Ten o'clock is late for me and I don't usually do a Tuesday blog but I just had to file a short blog about tonight's 'Ilima Awards, our annual program honoring Island restaurants and benefiting Diamond Head Theatre.

Even though it was a Monday night, when I finally dragged out of there at 9:45, people were still dancing, eating, drinking, having a great time. The event begins with a theatrical show that is built around the restaurant winners and our cast members had us all in stitches at times, parodying show tunes.

The cast of Ahnya Chang, Candes Meijide-Gentry, Laurence Paxton, Stefanie Smart, Tony Young and the Diamond Head Theatre Shooting Stars did their usual amazing job, especially considering they get very little preparation or rehearsal time for this show (the show always comes on the heels of the closing of a DHT production and onstage time is very limited; we do basically two full run-throughs and that's it). The show, annually written and directed by DHT artistic director John Rampage, has to be seen to be believed.

The gorgeous new tents DHT rented this year were full all night long. The KCC students who annually help us by acting as servers did a great job of keeping us fed. I left with an aching tummy and aching feet (from having danced to Kit Samson's Sound Advice for several numbers).

And since this is a blog that's supposed to be about food, what about it? I've been involved with the 'Ilimas for 13 years (missed last year due to illness) and everyone says this and it's become a joke with the 'Ilima committee but truly, it gets better every year and that includes the food. This year I took the time to go around to every booth and greet the hardworking chef crews and they were so enthusiastic and proud of what they were doing. I can't honestly say which dish blew me away the most. Everything I ate was so good, I had to stop after a while, or I'd burst out of my dress. One thing I really loved was that we had such a range of dishes, from Himalayan Curry to Teri Beef to Lobster Cream (Oh, my gosh! I wish I could remember where that came from.), from down-home local to highly refined. This is what I think this event should do: Showcase our diversity and a range of palates and price points.

Favorite moments: Chev Mavro chef de cuisine Kevin Chong onstage with his baby son, dressed in a tiny little chef's coat, propped up in his lap receiving a critics' choice award. Stefanie Smart lolling on a sofa warbling ruefully "I've got food under my chin"  to the tune of "I've got you under my skin." Seeing so many chefs and restaurant owners and knowing that, just for a moment, we had let them know how all their hard work and effort in these scary times is appreciated. And dancing.

Next year, y'all come!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.