By Isaiah Frizzell
Cuisine or Food?
Why teach people cooking? Auntie, grandma, your husband, everyone can sort of, kind of, cook. Like, ramen noodles and Hungry Man dinners, right? Like Kraft Mac N Cheese or ultra-well-done porkchops. OK, that’s still sweet of them, but to enjoy food at its finest, well, it’s complicated… but, actually, no, not everyone can cook, nor should they have to.
The reason for teaching cuisine has to do with aligning the timing of vegetable and meat harvests with the elements of the terrain, the locale and the seasons with perfect timing to assure that the taste, texture and vibe are intact and the dining is a treat; that is, more than functional, it is fashionable or perhaps just without friction.
You go to a restaurant where you want your beans, green beans, coleslaw, lamb, beef ribs cooked to ‘perfection.’ That perfection is a learned skill that requires time, effort, failure and, ultimately, success as the cook finds their timing in passion and develops the skills to make a dish that resists flat notes, everything harmonizes and taunts your palate with just enough to make you satiated though maybe desiring more. You know you can’t have more and don’t need it but the skill of the chef has invited you into a vibe that titillates and you suddenly get it. This is why some ‘cook’ while others cuisine.
SVCI
The Sun Valley Culinary Institute (SVCI) has been developing and instantiating the cuisine aspect of cooking in new chefs now since day one. They’re highly active in local events for fundraising, sharing new ideas and opening eyes to new ways to dine.
Now, their fourth annual Sun Valley Food & Wine Celebration is set to kick off next weekend. Over five days of community events and special VIP celebrations, it’s a wild ride and a smorgasbord of tastings from so many amazing chefs. This year has 17 chefs—celebrities in their own rite and national. There will be cooking classes, private chef dinners, an Après-Ski Grand Tasting, a new Après-Ski Wine Tasting and Seafood Extravaganza. Plus, Britt’s Burger Bash? Have you been? Now you can.
Of that many brilliant chefs, a few will talk here. The choice of events and food is extravagant. We’re genuinely blessed that SVCI continues to bring the fire juice to our Valley!
Karl Uri, executive director of SVCI, extolls, “It’s incredible to see the growth from four chefs four years ago to 17 chefs this year, as well as the growth in our attendees and how the public interest has really grown! There are a lot of opportunities to be part of the Food & Wine Celebration. We have tickets available to cooking classes, to the AFRI Grand Tasting on Friday, the 30th. We have a free community event with Britt’s Burger Bash, which is on the 31st on the Limelight Terrace. So, you know, we really want to make sure that people have the opportunity at whatever level to join in the Sun Valley Food & Wine Celebration.”
Indeed, this is for everyone!
Karl’s bird’s-eye view of the students and learning is prime. “What really makes me excited is that I get to see the Culinary Institute students working side by side with these celebrity chefs. And I hope that our students, not only are they learning, but they develop professional contacts moving forward in their careers. It’s a great way for them to learn more about the culinary arts, different parts of the industry, and different parts of the country. It’s just wonderful to see them working side by side.”
And that’s the SVCI goal—introduce, educate and execute. And their growth is clear.
A small article, a big splash, let’s talk to a couple of the arriving chefs.
Chef Jonathon Sawyer
The chefs SVCI have invited are absolute icons.
Chef Jonathon Sawyer holds so many accolades it could take up the entire space. From owning a Bon Appétit Best New Restaurant to being a Food & Wine Best New Chef to winning a James Beard award, he is a national presence in the culinary world. His contribution to cuisine is well housed in his book “House of Vinegar: The Power of Sour,” where he extolls the most essential and critical skill of using acid in cooking for balance as well as “Noodle Kids: Around the World in 50 Fun, Healthy, Creative Recipes the Whole Family Can Cook Together.” Books are the soil we grow our contributions in.
Chef of beloved Chicago restaurant “Kindling,” Sawyer is decorated and very busy.
As a chef myself, it was one of my powers to find creative ways to make use of acids to balance a dish, which instantly made his focus on sour such a sweet treat to read about. I’m a fan! A chef aims to excite the senses of the tongue and nose: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami. Acid is the key to linking disparate elements of these star points along with orthonasal and retronasal olfaction; i.e., smelling before and after. The dish must taste (smell) good to your nose during your tongue’s exploration.
Sawyer is a bona fide, educationally-minded player. “I think that when we look at and think about the education system in America, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get the training you need to get in the workforce. And what SVCI does is what a lot of people could figure out how to do, and that’s give an education for people that maybe don’t have the opportunity to in a way that’s almost entirely free. And that’s a beautiful cause and one I’d love to champion from the mountaintops.”
Which he will, having participated in SVCI’s events since the first, four years now; he loves the vibe, the reason and the season in Sun Valley.
What’s the best way to keep up? Sawyer has a new show premiering, with Guy Fieri, that hasn’t yet been announced (until now) coming in March. “We have tournament champions on this, as well. Tuning in to Food Network and supporting in any way, shape, or form we can is the best. It’s how we keep up.”
Sawyer will be in town next weekend. See him.
Chef Stephen Phelps
Chef Phelps is the genuine article advocating for intelligence in both cooking and harvesting. A decorated chef who fiercely puts himself in the very actionable realms of sustainability, he gets it. The planet is full of surplus, but where we congregate, cities, nations, there becomes an imbalance. Sustainability is not for the world but rather for the congested areas we live in and purveyors serve.
An award-winning chef, avid recreational fisherman, and intense advocate for sustainable seafood policy and healthy oceans, in addition to a James Beard “Best Chef: South” recognition, Phelps is a Seafood Watch Blue Ribbon Task Force Ambassador, a Niman Ranch Scholarship Award winner, and is on the board of Chef’s EDF Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture and the founder of the Seafood Intelligence Group.
Phelps’ restaurant, Indigenous, in Sarasota, Florida, has consistently been one of America’s top restaurants. Phelps has received Golden Spoon awards, Zagat ratings and is on the Good Food Top 100 list.
Seafood Intelligence Group? This is amazing—a chef recognizing the source of his ingredients as a sanctuary! Aquaponics is a sustainable closed-loop system that produces both fish and vegetables year-round with minimal waste. Highly focused on both education and nutritionally rich entertainment, Chef Phelps is working all angles of the spectrum to ensure we sustain this beautiful dream we’ve been gifted with. We must realize where our harvest comes from, and how, and then know the seasons and ways to use it to both feed us with the delight of intelligent resource morality.
Sun Valley Food & Wine #4
The 2026 Sun Valley Food & Wine Celebration is SVCI’s biggest, most ambitious and most highly anticipated food event of the year. It’s the fourth, and four is the most stable number. The above interviewed chefs are only two (wow) of 17 of the most brilliant and largely celebrity chefs visiting the Valley for the one, the best, culinary event of the year.
There are the free events mentioned above and plenty of additional classes, dinners, VIP exclusives and more; highlight your calendar for five days of extraordinary education, sensory excitement and nourishment, courtesy of Karl Uri’s amazing team at SVCI.
Get tickets at: https://www.sunvalleyculinary.org/2026-food-and-wine-celebration