Chefs Know It’s Nice to Share

The adage about too many cooks will once again be proven wrong when 11 Orange County chefs create a five-course gourmet feast for the upcoming Share Our Selves benefit.

The chefs met last week to divide up their duties and start planning the menu for the second annual Celebrity Chefs Dinner, to be held at 6:30 p.m., April 23, at the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Center in Costa Mesa. The dinner costs $175 per person, and 250 guests are expected. Proceeds will go to the Costa Mesa-based Share Our Selves Orange Aid Kitchen Project to help feed the needy.

Rubbing Elbows

For the chefs, working on the dinner is a chance to mingle and have fun with their peers.

“I’m learning a lot--there are some great chefs here,” said Michael Kang, owner of Five Feet and Five Feet Too restaurants, who will co-chair the dinner with Hal Rosoff, owner of the Back Bay Rowing and Running Club and Meyerhof’s Catering. “It’s a great pleasure working with them; we always share a little kitchen humor.”

First-timer Sarah Scott, the new chef at the Mondavi center, is bracing for the invasion of chefs in her kitchen.

“I welcome them with open arms--I just hope they clean up after themselves,” she joked.

Planning the Menu

Kang divided the group into five teams and assigned them each a course: Rosanne Ruiz of Sorrento Grill will join Hans Prager and Claude Koeberle of the Ritz in Newport Beach in preparing an appetizer; Pascal Olhats of Pascal’s and Scott will fix the salad; Kang and Alan Greeley of the Golden Truffle in Costa Mesa will prepare a fish course; Christian Rassinoux of the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point and Jean-Pierre Lemanissier of Antoine’s at Le Meridien in Newport Beach will prepare a venison dish; Ted Gray of the Newport Meat Co. and John McLaughlin of JW’s at the Anaheim Marriott will make dessert. A selection of Robert Mondavi wines will accompany the meal.

“We pick the courses, but we try to leave as much creativity to the chefs as possible,” Kang said.

Organizers hope to raise $65,000 from the dinner. Eighty percent of the proceeds will be used to complete the Orange Aid Kitchen, which will receive food leftover from local restaurants, hotels and caterers and distribute it to more than 30,000 people per month in Orange County. Twenty percent of funds raised will go to Share Our Strength, a national organization that fights hunger.

Reservations for the dinner are available by calling (714) 723-4159. Dress is “Anything but Formal.” John Martin, president of Taco Bell Corp., is honorary chairman.

To give supporters a taste of what’s to come, there will be a “Schmooze with the Orange Aid Chefs” reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Sfuzzi in Costa Mesa. Hors d’oeuvres from Sfuzzi and Robert Mondavi wines will be served, and the cost is $25 per person with proceeds going to support the S.O.S. dinner.

No reservations are needed, but for information call the Mondavi center at 979-4510.