The 2009 Philadelphia Food & Wine Festival, Oct 16-18, 2009

If you're a gourmet enthusiast and love your kitchen; love to cook; love to eat gourmet foods; love to sample fine wines and spirits; or just love to shop for unique specialty gifts…this annual event is a must! BUY YOUR TICKETS TODAY!

SEE
Celebrity Chefs on stage preparing a smorgasbord of creative dishes!

Featuring:

Fabio Viviani, Executive Chef of Café Firenze, began his culinary career at the early age of twelve. Always asking for a chance to cook, he was given the opportunity two years later at fourteen when one busy night the chef cut himself badly and Fabio had the chance to prove himself. He has never looked back.

Fabio attended Italy’s Instituto Professionale per I Servizi Alberghieri in Florence, focusing on advanced Tuscan and regional cooking as well as a wide variety of specialization courses. He spent months, sometimes working for free, at regional restaurants and abroad to learn the secrets of master chefs. Currently, Fabio is specializing in Molecular Cuisine, using cutting-edge technology, constantly seeking to perfect his art. He describes his style of cooking as “Northern Italian Comfort-styled foods”.

Bringing his talent back to his hometown of Florence, Fabio co-owned and managed several high-volume Florentine restaurants. There Fabio won awards for his dry aged steaks at the Sagra Della Bistecca Awards in Cortona and his cheese and wine selections at the 2004 Enofood Awards.

Fabio has organized food events for fashion shows by Roberto Cavalli, Alessandrini, Gucci, and others and acts as a consultant to several Florentine restaurants in the promotion of Tuscan fusion cuisine. Fabio has been personal chef for a number of Italian celebrities.

As partner and Executive Chef of Café Firenze in Moorpark, California, Chef Viviani brings his Tuscan dishes and Florentine flair to Southern California. He is currently working on a food and beverage book due out soon.

Outside the kitchen, Fabio enjoys soccer, fishing, organic gardening and his life with his new wife, Jessica.

Robert Irvine. As host of Dinner Impossible on Food Network, Chef Robert Irvine serves stunningly creative dishes both for intimate gatherings and for huge crowds, all without warning and at a moment's notice. On the show, he has cooked on a desert island, in an 18th Century kitchen, in an Ice Hotel, for cowboys on a cattle drive, for master instructors at the Culinary Institute of America and at the Inauguration of Pennsylvania's Governor.

A native of England, Irvine joined the British Royal Navy at the age of 15 and his skills in the kitchen soon came to the attention of his superiors. As part of his service for the Royal Navy, Irvine was selected to work on board the Royal Yacht Britannia where the Royal Family and their entourages regularly dined.

During his time training US Navy chefs as part of a guest chef program, Irvine worked in the White House kitchens and his creations were served to high-ranking government officials. In over 25 years in the culinary profession, he has cooked his way through Europe, the Far East, the Caribbean and the Americas, in hotels and on the high seas.

In his career, he has also had the opportunity to serve 6,000 servicemen and women on a US aircraft carrier and plan the menu at a spectacular celebrity-studded after- party at the Academy Awards. Irvine's first book, Mission: Cook! (Harper Collins, 2007) was published in September, 2007.

Ingrid Hoffmann is passionate about food and entertaining and spends each day sharing her enthusiasm and talent with an international audience. Her recipes and entertaining ideas are showcased in her Food Network series, Simply Delicioso. In addition, Ingrid hosts her Spanish language cooking and lifestyle show, Delicioso (www.delicioso.com), on Galavision/Univision and is gearing up for her cookbook, Simply Delicioso: A Collection of Everyday Recipes with a Latin Twist (February 2008, Clarkson Potter/Random House).

Ingrid's obsession with food, cooking and style began as a little girl. She started cooking with her mother, a Cordon Bleu chef, at such a young age that she needed a stool to reach the stove. With her mother she discovered not only a love of cooking, but found a flair for entertaining, and in no time developed her own distinctive style.

Raised in Colombia, Ingrid moved to Miami where she opened La Capricieuse, a high fashion luxury boutique in Miami's Coconut Grove. Soon after, the store grew into a chain of four boutiques with a flagship on the island of Aruba, as well as a men's shop in Miami.

Her infatuation with food was so strong that Ingrid returned to her passion, and opened Rocca, the first restaurant to feature tabletop cooking on heated lava rocks. Within weeks, Rocca was touted as a hot destination for Miami's movers and shakers - it was even featured on Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Ingrid also became one of Miami's premier live event planners with a client list that included M&M Mars, Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Thomas Maier and Comercio.com.

While both businesses thrived, she had the opportunity to host a cooking segment on a local Miami-area TV show. Executives at Univision were so impressed that they offered her a bi-weekly cooking and style segment on Despierta America, the most popular morning show in the US Hispanic market, and the number two morning show in the US (after Today Show).

Aside from hosting her English and Spanish-language shows, Ingrid appears regularly on Univision's Despierta America, contributes her decorating and cooking expertise regularly to BuenHogar, the Spanish version of Good Housekeeping, and publishes a bi-monthly syndicated column in the Rumbo chain of Spanish daily newspapers.

VISIT
…Restaurant Row and sample some of the tastiest foods area chefs have to offer!

LISTEN
…to live music while sipping a glass of your new favorite wine!

BROWSE
…among a large selection of specialty gifts and gadgets …everything you need for your gourmet life!