New to the local culinary community this year is an event that has been receiving a lot of buzz. It’s The Butcher’s Ball, set for Sunday, October 9, at the beautiful 140-acre Rockin’ Star Ranch near Brenham.
The purpose is to promote sustainable ranching practices and celebrate those chefs, butchers and ranchers who support such practices. To that end, Urban Harvest and Foodways Texas, organizations whose primary focus is on sustainability and tradition, were chosen as the event’s charitable partners, each receiving 10 percent of ticket sales.
In its debut year, 15 Texas chefs will meet at The Butcher’s Ball and, using meat provided by 44 Farms, will compete for The Golden Cleaver – a people’s choice award for best dish.
Notable Houston chefs, including David Cordúa, Antoine Ware, EJ Miller, Dawn Burrell and Tommy Elbashary, will be joined by barbecue impresarios Ara Malekian of Harlem Road Texas BBQ, Brek Webber of Tin Roof BBQ and Willow Villarreal of Willow’s Texas BBQ. Three-time James Beard nominee, Top Chef contestant and Dallas’s “Most Hated Chef” (according to D Magazine) John Tesar, will also join in on the action.
Other chefs include Albert Vasquez of Ritual, Felix Florez of Black Hill Ranch (who will also butcher a whole elk on-site), former Chopped contestant Jason Kerr, Jess Desham Timmons of the Redneck Country Club in Stafford, Nathan Lemley of Parkside in Austin and Houston newcomer Stefon Rishel of 51fifteen.
Beyond just watching chefs cook and compete, The Butcher’s Ball is also setting itself up as an immersive celebration of creativity within all mediums, from culinary to musical to artistic. Austin-based indie darling Leopold & His Fiction will headline the outdoor stage, joined by the eclectic White Ghost Shivers and Houston’s Fiddle Witch.
Acclaimed photographer Galina Kurlat, who has spent the past couple years making tintype portraits of Houston chefs and their favorite utensil for her series The Eye and The Implement: A Photographic Anthology of Houston’s Culinary Community (samples below), will show the work publicly for the first time at The Butcher’s Ball. In fact, many of the participating chefs – including Jason Kerr, Ara Malekian and Karen Man of Oxheart (who will be providing a lovely dessert for guests) – are spotlighted in the photographic project.
Connecting these communities together is a major focus for The Butcher’s Ball, and Urban Harvest will be producing a farmers’ market on site – sourcing farmers, ranchers and artisans from Brenham and the surrounding area to sell their produce, meat and wares.
Slated to be an annual event, The Butcher’s Ball is a great opportunity to get away from the big city, enjoy the generally perfect October weather, eat, drink, dance and support two excellent culinary charities. Tickets and information can be found at butchersball.com.
Note: With bourbon cocktails designed by Grand Prize Bar’s Lindsay Rae, you’re going to want to take advantage of the add-on transportation ticket to and from Houston.
GIVE-AWAY ALERT!
We’ve scored two extra tickets (a $300 value) to The Butcher’s Ball. If you want to enter to win them, comment (and tag us @mytablemagazine) what you LOVE most about this event on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We’ll draw a winner from all the entries on Tuesday, October 4, at 3 pm.