Celebrity Chefs' Brunch hits the spot again

Rick Gresh, chef at David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago, offers his dry aged duck breast.

Celebrity Chefs' Brunch hits the spot again

Top chefs evoke adoration from happy, sated diners

Written by

ERIC RUTH 

Tom Cavanaugh, executive chef at the Center on the Riverfront, serves a goat and cow's milk yogurt to John Harrington of Wilmington. SPECIAL TO THE NEWS JOURNAL/EMILY VARISCO

In most cases, goat bellies are an item of importance only to the occasional self-conscious goat, or possibly to the goatherds who must be watchful of where those jiggly bellies lie.

It's a different story if you're one of the well-heeled grazers who populated Sunday's Meals From theMasters Celebrity Chefs' Brunch, where goat bellies and other oddly addictive nibblies became objects of drooling reverence, especially when paired with goat chorizo, a maple syrup drizzle and a sliced strawberry garnish -- with a sparkly flute of bubbly on the side, naturally.

That goat-belly adoration was somehow heightened when served by such a smart, sassy chef as Stephanie Izard, winner of the fourth season of "Top Chef," Bravo's hit competition, and one of Food & Wine magazine's Best New Chefs of 2011. Izard spices her art with a flippant flair -- naming her Chicago restaurant Girl & The Goat, and dressing her sous-chefs in T-shirts that encourage fans to "Ride the Love Goat."

And ride it they did, biting down through salty slabs of goat "bacon," nibbling daintily at another chef's tiny goat-cheese ice creamcones (while simultaneously balancing their mimosas and champagne). The fact that the well-lubricated richness benefitted Delaware's Meals on Wheels program for seniors heightened the happily indulgent buzz.

"Do you mind if I get a picture with you?" Ebbie Alfree, spokesman for AIDS Delaware, beseeched celebrity chef Izard amid the frantic goat-gobbling. "My friends are going to be so shocked!"

And so it was for the score of other restaurants and affiliated chefs who came from as far as Seattle and Denver to help Meals on Wheels, which delivers about 600,000 meals a year to needy Delaware seniors.

They queued up impatiently for bluefish-and-crab cakes with Meyer lemon remoulade from the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford, Md. They raved about the lamb sausage and smoked lard biscuit from Redd Herring in Chicago. They moaned over the 14-day dry-aged duck breast with foie gras "lollipops" from David Burke's Primehouse at the James Hotel in Chicago.

"What's not to like about it?" raved lollipop gnosher Jeanette Jefferson of Philadelphia. "They nailed it."

Farther up the line of temptations, Aimee Elson of Wilmington reminisced over her recent encounter with shrimp-and-grits, and a momentary dalliance with a sweet French "gateau." "See, you don't get to say that in Delaware on a Sunday," she said. "It's like being somewhere else."

The event routinely raises $500,000-plus to help feed homebound seniors, who are served by a small army of volunteers -- 2,500 in all, said Mari Considine, executive director of Meals on Wheels Delaware.

"I have several patients who take advantage of Meals on Wheels," said volunteer Susan Kirchdoerffer, a physician who runs the Reflections Medical Spa in Brandywine Hundred. "It helps me support the people who support my patients. And I get to eat!"

"They hit another home run, as usual," concluded grazer Derick Vance. "It's par for the course."