Cooking For A Cause 2017

It's the Spring season, although one may not recognize it from the cold, rainy weather, and with it comes new changes across the landscape and that includes the food landscape.  Doors will be thrown open, patio furniture set out and menus changed.  Within just a few weeks thousands of tourists and travelers will flock to Greater Boston for vacation and holidays. And we'll all see many white tents set up on those rolling green lawns for all those warmer weather events and parties.  Yes, the social season has begun and our calendar is filling up quickly, almost all the way out until July.

So we kicked off the Spring social agenda with one of our favorite events and organizations: Cooking For A Cause to benefit East End House in Cambridge.  We started with a generous pour of Working Class Hero from Cambridge Brewing Company.  Spring and Summer are no better time to enjoy a good craft brew and we really enjoyed their Working Class Hero, an American Saison in the farmhouse ale style.  With hints of lemon and orange it's a refreshing sip and would be great on a hot day.  Nice find!

I had along as my guest a new friend visiting from Portugal, Joao Santos, fashion blogger at The Glam Life Diary and a fellow craft beer aficionado.  

We loved the sushi from Fuji At Kendall.  Several varieties were provided for tasting.  Other favorite tastes included the Green Garbanzo Hummus from Tony Maws at Craigie On Main, delicious sips from Roxy's A4cade, a stellar Short Rib And Cornbread from Andy Husbands at The Smoke Shop and a perfect pasta dish (with an incredible sauce) from Dante DeMagistris of Dante.

The Royal Sonesta in Cambridge provided the stunning backdrop of the Boston skyline, albeit damp, as hundreds of guests enjoyed the many plates of food, drinks and dessert before an auction and dancing to live music rounded out the night.

The evening raised $400,000 for East End House which does so much great work for children, teens and families in Cambridge. Plaudits to them and their team for their ongoing success.  We were glad to be a small part of it.

Taste Of WGBH 2016 - Artisan Taste

Future Chefs were well-represented (here by Geral of Everett High School) at Artisan Taste. 

It's been a beautiful weekend so far for the Taste Of WGBH Food & Wine Festival 2016.  This afternoon we were invited to attend the Artisan Taste held in the backlot at WGBH Studios featuring lots of local food and drink.  It was also the chance to rub elbows with the hosts of some of our favorite WGBH cooking show hosts such as Kevin Dundon of Modern Irish Food and Mary Ann Esposito of Ciao Italia (America's longest running cooking show).

Chatting with the vendors and volunteers and saying hello to as many of the Future Chefs, who helped the chefs and restaurants and for whom we've been a longtime supporter and volunteer, occupied most of our time but we also caught a great cooking demo by Andy Husbands of The Smoke Shop.  Some of our favorite dishes were the Chicken and Chorizo Tacos from The Farmer's Daughter and the Porchetta Tartine from Commune Kitchen in Arlington.  Our favorite craft brew was the Zeppelin, a hefeweizen from Revival Brewing in Rhode Island.  Our best find of all, however, was the Hakutsuru Sake table where there was a long line of primarily young people all exclaiming their surprise at how great the sake was after trying it, many of them for the first time.  We liked the Sparkling offering but the Plum Wine was the absolute hit of the event for us.  Enjoy the photos!  The Festival continues through Sunday.