Deer Dodging in the Gap...

This weekend was the eighth annual Buffalo Gap Food and Wine Summit. And, even though I'm not a wine drinker, this is a really cool event. They always bring in some pretty big name chefs who make some amazing food. Last year I was out there most of the day on Saturday, this year, I covered the Friday night dinner too. While all of the events are pretty spectacular, this one is really cool. It is a six course dinner for a couple hundred people. I ended up hanging out in the "kitchen" with the chefs. And, by kitchen it was a horse trailer (it was clean and really cool, didn't look like any horses had ever been in it, but at the same time it screamed west Texas) that was backed up to the big tent that was being used as the dining room. When the plating started of the dinner it was a really impressive sight to see all of the chefs working in unison to plate all the food quickly, uniformly on to a really pretty dish. I wish I could have stayed to see how all the other courses were done, but I had to get back to make deadline.

On Saturday, I had two different event to cover, the wine and cheese seminar in the afternoon and the Cowboys Cuisine & Cabernet dinner. The afternoon seminar was interesting, but since I don't drink wine, I wasn't really into how to pair it with different cheeses... though I am a big fan of cheese. The evening dinner is pretty much the signature event of the weekend. Lots of big name chefs from across Texas come in and do some really cool things and I have to say the whole event smells amazing!

When shooting food events like this I try to show the people enjoying the event. But, at something like this, the food is almost as big of a star of the show. So, I usually end up shooting a lot of detail shots too. Especially since most of the time the presentation of the food is just as good as it tastes and smells. Plus going around and shooting all of the food tables you learn some crazy things, like the Dude, Sweet Chocolate people who made a chocolate mousse with tobacco, kumquat marmalade and foie gras. I know, sounded weird to me too, but from hearing all the people raving about how good it is, they must have done something right.

So, how does the deer dodging in the title fit into this? Well, it has nothing to do with the event except when I was driving back from Buffalo Gap on Saturday night, cruising along at 70mph I look i the road and see two deer walking across the highway. There was no way I was going to be able to stop in time, plus I'm sure the car behind me would have ended up in my back seat had I slammed on the brakes anyway. One of the deer was on the shoulder and the one behind it was just across the center line in my lane. Basically, I only had one choice and that was go right between them... so that's what I did, hit the gas, swerved her to the right and split right between them it was tight, but I made it through, I'm just glad I have a small car, I doubt anything much bigger would have fit.