Foodstuff: Turkey and The Wolf

Food & Wine weekend gets Big Easy bites

A taste of New Orleans is headed to the Roaring Fork Valley this weekend for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. Lauded chef Mason Hereford will partner with Aspen Haus Culinary Director Tyler Poupart to bring Turkey and The Wolf to The Boat Tow and Gravity Haus on Thursday and Friday. 

Turkey and The Wolf — a New Orleans-founded sandwich shop named “America’s Best Restaurant” in 2017 by Bon Appetit magazine — has been featured everywhere from FOOD & WINE magazine to Garden & Gun to Esquire to “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” — and the focus is bites between bread. But calling it a “sandwich shop” is a bit of an oversimplification, as the menu contains enough twists to keep even the most discerning diners guessing. Highlights include fried bologna and a collard green melt that reads more like a Reuben without the meat.

These two specialties are likely to make it on the menu for The Boat Tow event on Thursday night, a three-course dinner with specialty cocktail for $65 and $85, respectively, depending upon the time of your reservation, and “We’re going to play the hits and hopefully bring some things you haven’t seen yet. We’re going to have the most fun that’s ever been had,” asserts Hereford, who will make his very first trip to Aspen and the Classic for the partnership.

He and Poupart originally met on the food festival circuit several years ago in Portland, Maine, and Poupart asked him to join him for a pop-up in Aspen during a gig together at this year’s Triangle Food Festival in Raleigh.

“I can’t wait for Mason to get here; it’s going to be a blast,” says Poupart.

And the fun times will continue on Friday from 4-10 p.m. with a special Gravity Haus members-only meet-and-greet with Hereford and founder of Marfa Spirit Co., Seth Siegel-Gardner, followed by a public panel discussion and party with heavy passed bites, cocktails, signed cookbooks, and a live folk band. For $65 ($45 for members), expect a deviled egg with fried chicken skin on top, which you can no longer find on the menu at Turkey and The Wolf.

No matter whether you prefer a seated supper or a party platter, expect a big impact in each bite.

“We’re not subtle,” says Hereford. While he loves all styles of food and a range of tastes when he dines, he says it’s simply not in the way he cooks. “I like flavor bombs. Whatever the team and I are working with, we try to coax the most flavor out of it.” 

Other menu items from another of his New Orleans projects, Molly’s Rise and Shine, are also in the works for this weekend, such as a take on a crispy rice Thai night market-style salad and a dessert featuring carrots. 

And this likely won’t be the last takeover of the Haus on Hyman.

“We’re incredibly stoked about this collaboration, and we hope it’s the first of many at Aspen Haus,” says Poupart. “I have many other talented chef friends across the country who would love to visit Aspen and experience our wonderful community and beautiful surroundings we are so lucky to call home.”

Katherine Roberts is a mid-Valley-based writer and marketing professional who has said it before, but she’ll say it again: The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen is her favorite weekend of the year. She can be reached via her marketing and communications firm, Carington Creative, at katherine@caringtoncreative.com.