Cincinnati Restaurants BENEFIT Us All - and a Give-Away

I am continually amazed by the many local chefs and restaurants who not only endure the frenzy of each night’s service at their respective businesses but also give back to the community and great causes. Since I last posted on this blog, I’ve been fortunate to attend and volunteer for several. A few highlights.

Eat Local for the Globe

September's Eat Local for the Globe drew a record number of local chefs bringing their A game for a spectacular dinner to benefit Findlay Market. One of the fun things about volunteering for it was watching the chefs collaborate as they joined in plating each other's dishes. Also, that moment when Jean-Robert de Cavel pitched in at the bussing station. Because, you know, dishes were starting to pile up, and he's not above doing whatever needs to be done.

eat.play.give

Top local chefs also turn out to give back to Jean-Robert and his wife Annette, who lost their daughter Tatiana to SIDS and host an annual fundraiser for SIDS research in her honor called eat.play.give. Always delectable!

 

Cincinnati Chocolate Festival

Cincinnati Chocolate Festival is run be all volunteers helping the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood raise funds for their year-round projects like Interfaith Hospitality Network, Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen, Freestore Foodbank, The Assistance League, and the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter. I got to sample savory chocolate-laced dishes from their new Cheers for Chocolate wine and food booth in between watching demos and "wrangling" some local all-stars serving as judges. They were happy to participate and didn't need much wrangling after all.

Slow Food Cincinnati Tomatoland Dinner

I am especially grateful to all who helped raise funds for Slow Food Cincinnati (a cause dear to me - I am on the SFC Board). From Molly Wellman's bourbon + tomato syrup cocktail to Megan Ketover's olive oil basque cake with honeyed tomato butter, lemon rosemary ice cream and fennel, and her amazing mignardise plate, we were lucky to have Slow Food Cincinnati Snail of Approval award winners Todd Kelly and Megan Ketover of Orchids, Stephen Williams and Bhumin Desai of Bouquet Restaurant and Wine Bar, and Local 127's Steven Geddes and Kyle Johnson prepare us a fabulous feast.

LLS Taste of the World at the Newport Aquarium

Here's another great benefit coming up Sat., Nov. 9 that raises funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Tickets are $100 for general admission, or $150 for the Top Shelf Room. But you can win a pair of tickets by commenting here, on the Eggplant To Go facebook page or tweeting/retweeting at @eggplanttogo by 11:59 p.m., Wed., Nov. 6. Participating restaurants include Alfio's buon cibo, Andy's Mediterranean Grill, BB Riverboats, Coffee Emporium, Dewey's Pizza, European Imports, Food Match, Frisch's, Fusian, Keystone Bar & Grill, Palomino, The Party Source EQ, P.F. Chang's, Pit to Plate BBQ, Madisono's Gelato, Red Roost Tavern, Stone Creek Dining Company, Taste of Belgium, and Yagoot.

My thanks to blogger friends Laura and David Arnold of Cincinnati Nomerati for all their work on the LLS benefit and making this giveaway possible. Disclosure: they are also providing me a pair of tickets. I hope to see you there!

Cincinnati Chocolate Festival

Ghoul cookie from The BonBonerie

In honor of Halloween, here are a few photos I snapped at last weekend’s Cincinnati Chocolate Festival. I would have taken more, but it was crazy crowded. That’s a good thing, though, when the proceeds go to projects and donations that support women and children thanks to the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood, who organized the festival for the second year in a row. It was also great exposure for the 40-some vendors who participated – what a wealth of local chocolatier and baking talent!

Most vendors had bite-size treats available for 1 ticket, like these cake pops, from Janel’s Cakes. Since admission came with 10 tickets – and there were so many samples to try – I was glad they were on the small side.

Most vendors had additional items available for purchase, too, like Chocolats LaTour. I didn’t realize until I got mine home that this pumpkin shell is edible too! And those chocolates inside? Shalini LaTour’s seasonal specialties like Spice Berry, Wild Turkey, Stout, Honey Basil Caramel, and Rosemary Mandarin – ooh, la, la!

And some tables – like Artrageous – showcased what they can do in a large format, drawing mobs for smaller tastes of their creations.

I was delighted to find wine and chocolate pairings available from A Bottle or Two (1 ticket per chocolate bit + 1 ticket per wine tasting). I didn’t manage to get a photo of their table, but it was conveniently located just across the aisle from Murray’s Cheese/Kroger, which offered this, one of my favorite bites of the fest. (Acclaimed NYC-based Murray’s Cheeses has partnered with Kroger to make a lot of national and international specialty cheeses available in the Tri-State and elsewhere – I was surprised to learn how many Greater Cincinnati Kroger locations now have Murray’s selections available, and I’m going to have to clue my mom in there’s one in Knoxville too.)

According to the handy card I picked up, this was dark chocolate-dipped Plava Vecchio cheese served with Kissel’s blueberry lavender jam and mascarpone on a thin, crispy 34 degree wafer. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who loved it. This won the “Most Creative Use of Chocolate” Award in the Vendor/Professional Division.

Amateurs were invited to compete in their own division, and as luck would have it, I was standing near that table when their sweets were brought out into the hall after the judges had made their deliberations. Here are Debbie Heldman’s Mushroom Meringues, which took 1st place in the candy category. How impressive is this?

There were also a huge number of gift baskets being raffled off. Realizing I was going to reach sugar overload before using up all my tickets (I bought more than came with my admission), I decided to drop some of them in the boxes for the baskets – after all, it was for a good cause.

And then there were the demos. Again, just 1 ticket, although there were only 30 seats available for each – but if you got one of those choice seats, you also got to taste the chef’s dishes! The area was cordoned off with a short white “fence,” so onlookers could view, even though they couldn’t taste. While watching part of the demo by Steve Hellmich, Chocolatier of Graeter's, outside that fence, I realized I was already in line for the next one, by Megan Ketover, Pastry Chef at Orchid’s and recent contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts. Having had the chance to meet her and taste her food a couple of months ago, I was looking forward to this, and so were many more fans.

Megan showed how to make her pumpkin whoopee pies with brown sugar buttercream and chocolate cardamom sauce in a way that made it all look easy. The finished product, prepped ahead for those of us lucky enough to be within seating and eating distance, was far more elaborate.

The pipette you see sticking out of Megan's whoopie pie contained her chocolate cardamon sauce – just squeeze the bulb to inject some of the rich sauce into the center of the dessert. Each confection also featured an edible chocolate garnish bearing the insignia of the Netherland Plaza, the hotel where she is pastry chef at Orchids. If you're interested in the recipe, Megan graciously agreed to let me share it and I'll be posting it on All Top Chef.

Megan wasn’t the only well-known Cincinnati pastry chef to demo. She was in the company of two Cincinnati veterans, Pam Sturkey and Summer Genetti.

Unfortunately, I missed most of Pam’s demo, after exiting the seating area to make way for more “ticket-paying” customers. But I did secure a seat for Summer Genetti’s demo, and it was a stunner.

Here is the dessert Summer demonstrated, titled, simply, "Fish Eggs."

Straddling the line between sweet and savory, Summer's offering was white chocolate and pink peppercorn custard baked in eggshells, with ginger whipped cream, green apple and radish salad, ahi tuna, wasabi caviar and orange zest – as delicious as it was unexpected!

Summer recently moved from The Palace to one of my favorite restaurants, Honey, in Northside. It's been far too long since I ate there, but Summer's inventive desserts are extra incentive for a return trip.

It was a fun afternoon, even if I did ingest way more sugar than I normally would. As soon as I got home, the phone rang with more sweet news. I actually won a raffle basket (and I never win things like this)! So I jumped back in the car and returned to the Cintas Center to pick up my prize. I've got six pints of Madisono's gelato and sorbet in my future, and I'm grinning from ear to ear.

Enjoy your Halloween festivities, and stop back Monday for my entry in this month's Culinary Smackdown, Battle: Winter Squash, hosted by last month's winner, the lovely Jen of Our Good Food Life. It sounds like we're going to have a pretty good turnout for this month's contest, and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! For updates on each month's theme, host, and deadline, you can always click this image on my sidebar.

October Culinary Smackdown Announced + More October Food Events

Our September Smackdown winner, Jen from Our Good (Food) Life, has announced the October theme, Battle: Winter Squash! Details at Jen's place here. It would be great to welcome back previous participants who have been otherwise occupied with moving into new digs, crazy work demands, epic swims around Alcatraz, travels that make me jealous, or on blogging hiatus (you know who you are). It would be swell to welcome more newcomers to this friendly little virtual cook-off too - all are welcome! Deadline is October 31, and you can find the link to this month's details anytime by clicking the image on my sidebar (designed by my talented friend Chickory) below the thingie that says: "Where in the world is this month's Culinary Smackdown?"

Jen mentioned she was originally leaning toward pumpkin as this month's theme. If you're in the Cincinnati area and have a hankering to try out a pumpkin preparation, Marvin's Organic Gardens, in Lebanon, OH, is hosting its 2nd Annual Fall Harvest Family Festival Saturday, October 15, from noon to 5:00, complete with a pumpkin cook-off/bake-off in both sweet and savory categories. You can do the required pre-registration thing up until noon on the day of the festival.

ETA: 1st and 2nd place winners in each category (sweet and savory) will receive $100 and $50 gift certificates to Marvin’s. You can register either online or at the event. Full details on how to enter here on Marvin’s website, and more about the event on Marvin’s facebook page here.

Wherever you reside, Sunday, October 16, is Blog Action Day (BAD), an international opportunity for bloggers to make their voices heard. Since this year's BAD coincides with World Food Day, the theme is food. If you're a blogger and choose to participate, you can register your blog here. If you care about food and its local and global implications, you'll no doubt find lots of thought-provoking posts from around the blogosphere that day as a reader too.

As conflicted as I am about using the word "foodie" to describe myself, I believe there is an important flip side to my obsession. You can contribute canned foods to one of my favorite organizations, the Cincinnati Freestore Food Bank, at lunchtime this Friday on the Square, as a kick-off to the evening's events celebrating the 140th birthday of the Tyler Davidson Fountain.

And if you just want to have fun, how about the Cincinnati Chocolate Festival October 23 at Xavier's Cintas Center? Among others, three fine local female "celebrity" pastry chefs - Summer Genetti, Pam Sturkey, and Megan Ketover (who I continue to root for on Top Chef: Just Desserts - aired Wednesday nights at 10:00 Eastern on Bravo, ahem, not Food TV). Another of my local favorites, Chocolats Latour, will also be participating. Proceeds from the event go to a number of worthy organizations via Isaac M. Wise Temple's Sisterhood project.

ETA: There will also be an amateur chocolate cooking competition. Details and entry form here. Plus, tickets, which can be redeemed for chocolate tastings, raffle baskets, children's activities, chef demonstrations, etc., are available at Kroger at $5 for 10 (at the door, they’ll be 7 for $10). Items such as raffle baskets, most samples and activities such as demonstrations and Kids Zone will be 1 ticket. Wine and chocolate pairings will be 2 tickets and concession items will vary, according to the Festival’s facebook page. Wine and chocolate pairings? I’m in!

What's on your October agenda?