Dining Notes

Eat cheesecake for a good cause; enjoy guilt-free chocolate; and more Be the first on your block to dive into the 200-plus-item Cheesecake Factory menu this weekend, but more importantly, step up to the table for Gilda’s Club at the same time. Before opening to the masses at 5 p.m. on Oct. 18, Nashville’s new Cheesecake Factory—the 98th in this mega-chain’s portfolio—is hosting a grand-opening party on Saturday, Oct. 15, to benefit Gilda’s Club, which offers free support and learning resources to people with cancer. For $60 per person, guests can preview the new facility, enjoy cocktails, appetizers, entrées, live music and, of course, cheesecake, from 7-10 p.m. This event is expected to sell out, so reserve tickets in advance by calling Gilda’s Club at 329-1124. Chocolate, the way it should be Chocoholics, indulge your passion without guilt at the Fair Trade Chocolate Festival this Saturday, Oct. 15, at Ten Thousand Villages in Green Hills. Located in one of Nashville’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the store supports some of the world’s most impoverished people by marketing the products and handicrafts of Third World artisans, which in turn helps them to feed, shelter and educate themselves and their families. With the holiday season approaching, shelves are filling with unique and affordable global gifts; among the new arrivals are delectable goodies from Divine chocolates, the creation of The Day Chocolate Company, a farmer-owned business established in 1998. The Fair Trade-certified cocoa beans that go into every bar of Divine chocolate are grown by Kuapa Kokoo, a 45,000-member, farmer-owned cooperative in Ghana. Not only do these farmers receive Fair Trade premiums for their beans, they are also part-owners of the Divine brand. The beans used to make Divine chocolate are premium quality and single-origin. There are more than 15 different items in the Divine product line, and many of them will be available for sampling and purchase during the all-day Chocolate Festival. Ten Thousand Villages is in Hillsboro Plaza, 3900 Hillsboro Pike. For information, call 385-5814. Heading east “Taste of Asia—Food and Music From the Far East” is an evening of little bites and big music presented by and benefiting the Chinese Arts Alliance of Nashville. Dim sum, sushi and more, with appropriate wines, will be offered 5:30-7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 in the Ingram Hall atrium at Blair School of Music. From there, guests will segue into the music hall for a performance by the Vanderbilt Wind Ensemble and featured musician Hsin Hsiao-Hung of the Hong King Chinese Orchestra. Tickets are $100 per person, and checks should be mailed to Taste of Asia, 2510 Barton Ave., Nashville 37212. A biodynamic opportunity While the summer growing season is crawling toward its inevitable end, eking out the last local tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches and watermelons of 2005, the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association is holding its annual conference and 10th annual Harvest Festival this weekend at Long Hungry Creek Farm in Red Boiling Springs. Workshops will be led by experts in the field from near and far, and all meals will be homegrown and biodynamic. The weekend begins on Friday, Oct. 14, with a series of three-hour intensive workshops; workshops will also be held on Saturday, which concludes with a talent show, bonfire, barn dance and music. Sunday is more relaxed, with farm tours and a casual goodbye dinner. For more information on fees, workshops and speakers, log on to www.biodynamics.com or www.barefootfarmer.com. Will work for food According to The New York Times, about 55,000 people in New Orleans—one-tenth of the entire workforce—were employed in the city’s 3,400-plus restaurants before Katrina struck. The Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA), a Mississippi-based organization working to preserve and promote the virtues of traditional foods in the region, has joined forces with other groups to provide direct assistance to displaced food and restaurant workers from New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. Led by the Council of Independent Restaurants, the allied groups have set up a job bank that’s matching unemployed food-industry workers from the area with temporary restaurant jobs elsewhere in the country. Cheesecake Factory and Maggiano’s Little Italy—two of the highest-volume players in the restaurant chain gang—should look no farther than www.cirajobs.com to staff their new Nashville locations, which will be opening within a week of one another. If you don’t have a 400-seat restaurant to staff, you can still support the efforts of SFA through a spontaneous effort by some of its members in the Louisville area. The idea to raise money by marketing hot pickles originated with pickle maker Bill Kamman and Louisville food broker John Egerton (nephew of noted Nashville author John Egerton). At an SFA event in Louisville last month, 12-jar cases of S.O.S. Sharpies (Spicy Old Southern-style hot pickles) were offered for sale at $120 a case, with 90 percent of that going directly to a worker relief fund. The supply sold out almost immediately, but more are in production to meet the pickle demand. SFA will be taking orders for cases of S.O.S. Sharpies through Oct. 25, with funds to be disbursed through the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Disaster Relief Fund. To find out about making a withdrawal from the pickle bank and making a deposit to this fund, visit www.southernfoodways.com or email sossharpies@yahoo.com.