Have you heard that NASA is experimenting with 3-D printers that "print" food? If there is an earthly future to these experiments, maybe one day we'll be able to watch Rachael Ray whip up a delicious souffle, and then hit "print."
In the meantime, Youth Home, Inc. has a fundraiser that's kind of doing this already but from the elegance of the Clinton Presidential Center Great Hall. The Next Course is a five-course haute cuisine dinner put together by four chefs -- Gilbert Alaquinez and Pastry Chef Anne Wood from Forty Two (the presidential center), Stephen Burrow from the Chenal Country Club, and Shane Henderson from Ben E. Keith.
Youth Home is a school and residential psychiatric care facility for young people. Not all of its clients live there. Its big fundraiser each year is Eggshibition. It also has a summer casino night fundraiser.
The first course at the Oct. 29 event was a pickled grape salad with burnt peanuts (Burrow). It was followed by a citrus Gulf shrimp ceviche (Alaquinez). The next two courses were pulled pork (Henderson) and a pan-roasted rib-eye (Burrow). (This was interrupted by an ahi tuna intermezzo.) Dessert was a salted caramel mousse (Wood). Before each dish the chef gave a little demonstration of the recipe process by prerecorded video.
Last year the fundraiser approached $50,000, gross. This year it surpassed that mark a bit, in part thanks to a BidPal-directed live appeal that raised $11,775 "in just a few moments," development director Larry Betz said.
-- Story and photos by Bobby Ampezzan
High Profile on 11/08/2015