Roast House Coffee one of local chef Adam Hegsted’s ‘dream team’ for prestigious New York Dinner

When Deborah Di Bernardo, owner of Roast House Coffee in Spokane, started pouring coffee for Adam Hegsted’s Wandering Table feasts — monthly dining experiences, with an ever-changing locale and theme but with the unvarying promise of a unique and exquisite culinary experience — she never dreamed one of the locations would take her over 2,000 miles away. The prestigious James Beard Foundation in New York, apparently catching wind of Hegsted’s “dinner-on-the-move,” were so impressed that they invited him to cook at the James Beard House for their dining members on June 2. “It’s been my dream since I started cooking. Every great chef in the United States has been invited to cook there. It’s great company to be in,” said Hegsted. The foundation, which is named after James Beard, food writer, teacher and cookbook author who was considered to be the “Dean of American Cookery,” is a nonprofit culinary arts organization that invites chefs and culinary students from around the world to cook for their members. Although it had always been a dream of Hegsted’s, who is executive chef at Couer d’Alene Casino Resort, it was a surprise to him when Di Bernardo wanted to share in that dream and travel with him to provide the coffee service for his dinner. While the foundation offers an imported Italian coffee as their house coffee, Adam insisted on bringing with him his preferred coffee of choice—the Roast House’ sustainable, artisanal roast. “When he [Hegsted] told us he wanted to feature our products, he assumed most of us wouldn’t be able to go,” said Di Bernardo. “I said, ‘Adam, don’t be silly! I’m going!!” In addition to Di Bernardo, will be Hegsted’s brother Ryan Stoy, sous chef for The Wandering Table and executive chef at Downriver Grill, Rob Newsome of Boudreaux Winery, Pete Tobin, chef-educator for the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy, Viljo Basso, part owner of Syringa Sushi in Coeur d’Alene, Paul D’ Orazi and Craig Denney of Brix in Coeur d’Alene, Kevin Finch of Big Table, and two of Hegsted’s sous chefs from the CDA Casino, Molly Patrick and Matt Mayer. “The support I have received is a real honor. The team going with me is kind of like my dream team. It’ll help the stress level knowing I have such great executioners behind me,” said Hegsted. The coffee service Di Bernardo provides for Hegsted’s dinners—and will be providing at the dinner in New York—is called “paired” coffee service. Specifically, she will be pairing the Roast House Guatemalan Batzchocola with Hegsted’s dessert selection of wild Northwest berries and rose petals. “We have wonderful good times collaborating with Adam and Ryan to find the perfect coffees to “pair” with the cheese and dessert courses at Wandering Table events. While most of us understand the wine-food pairing concept, few give thought to pairing coffee with food,” says Di Bernardo. She says depending on which coffee they determine pairs best with a dish, they then have to determine the body and “mouth feel” that they want the guests to experience. The method she will be using is called pour over—or Melitta, as it’s better known—a process in which hot water is poured over the coffee grounds in a filter cone, one cup at a time. The filter captures sediment and some of the coffee’s natural oils, resulting in a cleaner, crisper, lighter mouth feel, preparing the mouth for the next bite. “Just like that, the coffee itself becomes the star ending of the dinner,” says Di Bernardo. Hegsted’s dinner for the Foundation dinner will highlight the best of the Northwest and will include quail with a rhubarb barbecue sauce, cold smoked Columbia River steelhead, forest mushrooms on an edible forest floor, dry-aged lamb and Idaho potato gnocchi with nettle pesto, and an Inland Northwest cheese plate. Dessert will include an assortment of berries from the area – huckleberries, serviceberries and elderberries – along with wild rose petals. Hegsted says since he’s been creating these types of menus for quite awhile, the ideas are, for the most part, laid out in his head first. Then by the time the food hits the plate, it’s pretty much a done deal. However, he says it’s nice to practice, as he did with a trial dinner held the Coeur d’Alene Casino’s Ts’ elusm Steakhouse earlier this month. “With a trial run, I get the chance to hone some flavors and tighten up the plating and the diner’s experience,” says Hegsted. Hegsted and Stoy started The Wandering Table in March 2010, shortly after Di Bernardo had set up shop. The brothers’ focus on creating community and sharing their passion while being sustainable about it was something to which Di Bernardo could easily relate. Serving up her 100 percent, shade-grown, organic, farm-to-cup coffee beans with unbounded passion— equivalent to the boost her cups of coffee give—Di Bernardo often gently poses the question, ‘What’s in your cup—commodity or community?’. Farm-to-cup means that Di Bernardo and her roaster have one-on-one relationships with the farmers from whom they buy their coffee beans. For example, the coffee she will be taking to New York—Guatemalan Batzchocola—is named after the small Guatemalan village from which it comes; the price is set by the coffee growers themselves to which Roast House pays directly. “Roast House is personal and direct. It is first and foremost about relationships—with the farmers who grow our coffee; with the coffeehouses, restaurants and grocers who purvey it; and with the coffee lovers who consume it,” says Di Bernardo. “We [Di Bernardo, Hegsted and Stoy] have so much in common…these chefs have an insatiable appetite for cooking and creating food and sharing with it with other people. Roast House has an insatiable appetite for sharing the world’s finest and unique coffees with our community.” In addition to Hegsted’s support-entourage for the event itself, Di Bernardo says the outpouring of support from the community “has truly been amazing.” “I feel pretty lucky,” says Hegsted. “I only can hope to represent the area as best as possible and grow interest in the great things we’re doing here.” Community support for Hegsted’s trip includes: • American Culinary Federation (ACF) Chefs de Cuisine of the Inland NW has raised $1,000 and Spokane Community College faculty has raised another $700 to help fund Pete Tobin’s travel. • Students of the local ACF chapter has raised $3,000 to help cover hotel costs for the entire crew • A local winery is donating all the wine • Paul Fish, president of Mountain Gear, has donated a roundtrip ticket to NY for Di Bernardo’s travel. • Di Bernardo’s brother, Russell Di Bernardo, contributed a $600 check to help with her expenses. • Coeur d’Alene Casino covered the cost of all printed materials (over $8,000) and gift packs for the James Beard House dinner quests. They also absorbed all costs in hosting a ‘trial run dinner’ at their Ts’ elusm Steakhouse earlier this month. • Di Bernardo’s Bunn coffee equipment rep, Rich Moceri, will be providing and installing a hot water machine and grinder, at no cost, at the James Beard House for the dinner’s coffee service. “As busy people trying to make our way in the world, we have a choice: We can put our heads down and focus on our own gritty individual survival; or we can reach out and travel together with the people around us, knowing that our odds for survival are better when we all work together. I like traveling this road together – it makes for a sweet life,” Di Bernardo said.