Chipotle Cultivate Festival

I happened to drive by this advertisement on my way to the gym earlier this week.  First to grab my attention: Chipotle.  Next: Free Admission.  Quickly confirming with myself that October 1st was still in the future and that my current city was Chicago, I arranged my weekend plans to include the festival.

I was especially excited to learn that Richard Blais would be doing a celebrity chef demo after watching him win Top Chef All-Stars (if you want to relive it in charts and bullet points) earlier this year.  He was great to watch from beginning to end - passionate, creative, and clearly there to win.  I got really concerned thinking about what would happen if he didn't win because he took himself so seriously.  I was relieved when he won.

At the demo, he was much more personable than I had expected, given his serious attitude as a Top Chef.  He made fun of fancy food, he told jokes about his hair (styled with equal parts bacon fat and liquid nitrogen), and he tried to get the crowd to cheer when he said self-designated words-of-the-day.  I wanted to cheer when he said "oxtail," but I felt like it would be too much to be sitting dead center in the front row and cheering for cow parts.

His "Chipotle inspired" demo menu included:

Liquid nitrogen frozen ginger-infused margaritas

See how liquid nitrogen can make fluffy frozen margaritas?

Chorizo chips with tomato salsa jelly and queso froth

Assembling the tiny amuse bouches

Roasted tamale topped with oxtail in a grape-infused jus and lobster tail and a fresh corn and grape salsa

I too love my pressure cooker.

They gave out a few samples, but I wasn't of the lucky few that got one.  I can tell you that the food looked better than this picture:

It looks like it's wearing a hat.

Seeing the crowd that gathered around him after the demo, I immediately ditched the goal I'd made to snap a picture with him.  But as fate would have it, I ended up crossing paths with him and here we are as BFFs.

Neither of us is feeling awkward.

So thanks, Fate.  Thanks for bringing me to Chicago, letting me drive by this advertisement before the festival happened, having the bus pull up just as I stepped out of the apartment, and for making Richard Blais want to eat a bowl of Chipotle chili at the same time I wanted to.