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pestochampionship.it
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Epic pounder Danny Bowien
About a year and a half ago, a 25-year-old Korean American from San Francisco
won the Pesto World Championship in Genoa, Italy. Call it the
Miracle on Ice of Italian regional cookery contests, but Danny Bowien, then chef at
Farina (now at
Magnolia), thoroughly mortared and pestled his mostly Ligurian competition in a dramatic upset, taking home the grand prize -- which was not, sadly, a gigantic gold-plated basil leaf suitable for wearing on a heavy, low-hanging chain around the neck. If you want to sample this man's silken pesto -- on some
Tartine bread, no less -- you don't have to drop major ducats at Farina. Instead, visit Agrarian Art Labs' pop-up bean restaurant
The Spotted Rooster when it flaps and hoots over to Gravel & Gold's BYOB Happy Hour this Friday, Oct. 16, beginning at around 5 p.m. Pesto, meet bread; bread, meet pesto. How do you all do? We think we saw a bean you'd love to get to know.
