Guzzle & Nosh

Wolfgang Puck at his restaurant at the Hotel Bel-Air

On June 18, Wolfgang Puck will team up with New York superstar chef David Chang (of Momofuku fame and this year's recipient of the James Beard Outstanding Chef award) and Roy Choi to host a chef's dinner at Wolfgang Puck at the Hotel Bel-Air.

The dinner will consist of five courses of Asian-inspired dishes prepared with ingredients the chefs select from the farmers market that morning.

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Erika Bolden

Flights for American Craft Beer Week

American Craft Beer Week is under way and picking up speed. The Brewers Association-- a nonprofit group recognized as the central foundation for craft beer in America -- designates a week in May to celebrate small and independent craft breweries. This year, May 13-19 serves as an opportunity to get to know your local brewers, attend tap takeovers and drink really good beer. If you need visual stimulus, see the Brewers Association ACBW video on the next page. (You're in good company if it makes you misty-eyed.)

For Los Angeles and around the country, the celebration culminates on Thursday night with an inaugural nationwide, synchronized toast at 5 p.m. PST. Because we Westerners are of heartier stock and require daytime drinking. Thursday is also the most concentrated day for beer events, so you're advised to start the weekend early.

Our list supplies highlights only. Your favorite local watering hole likely will have updates and specials listed through its social media of choice, and a complete list is at Craftbeer.com. Enjoy the upcoming events -- or commit yourself to our life's motto and live every week like it's Beer Week.

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Lydia Chain

Vegan Beer Fest

Meat and cheese-lovers were out of luck on the Sunset Strip this Saturday, as 40 animal-free breweries and 30 vegan food vendors took over an empty lot for the 4th annual L.A. Vegan Beer and Food Festival -- an event that is quickly proving itself to be one of the city's biggest and best for craft beer.

Despite a seemingly niche premise of welcoming only animal-free products, the sold-out festival was attended by more than just those who ascribe to the vegan lifestyle. Yes, there was a vegan rapper ("I went vegan, now what you sayin'? Educate yourself you might understand...") and lines of hungry hoards clamoring for Kind Kreme's dairy-free ice cream and Shojin's no-fish sushi, but the event brought out craft beer fans and curious Angelenos alike, who wandered the grounds exploring these two growing culinary trends.

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Butchery demonstration.

Cochon 555 is a feast for the senses. From the piggy small plates to oysters, to cheese cubes, to tartare, to ice cream, there are irresponsibly epic mountains of food. Some of it is really good. And from Anchor Steam bottles to wine tastings to single-barrel Four Roses Manhattans, there's enough drink to cripple an army of Keith Richards clones.

On Sunday, rap bounced around the rafters of the House of Blues on Sunset for the fifth annual installment of the touring food-and-drink festival. Women over 50 bobbed their heads to vintage Lil Wayne. Perfume collided with the smell of stewing meat. Slides depicting the faces of contestants and the logos of sponsors flashed across the projector screen. As you squeezed from table to table, your sustainable cardboard dishes and wooden utensils held aloft to avoid collision with another attendee's head, your body was constantly under assault, pinioned by elbows, brushed by shoulders. You felt not unlike a pig in a pen.

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It's a relief to know that a writer on The New York Times food beat has kids whose tastes don't sound all that much more adventuresome than those of your own children. Given that people are obsessed with food and what the kids are up to, and perhaps more importantly, what the parents are feeding said kids, conversations around food and family have taken on different, arguably absurd, proportions.

While certainly in and of this climate, the writers featured in The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learned to Eat, a new collection of personal essays edited by Bay Area writers Caroline M. Grant and Lisa Catherine Harper (Roost Books), shared the anxieties and joys tied up with all of this stuff by sharing plenty of their own.

Divided into three parts categorized as Food, Family, and Learning To Eat, the stories reinforce how good food and bad food have the power to shape experience, memories, and identity in near equal measure. (But it's definitely preferable if the food is good.)

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LAVBF

The Vegan Beer Festival this Saturday, May 4, from 1-5 p.m., is set to delight buzz-seaking meat-abstainers of Southern California for the fourth year. By popular demand the venue for the beer and food celebration was recently upgraded to the lot across from The Roxy Theatre, nearly doubling the capacity for this year's meatless merrymaking.

Co-hosts Tony's Darts Away, The Roxy and L.A. vegan blogger Quarry Girl have corralled local beer from Golden Road, Monkish, El Segundo, Cismontane, Noble Ale Works, TAPS, and Bootlegger's along with California staples Sierra Nevada, Anchor, and Lagunitas and many, many more. Ticket holders will receive a tasting glass for unlimited samples from the 40+ breweries, access to over 30 vegan food vendors, and live music from a number of bands toting vegan-friendly names.

Most people react with surprise upon hearing that beer isn't always vegan and that there is an entire festival devoted to those that are animal-free.

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R. Narins

Grilled Cheese Invitational 2013

Check out Anne Fishbein's slideshow of the 2013 GSI.

This post, originally published at 7:27 a.m., has been updated to include the winners.

The 11th annual Grilled Cheese Invitational, held this past Saturday, had something for everyone. It's almost impossible to express the level of silliness and the abject joy of people gorging on sandwiches at a seamlessly executed event, but we'll try -- and also recap what you missed, and maybe inspire you to attend (again) next year.

This year, the spectacle was held at L.A. Center Studios, on a bright and sunny day with the city skyline as a backdrop. More than 5,500 people showed up -- many in costume -- to enjoy the incredible assortment of grilled cheese-themed food trucks (Who knew there were SO many?) and free samples including Krugerman Pickles, Cabot cheese and Jarritos soda, and to try their hand at the Breville do-it-yourself panini station.

The affable Mayor of Cheese, Montano Sokolow, greeted attendees and, for the first time in the event's history, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine performed to a large, very appreciative crowd.

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Flickr / Bunchofpants

While financial analysts speculate about the not-so-sugar-coated demise of the cupcake industry, another sweet pastry is experiencing its own renaissance, at least maybe in the art world. The doughnut, a traditionally symmetrical, doughy ring of frosted near-perfection, is the cupcake's delightfully modern alternative, and tomorrow it's being honored for the second year in a row at the LACMA-adjacent pop-up art gallery, ForYourArt.

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Courtesy Firestone Walker

Jeffers Richardson at Barrelworks

There are two compelling reasons why you should head to Atwater Village tonight, Thurs. at 7:00 p.m. To have unlimited access to Jeffers Richardson, Firestone Walker's "Barrelmeister" on one of the most exciting new barrel programs in craft beer. And to do your brainpicking at Golden Road's exclusive pub, Chloe.

Richardson has had a venerable career in the beer industry, graduating from the UC Davis brewmaster program while most of us were still building a pog collection and pretending we knew the lyrics to Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang. He originated the role of brewmaster at Firestone Walker in 1996 and later spent six years brewing at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. From there Richardson moved into the olive oil industry before returning to FW last year to direct Barrelworks.

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Erika Bolden

Anthony Bourdain + Roy Choi on the Guts and Glory Tour

Anthony Bourdain greeted a packed house at the Pantages last night. The Los Angeles installment of Bourdain's "Guts and Glory" tour took place in the opulent 1930 theatre with a crowd that was more academic than hip, and fiercely local as demonstrated by any reference to L.A. -- and especially during the introduction of Bourdain's co-host, Roy Choi.

The chefs opened with questions for each other, standing for a verbal tennis match, then sat and cracked beers for a more fluid dialogue, finally ending with questions from the audience. Bourdain was ruthless as ever, even mocking the audience for spending hard earned money on the tickets. But his charisma and tendency toward self-deprecation won the crowd over -- and made it clear why he's such a compelling player on the food world stage.

Bourdain made clear his abhorrence of the fois gras ban as "an embarrassment to California," and he noted that the birds aren't being asked to do "anything an adult film star doesn't do twice a day." More impromptu editorializing came when the audience asked questions, particularly one about Red Medicine's recent twitter tantrums. Bourdain said that the restaurant had gone too far in calling out patrons who never showed for their reservations; Choi that they hadn't gone far enough.

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