Lauren Christ samples on Saturday a blueberry basil biscuit with jalapeno and orange infused honey from Oodles Uncorked.
There were pizza biscuits, bologna biscuits, orange cranberry streusel biscuits, and biscuits with jalapenos in them. There were celebrity chefs, including Michelle Bernstein and Nathalie Dupree, in addition to our own great chefs from Blackberry Farm. There were cooking demonstrations, bake-offs and a Mr. and Miss Biscuit contest. A $150-per-ticket dinner Friday and a $125-per-ticket brunch on Saturday raised money for Second Harvest Food Bank and Share Our Strength. And there were samples — lots and lots of samples.
And crowds. The crowd got so thick on Saturday that ticket sales to sample the wares on Biscuit Boulevard had to be suspended. Talk now is that next year the venue for the International Biscuit Festival needs to be expanded. This year, only the second in the festival’s tasty history, the activities went from Market Square and the Krutch Park extension, south on Market Street (renamed Biscuit Boulevard for the weekend) all the way to Church Avenue.
There are suggestions that next year Gay Street needs to be closed for Biscuitfest, as it is for the Rossini Festival. But the city has to consider the impact that would have on traffic, especially with the Henley Street Bridge closure forcing more vehicles onto Gay Street. You hate to have a detour of a detour.
But, back to the biscuits! We bought the set of tickets called the “Better Bundle,” which got us into everything except the dinner, which we added separately. This definitely is the way to go if you want to experience all that Biscuitfest has to offer, including two nights of concerts.
The festival began on Friday evening with the Biscuit Blast-off, which was the opening reception at The Square Room. Authors signed cookbooks, wine and beer were served and there were samples of Murray’s cheese and, of course, biscuits.
Cookbook author and cooking show host Nathalie Dupree was on hand to sign her latest book, "Southern Biscuits."
Alan Carmichael jumped right in and sampled a biscuit, among other things!
UT Women's Athletic Director Joan Cronan, left, helped her friend Sherri Lee sign and sell her cookbook, "Under the Fig Leaf."
Jim Myers performed his special song written just for Biscuitfest: "I Ate the Pillsbury Doughboy!" Ha!
Then, after an hour, it was on to the big Biscuit Benefit Dinner, held at the S&W Grand on Gay Street, a restaurant that has been closed for several months. It was reopened for one night only under the hands of celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein and a cooking crew from Blackberry Farm.
The reception, held upstairs, had a kind of Andy Warhol theme. Thus the soup cans on the appetizer trays, including this one offered by Nathalia Miles.
Shout out to The Pour Guys and owner Jerry Kruse who provided the bartending and fine dining service throughout the evening. The set-up in the closed restaurant was simple but elegant.
Look at all those wine glasses!
Elizabeth Farr from the Knoxville Symphony added to the elegance.
Gay Lyons, left, and Judith Foltz thought this fountain would add to the ambience. So they made sure it got there.
Sam Beall, the proprietor of Blackberry Farm, described Michelle Bernstein as “one of the most exciting chefs in the country.” After dinner, she said she was honored to be invited to Knoxville. “When you get a call from Sam Beall and Blackberry Farm, you say yes,” Bernstein said. “I’d have come here to pour water!”
Dinner started with a soft poached farm egg with raw and poached spring vegetable salad with tomato vinaigrette followed by slow poached lobster with celery gnocchi. Main course was braised fennel and lobster broth with Tennessee foie gras over a buttermilk biscuit with oxtail gravy. Dessert was strawberries with sheep’s milk yogurt ice cream and cornmeal pound cake. Each course was paired with wine. My favorites were the two reds. Beall described the Robert Sinskey Vineyards’ Pinot Noir, Carneros, 2001, as “more than organic — it factors in the phases of the moon and more!” But the best wine, in my book, was the Showket Vineyards’ Sangiovese, Napa Valley, 2001, which was served with dessert.
Sam and Mary Celeste Beall at dinner
Here's that lobster and gnocchi course.
From left, Milton McNally, Melinda Meador, Ellen Robinson and Peter Acly at dinner.
Jerry and Susan Becker. (He is recovering from a detached retina -- and has a sense of humor about it, thank goodness.)
Larry and Jane Martin with their daughter, Hope, center.
Cooking Channel's Frank Samperi, left, and Allison Sickelka, second from right, with John Craig (a.k.a. "Biscuit Boss") and Nathalie Dupree
From left, Linda Evans, Vicki Baumgartner, and Sam Maynard
Elaine Streno of Second Harvest and her husband, Glenn Streno
Here’s a cute story. During the festivities, Todd Moody rose to make a toast to his mother- and father-in-law, Gail and Fred Smith, who have been married 50 years this year. Their daughter, Stacy Moody, had promised to give them special treats all year long to celebrate — and this dinner was the first one. Congrats to them!
From left, Stacy Moody, Gail Smith, Todd Moody and Fred Smith.
Rebecca and Nick Cazana
Scott Bird of Moxley Carmichael and Jeannie Dulaney
Alice and Charles Mercer
Birgitta Clark and Ashley Capps
Mike and Judith Foltz
Todd Richesin, left, and Bobby Brown
From left, Chris Kahn, Gay Lyons, Mary Constantine and Jennifer Alexander
Chef Michelle Bernstein comes out to a round of applause.
Saturday morning seemed to dawn early — and it was a hot one. We skipped the Biscuit Breakfast, being served in a huge tent off Market Street, because we knew we were headed at 11 for the Biscuit Brunch put on by Blackberry Farm. But we did stroll on Biscuit Boulevard to take a look.
You may know it as Market Street, but on Saturday, it had a name change!
Erin Donovan from WBIR-TV was emcee for a host of events. She dressed up and had the fanciest beehive I've ever seen! Love the biscuit bracelet!
For $5, you could sample five different biscuits. And "Biscuit Babes" were there to sell tickets and help. Here are Robin Hawn, of PetSafe, and Lauren Christ, of Moxley Carmichael.
Brooke Buckner, staffing the Latitude 35 booth, handed out pizza biscuits.
Here's a closer look at that pizza biscuit. Yum!
Kathy Darnell had an orange cranberry streusel biscuit from Cafe 4.
Michael Wiseman staffed the WBIR table, handing out good ole plain biscuits.
Over at the Knoxville Convention Center booth, folks from both the Convention Center and Abundant Life Kitchen were frying up bologna for their special treat.
Chef Chris Moore displays the finished product: a bologna and Cambozola biscuit finished with aioli.
Loved the decorations at the Convention Center booth. Disclosure: it is our client.
Jim Klonaris of Cafe 4 displays just some of the tickets he had collected. The crowd was huge.
Which brings us to the problem. By late morning, festival organizers decided to suspend sales of the tasting tickets and just let all the booths sell their biscuits. At least that did away with having to stand in the ticket line. But lines at the booths were frustratingly long at times.
Our friend Christine Jessel Grider took this shot of the crowd on Biscuit Boulevard. Thanks for letting us use it, Christine.
This is a shot Christine took of the mob scene at one of the booths.
On that note, we headed to the Biscuit Brunch.
Another good sign!
First up: biscuits with pork tenderloin from Benton's Country Hams and plain biscuits with two kinds of jam for spreading.
Loved the pickled okra garnish on the Bloodies!
Two of our tablemates, Monique and Bruce Anderson
This was my favorite dish of the whole weekend: pickled shrimp and raw snowpeas.
Our colleague Ellen Robinson came over to visit us from another table. Moxley Carmichael was well-represented at the weekend's events. Five of us attended.
I loved Jennifer Holder's t-shirt. She said she planned to eat "high on the hog!" She's posing with our tablemate Bill Lyons.
Ian Thomas and friends provided lovely brunch tunes.
The Tennessee whiskey cake was unbelievable! And that's not Cool Whip, folks!
At the Biscuit Brunch, even the trash cans were decorated!
Meanwhile, the Mr. and Miss Biscuit Contest was starting up. I swung by there to see what was going on.
This is Lia Patty. She didn't win, but I loved her hat!
I ran into Paige Travis of Knox ivi "borrowing" some electricity outside the tent to charge her cell phone. Good idea!
Then it was on to the demonstration tent for some demos and cook-offs!
Nathalie Dupree, right, and her co-author Cynthia Graubart, preparing for a demonstration. Dupree confessed that she had smuggled a convection oven into her hotel room at the Hotel Oliver on Market Square! Yikes!
Brent Thompson, center, introduces dessert biscuit contestants Kim Randall and Jack Walker. We were proud of Jack, who works for our client Covenant Health, for coming in 3rd place with his bacon-maple syrup biscuit recipe.
Once again, there were simple but cute centerpieces.
My friend Mary Constantine, left, and her fellow "Sister of the Skillet" Jennifer Alexander were judges of the children's bake-off. Tough job!
And here's the winner, Parker Davis, and his basket of loot! Congrats!
The International Biscuit Festival was an awesome, awesome event. There are a lot of folks who deserve a lot of credit. But I want to point out three in particular who I personally witnessed working literally all hours to make this happen: John Craig, the head of the Market Square District Association; Gay Lyons, a tireless downtown volunteer; and Judith Foltz, the city’s director of special events. Thanks so much, friends. It was great.
Glad you had a good time–Great photos!
Biscuit Boss John Craig, the Biscuit Brain Trust, the Biscuit Bunch, and the Biscuit Babes thank you for coming out to support the Biscuit Festival (where we take both biscuits and alliteration very seriously). We think this could be the start of something really great for Knoxville.
Great food, great crowds: this thing is taking off. Biscuit brunch was my favorite. Loved the bluegrass and the vittles. Everybody worked so hard. One suggestion for next year: if we can do without the generator and its fumes, the event would be darn near perfect.
Wow! Thanks for the rundown on this, Cynthia. I need to try to attend next year!
We had a great time volunteering at Biscuit Festival, but the best part by far was tasting all the different and delicious biscuits!
That was a fantastic and accurate summation of the weekend! I guess I know what you did on Memorial Day. That had to have taken hours and hours. Great job, as always.
Thanks, everybody. I’ll bet everyone, if asked, would say they had a different favorite thing about Biscuitfest. Goes to show there is something for everyone!
I agree with everything also about this awesome event! I totally loved the Biscuit Benefit Dinner on Friday night – everything was scrumptious! I bought 3 cookbooks at the Blast Off event and loved meeting the authors. Only slight negative thing I have to also agree with (and I’m sure it will be redesigned for next year) was the jam (no pun intended) on Biscuit Boulevard on Saturday. I had my Mom and sister there and there was literally a span of about 10 minutes when we could not move at all. Gave up and went to the Farmer’s Market. But, it was only the second year and the publicity was unbelievable this year, so bound to be some learning moments. Congrats to the Biscuit committee and look forward to next year!
I am so bummed we couldn’t make it 🙁 Biscuits are one of my favorite food groups. Next year, for sure! Looks like it was so much fun!!
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