Last night my husband and I got to be part of the festivities as Rick Bayless was inducted into the Chicago Culinary Museum and Chefs Hall of Fame. The posh event was held at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago.

I didn’t get to meet Bayless, who owns two famous Chicago dining spots — Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, has authored numerous cookbooks and garnered some of the highest accolades in the culinary world.  I did, however, get to sample some TASTY food, including mini Kobe beef hamburgers (my first, and possibly last, experience with the ultra-expensive protein), seared duck liver and braised lamb ragu. The food was prepared by the Palmer House and students at several Chicago-area culinary schools, so everything from the presentation to the taste was top-notch.

While I sampled all the savory treats, I convinced Brendan to take some pictures, and I’ve posted them on this site. Also, a PR agency that handled the event posted their own photos, and ABC Channel 7 was there taking video. That wasn’t suprising, since the “Hungry Hound” (ABC7 food reporter Steve Dolinsky) was the master of ceremonies. I caught some video of the event on the 10 o’clock news last night, but unfortunately, they don’t have any of the footage on their Web site. And I wasn’t on the news clip anyway, so I guess who cares. (Just kidding.)

As a side note, I’ve discovered there’s another local connection to this story. Janet Cremer, a colleague of mine who saw yesterday’s post about my plans to attend the event, e-mailed me to say that Bayless’ assistant, Jennifer Fite, is a Momence High School grad! I had no idea.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Food events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.