3rd Annual Celebration
BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL
The Sun Valley Culinary Institute (SVCI) is a unique cultural marvel upholding the pursuit of culinary excellence.
Haute Cuisine
Everyone can cook to some extent, right? Maybe ramen or perhaps scrambled eggs, a boxed cake (is that cooking?), for we all must feed ourselves at some point, but to perform a honed craft, reveal surprising textures and flavor pairings, and do it on time, every time, requires a disciplined, searching mind and deftly trained hands. The perpetuation of centuries of culinary technique is one of the finest of the arts and, thankfully, in the last few decades, has ‘arrived’ on the popular culture map to explosive fanfare.
Before Julia Childs, Martin Yan or the Frugal Gourmet (Jeffrey Smith), it was almost unthinkable that a chef would be widely celebrated, culturally. Although their restaurants were lauded by critics, a chef was still largely considered “the help.” These were of only a very few small tribe – pioneers of pop culture cuisine. Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse and eventually the explosion of Anthony Bourdain opened the Pandora’s Box for our current international food obsession. We now have a huge list of fiery, funny and culturally relevant chefs as household names. Everyone has their favorite. We have traveling kitchens, extraordinary one-off pop-up events and even molecular gastronomy being practiced in the home kitchen. For the better of all, the art of food has elevated to something more like sports and the skill level of that basic need to feed oneself has risen dramatically.
Here in Sun Valley we’re extremely lucky to have the SVCI. A nonprofit dedicated to providing a comprehensive culinary education, it also gives back generously to the community, providing a wide variety of unique and educational experiences.
Karl Yuri
Karl Johan Yuri came aboard the Sun Valley Culinary Institute as their executive director in 2018.
Yuri explains, “We’re a one-year U.S. Department of Labor registered apprenticeship program here in the Wood River Valley. We are the only post-secondary education option in the northern part of the Wood River Valley and our goal here is to train people to enter the food service workforce without academic debt and with the skills that they need to be successful in the industry.”
SVCI currently has 10 students ranging in age from 17 to 50. The program begins just after Labor Day and runs for 10 weeks of skill-building right out of their Ketchum kitchen. Around Thanksgiving, the students are placed in local restaurants to get the training that can only come from a chef mentor. There they continue during the World Cup to return to the SVCI kitchen for another 10 weeks of training. This is followed by a new mentorship at a Wood River Valley restaurant. SVCI’s magic is made through a thorough blend of lab and field work.
As it must be – there’s so much more to being a chef than mastering the mother sauces and profiteroles! There’s payroll, plating, purveyors, recipe costing and menu engineering which, most importantly, stems from reading the preferences and palates of the locale to develop dishes that will excite, comfort and sustain.
Based on local, seasonal produce and meats, a menu is created that will cater to a sense of excitement as well as deliver the satisfaction and comfort expected of an experience you may not be able to get at home. It’s a wild tightrope to walk. Will a seared foie gras and pear compote work in the Valley? Alder and tea-leaf-smoked mackerel with pickled coriander, shiitake mushrooms, parsnip puree and champagne-tarragon gelee? Perhaps a stratospheric tapas in Los Angeles but what are the local taste buds after? There’s a reason you see a lot of burger joints and ahi tuna salads, which has to do with the way local economies and supply chains function. Everything is imported in the mountains and, well, Galena Summit is a gatekeeper in its own right! Exploratory palates are the exception not because of prejudice but because of practicality. As the French say, terroir (the inherent components that create a product based on every aspect of the environment that creates it – soil, climate, rain, even auxiliary products) is the key to true expression.
SVCI maintains the standard in culinary excellence right here in the Valley. Their upcoming 3rd Annual Celebration, as Karl explains, “is the largest food and wine celebration we’ve ever done. We’re super-excited about the chefs we have coming from all over the country with several of them returning. Yeah, each year they’re like, ‘Can I please come back? It’s such a fun boutique event.”
SVCI has grown considerably over the past few years as the Valley warms to adventurous eating and niche events for both families and the apres-ski set.
“The original food-and-wine festival was 66 people at Trail Creek Cabin for one night, followed by a day of cooking classes and a goodbye reception. So it really has grown into this, you know, week of cooking classes, the gala dinner at Trail Creek Cabin, the wonderful apres-ski event at the Limelight, which is going to be probably 300 people this year!”
They’ve partnered with Sun Valley Wine Company to hold wine seminars at their space and have a few private in-home chef dinners that will have some tickets available.
Yuri expounds, “Those will be on a much more intimate standpoint of maybe 18 to 20 people in a private home.” And THIS is where the exclusive intrigue sets in. Boutique tasting events, multi-course in-home food parties, experimental hors d’oeuvres? Adventure and novelty-based culinary parties. Is Sun Valley becoming a foodie destination?
“We really do try to keep these intimate and boutique. We also are really working hard on making sure that our students are involved. So our students take time off from their externships over the course of the period of the festival, and we partner them up with chefs, and they work with them to gain experience.” A unique school threading education into entertainment.
The Sun Valley Culinary Institute’s third annual celebration lineup runs for six (6) days! With an amazing group of sponsors and a phenomenal set of chefs and good folks, we’ve got a glorious week-long smorgasbord of wine and fresh gourmet food with highly decorated chefs.
Attendance guarantees and directly contributes to SVCI’s mission to advance culinary education and general high-level workforce building in Sun Valley.
You can find the amazing lineup of chefs and date/time to attend at the SVCI website, located at sunvalleyculinary.org which runs from January 28 to February 2.
Reserve a spot for an upcoming event, dinner, or class and support SVCI’s Student Scholarship Fund. Everyone is in agreement—we’re blossoming as a food-centric town! Here is where you meet your next cadre of flavor adventurers.
So, what’s next? Ten-course tasting menus for private and business parties from local and international ingredients? Blasphemy. Let us break bread.
Get direct tickets to each event here: one.bidpal.net/svfw/welcome.
