Thank you for joining us at our No Kid Hungry Dinner in New Orleans at Ralph's on the Park!
A special thanks to Ralph Brennan, William Goldring, Ralph's on the Park and all the chefs that came together for a great event. We hope to see you next year!
Join Us to Help
End Childhood Hunger in America
No Kid Hungry Dinner New Orleans
Monday, November 12, 2012
Ralph's on the Park
900 City Park Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70119
6:00 p.m.– Reception
7:00 p.m.– Multi-course seated dinner with wine pairings
CO-CHAIRS
Ralph Brennan, Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group
William Goldring, Goldring Family Foundation
GUEST SPEAKER
Randy Fertel, Ruth U. Fertel Foundation
PARTICIPATING CHEFS
Aaron Burgau, Executive Chef, Patois
Kristin Butterworth, Executive Chef of The Grill Room at the Windsor Court Hotel
Justin Devillier, Executive Chef, La Petite Grocery
Chip Flanagan, Executive Chef, Ralph's on the Park
Brett Gauthier, Corporate Executive Pastry Chef, Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group
Alex Harrell, Executive Chef, Sylvain
Steven Marsella,Ralph Brennan Catering and Events Director and Executive Chef, Heritage Grill
Tickets are no longer available online. If you are interested in attending, please contact Andrea Agalloco at aagalloco@strength.org or 202-746-6177. Space is limited, RSVP required.
Through our No Kid Hungry® Campaign—a national effort to end childhood hunger in America — Share Our Strength ensures children in need are enrolled in federal nutrition programs, invests in community organizations fighting hunger, teaches families how to cook healthy, affordable meals, and builds innovative public-private partnerships to end hunger, nationally and at the state and city levels.
Share Our Strength Dinner
November 12, 2012
Ralph's on the Park is able to accommodate diners with food allergies or restrictions. Please send an email to Andrea Agalloco if you have any questions about the menu or special dietary needs and plan to attend the dinner.
Passed Hors d’oeuvres:
Tea Smoked Moulard Duck Breast
butternut squash marmalade on a toasted rye baguette - Aaron Burgau
Hubbard squash angnolotti
with fried sage and brown butter vinaigrette – Justin Devillier
Tuna Tartare on a Sesame Cracker
with soy ginger vinaigrette, sweet chili cream and wasabi roe - Chip Flanagan
Confit of Rabbit
with mustard greens and spicy mustard - Alex Harrell
Dinner Items:
Crispy Pig Trotter
with Pickled Quail Egg, frisée lettuce and a Buttermilk caper dressing- Aaron Burgau
Poached Royal Red Shrimp
with Meyer lemon – Justin Devillier
Fried Chicken
country ham wrapped chicken thigh, red bean puree, boudin ball and crispy collard greens - Chip Flanagan
Gulf Snapper
with Chowder and a Horseradish Foam - Kristin Butterworth
Braised Beef Shortrib
with creamed farro verde, roasted Brussels sprouts, and pumpkin - Alex Harrell
Citrus Posset
Lemon Cream, Satsuma ice, 100% Sicilian Olive Oil - Brett Gauthier
Mignardise
Small and charming sweets served after dinner - Brett Gauthier
Ralph's on the Park is able to accommodate diners with food allergies or restrictions. Please send an email to Andrea Agalloco if you have any questions about the menu or special dietary needs and plan to attend the dinner.
In November 2010 Share Our Strength, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana along with many local partners launched the No Kid Hungry New Orleans Campaign. Funded by lead sponsor Walmart, with support from Weight Watchers, The Yum-O! Organization and the Edward Wisner Donation, No Kid Hungry New Orleans works with community organizations, schools, churches city and state agencies to end child hunger in New Orleans.
In New Orleans, 1 in 5 children are at risk for child hunger; this affects physical, behavioral and mental health and impacts school readiness and achievement. The No Kid Hungry Campaign reaches children at risk for hunger in New Orleans by increasing participation in highly effective but often under utilized federal food and nutrition programs like Summer Food Service, School Breakfast, WIC and After School Meals.
Aaron Burgau, Executive Chef, Patois
Born in New Orleans, Aaron began his culinary career working with some of the city’s most honored chefs, including James Beard Award-winning Susan Spicer (Bayona and Mondo), and local legend, Gerard Maras (Gerard’s Downtown). In 2006, he became the Executive Chef at Bank Cafe, and that same year was named one of the Top 5 “Chefs to Watch” by Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine. In 2007, he partnered with longtime friends and entrepreneurs Leon and Pierre Touzet, to open Patois. Patois’ menu reflects Chef Aaron’s commitment to fresh, locally sourced ingredients in classic French cuisine with a patois, or local accent. Aaron won Food & Wine’s “The People’s Choice, Best New Chef” in 2011 and has been a James Beard semi-finalist for three years running. In 2012, Burgau earned the 2012 StarChefs.com New Orleans Rising Star Restaurateur award, along with the Touzet brothers, for their casual gourmet burger joint Trūburger. Both Patois and Trūburger are amongst the city’s must-eat destinations.
Kristin Butterworth, Executive Chef of The Grill Room at the Windsor Court Hotel
Kristin developed an interest in the culinary industry at an early age, having spent summers in her youth growing and harvesting vegetables in her parent’s garden and learning how to prepare and preserve them in the family kitchen in Western Pennsylvania. It was these simple meals that became the basis of how she approached food and embraced her personal culinary style of only using the finest ingredients and simplifying food to showcase those ingredients.
Chef Butterworth’s farm-to-table approach of working with local farmers and private growers and her European-influenced style of cooking were cultivated at Lautrec at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort where she held the position of Chef De Cuisine. Under Kristin’s direction, Lautrec received the coveted Forbes 5-Star and AAA 5-Diamond award, making her, at the age of 28, the youngest and only female five-star chef of 2011.
Prior to Nemacolin, Kristin held sous chef positions at a number of luxury resort properties including The Inn at Little Washington and Sea Island Resort. She graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Academy of Culinary Arts in 2001 with honors and completed a master’s program at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners in Italy, receiving a certificate in Italian Cuisine and Pastry.
Kristin joined the Windsor Court’s Grill Room as executive chef during the summer of 2012 and incorporates her passion and personal cooking style into each dish to create an exciting, memorable dining experience for guests.
Chip Flanagan, Executive Chef, Ralph's on the Park
If you’ve ever seen Chip Flanagan performing a cooking demonstration, you know how comfortable he is with public speaking – especially when things could go horribly wrong or are a piece of cake. The executive chef of Ralph’s on the Park not only keeps his cool, but he keeps his audience entertained. It may have something to do with his BFA degree from New York University…
Flanagan is from New Orleans, with the native interest in food that is his birthright. His paternal grandmother was a classic cooking matriarch, and his father was the weekend ‘special meals’ cook. When Flanagan was up at NYU, he’d call his dad to talk him through making red beans and rice in his dormitory kitchen. Because it was too far to travel home most holidays, he’s roast turkeys there, too. “I didn’t know what a professional kitchen was, so I thought I was doing fine!” he laughs. On weekends, he worked as a busboy in a local tavern, and slowly ‘wandered’ in to the kitchen. “When I graduated and returned home to New Orleans, I thought, ‘Let’s give this cooking thing a try.’”
He began at the famed Alex Patout’s. When he enrolled in the culinary program at Delgado Community College, he took a job at Chez Daniel, where working with the highly regarded chef, Daniel Bonnot. Bonnot became his mentor [he was Susan Spicer’s, as well,] teaching Flanagan the ins-and-outs of organization, kitchen sensibility, how to handle food, and old-fashioned hard work and repetition. “The great thing about chef Daniel is that he did not fit the stereotype of a French Chef who thumbs their noses at American chefs – he taught me that whatever I cooked, it had to be done right, whether it was Beef Wellington or a Grilled Cheese. That spirit really helped when I was in hotel work,” Flanagan reflects. He worked with Bonnot for eight years, during which he was given the opportunity to travel and work at festival events in places like Juan le Pins in the south of France, and cities throughout Brazil. He provided Chip with a wealth of worldly knowledge and influential cultures that play a strong roll in his cooking today.
Flanagan’s next step was to a run a small, well-established restaurant on the island of St. Croix, which featured American-Danish-Creole cuisine. As executive chef, it was a steep learning curve, and not without its challenges, but the seafood, naturally, was great: “I made a mean Spiny Lobster Gumbo…” he recalls.
Returning to the mainland after a year, he headed to the renowned Louis XVI restaurant at the St. Louis Hotel. It was three more years of French cuisine, this time with chef Agnes Bellet, from whom he learned a great deal about the elements of refined tastes on the palate. And then, it was the year of Hurricane Katrina, which changed so much for so many in New Orleans, “Yes, and it changed me,” says Chip. Returning to New Orleans and Louis XVI after the storm, he began looking for other opportunities, and was offered [among others] the position of sous chef at Ralph Brennan’s Ralph’s on the Park.
Brett Gauthier, Corporate Executive Pastry Chef, Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group
Fresh from his tenure at the prestigious Relais & Châteaux, The Inn at Little Washington, just outside of Washington, DC, Brett Gauthier, the pastry chef whom renowned New Orleans restaurateur Ralph Brennan entrusts with his desserts, is a long way from where his restaurant career started -- washing dishes. A culinary arts program in high school led him to Johnson & Wales, and his subsequent experience ranged from the Four Seasons and Fairmont Hotels in San Francisco, to a private yacht catering enterprise, to, most recently, working with worldly acclaimed chef Patrick O’Connell as executive pastry chef at The Inn at Little Washington. Gauthier is dedicated and disciplined in the kitchen and maintains a humble approach in his working environment. With personal ties to Mississippi, the South is where Gauthier is most comfortable, and, if you ask him, he will tell you that he has come home. Staying true to the sources in his new backyard of New Orleans, he incorporates local Louisiana ingredients into his desserts at the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, and works hard to marry each dessert to the chef’s style at each given restaurant, all of them, naturally, paying tribute to the culinary heritage of New Orleans. The signature dessert he’s developed for Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, a Sweet Potato Soufflé with Pecan Ice Cream, was inspired by two favorite New Orleans pies; Gauthier’s light and fluffy interpretation gives it a deep breath of fresh air. Likewise, his Brûlée Bread Pudding and Grasshopper Pôt de Crème are inspired variations on New Orleans classics -- created with the understanding of a gifted chef, and the fresh perspective of a non-native, but a Southerner at heart.
Alex Harrell, Executive Chef, Sylvain
Hailing from Southeast Alabama, Chef Alex Harrell’s earliest childhood memories were spending his summers on the Gulf Coast and learning how to cook and bake with his father. Alex's first job was at a small seafood restaurant on the beach and he continued to work in restaurants throughout college. It wasn’t until after he graduated with a science and biology degree that he realized he could make a career as a chef and doing what he loves.
Alex moved to New Orleans in 1998 and began working as a pantry cook at Bayona for Chef Susan Spicer, where he learned proper technical skills. From there, he was introduced to Gerard Maras in 2000, where he worked his way from lunch line cook at Gerard’s Downtown to a sous chef at Ralph’s on the Park and Table One. He credits both Chefs for inspiring him to continue to learn to become a better cook and the importance of technique, precision and the use of only the freshest ingredients.
In the fall of 2010, Harrell was chosen by owners Sean McCusker and Robert LeBlanc to head the kitchen at Sylvain, the celebrated new restaurant in the French Quarter where Alex crafts simple but skilled Contemporary American dishes. Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune’s food critic, states that Sylvain’s strength is in the “careful execution of a thoughtful roster of relatively simple dishes.” Zozo George, food critic for New Orleans Living, praises Harrell’s style as a reflection of the chef’s personality: “clever, laid-back and very, very easy to get along with.”
Alex has also been featured on CNN.com’s Eatocracy, Time.com, and Sylvain was included in Eater.com’s New Orleans Heat Map, a look at the top restaurants in the city.
When he’s not in the kitchen, Alex enjoys spending time at home with his wife and two daughters.
The Auctioneer
For the past twenty years Billy Harris has been wowing audiences around the world. A cousin of Vaudeville great Georgie Jessel, Billy has been performing his entire life. By the tender age of five and a half, he understood how to "work a room"!
Billy’s razor-sharp timing, comedic style and brilliant improvisational skills have made him one of the most sought-after Auctioneer’s in the business.
Billy has raised millions of dollars for Share Our Strength, Autism Speaks, The New York Food Bank, Alex’s Lemonade Stand, James Beard Foundation, ALS Foundation, Junior Achievement, and the Mario Batali Foundation.
When he’s not "performing," Billy, his wife Sharon, daughter Georgie, and dog Missy divide their time between Los Angeles and New York.