Did I Mention I Wrote a Book?

If you and I spoke at all in 2009 and I was acting a bit mental, here's why--I was writing a book. And this week the book comes out! It's called the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook and we celebrated it last night with a big party at the very-chic Barney's in New York. We'll celebrate again at the 10th Annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival--which everyone just calls SoBe--on Miami Beach in late February. SoBe has been referred to as "the Sundance of the food and wine industry," "the biggest beach party on the planet," "spring break for chefs," a "family reunion for chefs" and "Foodstock." This year, 50,000 or so people will attend at least one of 50 SoBe festival events. It's four days of non-stop food-and-wine drenched decadence on one of the world's most gorgeous beaches. You should come!

So who's Lee Schrager and why is his name bigger than mine on the book cover? Lee is the founder and director of the SoBe Festival and, more recently, the New York Wine & Food Festival, coming up on its fourth year. Lee is one of the most energetic, most creative people I know. Not only are his festivals tons of fun, they raise millions of dollars for good causes. Lee is connected, I'm sure, to two of every  five people on the planet; at last count he had almost 7,000 people in his BlackBerry. So when he asked me to write the festival cookbook, I was thrilled.

The idea was to commemorate the big anniversary with 100 fabulous, festive recipes, all of them actually prepared at SoBe or with a SoBe feel. And we definitely wanted to display the festival's vivid multi-culti flavor.We wanted as many dishes as we could possibly fit in, but only if they were do-able by home cooks working with easy-to-find ingredients. We started with who knows how many hundreds and eventually reduced it like a fine sauce. At first I was afraid there would be no more seared tuna in the sea, we received so many variations on that theme. And then it was short ribs...everyone sent short ribs. Truth is we could have easily run 200, 300 great recipes if we had had the pages...so many dishes, so little space. Many were the nights I tossed and turned--really!--struggling to choose one dish over another.

Ok, so maybe you're not going to make Ferran Adria's Carrot Air with Bitter Coconut Milk for the kids' school lunch. But seriously, with few exceptions, this isn't a book filled with complex dishes made from scary ingredients you've never heard of. Plus, the recipes were all tested in a home--rather than professional--kitchen and only the best made the cut.

One of the many things I love about this book (indulge me here) is the wide range of contributing chefs. We've got recipes from the elite swat team chefs (Adria, Alain Ducasse, Thomas Keller, Eric Ripert, Charlie Trotter, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Nobu Matsuhisa, Pierre Herme, etc.) and the rockstar celebrity TV chefs (Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, Emeril, Paula Deen, Guy Fieri, Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, Morimoto, etc.) and the hard-working restaurant chefs whose places we love year after year and some of the best pastry chefs ever and even a few amazing young talents you've probably never heard of but soon will.

Because the event known as the Burger Bash is an annual SoBe highlight, we've got a whole burger chapter including winners of the festival's best burger awards. Another chapter is all barbecue, with recipes pulled from the super-popular SoBe event called the BubbleQ, where 25 or so top barbecue chefs man grill stations on the beach and serve up all different kinds of amazing 'cue with rivers of fancy French Champagne.

But the 256-page book has way more than just recipes. It's got witty and insightful (!!) Q&As with chefs ("Grilled for One Minute"), great anecdotes (well, those that I could repeat), tons of photos from the last ten years and a forward by Anthony Bourdain, the well-known chef/author/raconteur/bad boy/TV star who's been a loyal festival supporter for years and who always draws standing-room-only crowds. "When it comes to SoBe, I can't find anything to complain about," Anthony told me. "And I complain about everything!"

Whether you're a hard-core foodie, a beginning or accomplished cook, a culinary student or someone who just loves to see chefs in board shorts and flip flops, I think you'll enjoy the book. Best of all, proceeds go to a great cause.

Lee Schrager is a master event planner and he really outdid himself at our party last night. Lots of the chefs in the book were there: Jamie Oliver, Emeril, Bobby Flay, Paula Deen, Mario Batali, Michelle Bernstein, Hedy Goldsmith, Daniel Boulud, Anthony Bourdain, Jacques Torres, Rocco Dispirito and more. The food, catered by Barney's in-house restaurant, Fred's, was superb and the Champagne flowed nonstop. Now Lee's on a plane back to Miami, for a big "foodie theme night" promo with the Miami Heat tonight. Our book will be featured on the Jumbotron and will be looping on the huge digital billboard oustide the arena as well. Inside, VIPs in the suites will be dining on dishes from the book.

Me, I'm going to stay in New York for a few days of fun. I have a gorgeous room at an elegant new Fifth Avenue hotel called The Setai and I'm nowhere near ready to leave.

If you're at all curious what it was like pulling this book together, you can read what I wrote about that here.

If you're curious about the 2011 festival, click here. 

If you'd like to win a trip to the 2011 festival, enter here.

If you'd like to buy the book (and who wouldn't?), it's in bookstores nationwide and on all the usual websites including Amazon.

If you'd like to leave a comment below, do so! I'll pick one next week and send that person a copy of the book just for fun.