By Tabi Secor
Famed chef Wolfgang Puck will be visiting the college for a special night of food on Saturday, Aug. 25.
The event, “Spice! with Wolfgang Puck,” will be held in honor of Marc Valiani, a chef who worked under Puck. Valiani also worked in the Kansas City area as executive chef of PB&J Restaurants. He died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) in 2011.
The dinner will be hosted by the college’s foundation.
“We are the charitable arm of the college, so we can accept donations for the college,” said Kate Allen, executive director, Institutional Advancement.
Tickets to the event ranged from $2,500 to $25,000. So far, 210 tickets have been sold through the Foundation, making the event essentially sold out.
“We had to be careful with our price point, to make sure that we raise as much as we could and still fill the room,” Allen said.
The money raised from the event will go to three different areas. One-third will go to the new Hospitality & Culinary Academy, one-third will go to chef apprenticeship scholarships, and one-third will go to The Marc Valiani Foundation.
Kaymie Valiani, Marc Valiani’s wife, approached the college when she moved back to the area. She wanted to help raise money for culinary scholarships.
“She decided she wanted to do a fundraiser for the culinary building, scholarships for hospitality, because Marc was really one of the chefs that liked to teach the young chefs, and for ALS,” said Lindy Robinson, dean, Business.
The dinner will be held in the Capitol Federal Conference Room in the Regnier Center. Allen said that some individual tickets have been sold, but most have come through outside entities such as local hospitals, banks and Farmland Foods.
“In many cases, it’s the first time we’ve received donations from those companies, so that’s a really great new relationship that we’ve been able to start because of the event,” Allen said.
Students will also be involved with the event. There will be 17 apprentices from the college’s culinary program who will help assist Wolfgang’s crew of six chefs and a pastry chef. Two chefs from the college’s culinary program, Eddie Adel and Felix Sturmer, will also assist. Students will also work in the front of the room with guests.
“This is a very heavily student involved event,” Sturmer said. “They want as many students as possible.”
Robinson said this kind of event is very important to students in the culinary program.
“I think it’s great for them to be able to work with crews of this caliber,” she said. “Right now Wolfgang Puck owns the most prestigious restaurant in [Los Angeles] called CUT. There is a level of chefs out there that are really renowned, so for our students to be able to work with their crews is just fabulous.”
Puck’s visit will signal the first of the ‘Spice!’ series, which will feature chefs of the same caliber.
“This is the beginning,” Robinson said. “We are hoping this will be an ongoing, annual event.”
Sturmer said that the menu will be extensive. It is being mirrored after the dinner Puck prepared for the 2012 Governor’s Ball, the annual dinner held after the Academy Awards. A few of the items from the five-course menu include lobster, Colorado rack of lamb and a carving station serving Snake River Farms ribeye, heirloom tomato salad and roasted garlic potato puree.
Puck has built a food empire that includes Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc.
Contact Tabi Secor, news editor, at tsecor@jccc.edu.