The road to SoBe, Pt. 10

With Day 1 of the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival hours away, Michael Vidal updates us on all things “SoBe” in another Blue & Gold Blog entry.

Week of Feb. 22, 2010

Michael Vidal is excited to see months of planning come into play at "SoBe," beginning with the Burger Bash Feb. 25.

These last couple of weeks have been defined by detail and groundwork as we have been counting down to the 9^th annual Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Feb. 25-28.

I have been preparing one day at a time, working toward each event: Burger Bash, Best of the Best and the Grand Tasting, one event right after the other.

As I get new information or if I need to fix something, I take care of it then and there. And I know I couldn’t get as much done by myself: My team is incredible.

Much of the work I have been attending to is administrative work – sending e-mails to students, adding or removing students from the master list and scheduling each individual student to work a specific time, a specific day with a particular chef.

Last Monday, we started baking bread to serve at the FIU School of Hospitality tent at the festival, as well as for the South Beach Diet booth at Burger Bash. We are making three different kinds of dough: brioche, ciabatta and whole wheat bread.

We are prepping and cooking a South Beach Diet burger – turkey served on a whole-wheat bun – for the Burger Bash. We need 2,000 little buns! The most amazing part is that the students did it. None of this could have happened without them.

All of the buns are currently in the freezer at the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at BBC. The day before the Burger Bash we will transfer them to the site: the Ritz-Carlton on South Beach. And on the morning of the event, the bread is moved from the kitchen at the Ritz to the beach itself.

We are also making brioche, which needs to be cut and toasted for a crème brulée bread pudding. It’s an interesting play off crème brulée. Our version features toasted brioche, garnished with caramelized sugar and strawberry coulis – a delicious balance.

We also bought 240 pounds of turkey bones to make turkey stock for the South Beach Diet Burger. It was on the stove last Friday, being reduced from 24 gallons to 2 gallons.

For Friday’s Best of the Best I am coordinating and organizing the students so that morning at 9 we can hit the floor running. We’re feeding more than 1,000 guests.

I am so looking forward to this year’s SoBe. I am so excited to see all of our plans come into play, finally.

To read more blog entries from Panthers working on the 2010 South Beach Wine & Food Festival, click here.