Wine & Country Living

A rriving in Park City, Utah, I was met by staff of the Washington School Inn Bed and Breakfast who drove me to the B & B where I was booked to stay for the week of the Sundance Film Festival.

I'd been hired to cook by a private group of guests who booked the entire B & B for the week long Festival. This was my third year working the annual winter event, and it promised to be interesting with a house full of celebrities, a well-known producer/director and me, the chef.

Among the exclusive food and beverage requests were the cigar, wine and brandy needs to be available in the library after 8 p.m. each evening. Each night I'd place a giant, highpolished silver tray on a long cherry-wood table filled with liqueurs: Meukoxo Cognac, The Green Fairy Absinthe with its own little sugar spoon, a Coeur Delion Calvados Apple Brandy aged in oak, and a Napoleon Brandy of 10 years.

I flew in a case of each Walla Walla wine: Buty Cabernet, Three Rivers Rose, Zebra Syrah Ice Wine and Poet's Leap Semi Dry Riesling. Each night I made Dolcetto-Mascarpone pates stuffed in different curds paired with homemade crackers.

Weeklong events like this event usually do not call for breakfast, but that's not the case at Sundance.

I had clean foods and organics brought in from Salt Lake each day and made dishes incorporating local smoked trout and venison steaks. One morning I made a huge lox and potato latkes breakfast with sour cream and caviar, eggs sunny side-up, a side of ripe hothouse tomatoes drizzled in vinaigrette, a platter of steamed organic broccoli napped in a pillow of lemony hand-whisked hollandaise, a warm compote of port and dried fruits, slices of just-baked Le Jambon Soda Bread studded in cubes of Stilton cheddar and crisp chopped bacon and a honeybee tangerine butter ball.

No wine rating this week because all four of the wineries that traveled with me to Park City have already been given high ratings from Wine and Country Living, but here's that well-received Tangerine Honeybee Butter Ball recipe.

Tangerine Honey Bee Butter Ball Serves 4

1-cube salted butter at room temperature

1-teaspoon tangerine juice

1-teaspoon tangerine zest

1-tablespoon honey

1-tablespoon tangerine zest to roll

1-tablespoon white sugar

Method: In a bowl, add first four ingredients and blend until well mixed. Line a tea cup with plastic wrap. Place butter into cup, fold over plastic wrap, press down firmly to spread butter evenly within cup. Place cup in refrigerator for 8-hours or over night. Remove cup from refrigerator, invert cup on tabletop and remove cup and plastic wrap from butter. On a plate, add tangerine zest and sugar and blend well.

Roll butter into tangerine-sugar pressing down to absorb zest and serve.

Hear Judith Speak! www.chefjudithhenderson.com