05/09/2015 - Tablehopper; Telluride Wine Festival

Marcia Gagliardi

Tablehopper

A freelance food writer since 2002, and resident of San Francisco since 1994, Marcia Gagliardi is best known in the SF food community as “the tablehopper.” Voted “Most Obsessive Restaurant Informant” by 7x7 magazine, her cheeky weekly e-column, is archived on tablehopper.com.

The tablehopper e-column is chock-full of insider news and gossip about the SF Bay Area restaurant and bar scene, covering what’s hot, opening, or closing, along with restaurant reviews, culinary events, domestic and international travel guides, and even star sightings in restaurants.

She is currently living in New York for six months after winning Time Out New York’s Win the Ultimate New York City Life contest, where she is writing for Time Out’s New York and National sites.

Marcia just finished writing the restaurants, bars, and good things chapters for the Louis Vuitton 2017 San Francisco city guidebook.

Marcia also wrote a groundbreaking restaurant guidebook, The Tablehopper’s Guide to Dining and Drinking in San Francisco: Find the Right Spot for Every Occasion, published by Ten Speed Press, and a late-night dining app.

For more tips and sass, follow @tablehopper on Twitter and Instagram and someone (yes, you) is gonna get hungry.

Laurel Robinson,

Executive Director
Telluride Wine Festival

Laurel Robinson is the current Executive Director of the 35 year-old Telluride Wine Festival, the oldest Wine Festival in CO.  Laurel has been involved in food and wine since her early days as a fry cook at her father’s fast food restaurants in GA.  Since then, she has worked as a commercial fisherman and fish spotter in Alaska, a cowgirl in Northern Colorado, cheese maker in New Zealand and in her off-time she has made both beer and wine in her kitchen. 

She and her then-partner started the first Community Supported Agriculture in Georgia in the 80s and she continues to farm and raise sheep on her 5 acres in Colorado.

Currently, she is working to redefine the Telluride Wine Festival into THE consumer wine festival in the country and to add a Telluride Winter Wine Festival in late January 2017.

 About the Festival

The Telluride Wine Festival is a giving organization that holds events to promote Telluride as a culinary destination, supporting the overall health, character and vitality of its community.  The mission of the Telluride Wine Festival is to stimulate the local economy, educate attendees and donate a large portion of event proceeds to support the Telluride region’s food-producing community.  They plan to provide grants to local entrepreneurs producing food in new and sustainable ways as well as offering education for children in the Culinary Arts.  In addition, through the Monica Callard Foundation, they work to give scholarships to talented Telluride residents who would greatly benefit themselves and the community through wine and/or culinary education. Their long-term goal is to create a community kitchen to be used for cooking classes and to provide a low-cost production facility for local entrepreneurs to create their food-based products.

About Telluride

At the heart of San Miguel County lie the communities of Telluride and Mountain Village. These two unique towns are known internationally for world-class alpine skiing and summer cultural events.

The tiny Victorian enclave of Telluride is tucked within a box canyon surrounded by 13,000 foot peaks. The town proper is only twelve blocks long and eight blocks wide. In 1964, due to its importance in American history, the core area of Telluride was designated as a National Historic Landmark District. Being listed as such is the highest level of historical status that can be bestowed by the United States Secretary of the Interior. The result is that the town is a well preserved jewel box of Victorian architecture with colorful homes, clapboard storefronts, brick buildings, tin covered sheds, and other historical buildings. You can explore the many galleries, restaurants, shops, and more that further embellish the character of this beautiful town.

The younger Mountain Village sits above the valley floor at 9,500 feet, and resides as the base of the Telluride Ski Resort. The town was founded in 1987 and includes nearly 2,100 acres of aspen and spruce covered mountainside. The European-style village exudes a certain elegance that entices guests with the best of everything in the region. The town prides itself on green practices and sustainable growth in its everyday operations.

The towns of Telluride and Mountain Village are connected by a unique free gondola, offering stunning views of the towns and surrounding mountain ranges.It remains the only public transportation of it’s kind in North America. The 13-minute ride serves as many residents’ “commute”. Getting around and exploring these two towns is easy with the convenience of the gondola.

Chefs can be seen here