Acclaimed restaurateur, chef, author and TV personality Mario Batali will deliver the keynote address at Hopelink’s Reaching Out Benefit Luncheon on Oct. 24 at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center.
The Reaching Out luncheon — now in its 21st year — is the Redmond-based social services agency’s largest annual fundraising event. Last year’s luncheon raised more than $1 million to provide food, shelter, family development, transportation and job readiness skills for homeless and low-income families, children, seniors and people with disabilities in north and east King County.
The luncheon will take from noon to 1:15 p.m. and there is no charge to attend, but during the program guests will be asked to make a donation in support of Hopelink’s services. For more information or to register, visit Hopelink.org/luncheon.
Perhaps best known for his fleece vest, baggy Bermuda shorts and orange Crocs, Batali is a Seattle native with deep local roots. In 1903, his grandfather opened Metropolitan Grocery — Seattle’s first Italian food import store — in Pioneer Square. Nearly a century later, Batali’s father, a retired Boeing engineer, pursued his own culinary dream, launching Salumi restaurant nearby. Salumi is still a local icon for artisan cured meats and other Italian foods.
Batali grew up on both sides of the Cascades, in a family that cooked together, picked blackberries for pies and jam and smoked their own salmon. He was a student of Spanish Theatre at Rutgers University when he got hooked on the adrenaline and teamwork of restaurant life, working in a small New Jersey pizzeria. Later trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, it was three intense years of studying the history and culture of Italian cuisine in the tiny Italian village of Borgo Capanne that truly shaped Batali’s career.
The energetic Batali also has made a name for himself as a philanthropist and social activist. He is convinced hunger is a solvable issue, and that, “unlike curing cancer or heart disease, we already know how to beat hunger: food.”
He created the Mario Batali Foundation in 2008 to ensure that children are “well read, well fed and well cared for,” and is a staunch supporter of nutrition education programs and ensuring emergency food resources for low-income families. Batali also supports the New York Food Bank and The Lunchbox Fund, which provides food for vulnerable children in rural South Africa.
Currently appearing as a host of ABC’s “The Chew,” Batali is the author of 10 cookbooks. Release of his next book: “Mario Batali — Big American Cookbook,” will coincide with his Hopelink appearance in October.
