A&M goes gourmet
University fundraiser features brunch, dinner and auction
TEXARKANA — Women for Texas A&M University-Texarkana will go all in on gourmet goods Saturday at both the Gourmet Brunch and Gourmet Dinner & Auction.
Tickets for the public remain for the brunch event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Tri-State Iron & Metal Atrium inside the campus University Center. Also, limited sponsorships remain for dinner, which starts at 6 p.m. with cocktails at Texarkana Country Club. Dinner will be served at 7 p.m.
Both events feature Northwest Arkansas celebrity chef Matthew McClure of The Hive, which is located in the award-winning 21c Museum Hotel in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both events raise funds for Texas A&M University-Texarkana.
“He’ll do a cooking demonstration at the brunch, and then that evening he’ll be cooking dinner for a little over 200 people,” said Courtney Boeckmann, development officer at A&M-Texarkana.
McClure will demonstrate the pasta he can make, bringing his pasta maker to Texarkana. Boeckmann has been to his restaurant and tasted what he’ll be making. “It was really really good and I actually had that dish,” she said.
McClure is an Arkansas
native who creates dishes like sorghum-roasted duck with hominy grits and woodfired hog chop with Ralston rice at The Hive. He’s been a James Beard Award semifinalist for several years running in the Best Chef: South category.
The group organizing this event consists of about 300 women, who will devote these funds to a specific A&M purpose. “All of the money that’s raised this year is going to scholarships,” Boeckmann said. “And it will be matched.”
Anything donated to the initiative is being matched dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million, essentially doubling the amount raised at the Gourmet Brunch and Gourmet Dinner & Auction.
“At the brunch it will be catered by Silver Spoon, but there will be sampling for everyone that attends the brunch of his pasta
dish,” Boeckmann said. Champagne and cornbread are on the menu in addition to brunch fare.
Since being organized in 2005, she said, Women for Texas A&M-Texarkana has raised more than $1 million, which has funded priority initiatives and scholarships.
(Brunch tickets are $35. More info and tickets: Contact Courtney Boeckmann at 903223-3057 or email Courtney. Boeckmann@tamut.edu. Tickets can also be found at www.tamut.edu/WAM.)