RE: local foods, local restaurants

Title: Re: [cg] local foods, local restaurants
Gateway Greening hosts Chefs in a Garden as an annual major event.  10-12 top area chefs prepare large tasting portions with ingredients grown in community gardens.  It is a sellout each year, earning around $35k.  the chefs provide the remaining ingredients, which are usually exotic like fresh goat cheese or fish, meat, poultry.  The chefs are all there, explaining the dishes as they prepare them.  The wine and beer is donated by family owned businesses, as are breads and  desserts...the flower arrangements are donated by a flower grower from central Missouri, publicity gets better every year.  It's $100 per person with sponsorships of $300, $600 and $1200 for individuals and corp sponsorships starting at $2500 and up.  This takes many volunteers to pull off, up front money for rentals dinnerware, linens and glassware, and a great deal of persistance with the Chefs.  They are artists, as a rule, are not particularly organized and are difficult to reach or pin down on exactly what they will need. 
 
Even if you deal with only one chef, be prepared to make things as easy on him/her as you can.  Many are very interested in locally grown foods, sustainable ag issues, slo food.  Treat them right and they will reward you tenfold!  and the event makes a great deal of sense, good luck.  G 
-----Original Message-----
From: Tamsin Salehian [mailto:tamsin@sparecreative.com]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 3:24 AM
To: Ali Mramor; community_garden@mallorn.com
Subject: Re: [cg] local foods, local restaurants

I don’t know if this is any help to your org but lately our garden has been thinking about fundraising, and bringing in a chef for a candellight dinner/fundraiser IN the garden – it is summer here... So maybe for you that would be a six month project...

Having links with restaurants is great – what about contacting the local top food/cooking educational institution, they may be quite friendly and have the daytime hours to get involved?

All the best
Tamsin, Dig In Community Garden
Melbourne Australia


On 5/1/03 6:36 AM, "Ali Mramor" <lunabrillo@hotmail.com> wrote:
I work for a non-profit community garden program in Cincinnati, OH and I am interested in starting a relationship with some local restaurants in Cincinnati.  We have 4 children's gardens throughout the city in which we provide educational programming in the summertime all based around vegetable gardening.  Unfortunately, we seem to always have more food than we can harvest and give away.  We have been donated a lot to the FreeStore/FoodBank in town in the past, but I would like some tips on how to get a relationship started with a local restaurant.  I think it would be great to advertise "Food Grown by Cincinnati Youth" as well as the kids learning a bit about business and, of course all the benefits of local food production and consumption.  All the produce is grown organically so I'm sure there would be some interest.
If anyone with experience in this could give me some pointers on  how to get started and what all is involved (food/health codes, the economic aspects, etc.).  I think Cincinnati could greatly benefit from this venture if it can be successful.
Please use my work email provided below when replying.
Thanks a lot and happy gardening!
 
Ali Mramor
Outreach Education Specialist
Civic Garden Center
2517 Reading Road
Cincinnati, OH 45206
amramor@civicgardencenter.org
513.221.0981
Visit us on the web:  www.civicgardencenter.org <http://www.civicgardencenter.org>
 

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