Kick off the weekend Friday, June 5, in a foodie heaven: the Southside Block Party on Custom Street behind the StoneFort Inn.
You’ll enjoy dishes from Chattanooga’s super chefs while raising money for a program that teaches culinary career skills to local homeless and low-income people. The event runs from 6 to 9 p.m., so you can drop by on your way to or from the Nightfall concert a couple of blocks away.
The event is organized by Shelley Cooper, chef at TerraMae, the restaurant inside StoneFort Inn.
“Shelley and her volunteers will be there at 4 a.m. preparing to roast an entire hog donated by Southern Natural Foods,” spokesperson Jackie Errico says. “The party has the atmosphere of an old Appalachian pig picking, but you’re also eating the most delicious food from Chattanooga’s top restaurants. Each restaurant creates a special cocktail, and there will be nonalcoholic drinks available.”
TerraMae also will feed partiers its signature coleslaw and potato salad. The menu includes The Feed Co. Table & Tavern’s Crab and Pickled Green Tomato Purloo; Crostini With Pimento Cheese and Benton’s Bacon Marmalade from 1885 Grill; and treats from the new Japanese-inspired pub Two Ten Jack. Carter Distributing will supply beverages.
Ryan Oyer and the Courtney Daly Band will entertain. The block party also will include a raffle with prizes like a catered TerraMae dinner for 10. All proceeds from the raffle go the Chattanooga Salvation Army School of Culinary Arts. Tickets to the block party are $40, with $5 from each earmarked for the culinary arts program.
The program is supervised by chef Terry Epps, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate whose 12-week program trains impoverished and homeless students. Graduates have landed jobs at restaurants, caterers and the giant grill outside Chattanooga Lookouts games. Epps ensures his students have mastered such marketable skills as knife work, basic cooking techniques and even gardening.
“We give each student a garden bed at The Salvation Army so they can grow their own vegetables, tomatoes and herbs,” Epps says. “The slow food and farm-to-fork movements inspired so many restaurants to plant their own gardens, we thought this could be an extra skill our students could bring to a chef.”
Epps says he’s seen his students’ posture and demeanor “completely change” when they put on their chef uniforms for the first time. “I have seen this program help people get their lives back and help them believe in their own dignity.”
More than 70 students have graduated the program, with all but one maintaining jobs in the food industry. Uniforms, textbooks and knife kits, which graduates get to keep, cost The Salvation Army about $2,500 per student.
Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.