Caviar and Champagne For a Cause at New York City Wine and Food Festival

The Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF) presented by Invesco QQQ, one of New York's premier foodie events with fare for every palate, moved its main tent over to the Brooklyn side of the city this year, and it was quite nice to take a special ferry providing gorgeous skyline views to the site. But, there were also other culinary offerings for Manhattanites like me who needed to do no more than make their way downtown to experience an amazing New York night for a cause: The NYCWFF benefits one of the city's great nonprofits, God's Love We Deliver (GLWD), which works to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in those with serious illness.

Newly added to the popular Festival roster, "A Caviar & Champagne Affair" was held high above the city on the 102nd floor of the Freedom Tower in the Aspire One World Observatory which, as you can imagine, also offered magnificent city views. The evening was hosted by Food Network stars Scott Conant, who owns Cellaio Steakhouse at Resorts World in the Catskills & The Americano in Atlanta; and Antonia Lofaso whose restaurants include Scopa Italian Roots and Dama in Los Angeles. 

Again, this was the event's first year and both chefs shared how thrilled they were to be the selected hosts.

"The Festival wanted to do an event with Antonia and they wanted to do an event with me and it just made sense for us to do it together," said Scott when I asked how he and Antonia actually became the hosts.  "And with the amount of caviar that they're serving tonight, that's something I always want to be involved in [laughs]."

"It's very exciting to be a part of it," said Chef Antonia, who also had a station at the event showcasing the caviar with potato chips.  "Honestly, we love caviar and at our booth we kept it sort of down and dirty - like a chip and dip kind of a thing - that's my style. And to have this beautiful backdrop showing all of Manhattan & Jersey, champagne, caviar - Black River was nice enough to come in and sponsor the event - it's a really great night."

Lanson and Lallier Champagnes were served along with craft cocktails, but Black River Caviar was indeed the star of the show, as the long lines at their station to experience the popular 'caviar bumps' affirmed.  Of course Black River's sustainably harvested caviar was delicious infused into all the chef-curated dishes in the room, but those exquisitely simple black mounds placed onto our flesh truly allowed us to taste just how smooth and sumptuous their caviar is.

"This event's been really nice for Black River, because we're actually a very small farm and in a global market of 200 tons of Oscietra, we produce four so we're tiny, and we actually sit at the premium end of the market," said Black River COO Sarah Mayo.  "So, this is an opportunity for us to let people see how clean our caviar is as a result of the aquaculture system that we have which is different from 99% of producers worldwide. We have a unique product and this is our chance to have people fall in love with it."

"As for the caviar bumps itself, chef's often taste with a bump - that's what the chefs do,"  said Mayo about the significance of the bumps, which seemingly is the new hip and happening thing.  "I think more than anything it's an opportunity to taste it really neat and pure -- it warms up the caviar a little on your skin and just makes all that beautiful unctuous oil and caviar richness really shine.  And ours is particularly good like that because of the purity."

Chef Conant actually informed me that NYCWFF has raised over 14 million dollars for God's Love We Deliver over the years. I was pleased to also chat with Lili Brown, a member of the God's Love We Deliver genLOVE Board made up of young professional philanthropists, after she extended a warm welcome to all guests.  Ms. Brown, who started out as a volunteer packing meals in the God's Love kitchen, shared part of why she "fell in love with the organization" and feels the community should support GLWD.

"I truly believe that food and nutrition is the best way to heal yourself no matter what illness you have, and that is what God's Love's mission does - we help heal with nutritious, medically tailored food," said Brown.

"God's love reaches every New Yorker who needs it. It's free for everyone, and there's no waiting list, there's no bureaucracy - anyone who needs medically tailored meals, gets it. I can't say enough good things about God's Love We Deliver."

After having been a GLWD volunteer myself, I can definitely echo that sentiment. And now that I know that 100% of the Festival proceeds go to support them, I will certainly attend even more NYCWFF events next year!

To learn more about God's Love We Deliver, visit www.glwd.org.