Chicago Chefs Organize Katrina Fundraiser

By Erin in Food on Sep 2, 2005 12:04PM

There are so, so many immediate things of which to mourn and be saddened by over the course of these past few days. Please excuse the phrase, but once Chicagoist starts thinking of all of the ways in which Katrina is fucking up the lives of our friends down south, we can barely wrap our brains around it all.

One of New Orleans biggest sources of revenue is its tourism industry and within that group lies its restaurants and the many people who own, operate and work in them. Considered the birthplace of some of the finest cuisine in the world, they are one of many industries Katrina has hit hard and subsequently touched off a response from their culinary brethren here in Chicago.

Jimmy Banos, owner of Heaven on Seven, is organizing a fundraiser to assist in relief efforts and to keep the culinary culture of The Big Easy alive and well. Chicagoist knows that to some such a thing doesn't seem to mean much right now but there are fundamentals at the heart of so many communities that fuel the very spirit that moves them: food in Cajun country is but one of them. Chicagoist gives props to Banos for his response.

For $50 a person, the fundraising dinner, according to the Trib, will feature area chefs such as Gabriel Viti, Scott Harris, Tony Priolo, Patrick Concannon, Tony Mantuano and Martial Noguier and is tentatively scheduled to be held at McCormick Place. The list of chefs, they say, keeps getting bigger.