For the week of July 2 - 8, 2003

A moveable feast
for the masses

Area restaurants strut out
Best of the Valley

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

Spicy ahi tuna with cilantro-lime aioli. Crab and rock shrimp cakes with baby greens. Caramel-banana bread pudding with a touch of chocolate sauce.

These are not the foods of everyday dining. However, they were some of the bounty of culinary delights served up Saturday at the eighth annual Best of the Valley, an event that saw 22 Wood River Valley restaurants and caterers use their unique talents to help raise money for a new teen center in Hailey.

Wendy Muir, orchestrating food service for Ketchum’s Globus Restaurant at Saturday’s Best of the Valley benefit, serves up a plate of lime-cured Peruvian scallops. Muir also doled out delectable helpings of spicy ahi tuna with cilantro-lime aioli. Express photos by Willy Cook

Held in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park, the benefit event drew approximately 1,200 diners of all ages and brought in an estimated $15,000 for the planned new Wood River Valley Youth Center Hub.

Susie Wrentmore, organizer of the event for the Blaine County Recreation District, which is designing and planning the new teen center, called the event an unqualified success. "I didn’t see anything but smiling faces, and the food, from all that I saw and heard, was better than ever," she said. "It was a great evening."

Crowds showed up early Saturday to enjoy the wide variety of food and beverages and refused to be deterred by a brief squall that brought wind and a light mist of rain.

Kaia Van Praag, of Ketchum’s Evergreen restaurant, artfully crafts a serving of caramel-banana bread pudding for one of many eager diners at Saturday’s Best of the Valley culinary extravaganza. Express photos by Willy Cook

The event this year appears to have equaled or eclipsed the fund-raising tally from the 2002 Best of Valley, which was quite successful in its own right. That event netted $14,000 for the Rec District, Wrentmore said, and also attracted about 1,200 people.

Food, drinks and desserts were not the only attractions Saturday. The Hoochie Coochie Men, from Boise, cranked out a variety of classic tunes, diners bid on goods in a silent auction, and Mary Austin Crofts, executive director of the Rec District, raffled off prizes.

Under the park’s enormous spruce trees, 20 groups of supporters who paid $600 for a private table enjoyed wine and unlimited quantities of haute cuisine.

"It’s awesome to see the community support for the youth of the valley," Wrentmore said, surveying the crowd Saturday.

Kristen Kludt is all smiles after picking up a plate of oysters on the half shell prepared by Ketchum Grill. The well-known Ketchum establishment was one of 22 area restaurants that dished out fine cuisine at Saturday’s Best of the Valley event at Forest Service Park in Ketchum. Express photos by Willy Cook

Wrentmore said the new teen center—which is slated to be developed at the old Wood River High School—is scheduled to be considered for approval by the Hailey City Council in August. If the council issues a conditional-use permit for the project, the work to remodel three former classrooms into the teen center should take about three months, she noted.

"It could be open by November or December, but it might not happen until the first of next year," she said.

The Rec District has budgeted $100,000 for the project, she noted, but will need additional funds to maintain the center. Money raised at the Best of the Valley event will go toward the center’s maintenance fund, Wrentmore said.

Carolyn Wicklund, pro-bono architect of the project, displayed a model of the proposed center at Saturday’s event. The design proposes to convert three classrooms into an open room with a lounge area, arcade-game area, library, ping-pong tables, pool tables and other amenities.

The entire project will comprise about 2,560 square feet of floor space, Wicklund said. "It’s a good project."

 

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