A Note to Chefs: The Dos and Don'ts of Food Festivals

Mac and cheese, burgers, and a big ole meatball with red sauce: comfort foods with refined flair are highly appreciated by hungry festivalgoers.

As pictured:

• Leonardo’s veal burger by Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier of Arrows Restaurant
• Mac and cheese with crab, artichokes, and Swiss cheese by Laura Werlin
• Meatballs with red sauce by Donatella Arpaia

Food festivals should be the land of amuse-bouches, aka bite-size and only requiring one hand to consume (as the other hand often holds a wineglass). Toothpicks, Chinese soup spoons, noodles swirled around a fork: these examples prove that bite-size is the right size.

As pictured:

• Key lime graham cracker parfait with burnt kefir meringue by David LeFevre of M.B. Post Manhattan
• Beef jerky bucatini by Jonathon Sawyer of The Greenhouse Tavern

There are some foods that just can't handle the heat, chaos, and long hours of a food festival. Two prime examples: croquettes and spinach. Croquettes are rarely freshly fried. Once the croquettes reach room temp, they are essentially balls of grease. Yuck. Avoid at all costs. In addition, spinach turns into brown muck quickly (like, in minutes) with bitter and sulfuric flavors. Just don't go there.

The most simple of dishes can oftentimes be the most memorable. Take this yellow cake, for instance. Sure it's unadorned, but its spongy and moist consistency reveals its worth. The lush, Italian-style buttercream frosting doesn’t form a crystallized sugar skin on the outside, and suddenly, you're wishing every cake could taste this good.

As pictured:

• Yellow cake with buttercream frosting by Duff Goldman