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Culinary Garage Sale at Kendall College A Cook's Paradise

By Janet Rausa Fuller | June 13, 2013 7:03am
 The Les Dames d'Escoffier Culinary Garage Sale takes place Saturday at Kendall College.
Culinary garage sale at Kendall College
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RIVER WEST — There are garage sales, and then there is the Culinary Garage Sale and Cake Walk.

The second annual event, which runs from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday at Kendall College, 900 N. North Branch St., is a food geek's paradise, an oasis of kitchenware castoffs from some of Chicago's top toques, sommeliers and food professionals.

For sale: prized Le Creuset cookware from France. Stacks and stacks of old Gourmet magazines. A meat slicer.

Chef Jean Joho of Everest has donated signed terrines. He and chef Carrie Nahabedian of Naha and Brindille are pitching in a couple of chef's coats. Other chefs who have donated items include Sarah Stegner and Rick Bayless.

Admission is $5, but serious shoppers can pay $75 for early entry (10 a.m.) and first dibs on merchandise, plus food, drinks and a swag bag with Heritage Prairie Farm honey and Jo Snow Syrups.

The sale is organized by the Chicago chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier, an organization for women in the culinary arts. Proceeds benefit the group's scholarship fund and the Green City Market.

The first sale in 2011 raised $10,000, according to Melissa Yen, Jo Snow Syrups owner and a Les Dames member.

Yen has been helping collect items for the sale this week. Thursday's acquisitions included a "truckload" of new dishes, silver and glassware from Zepole Restaurant Supply in Bolingbrook.

"Buy early and buy often is what we say," Yen said. The sale "enables us to provide scholarships to amazing young women in culinary school. Who knows, one of these ladies may be the next Carrie Nahabedian."

Attendees are encouraged to bring their own bags — or wagons, depending on their haul. Cash and credit cards are accepted.

If all that shopping makes you hungry, Beavers Donuts, Babycakes and ChiTown Tamale food trucks will be slinging their sweet and savory goods.

Local pastry chefs will supply the baked goods for the cake walk.