Tampa's Toast & Taste Saturday night

Tampa’s Toast & Taste takes place on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Taps, a benefit for Best Buddies Tampa, which enhances the lives of people with intellectual disabilities through friendships and jobs.The evening's activities including samplings of Barefoot wines, Blackstone wines, and Louis Pappas’ homemade sangria. There will be live and silent auction, special guests and an official after-party next door at Rawbar Sushi. ABC Action News TV Host Kellie Lightbourn will be emceeing the event. Taps Beer and Wine Merchants, 777 North Ashley Drive, Tampa. For more information, call (813) 254-9025.                        

Sonny's March of Dimes push

Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q is re-launching Baby Backs for Babies, the second annual system-wide cause-related effort to benefit the March of Dimes, from October 26th thru November 29th. A portion of the proceeds from every baby-back plate in all participating locations across the Southeast will benefit the March of Dimes and its work to help all babies be born healthy. Sonny’s has committed to raise a minimum of $25,000 and will hopefully surpass this number as the company did last cycle by raising $33,000 for March of Dimes.

12 th Annual “All That Glitters” bash

MacDonald Training Center, serving individuals with disabilities in our community, will hold its annual All That Glitters bash at the T. Pepin Hospitality Center on Saturday, September 26 from 7 to 10 p.m. Over 500 guests annually attend to enjoy a festive evening of food and beverage sampling, live entertainment, casino games and one of the largest and most comprehensive silent auctions in the area. Corporate sponsors of the event include Southern Wines and Spirits, Infinium Spirits, Pepin Distributing Company, MIX 100.7, ABC News, CW44, the Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Metro Magazine and other prominent Bay area businesses and professionals. Restaurant participants range from Timpano’s Chophouse to No Ho Bistro, Cilantro Indian Cuisine, The Venue and others. For more information, call (813) 870-1300.

Chefs James Canter and Richard Bottini throw a benefit for Seminole Heights Community Garden

Yeesh, that was a long title. Maybe just "I Heart James Canter and Richard Bottini." The latter is the chef/owner of Tampa's Six Tables and the former is the chef of the soon-to-be Tampa Gastropub. Together these two friends are putting together a dinner Saturday (July 11) to benefit the fledgling Seminole Heights Community Garden. There will be two seatings at Six Tables, 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., with dinner reservations made by calling (813) 207-0527. The dinner is $100 per person, inclusive of tax and gratuity.

Here's a menu preview: After an amuse bouche, enjoy a Myakka River sturgeon confit with celery shoots, black olive puree and a malt vinegar gastric, paired with a bit of bubbly. Then there's a salad of grilled dandelion greens with candied vidalia onions, Zellwood corn pate and lemon coulis, this course paired with an herbal sauvignon blanc. From here it's a hanger steak with slow-roasted heirloom tomatoes, baby arugula and a red wine-shallot butter, served wtih a malbec, merlot or tempranillo. For dessert, it's a mamey mousse with vanilla-papaya cream, served with a glass of white port or muscat. Much of the produce from the dinner will be sourced locally. For more information, go here. Six Tables is located at 4267 Henderson Blvd., Tampa.

Local restaurants doing good works

Wow, listen to how all these restos are giving back to the community:

On Thursday, Keller-Williams Realty will be spearheading a project to distribute vials to people on medication. These vials are placed in a location that first responders in a medical emergency can find information that can save lives and get people the care they need immediately. Partners in this project include the American Red Cross and Morton Plant Mease Hospital. Pick up your Vial of Life at two convenient locations in this area: Maggie Mae's on the Bluffs at 2961 West Bay Drive, Belleair Bluffs (7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) or Backwaters on Sand Key at 1261 Gulf Blvd., Clearwater (11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.).

Next Thursday, May 21, from 7 to 10 p.m., there will be a night to benefit Project Akilah at The Lime in South Tampa. There will be a short presentation at 7:45 p.m. about the program that provides Rwandan young women with the skills and training to find meaningful employment, lifting themselves and their families from poverty. All proceeds from the event will support the Akilah Institute, a training and leadership school for young women in Rwanda. For more information about the program, here is a video of the school in Rwanda.915 S. Howard Ave., Tampa, (813) 868-LIME.

And then, of course, A Taste of Pinellas is coming up May 29 to 31, benefiting All Children’s Hospital. The event returns to Vinoy Park with a mix of the area’s top restaurants, national music acts, interactive games, fireworks, and lots of other family-friendly fun. This year’s music includes Lita Ford, Night Ranger, Travis Tritt, and KC & the Sunshine Band. Admission is free; patrons purchase sheets of tickets to sample the various foods. For a lineup of participating restaurants, go here. Or here on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tasteofpinellas.

 
 

“Eat for Good” at Restaurant BT

Like we don't already have enough reasons to be moony-eyed over hotshot Tampa chef B.T. Nguyen. She's just announced a new seasonal menu of affordable small plates and drinks created with the goal of giving back to the community.  The "Eat for Good" menu starts May 22, 10 percent of each check going to benefit the Kids’ Café program of America’s Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, one of the nation’s largest meal service programs providing free, nutritious meals to hungry children.

Florida alone has more than 650,000 children at risk of hunger with 1 in 10 Florida households suffering the effects of hunger and poverty. Currently, Kids’ Café serves hundreds of local children,
ages 5-12, on a daily basis.

A preview of some of the menu selections include:

• Prawn mousse on sugar cane: Fresh sugar cane grilled with Gulf prawns. Served wrapped in organic greens with herbs and tamarind-peanut dipping sauce.

• Grilled beef in wild beetlenut leaf: Beef tenderloin, cinnamon, garlic and lemongrass rolled in wild beetlenut leaf. Grilled and served with a zesty chili, lime and garlic sauce.

• Trio  of  soups: Three individual small soups as veloute of leek, potato and white truffle; asparagus, snow flake mushrooms and Dungeness crab; and vegetarian pumpkin with coconut broth and roasted peanuts and scallions.

• Wild Scottish smoked salmon with capers, red onion and home made creme fraiche.

• Hawaiian hearts of palm with organic goat cheese, jicama and Asian pear. Dijon, blood orange and champagne drizzles.

Restaurant BT is located at 1633 West Snow Ave. in Tampa, (813) 258-1916.
      

Dine Out for Life

Next Thursday, April 30, Tampa Bay area residents will have an opportunity to contribute to a worthy cause by simply enjoying a meal out on the town. Just dine at any of the participating restaurants during their hours of participation and 25 percent of your bill will be donated to AIDS Service Association of Pinellas (ASAP) to benefit families, children and adults living with HIV/AIDS. Diners can also enter a drawing for great prizes. Go here for more information about participating restaurants, hours, prizes and special festivities during the event.

Earth Day: Five ways to eat green

 

Beyond navigating what’s healthy and what’s not, conscientious diners increasingly consider which foods are good for the planet and which ones contribute to problems like global warming and insufficient supply. Here are five things to satisfy belly and conscience:

1. Embrace eco-friendly packaging. The hottest trend in the wine industry is wine in a box. This isn’t your grandma’s Franzia pink plonk. Juice box-like "TetraPaks," spigotted bag-in-a-box setups and even plastic bottles are estimated to result in as much as 85 percent less landfill waste than regular 750 ml glass bottles. Also, look for screw-capped or plastic-corked bottles and consider recycling your natural corks through programs like TerraCycle (mail corks to 121 New York Ave, Trenton, NJ 08638).

2. Consider energy in versus energy out. It takes 958 liters of water to make one liter of orange juice. And when buying fish, choose low-on-the-food-chain species like farm-raised tilapia, which provides more protein than it takes to raise it. (By contrast, farm-raised tuna or salmon eat far more protein than their own final weight). For a guide to smart fish choices, consult Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch (www.montereybayaquarium.org), which now offers a downloadable iPhone app.

3. Drink tap. Plastic leaching into water sources, overcrowded landfill — plastic water bottles cause all kinds of problems. Go to H2OConserve.org to calculate your water footprint.

4. Go veggie at least once a week. Meat production is so energy-intensive that studies indicate meat eaters cause a ton and a half more carbon dioxide emissions than vegetarians in the production and transportation of their food. It’s also healthy: The recommended daily allowance of meat is 5.5 ounces. Americans currently average 8.4 ounces per day. Visit meatlessmonday.com for ideas.

5. Exert pressure. Ask your favorite restaurant to consider new takeout packaging materials. There are cornstarch and potato starch disposable flatware and cups and recyclable paperboard that are nearly the same cost as those Styrofoam clamshells that are crowding landfills.

[photo Leo Reynolds]

Up with green

According to Nation's Restaurant News, a new study indicates "green" restaurants may have a competitive edge:

"In an online poll of 2,014 adults conducted late last month by Harris Interactive, 73 percent of respondents said they still buy "green." Of those, only 8 percent said they've reduced their green purchases because of the down-trending economy, while 26 percent reported that they are buying more green products and services. The remainder of respondents said they are buying about the same amount as before.

The poll also found that restaurants that operate in an eco-friendly manner may win more consumer traffic. The study offered participants a scenario of two restaurants identical in food, service and price, but Restaurant A had a green focus while Restaurant B did not. Seventeen percent of respondents said they would choose eco-friendly Restaurant A even if the wait time was longer than it was at Restaurant B. An additional 21 percent said they would visit "green" Restaurant A if the wait times were the same."

To read the rest, go here.

 

Globe Coffee Lounge and Art for Africa

St. Petersburg's Globe Coffee Lounge is embarking on a new project called Art for Africa. They are collecting art books for the Hope Library in Nairobi. The "hope" is that the Globe will collect books about art, photography, sculpture and more, for both kids and adults (not great big coffee table books, unless you want to help with $$$ for the shipping). The books do not have to be new--drop them off at Globe (532 1st Ave. N.) during business hours until Saturday, May 23.