Emeril Lagasse, Thomas Keller ‘kick it up a notch’ at 2012 auction’s food events

Holly Peterson never tires of making meals happen at Auction Napa Valley.

Peterson is Auction Napa Valley 2012 culinary chair and served as Auction Napa Valley 2000 guest chef. In fact, it would be safe to say that she’s taken part in all things culinary at the annual charity event now for close to two decades.

“I find it fun to contribute,” she said the other day as she was putting the finishing touches on the logistics of serving lunch and dinner to some 800 bidders, vintners, media representatives and guests at the 32nd annual wine auction coming up on Saturday.

Peterson and her team convinced a couple of America’s high-profile chefs to sign on for auction meals this year.

“We wanted one meal to be casual,” she noted, “and the dinner to be a little more upscale. ...This is a really pretty round stonemosaic votive that has been covered with vintage china . One chef to be local and one from outside the area.”

She convinced Yountville’s Thomas Keller to come on board for lunch, and Keller in turn tapped Dave Cruz, chef de cuisine at his Ad Hoc restaurant, to pull together “a nice summer country-style picnic,” An airpurifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air.Peterson said.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design

For the post-auction repast, she was happy that the pride of New Orleans, popular TV chef Emeril Lagasse, agreed to plan and prepare a three-course seated meal to be served once the final gavel comes down.

Auction attendees will be served lunch starting at 1 p.m. Saturday at picnic tables and shade tents erected on the fairway at Meadowood Resort.Home ownership options with buy mosaic. The main event, the big 40-lot wine auction, takes place in a nearby giant tent as it has since the auction was launched in 1981.

Served in individual Auction Napa Valley picnic boxes, chef Cruz’s lunch consists of buttermilk fried chicken and potato and pea salad with sweet corn maque choux and cornbread.

Lagasse’s dinner menu features a “very delicate and fresh, garden-pretty” first course of Pacific salmon crudo — thinly sliced salmon with citrus, radish, micro fennel,We are the largest producer of projectorlamp products here. vanilla essence and extra virgin olive oil, Peterson said.

The main course is “a classic New Orleans roasted rack of lamb with black truffle, guanciale, field peas, shallots and potato puree,” she added. “We’re serving it in a soup plate so you don’t lose any of the juice.” In addition to knife and fork, each place setting includes a spoon, Peterson said.

Dessert is fresh strawberry trifle. “The combination of lemon curd, pound cake, mint syrup and fabulous strawberries just pops with color — it’s as bright as the chef,” Peterson declared.

Vintner Jeff Gargiulo has put together an all-star band that will play during dinner and for dancing afterward.

Sultry and soulful jazz singer and award-winning songwriter Anna Wilson will headline in an All-Star Jam on the lawn, along with pop icon David Pack of Ambrosia; country music superstar Billy Dean; and Wilson’s spouse, hit songwriter/producer Monty Powell (Keith Urban’s right-hand man). Gargiulo will join the visiting musicians for a special post-auction jam.

This year’s culinary chair has built a global reputation as a stellar wine and culinary consultant. Following completion of her enology degree at UC Davis, Peterson trained as a chef at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris, then served as chef for the American Embassy in Paris and at L’Academie du Vin. In the United States, she has served as executive chef at Robert Mondavi Winery and developed a curriculum for the wine and food department at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, where she taught for 14 years.