Wellness in the Schools Annual Benefit

Hi foodies! Tuesday, May 22nd, was the Wellness in the Schools Annual Benefit. It was a wonderful event with amazing food and people for a great cause.

Wellness in the Schools is bringing healthy food, environmental awareness and encouraging more activity in school. They provide this for New York City public schools and have now expanded to Kentucky with Florida on their radar as a future project. WITS, created in 2005, is now servicing twenty five schools with their three programs, Cook for Kids, Green for Kids, and Coach for Kids.

The benefit was a blast with a silent auction, a live auction and great food from 26 amazing restaurants. One highlight of the night was the Shrimp Ceviche from Josh Capon of B&B and Lure. It came with a great avocado mousse and I could have just drank the liquid on the bottom all night. Josh became involved with WITS because it hit home. His daughter started school and the lunches were not acceptable. If you did not decide to pack a lunch, the alternative was not good. He said it was time to "rock the boat".

Sue Torres of Sueños, returning for her second year at this event, served a delicious Cochinita Pibil Taco.   The pork was very tasty and the hand-crafted tortilla was like no other. Together it was a spectacular dish. Sue also served chips and a homemade salsa as a vegetarian option. Sue Torres is a pleasure to talk to and her food is out of this world.

The cookies at Levain Bakery were amazing. They are monstrous size cookies that come in four different flavors. Levain Bakery serves Chocolate Chip Walnut, Oatmeal Raisin, Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip, and Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip. These cookies are some of the best I have ever had, and my favorite is the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

At Candle 79, they prepared a plantain chip with an avocado mousse, chipotle sauce and tempeh bacon. Tempeh is a soy product that is cake-like and commonly found in Indonesia. This smokey product acted as a replacement to bacon. The dish was delicious.

Dessert was being made over at Craft's booth with the executive pastry chef Meredith Tomason. She presented a Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta along with cucumber and watercress. It was refreshing and reminded me of the Summer days quickly approaching.

Bill Telepan of Telepan was serving great raw oysters with a cucumber mignonette. Telepan also served a Strawberry Granita Parfait with almonds, verbena cream, and prosecco. This was a beautiful and fresh dessert. Bill is the Executive Chef of Wellness in the Schools and said that he got involved in 2008 with the idea of having volunteers improve the food in schools. The first days that he started helping schools, they set up three programs of salad bar day, vegetarian chili day, and sandwich day. They began hiring employees when there was inconsistency in volunteers skills of being able to cook and having great personalities. They brought the program from three schools to eight schools and by the end of 2011 they were working hard in twenty five schools. Now WITS has just undertaken a huge project of expanding their program to the entire state of Florida.

Guacamole and chips were being served over at AG Kitchen from chef Alex Garcia. AG Kitchen is Alex's new restaurant that will be opening soon. 

Harold Moore, the chef and owner of Commerce Restaurant, prepared a vegetable fricassée with black truffle and a poached egg. The dish was very rich and flavorful. 

A great sausage and peppers sandwich was being served from Marco Canora's Hearth. Yum!

Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern was a pleasure to meet. Gramercy Tavern served Chicken Mortadella with an asparagus salad on a Thai cracker. This was a delicious bite. 

Wellness in the Schools is an amazing organization that just continues to achieve. For more information on this charity click here.

For more pictures on this event go to the Foodie Finders NYC Facebook page. More restaurant reviews and food events in New York City are soon to come.

-Mike