 1 Friday morning was the first day of the Cayman Cookout, beginning with a demo by José Andrés on the beach. Where in the world was José? Eric Ripert and Tony Bourdain were looking out to sea and so was everyone else... |
 2 José Andrés arrives by marine jetpack, decked out in his chef jacket and swim shorts. Very James Bond! |
 3 Paella victory is mine! |
 4 Tony and Eric wondering aloud how they could possibly top José's entrance when they do their own demos |
 5 José Andrés launches into his paella demo completely soaking and hysterically funny |
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 7 Little did we realize that handcrafting rum punch and wine coolers at 10:30am was a foreshadow of the debauch to come |
 8 José Andrés showing how to make watermelon / cherry tomato appetizers |
 9 The tomato and watermelon skewers with a dab of balsamic |
 10 How to carve a plum tomato so the pulp is separated from the seeds |
 11 José Andrés starts his paella demo, hysterically ranking on everything Italian / Mario Battali |
 12 The fire pits that will be used to cook the paella had to be moved 3 times because of the rising tide |
 13 Final stages of the paella. Two giant pans over open fires on the beach |
 14 The finished paella, ready for sampling with yet more wine |
 15 Friday lunch was with Daniel Humm, of Eleven Madison Park, showing us how to dispatch and cook lobster at Blue |
 16 Daniel Humm brought his own lobsters in from Nova Scotia. For the salad, he cooked the whole lobster for only 3 minutes, removed the claws and cooked them an additional minute. One trick is after removing from the boiling water, put the lobster (and later claws) in a pot of ice water to stop the cooking. Another trick was using culinary shears to open the lobster, knuckles, claws, etc. No mallets or crackers to mangle the meat. Finally, he removed the congealed fat from the outside of the lobster meat in the pot of cold water, then saved all the shells and body parts for making broth. |
 17 Tour of the kitchen at Blue |
 18 Max and Luis Lujan, the executive chef at Blue |
 19 The lunch menu- and of course more wine pairings with each course! |
 20 The wahoo tartare |
 21 The poached lobster tail, with braised leeks and gobs 'o truffles |
 22 What to do after lunch, but attend a demo on cooking pulled pork by Dale MacKay, an award winning chef from Vancouver |
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 24 Oh wait, we haven't had enough wine yet today. Let's remedy that by going to a wine tasting led by Ray Isle, the executive wine editor for Food & Wine magazine. Actually, this was probably the most informative and pragmatic wine tasting we have ever attended. |
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 26 No rest for the weary! Day One was capped off with a barbecue on the beach at the Royal Palms Club. Each celebrity chef manned a station. Tony Bourdain was cooking beef tenderloin. |
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 28 José Andrés was cooking something, by this point we could no longer keep track... |
 29 And Eric Ripert was cooking some amazing swordfish. Oh, and Patron as a sponsor had a tequila mixologist serving up some crazy concoctions. |
