First Dinner for a Cause benefits Northern Illinois Food Bank
Submitted by Michael Pruitt
The Vine Martini & Wine Bar of Grayslake recently held its first Dinner for the Cause event to benefit Northern Illinois Food Bank. With more than 100 guests, the event raised $10,000 to feed families in Illinois.
According to owner Michael Pruitt, the crowd was a little nervous at first, especially when seeing the hand-drawn menus by Brendon Egan on each table. The Vine kept the menu a secret and throughout the night slowly revealed each piece.
The menu included butternut squash soup; wild mushrooms with bacon garlic, spinach purée and bacon dust; seared bay scallops with a popcorn purée; beat salad with white truffle oil, goat cheese and carbonated Clementines; smoked pork confit; white chocolate and coco butter truffle; the “mBerry” with a doughnut soup.
“If I could describe the night it was a Whimsical Orchestra conducted by (chef) Chris Jones that left the crowd wanting more,” Pruitt said.
“Between Chris Jones, myself, my Head Chef Steven Anderson, and my Front of the House Manager Samantha Hinners, this was the biggest service that every single one of us has ever done, and we were more than happy with how it was pulled off. “
“I was completely blown away by the heart and soul that went into the preparation and flawless execution,” said Tiffany King, development officer for special events for the Northern Illinois Food Bank, “but more so from learning that the staff had been preparing for countless hours with Chef Chris Jones and Mike Pruitt, and had donated their time to make the event happen.
“The food bank provided over 5 million meals for our hungry neighbors in Lake County last year. What we do would not be possible without the help of people like Mike, Chris and their teams,” King said.
“For every dollar donated, we can provide six meals, which means this first time event was able to provide 60,000 meals to their hungry neighbors. We were honored to be chosen as the beneficiary and look forward to working with Michael, The Vine and hopefully Chris Jones again in the future.”
The Vine would like to thank the GLMV Jaycees, Entwined of Grayslake, MOTO of Chicago, Heritage Wines, mBerry, US Foods and Kathryn Rudolph Photography.
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