[title type="h3"]38th Chef's Charity For Children Next Tuesday[/title]
Many charitable events now feature chefs cooking and serving their food. The blue-ribbon such happening--the originator of the concept, in fact--came from the minds of Chef Warren LeRuth and WWL-TV's Phil Johnson. Thirty-seven years ago, they pulled together their chef friends for the first Chef's Charity for Children, to raise money for St. Michael's Special School. The school celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in the coming year. In all those years it has helped thousands (this is no exaggeration) of children and young adults who are developmentally disabled.
That the chefs come in and perform a demo of one of their dishes. That dish is afterwards served to all the attendees, who get a book of all the recipes. It takes place in the spacious ballroom of the Riverside Hilton Hotel, at the foot of Poydras Street.
The Chef's Charity is of such quality that the chefs involved consider it an honor to be part of it. One of the chefs who proudly takes part now had to wait over ten years for a spot to open up so he could join in. The Chef's Charity outlived its founders, though the memory of Warren Leruth and Phil Johnson still inspire the event. Many of the original chefs from 1978 are still on the program.
The featured newcomer (a returnee, actually, after an absence of several years) is Greg Sonnier of Kingfish. Here are the rest of this year's all-sta's this year's impressive list:
Andrea Apuzzo (Andrea’s)
John Besh (August, La Provence, Domenica, American Sector, Luke, Borgne, etc.)
Leah Chase (Dooky Chase)
John Folse (R’evolution)
Goffredo Fraccaro (retired; La Riviera)
Emeril Lagasse (Emeril's, NOLA, Emeril’s Delmonico)
Greg Reggio (Zea and Mizada)
Tory McPhail (Commander's Palace)
The Wong Brothers (Trey Yuen)
David Woodward (Hilton N.O. Riverside)
[caption id="attachment_46132" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Chefs Leah Chase and John Folse.[/caption]
It begins at ten in the morning next Tuesday, January 13. First the chefs do their bits (this is entertaining as well as informative). Then all the dishes are served buffet-style, with plenty enough food to make a substantial lunch. It goes on until 2 p.m. And you get a cookbook with 35 recipes, to boot!
The place is the Riverside Hilton Hotel, at the foot of Poydras Street. Tickets are $65. Call 504-524-7285 to see if you can still get in. (It's always a sellout, but at this writing tickets can still be had. Tickets are also online at www.stmichaelspecialschool.com.) Visa & Mastercard accepted. For thie first time, Patron tickets for $250 give you table service and a number of unique bonuses--one of them a work by the special students.
Many of the people who attend the Chef's Charity are there every year. It's no wonder. Go once, and it will become a fixture on your calendar.
Chef's Charity
Riverside Hilton Hotel: 2 Poydras at the River. 504-524-7285. http://stmichaelspecialschool.com/Benefactors.htm.
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