Food Fight 3 Gives Cancer the One-Two Punch

http://downingtown.thetowndish.com/2015/03/food-fight-3-gives-cancer-the-one-two-punch/#sthash.eUcY6CTM.dpuf

Posted March 21, 2015 • By Nina Malone

What happens when 127 volunteers decide to dazzle 270 hungry cancer fighters with a five-course meal? Why they raise $65,000 to put toward the battle against cancer, that’s what.

This is the third year Team CMMD has mounted the ambitious Food Fight, pitting Christine Meyer, M.D., and her team against another in a course-by-course battle. Even more impressive: this year she faced-off against a pro culinary team from the Dave Magrogan Group (DMG) led by Chef Stephanie Gray.

The Delicious Details:

Each culinary team prepared four courses (including a vegetarian option) served to guests head-to-head. Guests enjoyed and voted on each round that also included a wine pairing. Blue-shirted volunteers scurried around the room serving, pouring wine, busing tables, filling water glasses and tending to attendees’ needs. It was a herculean labor of love for the greater good: fighting cancer.

The meal ended with a collaborative dessert. When all was tasted and done, Team CMMD won every round and, for the third year in a row, won the Food Fight.

“Food Fight 1 raised $8,364; Food Fight 2 raised $32,000. We bested $65,000 and we did that together this year,” Christine said. “To each and every one on this team that contributed in a big way or small, whether you were a volunteer, a vendor with a talent to donate or a seated guest—this night, that money, would not have been possible without you.”

It’s certainly the cause that keeps growing this event, but the creative courses keep guests coming back, too. Feast on the following, then Like the Team CMMD Foundation on Facebook to see how you might become a superhero in the fight against cancer.

Team CMMD’s winning dishes were the tuna tataki, Thai coconut broth, gnocchi and lamb. The results were close, however, and guests gave Team Magrogan—captained by Stephanie, currently DMG director of purchasing after having served as executive chef for Kildare’s Irish Pub, assisted by Red Star Craft House Chef Carmen Cappello and Barra Rossa Ristorante Chef Anthony DiPascale and their teams—a standing ovation.

An event of this magnitude can only happen with generous sponsors such as Diamond Sponsor MC3 Corporation, Platinum Sponsor the Downingtown Country Club and others too numerous to mention. Special thanks are in order to the Downingtown Country Club which shut down on what would have been a busy Friday and donated the time and talents of their kitchen, banquet and facility staff, and the bar, resulting in no profit to the club but instead more dollars donated to battle cancer.

Hats off to those who donated silent auction prizes and wine for the wine wall auction, too. The money raised from these fun parts of the evening helped Team CMMD double the profits over 2014. All told, since January 1, 2013, Team CMMD has raised more than $460,000 for the American Cancer Society and local cancer patients.

Learn more about Team CMMD online and on Facebook and Twitter. Runners, walkers and volunteers with all types of talents and time to offer are welcome to get involved.

Volunteer photo credits: Jamie Stanek, remaining photo credits: Nina Malone

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