Looking for a fabulous food and wine festival where the best all-star chefs and mixologists come together under one roof? 

These food and wine festivals are jam-packed with celebrity chefs, top entertainment, zero-waste efforts, and some seriously fun fundraising that makes the price of the ticket totally worth it. If you’re a culinary conscious foodie looking for a good time, you’ll love these food and wine festivals.

1. The Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival

For four days and nights, the Los Angeles Food & Wine festival spreads its wings hosting bespoke and eclectic red carpet events. Indulge in culinary delights such as satellite festival dinners and lunches at iconic and trendy restaurants in Santa Monica, Hollywood, and Venice Beach with an intimate behind-the-scenes presentation by chefs the likes of Stepanie Izzard and Antonia Lofaso.

Saturday night’s LIVE on Grand with Tyler Florence is a classy urban date night red carpet affair under the modernist backdrop of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Custom lounges serve mixologist masterpieces made from organic spirits such as Diplomatico rum. While the legendary hip-hop trio De La Soul added just the right beat to top off the night.

The all-star chefs certainly take their epicurean delights seriously. But not themselves! Starry Kitchen’s Nguyen Tran served tofu balls in a banana suit. And whimsical Instagram photo opportunities abounded in custom-styled lounges.

The Lexus Grand Tasting at Barker Hangar was transformed into a food wonderland and featured conscious chefs such as Matthew Beaudin. Executive Chef at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, he spearheads responsible fishing practices. One must-try dish the crowd couldn’t get enough of was the halibut with pineapple and rice noodle from Charles Phan. And Stephanie Boswell, executive pastry chef at The Peninsula Beverly Hills created a colorful sky-high edible extravaganza of stunning desserts.

But, the sweetest part? The Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival has impacted charities nearing $750k total over the past 6 years including The Boys and Girls Club, CASA, Make a Wish Foundation, Meals on Wheels, and Share our Strength, among others.

2. Field to Fork at The TASTE

On Labor Day weekend the Paramount Studios Backlot transforms into a foodie paradise for the Field to Fork event at the Los Angeles Times THE TASTE. Award-winning restaurants, master chefs, mixologists, and vintners come to dazzle conscious foodies with new tastes, textures, and flavors.

Hosted by LA Times food editor Amy Scattergood and Michael Cimarusti of Providence, this culinary celebration brims with demos and panel discussions by celebrity chefs focused on farm fresh locally sourced ingredients. Fans of artisan grains ate up Scattergood’s panel featuring Nan Kohler (Grist and Toll), Alex Weiser (Weiser Farms), and Roxana Jullapat (Friends and Family). All the while, guests nosh on fresh locally sourced dishes and organic spirits. A few favorites were Mionetto prosecco and refreshing cocktails featuring Ocean Vodka. Gastro-pub Manhattan House dazzled with a re-imagined bruschetta embracing Chef Diana Stavaridis’ seed-to-plate philosophy.

3. L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade

This star-studded, informal, family friendly, picnic-style “cookout” is just as serious about fun as it is about fundraising. Think sunshine, tender grass under your feet while being face-to-face with your favorite chefs the likes of Susan Feniger (Border Grill), Jeremy Fox (Rustic Canyon), and Ray Garcia (Broken Spanish). To pair with all the mouthwatering cuisine, superstar mixologists create specialty cocktails. Not to mention more than thirty vintners pouring all afternoon so you can raise your glass to support a great cause.

Hosted by Chef Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne (Lucques), the event raised $4.2 million for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to fight childhood cancer. When it’s auction time, keep your ears open as the superstar chefs often spontaneously offer themselves as a surprise private dinner ticket item. So, put your money where your mouth is and join than 2,000 guests, 100 chefs, mixologists and winemakers who come to together for a good cause and a great time.

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Images courtesy of The Los Angeles Food and Wine Festival, The TASTE, and Alex J. Berliner/ABImages

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Love food and live in the Bay Area? Put FallFest 2011 on your calendar!

A celebration of the Bay Area’s best in local food, wine and cocktails, FallFest 2011 is your chance to see San Francisco Magazine’s award-winning food editorial come to life at the hands of local restaurateurs, winemakers, epicurean artisans, eco experts, and mixologists. It’s all about eating and celebrating local and we’re excited to be an official media partner of the event! There’s even an eco-cocktail competition. What more do you want?

The festival is also a benefit for San Francisco’s Meals on Wheels, who deliver meals to homebound seniors. You can score raffle tickets which help raise money for Meals on Wheels and enter to win one of three getaways. $10 gets you a ticket or $50 for a package of six. 100% of the proceeds go to Meals on Wheels and you don’t even have to be present to win! Purchase tickets now.

WHEN: Sunday, October 9, 2011, Noon to 4 p.m.

WHERE: Justin Herman Plaza at Embarcadero Center, San Francisco

TICKETS: You can buy tickets here. We’ll also be sending out a special promotional code to EcoSalon newsletter readers, so if you haven’t signed up yet, do so now!

Image: San Francisco Magazine

The post SF FallFest 2011: Celebration of Local Food and Drinks to Support Meals on Wheels appeared first on EcoSalon.

Buying stuff is out. Doing stuff is in. Everybody loves food and it seems like these days you can’t walk down the street without tripping over a self-identified “foodie.” No question, as we change the way we think about food, it’s taking on a new importance in our culture. Now it’s time to change the way we think about holiday food gifts.

This year, let’s lose the plastic wrapped gift baskets of packaged “gourmet” food items that are shipped from far away, gathered up together and then flung across the country in trains, trucks, and planes. All that petroleum and packaging just so some foodie can have yet another bottle of flavored vinegar or sickly sweet jam. What a waste!

Likewise, it’s time to lay off single use, gimmicky food utensils that exist solely to provide stumped gift givers with something to spend money on.

Experiences are more meaningful and memorable than things. They’re also more thoughtful, environmentally responsible, and supportive of local businesses. Some are even free.

Here are our best ideas for bringing the joy of real food to your family, friends, and community this holiday season.

1. Host a Canning Party You supply the jars and a case or two of something seasonal like apples, pears or citrus. Your friends bring the snacks and their willingness to work. Spend the afternoon eating and socializing while you all work together to produce apple or pear butter or orange marmalade. It’s a fun party and everyone gets to go home with a homemade party favor.

2. Host a Baking or Jam Exchange You supply the food and drink (or make it a potluck) and your friends bring a batch of either jam they’ve canned or a batch of goodies they’ve baked. Everybody trades. Everybody wins.

3. Host a Skill Share Poll your friends to see what skills they’d like to learn, and what skills they’d like to share. Ideas include yogurt making, sprouting, sourdough bread baking, sauerkraut making, meat curing, coffee roasting, beer brewing, jamming, or pickling. Match up learners with teachers over a series of Saturdays.

4. Give the Gift of Knowledge There’s been an explosion of affordable and interesting homesteading and eco-cooking classes and talks. Check into gift certificates for the DIY types on your list. Urban Kitchen SF hosts hands-on classes on butchering, fermenting, and more with local experts. The Institute for Urban Homesteading teaches cheesemaking, brewing, and beekeeping. 18 Reasons hosts talks, educational dinners, and a variety of creative food events. Look around in your local area for similar programs. Lest you think this is only applicable to the San Francisco Bay Area, note that The University of Utah offers classes in Urban Homesteading, and there’s also an organization in Denver.

5. Hold a Bake Sale for a Local Food Charity Want to help out a local food bank or soup kitchen? Why not get your friends together for a bake sale? What a great excuse to talk to passers-by and one another while raising money to help make sure everyone gets enough to eat.

6. Host a Potluck Movie Night Looking for a gentle way to get friends and relatives more engaged in food issues without being preachy? Host a potluck movie night and show one of the many excellent food documentaries that have come out over the past few years. If Food Inc. is a little too hard-hitting, try Fresh or Nourish.

7. Host a Potluck of Local or Foraged Foods Even if your local farmers’ market shuts down for the winter, you can still find local foods. Look for local dairy, egg, or meat producers. Also invite your foraging friends and ask everyone to bring a dish whose main ingredient is from within 20 miles away. The idea is for participants to be exposed to local goodies they wouldn’t otherwise know about.

8. Visiting family? Hit up a Farmers’ market or Farmstand You’d really like to get your family off the packaged food, but don’t want to nag. Remember that lots of people eat packaged food because they don’t know how to prepare fresh stuff or because what’s available in the grocery store fresh just doesn’t taste that good. Introduce them to the amazing difference in flavor between fresh from the farm produce and the grocery store offerings by visiting a farmers’ market or farm stand and cooking together.

9. Bake or Cook with a Child We’re doomed if we don’t teach our children to cook. So let go a little of your need for perfect food or a clean kitchen and get those kids in there with you. And keep it light and fun. Enough said.

10. Support a Local Farmer or Fisher for your Holiday Meal Want to directly support a small farmer or fisher? Consider special-ordering a heritage turkey or goose from a local farm or, if you live near the coast, buy some fish right off the boat from a fisherman. Maybe you can’t afford it every day, but for a special occasion, it’s a great way to make a direct connection with your food producers.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: L. Marie

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