedev