Foodie Events

August 4, 2009

2009 Great Chefs Dinner Features Four Star Chef Eric Ripert Of Le Bernardin

The 2009 Great Chefs Dinner brings together the top culinary names of the East End to celebrate and honor the legacy of Jeff Salaway, a widely respected and beloved restaurateur and one of Hayground School's co-founders.

The fifth annual event will be held on Sunday, August 9th from 5 - 9 p.m. at Hayground School (151 Mitchells Lane, Bridgehampton, NY). The annual event will benefit Hayground School's Jeff's Kitchen and the Jeff Salaway Scholarship Fund. The culinary affair, hosted by Toni Ross of Nick & Toni's and Jon Snow, artist and director of Hayground Camp, features a cocktail party with hors d'oeuvres of local bounty from top East End chefs, fine wine and a silent auction from 5 - 7 p.m. Tickets for the cocktail party are $125 per person. Following the cocktail party, a four-course dinner will be served in Jeff's Kitchen from 7 - 9 p.m. headlined by noted toque Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin accompanied by Joseph Realmuto of Nick & Toni's, Christian Mir of Stone Creek Inn and Miche Bacher (Sacred Sweets).

The seated dinner also includes paired wines by Long Island's Bedell Cellars and a live musical performance. Tickets for the dinner are $500. Chef's tables are available at the dinner, but are very limited availability: table for eight $10,000; table for six $7,500. Tickets for children will be available for $35, which includes attentive childcare and a separate dinner service. As well, a portion of the produce used in sit down dinner will be sourced from Hayground School's Slow Foods Greenhouse. Culinary talent featured at the cocktail party includes:

Jesse & Reese Boone (Mark it with G)
Michael Cavaniola (Cavaniola's Gourmet)
Michael Domitrovitch (Montauk Yacht Club)
Andrew Engle (The Laundry)
Bryan Futerman (Foody's)
Gerry Hayden (North Fork Table & Inn)
Michael Osinski (Widow's Hole Oysters)
Kevin Penner (1770 House)
Tom Schaudel (A Mano)
Cheryl Stair (Art of Eating)
Sam Talbot (Surf Lodge, Top Chef)
Jason Weiner (Almond)
Joe Watson (Vine Wine Bar) will provide specialty drinks for the cocktail party.

For tickets to the event call the ticket hotline at 631-537-7068. For further information on the event visit www.greatchefsdinner.com and become a fan of Great Chefs on Facebook for constant updates. Sponsors for the event include: Barry Sonnenfeld and Susan Ringo, Brenda Seimer, The Charmer Sunbelt Group, Crop Vodka, The Community Farmers' Market at Hayground School, Fire Island Beer Company, Jill Gordon Celebrate, Lisa Zust, Luminous Designs, Marders, Maria Pessino, Party Rentals, PJ Mc Bride, Slow Food, Toni Ross, Kate and Martin Cassidy, Vine Wine Bar VOSS Water and WordHampton Public Relations.

On Jeff's Kitchen and Jeff Salaway's Scholarship Fund
"At Hayground, the 3 Rs can sometimes stand for recipe, roast and roux, since one of our most innovative features is Jeff's Kitchen," explains Lukas Weinstein, the school's administrative coordinator. Says Nick & Toni's Toni Ross, who was also the late Salaway's wife, "Jeff believed that the growing, preparation and sharing of food is a primal human experience and the foundation of family and community." The professional kitchen/classroom supported by a science lab, garden and greenhouse, was being planned by Salaway just prior to his tragic death in 2001. Thanks to the first Great Chefs Dinner, organized in 2003 by event founder Lizz Salaway, (Jeff's sister), several of his culinary celebrity friends and many volunteers, more than $300,000 was raised to make the free-standing building on the sprawling Hayground campus a reality. Jeff's Kitchen is a full service professional kitchen and classroom fitted with top-of-the-line Viking appliances; classes in nutrition, food science and cooking are held there for both children and adults. Completing the facility, recently a professional Farmtek greenhouse was erected by Hayground students, staff and friends with funds provided by Slow Food. Previously, in an equally meaningful tribute, The Jeff Salaway Scholarship Fund was established in 2001 by Jeff's friends and colleagues to make Hayground School even more readily available to the diverse spectrum of East End children. To date, $700,000 has been raised to support Jeff's Kitchen and to provide tuition for numerous students.

On Hayground School
In 1995, a local group of parents, educators and community members met to discuss a better way to educate their children. This group included representatives from the Native-American, African-American, Latino and Euro-American communities on the East End of Long Island. Their shared vision, Hayground School, opened in September 1996, with 60 students from pre-K to 8th grade. Hayground's mission is to provide an open community school where unproductive conventions are replaced with new ways of teaching and learning. The school was founded on the conviction that all children can and should live a life of the mind, be serious and passionate readers, engage in serious discourse, and work and study in an environment where art is at the center, not the periphery, of life.

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