Showing posts with label charity event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity event. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2019

Mark Your Calendars for LA Loves Alex's Lemonade's 10th Anniversary On Sept 14, 2019!

It's almost time for one of my favorite food events of the year: LA Loves Alex's Lemonade! They're celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. That's right, 10 years of raising money to end childhood cancer along with great food and drinks. Hosted by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne from the Lucques Group and Chef David Lentz (The Hungry Cat), they've raised over $7.3 million since they started - an amazing feat.

This year's event will be on Saturday, September 14, 2019 at UCLA's Royce Quad. I love that LA Loves Alex's Lemonade not only showcases some of LA's best chefs but also bring in great chefs from outside of LA.
This year's LA lineup includes Josef Centeno (Orsa & Winston), Michael Cimarusti (Providence), Ori Menashe (Bavel), Lufo Lefebvre (Trois Mec), and many more. Some of the chefs coming from out of town include Marc Vetri (Vetri, Philadelphia), Gabriela Camara (Contramar, Mexico City), Frank Ibarra (Bibi Ji, Santa Barbara), Perry Hendrix (Avec, Chicago) and Donald Link (Peche, New Orleans).

There's never a shortage of great food and drinks (cocktails or wine) here. I wasn't able to go for a while when I lived in Boston, but I'm excited to return this year!
Photo: Becky Sapp
General admission tickets are $225 and VIP tickets are $500. Tickets are partially tax deductible and can be purchased here. Be sure to check out the great silent and live auction items while you're there, too. It's all for a good cause! Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation supports various programs from data lab and research initiatives to find cures to providing resources for families to travel to get treatment.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Save the Date on May 4 for Community Servings' LifeSavor, Feed the Critically Ill

I was first introduced to Community Servings last year, when they had a cooking class at the Boston Public Market. They prepare and deliver meals to people who are homebound, critically ill, and their families. It's not just mass produced food, but they really take care to prepare meals for each patient according to their dietary needs and illnesses.

They rely on volunteers to help prepare the meal, and of course, funds from donations and fundraising activities. Their biggest fundraising event is the LifeSavor gala, a glamorous evening that takes place each year and involve many of the local restaurants. This year's LifeSavor will take place on May 4 at The Langham.
LifeSavor
LifeSavor starts with a luxurious cocktail party with silent auction and balloon pop raffle. After the reception, guests will be transported to one of 75 participating restaurants around the city for a wine-paired dinner.

Not that there isn't plenty of food to go around at the reception! Spread out over multiple rooms at The Langham, I had some delicious lamb chops ...
LifeSavor
A spread of salads, pastas, cheeses, and more.
LifeSavor

Sunday, August 3, 2014

LA Loves Alex's Lemonade Returns + Last Year's Recap

LA Loves Alex's Lemonade is one of the favorite events of the year. This year, it will be held at a different location. They are bringing it to Wilson Plaza at UCLA on September 20 (from 12-4pm). This festival gathers some of the best chefs, restaurants, and mixologists, not only from LA but beyond - and they bring their A-game, all to fight childhood cancer.

Last year, Adam Perry Lang, author of Serious BBQ, was serving up some sort of BBQ sandwiches. I was avoiding the long line, but got there too late and they had run out of the sandwiches! It may have actually been a lucky strike, as I got this giant piece of rib as consolation.

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The Hungry Cat brought fresh seafood like these clams and sea urchin.
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Sunday, September 2, 2012

LA Loves Alex's Lemonade Returns Sept 29

There are plenty of food charity events in LA, but LA Loves Alex's Lemonade is still one of the best out there with famous chefs arriving from all over the US to raise funds to fight childhood cancer.

The chefs and restaurants that participate in this event do not skimp, as evidenced by the raw bar with oysters, uni, and crab at last year's event

Michael Cimarusti from Providence was previewing his new casual restaurant, Connie and Ted's, with the best clam chowder I've ever had. I'm still waiting for this place to open so I can have this again!

Monday, July 2, 2012

East LA Meets Napa Returns July 20! A Preview, and Last Year's Recap

East LA Meets Napa is a unique event in Los Angeles. This event showcases some of the best Mexican restaurants in the city, along with some of the best wines either owned or operated by Hispanics in Napa Valley. The proceeds go to benefit AltaMed, which provides free health services to those in need, and support for single teenage mothers in East LA. What was at first a small event has grown to one of the biggest and most anticipated event of the year, and there's now less than 300 tickets left for this year's event!

They held a press preview at John Sedlar's Playa Restaurant and featured food and wine from a few of the event participants.
Chef Rocio Camacho of Rocio's Moles de los Dioses served a Chapulines and avocado taco

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This taco was my favorite of the day. If you can get past your reservations about eating grasshoppers, this is a simple but amazing taco.
Empanadas tres soles: huitlacoche, flor de calabaza (squash blossoms), y potosina
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Dionicess IX: A Craft Beer Cocktail Pairing for Charity

Dionicess is an annual beer-centric charity event hosted by Gev Kazanchyan and benefits Real Medicine Foundation. The ninth iteration recently took place at Steingarten and upped the bar with craft beer cocktails and food pairing. The pairing is a collaboration by bartender Matt Biancaniellio from Library Bar and Dave Watrous from Beachwood BBQ who were preparing the beer cocktails, and Randy Clemens, author of the Sriracha Cookbook, who prepared all the food (along with the staff at Steingarten LA)

We were greeted by some mint water while Matt and Dave were hard at work shaking up the first cocktail:
“The Lambic Pentameter” - white balsamic, basil, strawberries, elderflower liqueur and Drie Fontinien Spirit of Armand.

Lambic Pentameter
The name Pentameter was chosen because the drink consisted of 5 ingredients. The Armand is a rare distilled Lambic from Belgium that is not typically not available in the US. Only one website in the world sells it!
Watrous told an interesting story behind the Armand. Purportedly they were trying to make lambic but the thermostat broke during lambic fermentation so he basically had cooked the lambic. They considered throwing it out, which was going to drive them out of business, but the distiller decided to try to distill and save it. The cocktail had a tartness that all came from the spirit, as there was no added citrus. (Traditional lambic is not the sweet type like peche lambic that we are mostly familiar with here, but it's tart and acidic).

This cocktail was paired with:
“Don’t Let This Get Your Goat, Just Figure It Out” – figs and herbed Chevre.
Fig and Chevre

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Second course: “The Cascading Hophead” made with gin infused with seasonal Cascade hops for 3-4 days, grapefruit, honey, lemon and Beachwood Brewing Thrill Seeker IPA. This was the first beer cocktail Matt had ever created.
This drink was very hoppy, just like a straight up beer, except that it was 40% alcohol.

Second bite: "The Hop and The Hound" - Cabot Clothbound cheddar with yuzu marmalade, pickled habanero, and micro greens.
Spicy Clothhound
The pickled habanero in  the marmalade was very spicy. I had to take most of it off but it was a good pairing with the hops.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Unlimited Caviar for Charity

These days, seems like it's not enough to just ask for donations to raise money for charity. You have to do it in style.

It starts with a limousine pickup, driving you to a mansion in Bel Air. After a cocktail reception, you partake in unlimited caviar (from the "entry level" to the Russian Osetra sturgeon) and champagne, three courses from Top Chef Marcel Vigneron, smoked alligator, and more, listen to live string quartet and piano performances. You leave with a gift bag supposedly worth $1000 in restaurant gift certificates (and caviar facial serum?).


Extravagant? Yes, indeed. And it will costs a pretty penny, starting from $500, but if this sounds like a great night to you, be assured that your money is going to a good cause. The Beverly Hills Caviar Charity Event benefits the Harold Robinson Foundation, which provides free, nurturing camp to inner city and underprivileged children in Los Angeles. Each year, HRF sends thousands of children to an 81-acre facility in the Angeles National Forest.
The deets:
Tickets start from $500pp. Buy them here.
Date: Thursday, November 15th.
6pm cocktail reception, party starts at 7pm.
The parking location will be disclosed to RSVP'd guests. A limo will take you from the parking lot to the mansion (VIP ticket includes limousine pick up at your home).

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