STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Duskie Estes was a chef with a secret for 23 years. The Brown University graduate hid the fact that she was a vegetarian because she figured it wouldn’t play well with the diners at such restaurants as the acclaimed Palace Kitchen in Seattle.

But, when she took her seat at a certain high-profile VIP dinner, she realized there was no place to hide the meat she didn’t eat, not even a dog to hand it off to.

“I took one bite of the slow roasted pork shoulder with its balsamic vinegar dressing and other seasonings and I couldn’t stop eating it,” said Estes, who co-authored “Seattle Kitchen” with Tom Douglas, winning a James Beard Award in 2001

Jason Wilson developed Coffee Flour, an antioxidant-packed, nutrient-loaded superfood made from drying out the cherry of the coffee plant that’s typically tossed as waste. It has more iron than fresh spinach, more antioxidants and pomegranate, more protein than fresh kale, more potassium than banana and more fiber than whole grain wheat flour.

Today Estes and her husband John Stewart are the co-chefs and farmers behind Black Pig Meat Co. & the Black Piglet, a farm-to-table food truck. They’ve been crowned King & Queen of Pork at the Grand Cochon at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival. And they raise 30 chickens, one duck, nine sheep, two goats and—yes--a bunch of ethically raised pigs, using  the entire animal snout to tail.

Estes and Stewart are among 14 chefs who are taking part in the fourth annual Sun Valley Food & Wine Celebration, which runs through Saturday with a variety of cooking classes and lavish dinners. Those who don’t have passes can still take part in the Apres Grand Tasting Party from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30, and Britt’s Burger Bash from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, at Limelight Ketchum.

This year’s is the largest Food & Wine Celebration ever, said Karl Uri, executive director of the Sun Valley Culinary Institute, the beneficiary of the celebration. It’s grown from four chefs in the first year to 17 this year, although three were not able to make it because of the snow and ice storm that cloaked the eastern part of the United States this week.

All the chefs have a story. And Estes and Stewart’s involves a flood in 2019 that took out their ZAZU kitchen + farm in Sonoma County. San Francisco Magazine had named it one of the Top 50 Restaurants in the Bay Area, and it had been included in the San Francisco Michelin Guide since 2008.

Mid-valley resident Joy Prudek welcomes back Chef Jonathan Sawyer who says he’s jazzed to be back for the fourth time.

“It was a unique restaurant,” said Estes, who with her husband has been honored with Slow Food Snail Awards, Good Food Awards and Rising Star Chef Awards for Sustainability. “The menu changed every night depending on what we got from farmers. I didn’t hire people who were dedicated to recipes. I wanted them to rely on intuition. I’d give them a concept of a dish and they had to figure out the rest.  Every day we’d have something different.”

In 2019 a ton of rain fell on northern California after a 10-year drought and Estes and Stewart woke up to four feet of water in their restaurant, a shocking find since the area had never flooded before.

They pivoted, leaning more heavily on their catering—a tradition in Stewart’s family dating back to 1919. And they leaned more heavily on their food truck.

Their Black Pig Meat Co. makes bacon and salami from their pasture-raised pigs—the pigs have a lot of very good days and only one bad day, Estes says, referring to the many happy days they spend in the pasture before they’re slaughtered.

John Stewart and Duskie Estes use every bit of pig down to the tail and even every bit of the plants they harvest.

The couple makes soap and lip balm from the pigs, and they even braise the tails treating them like chicken wings to make sure no part of the pigs go to waste.

Similarly they make jelly from the fruit they raise on their three acres. And they roast the stems from the chard, fava beans and other vegetables they raise, using them in pasta, pesto and salad.

“It’s a slow time of the year in California right now so we’re doing food truck events, vintner dinners and food festivals like Healdsburg and South Beach, Fla.,” said Estes. “And right before we came up here, we planted our garden.”

While many of the Food and Wine Festival attendees are locals, some are from out of town, including Libby and Christie Benet, of Baltimore, Md. Libby Benet had unsuccessfully bid on an auction item offered by United Airlines for its frequent fliers last year; she won one of the packages this year, as did a couple who won last year and returned this year.

The Welcome Party at the Warfield included a charcuterie board, as well as passed hors d’oeuvres.

The Benets almost didn’t make it out after freezing rain fell on eight inches of snow in their city. But snowplows cleared the ice from the street and the airlines resumed flying to get here in time.

“We’ve never been here and we’re delighted to see your beautiful town,” said Libby as she helped herself to a slice of huckleberry bison sausage.

The Benets and others will be the recipients of non-stop dicing and chopping by John Boehner and eight other students at the Sun Valley Culinary Institute who will work alongside the chefs this week

“That’s what this is all about—raising funds for professional culinary students.,” Uri told those crowded into the Warfield for the Welcome Party. “It’s so great we can get together in a small intimate setting and have food and wine and get to know these fabulous chefs.”

Sophie Curtis said she thinks the chefs’ contribution to the festival is magical.

“They come together, have fun and students learn from them. You see them working together to create something really special. I can cook, but then I watch them and I learn something every time. They’re just a wealth of knowledge”

Sandy McCullough agreed: “I like the idea of giving kids a skill set they can use without having to leave the valley.”