Appetizer & Wine Bar:

Small Favors: Kate and Nick

Nick Detrich began his career working in a number of bars and restaurants in Indiana in the late 1990s. After attending Indiana University and several artistic endeavors, he moved to New Orleans to pursue a career focused on the craft cocktail movement. In 2009, he joined the team at Cure and was made bar manager after a year. In 2013, he bacame a partner and developed his own project, Cane & Table, which has garnered accolades from The James Beard Foundation, TOTC Spirited Awards, Esquire, Bon Appetit, Garden and Gun, and other publications. He also has appeared as a presenter at events such as London Cocktail Week, Tales of the Cocktail, Bevcon Charleston, and Bar Institute. After leaving Cane & Table he spent six months working in London before returning to New Orleans to develop his next projects. In March 2018, Detrich partnered with Konrad Kantor and Chris Hannah to open "Manolito" which is a Cuban bar and cafe in the French quarter; and in March 2019, he and Mr. Hannah opened Jewel of the South. In early 2022, Detrich returned to Bloomington to open Small Favors, a small restaurant that focuses on low intervention wines and locally sourced fare. 

RNDC/Imagery Winery: Jill Meister

Imagery winery/RNDC has graciously agreed to donate 3 cases of Imagery Pinot Noir. Growing up between her family’s two Sonoma wineries, it’s no surprise that Jamie Benziger is blazing her own trail in the wine industry. Returning home to Sonoma in 2015, Jamie had the opportunity to work alongside the most incredible winemaker she knows; her Dad, Joe Benziger. Mentored by her father and just as adventurous, Jamie is passionate about taking Imagery to a broader audience. In December 2017, Joe retired and Jamie took the reins as Winemaker. As the second-generation winemaker at Imagery, Jamie has been on a roll. Not only was she named the 2019 Best Woman Winemaker in the International Women’s Wine Competition, she was also included on Wine Enthusiast’s list of 40 Under 40 Tastemakers.

Beer Bar:

Bloomington Brewing Company: Amanda Franklin

Amanda Franklin is the owner-manager of Bloomington Brewing Company. Along with her husband Jarrod, and minority partners at Four Day Ray Brewing in Indianapolis, Amanda took over the BBC operation in January of 2022. She is the full-time brewery manager, handling all orders, sales, logistics, events, design, marketing, and sometimes key delivery. Prior to becoming the new owner of BBC, Amanda was the second owner of a longtime Bloomington clothing boutique, Cactus Flower. Prior to that, she was an art teacher at Clear Creek and Marlin Elementaries. Amanda has an artistic personality with an entrepreneurial spirit. She optained an undergraduate degree in Studio Art and Psychology and a Master's of Education Studio Art, from Indiana University Bloomington. She enjoys the opportunity to infuse her work with creativity, creating beautiful can labels and fun graphics for marketing is her forte. She also has a passion for interior design and redesigning spaces. In her free time, she helps friends remodel their homes. Amanda is a mother to three fantastic children aged 7, 9, and 11, who help her take care of the family's 12 chickens, 2 cats, and one dog.

Appetizers:

Cynthia Moriarty Catering: Cynthia Moriarty

Chef Cynthia Moriarty thinks of her catering company as an extension of her home kitchen, where family and friends gather to eat healthy and delicious food; a place where people feel taken care of and comfortable. She began her culinary career by training as a French pastry chef at Rudi’s Bakery in Boston. In 1985, she won a Julia Child Fellowship to study cooking in France. She worked and studied for a year in Paris at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine, working side by side with French chefs, acting as translator and assistant. Her catering business has grown over the past thirty years from a party now and then to a busy schedule of weddings, dinner parties, receptions, and beautiful cakes.

Main Dish:

Erika Yochum

Erika Yochum fell in love with all things food when she was a wee child selling EZ Bake Oven cakes to her neighbors in Detroit, Michigan. She opened her first restaurant in Plymouth Michigan when she was 19, Harvest Moon, a vegetarian juice bar and sandwich shop. When she relocated to Bloomington to start an organic farm and CSA, she started cooking again and sold the now famous tamales at the farmer’s market. As things evolved, Feast Bakery Cafe was opened and later, Feast Market and Cellar. She now caters small gatherings and pops up with her delights around Bloomington.

Desserts & Vegetarian Main Dish:

Julia Rose

Julia Rose has enjoyed interests all over the board, from baking cakes & reading novels, playing euchre & finding cool rocks, to catching live music and staring at the stars. She has lived and worked in this community for over a decade. Julia has been passionately fighting for women's/human rights since high school.

Desserts & Nutrition Courses w/ Our Girls Inc. Girls:

Stacy Strand

Chef Stacy Strand is the Program Chair Hospitality Administration and Assistant Professor Baking and Pastry at Ivy Tech Community College - Bloomington.  Throughout the program,  students get the opportunity to serve the public, such as bakery pop-ups and various Service Learning projects. In addition to her classroom duties and community service, Strand is adviser for the Culinary Club, teaches nutrition/cooking/baking workshops for students as well as the community through Ivy Tech's CLL program. Our Girls Inc girls are getting a chance of a lifetime to work alongside Chef Stacy to bake delicious “bling”, ruby inspired macarons for our gala guests. They’ll also learn about nutrition, best practices in the kitchen, and have a lot of fun.

Cooking Workshops w/ Our Girls Inc. Girls & Plating:

Jennifer Ryan

Joining Stacy Strand is Chef Jennifer Ryan, a Chef Instructor at Ivy Tech Community College. Jennifer will be the lead chef instructing our girls on cooking skills during workshops and will be helping plate the meal for the Ruby Gala.

Culinary Logistics:

Seth Elgar

Seth Elgar is a former Chef, born and raised in Bloomington. He ran all food operations for Upland Brewing Company (2010-13), then opened No Coast (2014-17) before moving into hospitality consulting and life beyond kitchens. Nowadays, as a volunteer, he coordinates the brunch fundraisers at Community Kitchen and occasionally does special in-home catering as part of nonprofit fundraisers.

Seth has brought together tonight's Chefs from his previous culinary days. He wants the theme of Girls Inc. "Strong. Smart. Bold." to play out through the food, and felt that an event like this had to showcase women in hospitality to have the best impact. He volunteered his time to coordinate production schedules, source donation materials, and work with local farmers that are also woman owned / led.

Event Partners:

Bloomington Chocolate Company

Bloomington Chocolate Company takes great pride in creating handmade truffles, delectable chocolate bars. caramel cups, and BloomingO's - our chocolate dipped sandwich cookies! We use only fine ingredients: superior chocolates, premium dairy products, exceptional cookies, extraordinary wines, fresh roasted coffees, and artisan aged balsamics and olive oils. We finish each piece in true artisan style, with hand decorating. Our dedication to quality, artistry, and taste makes our chocolates the most delectable treat you can find!

Muddy Fork Farm & Bakery

Muddy Fork Bakery is owned by bakers Eric Schedler and Katie Zukof. We are home to Indiana’s only wood-fired brick-oven bakery, where we make the finest sourdough and whole-grain breads and croissants.  In summer 2020 we installed a solar array that fully powers our bakery. While we are not baking, we are busy raising our two daughters, Leda and Ruth, dancing and playing music, tending our greenhouse vegetable garden, and planning for the future.

Osteria Rago

Osteria Rago began as a vision in 2015 by the current owners, Gregg Rago and Susan Bright. In January of 2018 their dream became reality when they opened the doors to Osteria Rago and named it after Gregg’s Italian ancestry. Susan and Chef Cody Gradolf,  sourced the food for our Ruby Gala by working with their distributors and local partners to ensure that as much of the proceeds as possible go toward our Girls Inc programming and not event costs. 

Goods for Cooks

At Goods for Cooks, we believe food has the power to nourish and connect.  Since 1973, we have been dedicated to creating a community gathering space designed to foster the benefits of cooking and sharing food and drink. Thanks to their generous donation of ingredients, our girls were able to make amazing “ruby” macarons with the Ivy Tech culinary team.

Brown County Coffee

At Brown County Coffee, we are honored to provide our community with great coffee, coffee program consultation, along with coffee brewing equipment selection, provision, installation and maintenance, barista training, and private label program development. Nick has graciously donated coffee for our dessert auction portion of the evening.

Fischer Farms

Fischer Farm’s focus has been on producing top quality fresh, natural meats each and every week. This consistent supply has made them a farm to fork choice for many restaurants. As Dave often says, “It’s easy to produce great quality meat once, it’s much harder to produce high quality that is fresh each and every week.” Diana, Dave’s wife of 25 years, focuses her time on taking orders and fulfilling them each week with their home-built computer system. Girls Inc is benefiting from their generous donation of farm fresh pork belly to the gala which helps us make sure the girls see the majority of the proceeds from the event.

Acorn Distributors, Inc.

Acorn Distributors has grown from a small restaurant supply house into a multi-million dollar distributor of disposable paper and plastic, janitorial supplies and equipment, chemicals, sanitary maintenance materials, and foodservice supply products. In 2005, Jennifer Rosenberg became president and 2nd generation owner of Acorn. The company maintained its family owned business status and became a woman owned business. Acorn gifted us much-needed supplies to take our Ruby Gala over the top for our guests.

Ducktrap River of Maine

Over 40 years, Ducktrap River of Maine has gone from two workers to 100+ employees. What started as a small trout farm selling to local businesses has blossomed into a full scale 125,000 sq. ft. smoked seafood campus. Today all 4 of our brands (Ducktrap, Kendall Brook, Winter Harbor, Spruce Point) are sold across the United States and in Canada. Ducktrap staff coordinated a last-minute donation of their gravlax to our gala for our cocktail hour.

Indiana Pork Association

Indiana Pork Producers Association represents and supports the 3,000 pork producers in Indiana. Indiana Pork is an affiliate of the National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council. They provide producers with the resources they need to be profitable and effective. Indiana’s 3,000 pig farmers were responsible for the donation of our gala entrée.

Capriole, Inc.

Founded by American cheesemaking pioneer Judy Schad, Capriole crafts hand-ladled goat cheeses in southern Indiana. In 1976, we moved with our 3 young children from the suburbs to this 80 acre hill farm in southern Indiana. We wanted a more sustainable lifestyle, a milk cow, and lots of gardens. We had no clue what we were getting into.

Now, with over 30 years of experience under our belts, Capriole offers an iconic lineup of award-winning, handcrafted goat cheeses. We’re still inspired by this very special place that we, our children, and our grandchildren call home. Thanks to their generous donation, we are able to enjoy freshly made goat cheese during our cocktail hour.