Chefs for Farmers kicks off 2018 food & wine festival with sous chef and cocktail competition

Solid kick-off to this year’s Chefs For Farmers Celebration of Wine and Food on Sunday. Plenty of crazy good dishes, including these three from Uchi Dallas (Tasmanian trout with gooseberry salsa), Zaytinya (carrots dried, pureed, compressed & done a bazillion other ways, shown above) and Wheelhouse’s Cody Sharp (a Texas twist on a chorizo and eggs breakfast taco but done with a chorizo-spiced, smoked beef rib, field pepper salsa & confit egg yolk emulsion).

Cody Sharp’s smoked beef rib “chorizo and egg breakfast taco”

Chefs for Farmers, Dallas’ best celebration of food, farmers, chefs and libations kicked off its 2018 festival with a cocktail and sous chef event yesterday. A select group of bartenders and sous chefs competed for awards from a group of judges that included me, plus “people’s choice awards” from attendees who voted with tokens. The winners? You and me and everybody who attended the sold-out event.
Who took home the trophies?

We judges tapped Cody Sharp, the sous chef of Wheelhouse restaurant, for the top prize for his take on a chorizo and egg breakfast taco (pictured). He constructed his flour taco with a chorizo-spiced, smoked beef rib; field pepper salsa and egg yolk emulsion. Joe Riojas, the sous chef at Zaytinya in Frisco, took home the People’s Choice sous chef award for a composition of carrots (dried, pureed, compressed) flavored with braised oxtail (also pictured).

On the cocktail side, Drew Garrison of Billy Can Can won People’s Choice, while Jones Long of Lounge Here won the nod from the judges.

You can find a list of all the upcoming Chefs for Farmers events here. The festival culminates with its Main Event on November 4.

Bonus: There’s an “early bird special” on CFF tickets going on right now, with $15 off if you buy this week. Details at chefsforfarmers.com.