Towson’s Chef Marta Quintana of Havana Road Cuban Café Joins Local Chefs Creating Unique Dishes at the American Cancer Society’s 15th Annual “Taste for Life” at the Lyric, July 27: Food and Wine Tasting plus Music by Award-Winning Jazz Artist Marcus Johnson, Benefitting Cancer Research and Patient Services
Taste for Life, Sunday, July 27, 2 – 6 p.m. Lyric Theatre, 140 W. Mt. Royal Ave., Baltimore, Tickets: $75 in advance; $100 at the door www.Tasteforlife.org 410-933-5180
Taste For Life – a premier fine wine and food tasting event – is proud to announce our newest chef Marta Quintana of Havana Road Cuban Café in Towson who will be joining four other expert chefs creating specialty dishes that will be paired with fabulous wines! Each chef will also give a cooking demonstration during the event. There will be hundreds of varietals of wines to choose from representing almost every continent in the world. Attendees will be able to purchase the wines they taste at a discount with a percentage benefitting the American Cancer Society.
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Plus, enjoy the beautiful sounds of Billboard-ranked jazz artist Marcus Johnson!
Support the American Cancer Society’s mission to finish the fight against cancer! Proceeds from Taste for Life fund cutting-edge cancer research and services for cancer patients.
Find out what's happening in Towsonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Chef Marta has joined Taste for Life, she says, because, “Fighting cancer is very personal to me. It is a disease that we need to confront and fight to be eradicated, especially in children. Both my great grandmother and grandmother succumbed to cancer. My great grandmother died of melanoma, and my grandmother of stomach cancer at the tender age of 25. The women in my family all have a constant watch over breast lumps, colon polyp and melanoma. I have lost three dear high school friends to breast and colon cancer- they fought such a great fight.”
Join Chef Marta and other fantastic chefs, whom you can read about below. The delectable food also includes a gourmet buffet catered by Rouge. There will be live and silent auctions featuring a trip to Arizona, specialty gourmet vendors and more!
MEET OUR CHEFS:
Chef Jerry Edwards – Chef’s Expressions in Timonium: Jerry Edwards, CPCE, owner of Chef’s Expressions Catering is the winner of more than 50 industry competitions including three American Culinary Federation Gold Medals, The Crystal Toque Award, Iron Chef Winner and the prestigious Best Chef for the Meals on Wheels Culinary Extravaganza. He is a past national president of The National Association of Catering Executives (NACE) and received the 2007 NACE Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award. He received NACE’s 1st National Caterer of the Year in 1992 and similar awards from The National Academy Foundation, The Chef’s Association and Catering magazine. Jerry has an honorary doctorate in hospitality management.
Chef Marta Quintana – Havana Road Cuban Cafe and Artisanal Products, Towson. After a taste of Marta Ines Quintana’s cuisine, you would swear she’s been serving up dishes in upscale restaurants for decades. The Cuban-born Quintana has seen her recipes garner raves from grocery stores, TV shows, publishers and customers at her Towson restaurant. The Cuban traditions, flavors, aromas and lifestyle traveled with her and her family. She learned at her mother’s and grandmother’s apron strings, developing her personal style of cooking and, understanding early on that by using fresh ingredients, she could capture the essence of Cuban flavor, please palates, and make these dishes accessible to many people. Havana Road was named one of the “Top Five New Restaurants in Maryland 2011” by the Restaurant Association of Maryland. Her line of Cuban products is marketed in grocery stores across the MidAtlantic.
Chef Joe Edwardsen – Joe Squared at the Power Plant and Station North: Joe Edwardsen is the owner and executive chef of Joe Squared, which he founded at age 25. The restaurant has won 25 Best of Baltimore awards, been named one of the nation’s best pizzas by Food Network Magazine and been featured on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.” Joe background includes: serving as an apprentice to Michel Tersiguel, executive chef of Tersiguel’s, a highly-acclaimed restaurant specializing in provincial French cooking; pastry chef at Jeanniers, an established French restaurant and a sous chef at Mean Bean Café, where he learned Polish and Eastern European cooking. He also gained knowledge eating his way through England, Italy, the Czech Republic and Western Africa, where he learned to make authentic pizza, sausages and traditional African soup sauces.
Chef Justin Figueroa – Frisco Tap House & Grill in Columbia: Justin Figueroa boasts a cosmopolitan background influenced by Italian and Hispanic parents and has mastered a unique culinary style. He is recognized as one of New York’s and New Jersey’s critically acclaimed Fine Dining Chefs. After years of culinary training and experience at four star hotels and restaurants, Justin opened a fine dining restaurant in New Jersey which became the first of his nationally acclaimed restaurants – Arthur’s Landing New Jersey (1997). Next, he joined the culinary team of the 90 Grand Grille as executive chef, creating a New World Fine Dining Experience. His style celebrates a delicate tension between the polarities of sweet balanced with sour, soft yet crispy.
Chef Bernard Dehaene – Corner BYOB in Hampden: Here’s what Baltimore magazine had to say about Corner BYOB: “Co-owner and executive chef Bernard Dehaene…turns out some of the most ambitious cuisine around, including crazy wild game like kangaroo as well as tamer, more familiar dishes like heavenly sweet mussels by the kilo, pan-seared and roasted duck over applewood bacon hash, and a casserole composed of chunks of lobster, shrimp, and huge scallops in a cream sauce…the menu changes constantly, showing off the kitchen’s dazzling variety and invention…It helps that the food itself is clean-your-plate delicious, especially desserts——the bittersweet chocolate pot de crème is one of the best we’ve ever had…eating at Corner BYOB is a culinary adventure of the best kind.”
Marcus Johnson Jazz Trio: An independent Billboard-ranked musician and NAACP Image Award-nominated jazz keyboardist and pianist, Marcus Johnson is also the CEO and founder of FLO Wine, LLC. He has combined his musical career with his love of wine by marrying the two in a unique endeavor. His unique self-taught style of piano play has earned him distinction among his peers, praise from the media and accolades across the music industry. Marcus is on the cutting edge of ‘Euro Jazz’ having formed JURIS, a musical collaboration with acclaimed Parisian DJ and producer Young Pulse. The duo is preparing a Q3 release of their latest project entitled “Eiffel Tower.”
