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“The Next Course” Youth Home Benefit Highlights Chefs and How-Tos

September 23, 2013 by arfoodie

Roasted Fall Salad with Farrow, to be served and demonstrated at The Next Course for Youth Home.

Roasted Root Vegetable and Farro Salad, to be served and demonstrated at The Next Course for Youth Home.

In a delightful new fundraiser format, the upcoming The Next Course gala event for Youth Home will not only feature amazing, seasonal food from local chefs, it will teach attendees how to make each course at home.

Last week, I got a sneak peek at some of the courses and the instructional videos that will be shown during the event. I’m not allowed to spill the details just yet, but I can tell you two things: 1) the food will be fresh, seasonal and stunning, and 2) you WILL learn something, even if you don’t cook.

Okay, maybe that was more than two things. Just trust me, it will be an amazing event.

As guests enjoy each course of the dinner, they will receive video how-tos to recreate the dishes themselves by Chef Shane Henderson of Ben E. Keith and Chef Stephen Burrow of the Clinton Presidential Center, along with his Sous Chef Jackson Bolton and Pastry Chef Anne Woodson. Guests will also take home detailed recipe cards for each dish.

Youth Home is a private, non-profit psychiatric center for emotionally troubled adolescents and their families. With state-of-the-art residential treatment, as well as day and outpatient services, Youth Home serves an important role in the wellness of our community.

During last winter’s snowstorms, the facility went without power for several days, causing a major setback for the facility and its residents. Food went bad. Medicine ruined. And spirits dampened. With funds raised by The Next Course, Youth Home will purchase power generators to avoid a similar situation in the future.

As the Official Blog Partner for the event, Fancy Pants Foodie will bring you more stories about Youth Home and The Next Course. I hope you’ll stay tuned for that.

But more importantly, I hope you’ll buy a ticket or two, or even sponsor a table. Join us at The Next Course, learn a few things, and help improve the lives of young people right here in Little Rock!

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The Next Course
Benefiting Youth Home
Thursday, October 3
7 p.m.
Great Hall of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library
$100 for individual tickets, or $150 to include VIP cocktail hour
Sponsorships available at $1250 (includes 8 VIP tickets)
Click here to purchase tickets

Filed Under: Events, Foodie News Tagged With: Anne Woodson, Jackson Bolton, Shane Henderson, Stephen Burrow, The Next Course, Youth Home

Feeding Arkansas’ Hungry Kids, One Celeb Chef at a Time (No Kid Hungry Little Rock Dinner 2012)

August 1, 2012 by arfoodie

Lovely table settings by Share Our Strength staff and volunteers.

Tuesday night, Governor Mike Beebe told a sold-out crowd at the Oxford American headquarters that Arkansas has become a success “poster child” for the No Kid Hungry program of Share Our Strength, the nonprofit group working to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. And based on the results of the event, raising over $30 thousand with a night of spectacular culinary achievement, I am not at all surprised.

The local chef rock stars who cooked for the event included Jeffrey Owen of the Capitol Hotel, Brian Deloney of Maddie’s Place, Kelli Marks of Sweet Love and a host of rising-star culinarians and other volunteers. The out-of-towners included two Top Chef graduates: John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford, Miss. (Top Chef Masters, season 3) and Marcel Vigneron of Modern Global Tasting Inc. in Los Angeles (Top Chef, season 2).

Share Our Strength is holding other No Kid Hungry Dinners across the country to raise funds for their worthy programs, including the Cooking Matters program I had the privilege to teach this summer. The secondary purpose, however, is to create a buzz, getting folks together who love to cook, love to eat and love to make sure our kids have the opportunity to do both.

Behind the scenes was an absolute hoot. The best thing about being one of those up-and-coming culinary types is being able to schlep into these things as extra hands, learning from everyone there. I was able to help plate dishes, wipe other dishes down (the rental company didn’t send them all clean!), even deliver dishes to the waiting crowd of about 120 guests.

I absolutely loved watching the chefs prepare their dishes. Each chef, from the locals to the guest chefs, had something extraordinary to offer. As I watched Vigneron finish his plates of pea soup with peas, salmon, beets, beet ice cream and a beet chip, I was astounded by the level of mastery. And, honestly, at that point in the evening I hadn’t even realized why he looked so darn familiar! (I’ll tell you this: His jerk persona on Top Chef was all editing. He’s a doll.)

The other chefs all brought their own passions, as well. Currence was especially passionate about the Cooking Matters program, telling me about the Chefs Move to Schools kickoff event he helped cook for at the White House earlier this year. He said it was essential that we work to get kids excited about healthy cooking, just as previous generations of kids were the family catalysts for litter control and recycling.

Our own local chefs created amazing dishes, as well. Owen’s cocktail-hour appetizers reflected the precision and depth of flavor that embodies the Capitol Hotel. Deloney presented the first course, a “muffaletta” napoleon of heirloom tomatoes, showcasing the beauty of fresh, seasonal ingredients. Newcomer Kelli Marks astounded the seasoned veterans with her light, perfectly balanced cheesecakes. (Vigneron loved them.) And without credit on the program, former Argenta Market chef Shane Henderson, now with Ben E. Keith, prepared beautiful vegetarian entrees on the fly for those who requested them.

Before the event even got rolling, the former-PR-person in me had to go work the crowd during cocktail hour. Turns out I walked by just as P. Allen Smith was walking in, as he was one of the guest speakers for the event. Bless his heart, the awesome ladies who came in from Share Our Strength in Washington, D.C. didn’t know who he was! I helped them all alleviate the situation without anybody getting embarrassed. My reward: Soiree and the Dem-Gaz snapping photos of me with said Mr. Smith. The white coat, they love it, even if I’m a nobody.

I may write a separate post about just hanging out with these awesome folks all evening. It’s a story unto itself. But, for now, enjoy these photos knowing that we’re this much closer to No Kid Hungry in Arkansas.

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Filed Under: Events, Foodie News Tagged With: Brian DeLoney, Cooking Matters, Donnie Ferneau, Jeffrey Owen, John Currence, Kelli Marks, Little Rock, Marcel Vigneron, No Kid Hungry, No Kid Hungry Dinner, Shane Henderson, Share Our Strength

Long-Awaited Argenta Market Prepares to Open Doors April 1

March 1, 2010 by arfoodie

UPDATE: Chef Shane has nudged the opening date to April 15. And he really, really means it this time. April Fools to whoever came by on the 1st, I guess.

Walking in the back door of the long-awaited Argenta Market a little over a week ago, I couldn’t help but think of E.T.

You know, the movie…in the 80s…never mind. If you’re under 30, Google it.

The entire 7,000-square-foot space was partitioned with giant sheets of plastic wrap, much like the foreign creature’s host house in the movie. Workers busily scraped and sanded walls, creating a dreamy haze of sheetrock dust.

Store Proprietor and Chef Shane Henderson

But this dream is no science fiction for proprietor and chef Shane Henderson, who has scheduled the store, a mix of local and mass-produced groceries as well as site-made culinary creations, to finally open on April 1. No fooling.

“People were wondering if we’d ever actually open,” Henderson said of numerous delays in opening the market. “I think we ended up with a better store with the delays than if we’d opened one year ago as planned. I think we’d be closed by now if that had happened.

Henderson cites lessons learned from months of research and changes in focus, as well as the demise of similar shops in the metro area.

One critical decision, Henderson said, was that to include recognizable, mass-produced grocery brands as well as local ones.

“A lot of people were really shocked at (our decision),” Henderson said. “But we had to look at it from a market survival perspective; we’ll be serving the folks who live right around here as a local grocery as well as people looking for the specialty items.”

Jody Hardin, executive director of the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market program, has stepped out of the day-to-day limelight in regards to the Market, although he remains a partner and connection-maker between the store and Arkansas farmers.

Possibly the smartest move made by Henderson and Hardin was to hire Neal Augustine of Benton, a 30+-year veteran grocery manager, to serve as manager of the market.

Store Manager Neal Augustine and Henderson

“I started as a kid, as a bag boy to make some money, and just worked my way up,” said Augustine of his career in grocery management. He has served as manager for Harvest Foods until its demise; before that, he worked for Kroger for 20 years and Winn Dixie for 12 years.

Augustine lit up while listing some of Argenta Market’s upcoming features: seven aisles of basic and upscale nonperishable grocery items, with a notable focus on local, sustainable foods; several varieties of specialty and local cheeses and milk; standard, import and local beers, such as Diamond Bear; frozen foods including Yarnell’s ice cream, Amy’s Organics items, store-made products and exotic meats; bulk bins featuring local coffee, grains and rice, including basmati and jasmine.

“The meats will definitely be the coolest thing for the home cook,” Henderson added. “And we’ll have more specialty items to play with, ingredients you can’t get at Walmart or Kroger.”

The market will also provide Henderson the opportunity to get back in the kitchen as a chef, a passion which has been delayed as construction made the site’s kitchen unusable. He plans to offer up to a dozen specialty sandwiches on the deli menu, at least four ready-to-eat items and house-made artisan breads, plus improvisations based on what is fresh that week. He may even get into producing charcuterie (house-made sausage) each week, as well as being able to connect customers’ requests with Arkansas vendors whenever possible.

“The good thing about being our size,” he explained, “is that when people have special requests we can serve their needs. In the future, we’ll even offer online ordering. If you want goat in two weeks, we’ll be able to handle that for you.”

The market will have a full-service deli using Arkansas-based Petit Jean meats, a 6-foot salad bar featuring locally-grown products and seating with a great community view for 24, including Arkansas-roasted RoZark Hills cappuccino and coffee for purchase and free Wi-Fi provided by Urban Wireless.

Henderson, who is also an instructor at Pulaski Technical College Arkansas Culinary School, said he hopes culinary students will come in and look around “just to learn what all is out there.”

“For example, in my kitchen, I use at least five different kinds of salt,” he said. “There are so many different things you can do with it to create different tastes and textures.”

Argenta Market sits, at 6th and Main, in the very center of the Argenta Community Development Corporation‘s plans for the growing, trendy segment of downtown North Little Rock.

“They have plans for this area to be a walking residential and retail community, and geographically, we are right in the middle of it,” Henderson said. “It wasn’t planned that way, but it’s a happy accident.”

Argenta Market
6th and Main Streets (521 Main St.)
North Little Rock, AR
(501) 379-9980
www.argentamarket.com

Filed Under: Foodie News, PTC_ACS, Resources Tagged With: Argenta, Argenta Market, North Little Rock, Shane Henderson

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