092 VIRGIN AUSTRALIA DECEMBER 2017
he motto here is ‘Eat. Ski. Drink.’ It’s a
philosophy, a statement of intent and,
as it turns out, a fairly neat summary of
my itinerary for the next three days. Eat,
ski, drink — although not always in that
order — and then repeat.
The setting is Beaver Creek, Colorado,
one of America’s more fashionable
wintry enclaves. It’s the sort of place
m gates and security guards before you
re you might bump into Tom Hanks, and
where Michelle Pfeifer and the Kennedys come to ski.
Beaver Creek is the stereotype of a winter wonderland,
with snow-covered European-style chalets, an ice rink bathed
in artificial lights, and clouds of hot breath rising into the
air as couples walk arm in arm through the cold. It’s small,
it’s beautiful and it’s exclusive. Well, it usually is. On this
particular weekend, however, the crowd is a little more mixed
than usual. There are people with tattoos wandering
around — men and women wearing jeans and
hoodies instead of ski pants and fur coats; weathered
types who look like they’d be just as comfortable
slinging pans and yelling orders in a busy kitchen
as hobnobbing with America’s rich and famous.
That’s no coincidence. The tattooed, weathered
newcomers are chefs, and they’re here as invited
guests of the annual Beaver Creek Winter Culinary
Weekend — hence my plan to do nothing but eat,
ski and drink for the next three days. Some of those
chefs would actually fit the description of ‘rich and
famous’ in any other part of the world: the likes of
Canadian TV star Hugh Acheson, who’s a judge on
US cooking showTop Chef; soul-food queen CarlaHall, who made her name as a competitor on that same show
and is now a co-host of lifestyle seriesThe Chew; and Australia’s
Tobie Puttock, who ran Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant in
Melbourne. Here, however, they simply fade into the crowd.
That a culinary festival is being held in an upscale ski resort
should come as no surprise: the foodie trend has become just
as much of an obsession in the US as it has in Australia. This
combination of high-end skiing and high-end cuisine makes
complete sense — and it’s a bonus for the regular resort guests
who love their food, as well as for the chefs who want to blow
of some steam on the snow in between meals.
Over the weekend there’s a dinner matching tequila with
various courses, which is particularly interesting for those of
us who have never thought to pair the Mexican spirit with
anything other than lemon and salt. There’s a snowshoeing and
gourmet lunch combination. There are cooking demonstrations,
cocktail-making classes and a chance to spend the morning
skiing and snowboarding with Puttock before enjoying a meal
prepped by him at a mountainside log cabin.
Of course, you have the chance to hit the
snow with Puttock — if you can catch him first. It
turns out the Melburnian is not a cook who can
snowboard, he’s a snowboarder who can cook.
He spent his formative years chasing snow, as well
as kitchen, experiences, he says. His snowboard
has a custom sticker that reads, ‘I heart anchovies’.
It seems organisers couldn’t have found anyone
more suited to the event’s ethos.
It’s a good thing skiing is on the agenda today,
because chatting to Puttock on the chairlift about
the menu he’s planned, it becomes apparent that
it will take at least a few hours of exercise to justify
the four-course lunch plus matching wines.CLOCKWISE
FROM TOP LEFT
The Grand Tasting;
Red Tail ski run;
Allie’s Cabin
restaurant; oysters
wrapped in bacon.
OPENER,
CLOCKWISE
FROM LEFT Beaver
Creek Village; Mules
and Manhattans
at the Beaver
Creek Winter
Culinary Weekend;
an aternoon
chairlit ride; visiting
New York chef,
Gabriel Kreuther;
hitting the slopes.