Successful Meetings - January 2008 - (Page 38)

Cover Story Vegetarian entrees are gaining a foothold as banquet options By Corrie Dosh VEGGIE POWER enjoy just a great a meal as anybody else.” For decades, the idea of a vegetarian entree at many resort banquets has been an afterthought or an alternative to the more exciting carnivorous dishes. The best a vegetarian attendee could hope for was a simple pasta dish, or the main course sans protein, or, if they were lucky, a good salad. Now, riding a wave of demand for organic, sustainable, and locallygrown produce, vegetarian entrees are taking center stage at many resorts’ food and beverage service for groups. Resort chefs say they are adding many options for vegetarians to their menus, with a new focus on taste and variety. These new dishes are anything but boring, and fuse together the spices and ingredients from a variety of world cuisines. “Vegetarian options are so much more [elaborate] than they used to be, where you used to just take the protein off the plate and send it out,” says Gavin Kaysen, former chef de cuisine at Rancho Bernardo Inn near San Diego, current U.S. representative at the prestigious Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest, and one of Food & Wine magazine’s 10 best new chefs for 2007. “Today, vegetarians can THE ART OF THE MEAL The new vision of vegetarian entrees approaches an art form, with the food designed to look as good as it tastes, and equaling or even surpassing the attention paid to the protein courses. “We did one vegetarian option that we called ‘herb paint’ where we took nine different herbs and made them into a pesto,” Kaysen says, “and then on the plate we made a variety of textures of different vegetables—baby green zucchini, baby yellow zucchini flowers, baby eggplants, tomato confit—a bunch of different cooking methods on the vegetables. We try to showcase the vegetables for what they are.” In August, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts rolled out a brand-wide initiative to offer sustainable, locally sourced and organically grown food and produce to guests, giving a healthy boost to its vegetarian options for banquets. Brad Parsons, executive chef for The Fairmont Chicago, helped to shape the chain’s new focus on “green” food. “On our banquet menu we don’t have any [set] PHOTO: GRANT KESSLER PHOTOGRAPHY / THE FAIRMONT CHICAGO 38 mimegasite.com JANUARY 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS http://mimegasite.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - January 2008

Successful Meetings - January 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Associations
Research
Events
Suppliers
Associations
On the Record
Associations
Suppliers
Planner Spotlight
Websites of the Month
Management Matters
Meeting the Law
Personal Success
Mouth for Sale
Food & Beverage
Professional Development
On Site
Pre-Event
Tools of the Trade
Veggie Power
Tennis, Anyone?
Seeing is Believing
The Wild Green Yonder
Game On
Places & Spaces
Galveston & Texas Beaches
Greater Seattle
Singapore
Gurus

Successful Meetings - January 2008