Autin Food and Wine Festival. I had always heard about it, but never had the opportunity of going. This year, I finally made it out to the three-day festival filled with food, wine, spirits, and an overall amazing time.
This was my very first year attending Austin Food & Wine Festival, and to say that I didn’t have a preconceived notion of what to expect would be an UNDERSTATEMENT.
Austin Food & Wine is a weekend event that brings together local and world-renowned chefs to curate a food experience like no other. It hands down was the absolute best time of my life. Austin Food and Wine Festival is a 3-day food and drink festival at Auditorium Shores. It’s basically a big party for foodies!
There are 6 giant tasting tents full of booths. You walk through the tents, stopping at the tables that look interesting, and you taste whatever you want! There are also special sessions in additional tents. Most of these last about 45 minutes. They’re typically tastings from a certain wine region or maker, or a celebrity chef doing a demo. And there are always lots of samples!
My favorite part of Austin Food and Wine was the chance to interview chefs that were featured throughout the festival. I was SUPER EXCITED to see two fellow Latinas making a name for themselves at the festival with their food and their stories.
There aren’t many Latino chefs at Austin Food and Wine, let alone Latina chefs. This was the first year that women chefs really made their mark at Austin Food and Wine.
In a melting pot of different flavors, there were two Latinas that really made the experience 110% better for me since I felt represented and proud to be in the presence of these amazing women making a name for themselves in the Austin food scene.
Carmen Valera
When I first met Carmen in person at Austin Food and Wine, I already knew that I liked her. Haha. You know how when you meet someone and you automatically just know? Well, it happened like that.
Carmen and her mother, Diana Vasquez Valera, are co-owners of Tamale House East.
In 1958, Valera’s grandparents opened the original Tamale House on First Street and Congress Avenue, and it was an institution for 30 years. Vasquez Valera started her own eatery in 1988, Mexico Tipico. For 20 years, it served delicious food from the location that now houses Tamale House East. After a few years of renting out the building, the family opened Tamale House East in 2012.
Carmen and her family are the epitomai of what it means to be from East Austin. They are the real Austin through and through. Her whole family helps run the restaurant which is not really seen anymore. It makes me happy to know that this still exists somewhere in Austin, TX.
Maribel Rivero
I met with Maribel after Austin Food and Wine at her restaurant on Manor Rd. She is so warm and friendly that I felt right at home as soon as she opened the doors to her restaurant for me.
Maribel didn’t know she was going to be a chef her whole life. She ended up as a chef after her passion for nutrition led her back into the kitchen.
The chef’s passion for Peruvian food and the culture comes from two years spent living in the country’s capital, Lima, and cooking in some of the city’s top kitchens. She got a taste for Latin cuisine through a culinary course that brought in chefs from throughout South America.
I will be doing a spotlight piece on both Carmen and Maribel to go more in-depth on our interviews and to write what they both have in common in and out of the kitchen.
You can find the Austin Food and Wine 2018 Recap by CLICKING HERE.
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