Cornucopia full, so now we share
It was irresistible to Instagram a picture of my place setting at the Fort Mason Pavilion for the 32nd annual Star Chefs & Vintners Gala fundraiser for Meals on Wheels on Sunday, May 19. There were four wineglasses, four forks, three spoons and two knives at every setting. We were in for a big meal, which came right after a huge reception, at which staffers at Bay Area restaurants presided over tables piled with bites and nibbles and vintners and purveyors of liquor poured enough to quench the thirsts of parched partygoers.
“I am so over excess,” one friend commented beneath that Instagram picture. Ouch. It had seemed to me, especially as the evening unfolded, that the abundance was presented with a sense of purpose. From the moment guests arrived, drinks and food were offered in a real and also symbolic show of plenty.
The pavilion was crowded with 880 guests, guys in tuxedos and women in evening gowns, while donors were offered more than they could possibly consume. But the moment the video about the work of Meals on Wheels was shown, the guests’ pleasure in consuming was paired with the guests’ visualization of the needs of those whom the dinner was benefiting. Meals on Wheels clients, most of whom live on their own, spoke about their inability to go out to buy groceries, the absolute necessity of receiving meals that make it possible for them to survive, and the pleasure of opening their doors to another human who asks, “How are you?”
Surely every guest at every table was mindful of the contrast between that which was readily accessible to them and that which, without Meals on Wheels, would be inaccessible to the people it serves. This nonprofit isn’t focused on programs or counseling; its job is more basic: to provide 2.1 million meals every year, so as to keep people alive. This year’s fundraiser made $3.3 million for Meals on Wheels.
Nancy Oakes is the restaurateur/chef who has captained the event for 17 years. This year there were 17 auction items, many of them dinners for eight cooked in the buyer’s home by one of the Bay Area’s premier chefs. Most of these items went for $40,000; many of the chefs volunteering at the end to do two dinners, one each to the two highest bidders, thereby doubling the amount of contribution. Four nights in Italy on a trip guided by Oakes went for $100,000.
Board member Rosemary Wong ,who was sitting next to me, said that a few years ago, she and her husband, Harry, had won a lawsuit. “It wasn’t about the money,” she said, “it had been a matter of principle.” So they went to the Meals on Wheels dinner that year with spending their windfall in mind. They bid for and won dinner for 20, cooked by an array of the town’s French chefs, “an exquisite evening,” she recalled. Seventy-five chefs and 75 vintners joined forces to fill this year’s horn of plenty. This “excess” will enable Meals on Wheels to do the same for people living alone, with bare cupboards and empty refrigerators. One might be wistful in this First World country that such fundraising is necessary, that there’s no government safety net to care for our old people. But thanks to benefits and auctions and the warmth everyone knows is generated by sharing food, Meals on Wheels is cherishing those people in the most basic, practical way.
P.S. A couple of days after the benefit, Kaiser Permanente announced a $500,000 grant to Meals on Wheels’ capital campaign that is building a new kitchen facility. The new kitchen, it is said, will expand its capabilities from serving 7,000 to serving 20,000 meals a day.
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