WINEFEST DES MOINES—10 YEARS AND COUNTING!

Tradition carried on in virtual cook-along for local community


By Staff

For the past ten years, Barilla has partnered with the Winefest Des Moines to share great food that pairs with great wines. Our event has grown from a small luncheon into a dinner for 100 people to this year’s Virtual Dinner!

Barilla Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni was joined this year with Deputy Food Editor for Better Homes & Gardens® magazine, Jan Miller. Jan is an expert in the food industry and with her team of editors they create beautiful, delicious food content for the monthly magazine, as well as more than 20 newsstand magazines annually and all the Better Homes & Gardens®  cookbooks, including the iconic Red Plaid. Jan graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Food & Nutrition/Dietetics. She started her career at Meredith as the first Nutrition Specialist to work in the BH&G Test Kitchen.

Chef Lorenzo led participants through a four-course meal that featured Barilla’s premium products. The first course was a salad, followed by Chef Lorenzo’s vergusto shrimp and pasta dish, a steak dish (name?), and then tiramisu for dessert.

Winefest Executive Director Nastaha Sayles also joined from her kitchen along with local couples Kirk & Cathy Besh and Chris & Jessica Tursi.

Winefest is one of our favorite events every year and in one of our favorite cities! With only two US plants, Barilla’s largest plant is in Ames, Iowa, located 30 miles north of Des Moines. The Plant produces 200,000 lbs of pasta including all of the gluten-free and ProteinPlus lines, and employs more than 200 in the Greater Des Moines area. 

Here’s what the guests cooking at home told us about this event:

  • Great job! Chef Lorenzo is the best!
  • Mille grazie to Chef, Natasha and Jan! A fun event:)
  • Mille grazie to Chef, Natasha and Jan! A fun event:)
  • Another awesome Winefest event. Thank you, Natasha!
  • This is amazing!! Love the wines and the dishes! So good!! 
  • *across the internet high-five*
  • We’re already looking forward to next year Des Moines!

About Barilla

  • Throughout the world, Barilla is synonymous with perfectly al dente pasta. The simple and delicious ingredients in pasta are a healthy part of the Mediterranean way of living, which is considered one of the healthiest diets on earth.  The Mediterranean diet is a nutritional model that is characterized by an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, olive oil, seafood and a relatively low consumption of animal products including fats. 
  • Created in Parma in 1877 out of a shop that made bread and pasta, Barilla is today among the top Italian food groups, a world leader in the pasta and pasta sauce businesses in continental Europe, bakery products in Italy, and the crispbread business in Scandinavia. Currently, the Barilla Group owns 30 production sites (14 in Italy and 16 abroad) and exports to more than 100 countries. Every year, its plants turn out around 1,700,000 tons of food products that are consumed on tables all over the world, under the following brand names: Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Voiello, Pavesi, Academia Barilla, Wasa, Harrys (France and Russia), Misko (Greece), Filiz (Turkey), Yemina and Vesta (Mexico).

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