Just A Shameless Shill

[ngatti]

Great Grill and Pig-Out

My favorite charity. I'm the restaurant coordinator for these events. It's always a great couple of nights with much food and drink. The resto lineups are a varied and select bunch. The auction items are also excellent.

Thanks eGullet

Nick

[maggiethecat]

Nick:

Would I could be there! Good luck.

Best,

Maggie

[Lreda]

Nick, I'm off on Thursdays and would like to help. Let me know if I can either help you in the kitchen or by attending. Looks like a lot of fun. Just one thing, I've got no idea where the hell Alpine is!!!

Congrats on the Times article.

Lou

[Bond Girl]

Nick,

I'd be there if this weren't Jersey. As a native New Yorker without a driver's license, transportation is limited.

[ngatti]

Lou and others. If you want to help. Sure!! I need runners and people assigned to the chefs as gophers. We can also use general volunteers. Maybe next year American Grill would like to participate. The event committee is always looking for a few good men and women. It's a very cool feel good thing, but I warn you, you'll work your ass off.

Otherwise. Buy tickets. It's a great cause. I think our expense ratio is less than 10%. The rest goes to pay drivers, gas trucks, etc...

I'm working on a bit of a surprise for the Alpine event. Going to be a few more celebrity chefs, in addition to Charlie Palmer. These are also pretty cool social scenes. This is Bergen/Hudson/Passaic's version of City Harvest. I think we pick up food in Rockland also.

I'll be attending the Hackensack Golf Club event as a guest. All tricked out in a monkey suit and pompodour. C'mon; All that great food and Eric Ripert to boot!

Nick

[ngatti]

bringing this back up, as the dates are getting closer.

Thanks

Nick

[ngatti]

edit: sorry

Edited April 16, 2003 by ngatti (log)

[Suzanne F]

Nick, is that your hair holding up the tent ceiling in last year's picture?

[ngatti]

Yeah , That's me on david Burke's left

[suzilightning]

gosh darn it nick-

it's my wedding anniversary too but we're down the shore

maybe next year - and i'd be happy to volunteer as a kitchen slave

[Nockerl]

Hey Folks, please don't forget this wonderful event. It's for a great cause that supports the NJ Table To Table Organization. And our very own Fink's Funky is involved. Not to mention the guy with the Pompadour who will remain nameless unless you read here very carefully here.......

Edited April 30, 2003 by Nockerl (log)

[Nockerl]

Anyone going?

[Nick]

Anyone going?

When is it? Where is it?

You've got to go to Nick's link at the first post, wait an hour for the site to load, and then, if you read carefully, you'll see that it's at the Alpine on May 15th.

Just bustin' chops.

[Nockerl]

The Great Grill and Pig Out at the Alpine Country Club (Home Turf of Chef Nicholas Gatti) is on May 15th and is a fund raiser for Table to Table. Please do your part and join hundreds of other New Jersey folk help raise money for a super cause.

Table to Table is the sister organization to City Harvest in NYC. Currently Table to Table, through the generous donations it has received, is able to supply needy folks with meals at the incredible cost of only 11 cents a meal. Help them continue to to do this work. Please do your part. Hope to see you there!

Click here for details and the restaurant line up. Fink's is a gonna be there!

[Jason Perlow]

The Great Grill and Pig Out at the Alpine Country Club (Home Turf of Chef Nicholas Gatti) is on May 15th and is a fund raiser for Table to Table. Please do your part and join hundreds of other New Jersey folk help raise money for a super cause.

Table to Table is the sister organization to City Harvest in NYC. Currently Table to Table, through the generous donations it has received, is able to supply needy folks with meals at the incredible cost of only 11 cents a meal. Help them continue to to do this work. Please do your part. Hope to see you there!

Click here for details and the restaurant line up. Fink's is a gonna be there!

$150 per person though... ouch

[Nockerl]

The Great Grill and Pig Out at the Alpine Country Club (Home Turf of Chef Nicholas Gatti) is on May 15th and is a fund raiser for Table to Table. Please do your part and join hundreds of other New Jersey folk help raise money for a super cause.

Table to Table is the sister organization to City Harvest in NYC. Currently Table to Table, through the generous donations it has received, is able to supply needy folks with meals at the incredible cost of only 11 cents a meal. Help them continue to to do this work. Please do your part. Hope to see you there!

Click here for details and the restaurant line up. Fink's is a gonna be there!

$150 per person though... ouch

But the $$ does go to a great cause.

Look at it this way, how much money do you spend to eat out in any given week? Maybe close to that? IF so, using that same money at the Pig Out helps a great cause and allows you to sample grub from a lot more restaurants than if you went and had dinner at 1 or 2.

Edited May 2, 2003 by Nockerl (log)

[Rosie]

Part of the cost is tax deductable. Info was on Table Hopping With Rosie last week.

http://www.njmonthly.com/issues/May03/rosi.../rnews0422.html

[Nick]

$150 per person though... ouch

$75 per person would seem more reasonable. Maybe it's limited seating.

[tommy]

Part of the cost is tax deductable.

part or all? either way, since it's less than 150 (more like 90/100 after tax considerations?) and there is no tipping i'd imagine, it's not that much considering the cause, and considering you get to see nick's hair.

[Nockerl]

$150 per person though... ouch

$75 per person would seem more reasonable. Maybe it's limited seating.

It's Bergen County NJ. High median income.....

[msp]

The point of this event is to raise money for people-- families, children, who don't have enough money to put food on the table.

Have you ever been hungry? Truly, painfully hungry?The kind of hunger that sears through your belly, making you feel hot and cold and weak, that takes over your brain so there seems to be nothing in the world to think about except your need to eat.

Now seat yourself at your favorite restaurant. It's the end of the meal and you are uncomfortably full. You've been sitting there for hours, and the place is ready to close. In the kitchen, the chef looks at his counter with dismay. He cooked more than he needed, and now it will have to be tossed.

It's so easy, so obvious. All we have to do is get that extra food to the child who can't think about anything other than the pain of hunger. All we have to do is pay for the refrigerated trucks that bring the food where it's needed-- for ELEVEN CENTS A MEAL!!!

So let's look at the $150. That meal we just ate cost, say, $50. (And it wasn't all-you-can-eat from top local chefs, either) So let's take the $50 out of the $150, leaving the evening costing $100. After all, we pay to eat under any circumstance. So we've given $100 for charity, while eating this great fare. For that $100 you just fed 909 meals to families.

And regardless of your politics, please bear in mind the very, very important fact that the MAJORITY of hunger in New Jersey occurs in the working poor--people who have jobs and are doing the best they can.

If you kept the $100, you might have eaten two meals with it.

Please don't look at the cost of this event as what you might be willing to spend going out to dinner. Think of the 909 meals you got in addition to what you normally pay for yours. And then gloat about the power of your money, be proud of your choice to use it in such a smart way.

[Nick]

Got an email and it turns out that 90% of the money collected from this will actually go to helping feed people that need it. And while I couldn't afford $150 a plate, I guess there are folks in that area that can. Sounds like a good deal. Folks with the money get to eat at the Alpine, and the folks that are hungry get something to eat.

[Rachel Perlow]

Marge has some great points about how the money is spent. However, there is no need to "guilt" people into going to a charity event like a suburban Sally Struthers. Just because someone chooses not to attend an event doesn't mean they're socially irresponsible.

eGullet welcomes the posting of all sorts of charitable events. One time I was telling someone about eGullet and they asked about if we could possibly post about such an event for them, who should they contact, how much would such an ad cost, etc. So we just explained that they can log on and do it themselves and of course, it would cost them nothing, which of course, was very pleasing to them. However, I don't think these types of threads should be a venue for people to make others feel bad if they choose not to participate.

Edited May 5, 2003 by Rachel Perlow (log)

[msp]

Oh dear, was I just likened to a suburban Sally Struthers???

I am baffled that my meaning was so frighteningly misconstrued. I certainly would not attempt to "guilt" anyone into giving to charity.

In fact I was responding to an avid diner-out remarking that the cost seemed steep. It was merely the value of the $150 to which I was pointing.

Edited May 5, 2003 by msp (log)

[tommy]

Oh dear, was I just likened to a suburban Sally Struthers???

you're much more attractive. of this i'm sure.

but you gotta admit, your emotional plea was a little over-the-top.