What’s Cookin’ In Yosemite? Chefs’ Holidays Add Flavor To Park’s Beauty

Funk and Wagnall defines heaven as a place of great happiness or bliss. Perhaps the editors were envisioning Yosemite in January - during Chefs’ Holidays.

The popular national park is especially beautiful in the winter, when snow and mist blanket meadows, majestic oak trees are studded with cotton balls, and waterfalls sparkle like ice sculptures carved by giants.

What better setting to soothe any stressed-out souls? Add Chefs’ Holidays, where food for the gods are prepared by some of the nation’s most illustrious chefs, and anyone would feel heaven-sent.

Best of all, during the magic of winter the crowds have thinned out. Rooms are plentiful - and cost less.

This year the park hosts the 13th annual month-long Yosemite Chefs’ Holidays in the historic Ahwahnee Hotel from Jan. 12 through Feb. 6, with cooking demonstrations, tastings and elaborate banquets served by some of the West Coast’s premier cooking authorities.

The 1997 session features a rotating cast of nearly two dozen guest chefs and cooking experts who take part in free morning and afternoon presentations and demonstrations Mondays through Thursdays in the Ahwahnee’s Great Lounge, as well as in evening “Meet the Chefs” receptions.

Depending on the dates, you may sample the creations of San Francisco’s John Pierre Duprey (from the Ritz Carlton) and Nancy Oakes (from The Boulevard), Napa’s Greg Cole (from Celadon), or authors and cooking instructors George Geary, Carole Bloom and Charles Holmes, among others.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, the Ahwahnee dining room hosts the grand finale - the Chefs’ Banquets - heavenly five-course gourmet dinners for mere mortals. (There is only one banquet the week of Jan. 26, on Thursday.)

For the first time this year, all the chefs from each session will take part in the banquets, each preparing their own specialty.

The setting in the hotel’s dining room is just as magnificent as the menu - floor-to-ceiling leaded windows framing spectacular valley views; soft piano music; tables set with linen, china, crystal; tall candelabra; and fresh-cut flowers. Attentive waiters suggest wines chosen by the chef to complement the menu.

But as delectable as roast pheasant stuffed with mushrooms or herbcrusted prawns might be, one should not come to Yosemite for food alone. When you’re not indoors savoring the culinary delights, the wonders of the park await outdoors.

Don’t think there’s little to do in the winter. Even non-skiers can fill every waking hour. On the valley floor alone - which covers only seven of the park’s 1,190 square miles (the park is larger than the state of Rhode Island) - visitors can still hike or bike, ice skate beneath Half Dome, join a free camera walk with an expert Yosemite photographer, or take in a camera lecture at the Ansel Adams Gallery.

First check out the valley’s visitor center to find out what’s going on. Bulletin boards post the day’s and week’s activities, and rangers still lead nature walks during the winter.

Don’t miss the orientation slide show presented every half hour in the auditorium, then check with a ranger for details and brochures or to sign up for an outing.

Further afield (shuttle buses leave from the visitors center and hotels) there are guided, narrated snowcat tours on open-air buses which traverse the edge of two ski runs to a ridge top that provides scenic overlooks. Snowshoes can be rented for guided walks through the woods (and sometimes into the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias).

The more physically adventurous can sign up for three- to five-hour cross-country ski tours from Badger Pass and Crane Flat (bring a sack lunch). Some treks are as long as 10 miles and lead to Glacier Point for breathtaking views of the valley 3,200 feet below.

For those not so enamored of the great, sometimes cold, outdoors, enclosed motor coaches offer two-hour guided tours.

And for skiers - both downhill and cross-country - there’s 60-year-old Badger Pass, California’s first ski resort, about 23 miles from the valley floor.

Designed more as a quiet family retreat on the slopes and not for macho daredevil skiers, the majority of runs are for beginners and intermediate skiers.

Facilities at Badger include five lifts with nine runs, more than 55 miles of marked cross-country trails, a baby-sitting service for children 3 to 9 years, food service (deli, burgers, fast food and pizza), lockers, sport shops, ski rental and repair, as well as ranger-led ski tours and snowshoe walks.

Free shuttle buses serve Badger Pass from Curry Village, The Ahwahnee and Yosemite Lodge in the valley.

Yosemite Ski School and Cross-Country Ski School offer all levels of instruction (including “Badger Pups” for 4-to-6-year-olds) and various learn-to-ski packages.

The ski school is directed by Nic Fiore who has taught skiing in Yosemite for nearly half a century. Like everything else up here in the winter, he offers perfection - a money-back guarantee if he can’t teach you to ski.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Presentations and demonstrations during Chefs’ Holidays are free and are held in The Ahwahnee great lounge. You do not have to be a guest at the hotel to attend. The Chefs’ Banquet, in The Ahwahnee dining room, costs $75 per person, including tip, tax and gratuities, but not alcoholic beverages. You must have reservations for the banquet to attend the reception. The Ahwahnee Hotel offers a Chefs’ Holidays Package for $580 per couple which includes two nights lodging (double occupancy), two tickets to the Chefs’ Banquet, admission to the “Meet the Chefs” reception, as well as one additional Ahwahnee dinner for two on the second night. Three-night packages are available for $732, five nights for $1,200. A recipe book which contains the biographies and recipes of the guest chefs is also for sale at the hotel. For hotel and banquet reservations, telephone (209) 252-4848 or write Yosemite Chefs’ Holidays, 5410 Home Avenue, Fresno, CA 93727. Accommodations in the winter at Yosemite include The Ahwahnee, Yosemite Lodge and the Wawona Hotel. The Wawona, 23 miles from the valley near Yosemite’s south gate, is now open year-round on weekends. The recently refurbished century-old white gingerbread lodge is not as luxurious as The Ahwahnee, but is less expensive. The Yosemite Concession Services Corporation (YCS) operates hotels, restaurants, tours and buses under contract with the Department of the Interior. For recorded general park information call 209-372-0200; for visitor information 209-372-0265. For a live operator, telephone 900-454-YOSE (proceeds from the phone charge benefits the Yosemite Association). Cafeterias and restaurants include three at Yosemite Lodge; The Ahwahnee’s main dining room (coat and tie required for men, dresses or evening pantsuit for women at dinner); the Wawona Hotel’s dining room serving “California Country” cuisine; and the cafeteria-style Pasta Place in the village mall featuring pasta, soups and salads. In January, average temperatures range from a low of 25 to a high of 47 degrees. At only 4,000 feet elevation, the valley usually does not get a snow cover of more than two or three feet; at Badger Pass Ski Area it may be as much as 15 feet. Roads into the valley, the Wawona area and Badger Pass ski area are open year-round, but travelers should carry chains. The south entrance on Highway 41 is an 89-mile-drive from Fresno, frequently with mandatory chain control. From the San Francisco Bay area it takes about 4 hours to drive to Yosemite on Highway 120 (the road is closed from the east during the winter). The 81-mile drive on Highway 140 from Merced is the lowest in elevation and the least likely to require snow chains during the winter. For weather and road conditions telephone 209-372-0200; for Badger Pass snow conditions 209-372-1000.