I just confirmed my plans to attend the Tales of the Cocktail event this weekend in New Orleans.

It’s a five-day event featuring award-winning mixologists, authors, bartenders, chefs and designers — all taking place in the New Orleans French Quarter.  Also part of the event are dinner pairings, cocktail demos and tastings, seminars and mixing competitions.

It will be my first time to attend this relatively new event, and I look forward to learning more about what many describe as an American renaissance of the cocktail.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The fourth annual Food Fete media event took place on Monday (6/30) in New York, and it was by far our busiest and best event to date.  Lots of interesting new products and a room packed with press.

Positive comments from our exhibitors and media were unanimous, with AOL Food’s Kat Kinsman reiterating for a second time that Food Fete is “my favorite food event of the year.”  Thanks Kat.

Though we’re still tallying the numbers, media attendance exceeded 100, with many of the top publications represented — Food & Wine, O the Oprah Magazine, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Epicurious.com, Marthastewart.com, Food Network Magazine, SELF, Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, Chocolatier, Men’s Fitness, Parade, TIME and BusinessWeek, among others.

As I mentioned earlier, Chris “C.J.” Jacobsen of “Top Chef” Season 3 attended on behalf of the California Strawberry Commission, making his own recipe for a delicious Strawberry Mint Sangria.  C.J. shared with me that life after Top Chef has been great, and he’ll soon be opening his new restaurant in Chicago.  I wish him well with that new venture.

Here a few early photos:

Thanks again to our exhibitors, sponsors and media attendees for helping make Food Fete a great event.

Boy, I hadn’t expected to write this post.

The media response to next Monday’s Food Fête media event has been so high (50% more than last summer), that media RSVPs have reached the venue capacity.

That means we find ourselves in a position to evaluate all additional media requests even more closely.  As someone who produces media events for a living, the idea of potentially turning away journalists is hard to get my arms around.

Sure, there are always some no-shows at events — freeing up space for a few on-site registrations — so we hope to accommodate as many media as possible.

Food Fête has always focused more on quality than quantity, but it looks like we’re accomplishing both this year.

I’ve already gone on record that snack chips are one of my weaknesses.

That said, one of my long-standing issues with Frito-Lay brand products, in particular, is that they taste excessively salty. I know they are called “salty snacks” for a reason, but for my palate, it’s often too much.

Good news for me and like-minded snackers. Frito-Lay recently launched a lower sodium version of its more popular products called “Pinch of Salt.”

I recently tried the Ruffles and Fritos varieties, and was happy to taste a noticable difference between the regular and lower salt varieties. They also make Pinch of Salt Tostitos.

According to the company, the Pinch of Salt chips have 30-50% less salt than their original counterparts. By comparison, a 1 oz serving of Lay’s Classic potato chips contains 180mg sodium, while the lower salt version has 75mg. That’s pretty significant.

Flavorwise, there is a slight difference, but one that I welcome–especially when eating chips the way they were intended — swooping them into a bowl of dip that also probably has more salt than you’ll admit to your doctor.

Thanks Frito-Lay.

I’m a product of the late 50’s — a Baby Boomer who grew up in a simpler time, and a period in culinary cultural history where cooking for the family was all about convenience.

Like many of my generation, one of the “meals” my mother made from time to time was the classic TV Dinner. You know…Swanson… badly cooked proteins (usually greasy fried chicken or salisbury steak with faux grill marks smothered in mystery gravy) coupled with either soggy or dried out vegetables in a sectioned foil tray. Oh yeah, almost forgot the cobbler.

My secret hope is that this experience was the motivation behind my appreciation of finer foods today.

Well, the Loews Regency Park Hotel in New York City is putting a gourmet twist on the TV Dinner by offering its guests three retro-turned-modern dinners: Slow Braised Pot Roast; Park Avenue Fried Chicken; and Wasabi Crusted North Atlantic Wild Salmon.

I gotta say that the sheer novelty of what Chef Andrew Rubin is doing by taking this approach gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling; harking back to my childhood of literally sitting in front of the TV with my TV dinner. An updated difference, however, is that Loews’ gourmet TV dinners are $30 each, not 3 for a buck!

The dose of reality, however, is that my mother would have never ever attempted serving us salmon — unless it came from a can.

Sorry mom.

(photo: Bravo)

I’m a huge “Top Chef” fan, and am very excited to announce that Chris “C.J.” Jacobsen, a contestant from Top Chef Season 3, has been confirmed to attend Food Fete on behalf of the California Strawberry Commission.

I love it when high-profile chefs attend our events (C.J. is not the first. Chef Adam Perry Lang attended last year), and I look forward to possibly getting some of the inside scoop from the show.

Should be fun!

I’m a sucker for new gadgets, and this one from BUILT really caught my eye.

It’s called the Wine Ratchet Magnum, and unlike a lot of mechanical wine openers these days, this opener brings back that familiar “pop” when the cork is removed. It works similarly to common ratchet wrenches, but it’s sleek design is far more elegant than anything you’ll find among your Craftsman tools.

The Wine Ratchet Magnum also has two interchangeable screw bits, designed for older, longer corks and newer, shorter corks. There’s also a cool video demo at their site.

It retails for $60, and is available at www.builtny.com.

Our Food Fete media event is now just one month away (on June 30 in NYC), meaning the final preparations are underway to ensure a valuable (and fun!) experience for everyone.

We’ve assembled an impressive list of innovative new products, including several that editors won’t see at the Fancy Food Show, which takes place the same week as Food Fete.

On the media side, more than 100 food and lifestyle editors and bloggers have already told us they’re coming, making this event our largest to date. When it’s all said and done, we’re expecting 125-150 media to attend.

Rumor also has it that one or more “celebrity” chefs will be on hand representing exhibiting companies, adding to the overall buzz and festivities of the event. Who doesn’t love to hob-nob with professionals who really know great food?

We still have a couple of exhibitor tables remaining, so if you market gourmet food, beverage or kitchenware products — or work for an agency that represents them — contact me right away.

New website launches are hardly big news, but I am excited about our new Food Fete website going live today. It has been in development for several months, and I believe it’s a better reflection of the Food Fete event and brand.

See it at www.foodfete.com.

It’s our first site redesign since launching the company four years ago, so I hope it better represents what I’ve learned about how valuable face-to-face media interactions can be for our participants.

I believe our relationship-focused approach to media relations is particularly relevant during a time when editors and bloggers are blacklisting and bashing PR people for tactics that seem a bit out of step with how the media think and work these days.

We opted for a simple and clean design with the new site, rather than fancy bells and whistles. If I’ve done my job, the new site communicates how gourmet food and beverage companies can make lasting connections with the editors and journalists who write about them.

Many thanks to my web designer Ronn Sapp at Factory Creative in Dallas for a job well done.

We hit the 100 media RSVP mark this morning, topping last year’s final RSVP list, and still with seven weeks to go before our June 30 event in New York City.

Our goal is 125 attendees, and all signs point to us getting there.

A sampling of media outlets on the list include Food Network, Food Network Magazine, Food & Wine, Every Day With Rachael Ray, O The Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, Ladies’ Home Journal, Brides, DailyCandy, TheNibble, Parade, Men’s Fitness, SELF, Woman’s Day, Family Circle, Travel + Leisure, New York Daily News, TIME, Newsweek and Fast Company.

The list goes on.

We have only a few exhibitor tables left, so if you’d like to show off your newest gourmet food, beverage and kitchenware products to this influential group, drop me a line today or submit the exhibitor application.