CHAMPAGNE WISHES, CAVIAR DREAMS
If you are looking for a taste of heaven and want to help kids at the same time, there’s nothing more satisfying that a trip to the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s annual food and wine fling at the Barker Hangar.
The smart set arrived in their posh Pioneer Limo towncars, knowing they’d be able to revel without worry. Inside, they found an endless feast of fine foods, bottomless glasses of champagne, cabernets, chards and syrahs.
Even physical injury couldn’t keep popular Westside chef Joe Miller from this appetizing affair. Propped up on crutches, Joe brought a cornucopia of mouth-watering morsels from his hip, new tapas bar. “Check it out,” he said. “I’ve got chorizo with broad beans and clams, salt cod with oranges and green olives, endive with walnuts and blue cheese, crimini mushrooms stuffed with pancetta and manchego cheese, gazpacho with royal red shrimp, seared tuna with avocado mousse and mussels with garlic. These are all very typical of what you would see in Spain.”
Chefs from the screaming hot new eatery Citrus at Social were on their toes, serving up a mean salmon tart. Their setup looked equally enticing with kumquats; oranges, lemons and limes piled high against a backdrop of orange and green silk.
Boa offered Kobe beef brisket smoked over white oak for 12 hours. And the result was a melt-in-your-mouth sensation. On the sweet side, Violet’s baked cupcakes in every imaginable flavor. Their wildly popular Elvis (banana and peanut butter) was quickly gobbled out of existence.
Moulin Rouge was the theme of this year’s Uncork-A-Wish celebration. Volunteers and staffers got in the spirit by dressing in black and red and donning fluffy feather boas.
There was plenty of cabaret worthy entertainment with a pair of leggy blondes in glitzy bustiers doing a high wire act while the Glamazons belted out crowd pleasing tunes like Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff.” Soap stars Kate Linder and Allison Sweeney and those dishy babes from Deal Or No Deal manned the celebrity ice bar, mixing up pomegranate and pear martinis.
There was lots of heavy hitting help at the live auction. TMZ chief and auctioneer Harvey Levin managed to get top dollar for a pair of American Idol tix. He threw in 10K of his own to match the bid and got pal Ryan Seacrest to do the same. The grand total was a whopping $30,000!
Every year, Make-A-Wish Foundation helps make dreams come true for kids with life threatening illnesses, whether it’s meeting a movie star or swimming with a dolphin. “Make-A-Wish is the best organization in the world,” says Chairman Wayne Johnson. “To make a wish come true for a chronically ill child not only makes them feel better in the short term, but studies have shown it has health benefits in the long term.”
The gourmet graze-a-thon raised another $300,000 for the Make-A-Wish dream machine.