June 10, 2008

Wow. Wow. Wow. Um, readers? You BLOW MY FREAKING MIND. I can't begin to thank you all so much for your remarkable generosity in helping to provide funds for the tablehopper/CHEFS (Conquering Homelessness through Employment in Food Service) dinner out. So far we have raised over $600! I will definitely report back with a final figure—the checks just kept coming. I don't have enough superlatives to possibly express how touched I am with your donations, and thank you for the nice notes too. So kind.

And here's where it gets even more amazing: spontaneously came forward and offered to host the dinner for free. A huge thanks to GM Michael Shaulis and executive chef Jessica Gorin for their oh-so-kind hospitality. I will be sure to let you all know how it goes!

Since the donated funds are suddenly not needed for this upcoming dinner, I am either going to hang onto them for another outing for the next CHEFS class/session… or I also have an awesome food-centric field trip idea (involving a farm, and a meal)! I'll run it by you shortly, for now, please know everyone at the CHEFS organization, the students and the staff, are all so touched and grateful for this outpouring of support and generosity. Y'all are the BEST. (Oh, and if you want to come out and play with me this Friday evening, I'll be at the CHEFS fundraiser, SummerTini! Hope to see you there!)

Yours truly has a couple upcoming appearances this week! First, I'll be back on The View from the Bay! This Thursday will be an in-studio appearance (the show is from 3pm–4pm on ABC 7), and I'll be talking about three of my local faves for affordable and unique eats.

Then, this Sunday June 15th (Father's Day) I will be on for my monthly appearance on A Matter of Taste with Rachel and David Michael Cane on Green 960AM. They have changed their hours to each Sunday from 11am until noon—listen in!

And since you all rock so hard, I am doing a giveaway of a couple copies of a very summer-appropriate book: Grilled Pizzas and Piadinas from chef Craig Priebe (the former owner of C.K's Wood Grilled Pizza in Atlanta). The materials I've read deem this kind of pizza "the ultimate thin crust" and you get some smokiness too. Sounds pretty good, no? Priebe will be appearing at Macy's Cellar on Wed. June 25th at 6pm if you want to check it out.

Here's how to enter to win a copy of the book: just forward this newsletter to two pals (or more, thanks!) and cc (or BCC) luckyme [at] tablehopper [dot] com when you send it to your peeps—it's best if you explain why you're emailing it to them, or at least include something about tablehopper.com. I promise I won't be collecting your friends' emails, those will stay private—I just need to keep track that you forwarded it to two or more folks. The deadline to enter is by midnight, Sunday June 15th. I will be randomly drawing the winner and will email you to let you know you've won next week. Maybe you can even bring it to the Macy's Cellar demo and get it signed on the 25th! Good luck!

Thanks to everyone for everything you do and are!

~Marcia