Category: In Our Community

Tuesday Mornings in Japan

Dana PhelpsBlog, In Our Community, ,

For the last several months, Clairemont team members have been joining others in our business community on Tuesday mornings at the Triangle Business Journal in attempts to answer a complex question: How can we best help people in Japan living with the aftermath of March’s tsunami?

We have formed Project Kokoro, and we have adopted our first community in Japan to help. Many weeks we Skype with our committee members who are visiting Japan to give us a first-hand assessment of needs and others who will literally put the funds we raise into action.

This photo slideshow compiled by one of  our committee members who just returned from Japan will give you an idea of the ongoing hardships the people of Japan are facing and some of the issues we are hoping to address. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more information and photos as we announce the first project funded by Project Kokoro. In the meantime, please consider joining our efforts by making a donation.

Read More

Good News for Garner — Go Scotty Go!

Dana PhelpsBlog, In Our Community,
Vote for Scotty!

Unless you are living under a rock, by now you’ve surely heard of Garner, North Carolina, thanks to 17-year-old Scotty McCreery who is one of two finalists vying for the American Idol title. And some of you might be thinking that Garner sounds familiar or you might even recall why it made national news nearly two years ago.

It seemed a bit ironic that the town of Garner’s best news in recent years — Scotty’s advancement to the final round of Idol — was featured on the front page of yesterday’s The News & Observer while the town’s worst news was featured on the front page of section B. Perhaps more ironic is that the final closing of the snack production plant in Garner will take place next week as many of us in North Carolina wait to see if our local star is named the big winner.

Continue reading “Good News for Garner — Go Scotty Go!”

Read More

Community Relations Spotlight: Chatham County Chef Challenge

Dana PhelpsBlog, Clairemont Client News, In Our Community

One of the things I love the most about Clairemont is that we get to work with such smart, creative and community-focused people! Our clients at Briar Chapel are absolute pros at community support and involvement. The key? A philanthropic mindset from the top — Bob McCleod, CEO of parent company Newland Communities, has a long history of humanitarian efforts — coupled with people throughout the company who have a personal passion for making a difference.

The Chatham County Chef Challenge is the perfect example. Passionate about health and wellness, education and the environment, the Briar Chapel team partnered with the Abundance Foundation to conceptualize the Chatham County Chef Challenge. Designed to increase fresh vegetables and fruits in the student lunches, educate the students and parents on the importance of a healthy lunch and increase participation in the school lunch program, the initiative was an easy sell to local celebrity chefs who are familiar with types of events and organizations Briar Chapel commonly supports.

An important part of the program was a training session where our celebrity chefs worked with the school cafeteria staffs to show them how to make their special dishes using ingredients available to the school lunchrooms. Below is a brief snippet of a Briar Chapel blog post on the training day, and to meet the chefs and sample their dishes that will become regular Chatham County school cafeteria menus, come out to Briar Chapel’s Earth Day event Saturday.

Summarized from the Briar Chapel blog…

After spending weeks creating the dishes, our chefs gathered last week to teach the 17 Chatham County School Cafeteria lunch managers the recipes. The managers went back to their kitchens and cook these dishes this week for all of the county school children.

The managers are of course the experts in feeding hundreds of children in a short period of time. They know what kids will and will not eat. Participating chefs included Chef Colin Bedford of Fearrington House, Chef Kelly Taylor and Chef Gregg Hamm of the Natural Chef Culinary Program at Central Carolina Community College (the first of it’s kind in the country) and Chef Jimmy Reale of Crossroads Restaurant located in the historical and beautiful Carolina Inn.

Read More

Earth Day Goodness – Part 3

Dana PhelpsBlog, In Our Community, Sustainability, ,

In working with Clairemont client, Briar Chapel, I recently had the great honor of interviewing Chef Arthur Gordon of Irregardless Cafe. As you will learn from the Q&A below, Arthur pioneered cooking with local ingredients and supporting area farmers in Raleigh. I love his food, and I think he would be as equally as successful at the comedy club next door to the cafe!

1. What’s it like to be the chef at Irregardless Café? In French, the word chef means chief, so it’s a real pleasure to be the chief, the head, the operating honcho of a group of people who are like-minded. I like to think that Irregardless Café is an oasis in Raleigh – no TV, live music, fresh food – and to be able to provide this to the community at large is a real honor. This concept is the vision I had 35 years ago, when I began Irregardless, and it’s a real blessing to see it realized.
2. When did you know you wanted to be a chef? From an early age. When my mom and dad got married, my mom said to him, “I’m going to be good in one room in this house, you pick it.” So, as a dysfunctional family, I learned how to cook. Dad was happy, and I learned to cook. French toast was my forte. We grew up in Durham, and we owned a ladies dress shop, where dad bought the clothes and mom sold them. You see the room dad picked was actually the dress shop – see, it wasn’t what you were thinking.
3. Where did you start your career as a full-time chef? In 1972, I graduated from UNC, and I wrote to the Culinary Institute of America, the CIA, about coming to be trained as a professional chef. They wanted everyone to have at least one year of experience first, so I thought I’d open a restaurant for a year or two. Well, I haven’t gotten to cooking school yet. I started here in 1974. I built the building by converting it from a laundry into a restaurant, and I just kept expanding over the years. In 1994, we had a fire, so when I rebuilt, I made the kitchen as large as the dining room. I figured if I was going to spend my life in that kitchen, I would make it big, and it’s worked out well. It’s allowed us to be able to have a catering business, and not bog down the kitchen that’s also serving the dining room. Continue reading “Earth Day Goodness – Part 3”

Read More

Earth Day Goodness

Dana PhelpsBlog, In Our Community, Sustainability, , ,

I was going to wait until April to start blogging about Earth Day, but the Clairemont clients just have too many good things in the works to wait a few more days. This post originally appeared on Briar Chapel‘s (client) blog. Enjoy!

Celebrity Chef Perspective: Jimmy Reale, Carolina Inn

On Sunday, April 18th we will host a Celebrity Chef Charity Event featuring several Triangle Chefs demonstrating their favorite recipes using locally and healthfully grown foods in each of our model homes. Today we are talking with Chef Jimmy Reale of the landmark Carolina Inn:

Q: Tell us a bit about what it’s like to be the chef at The Carolina Inn…

A: It is very challenging but at the same time very rewarding. The Inn is a very busy place and personally I love the fast pace. I’ve been working at The Carolina Inn and our sister property for the past twelve years and absolutely love what I do.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a chef?

A: I have always enjoyed cooking; growing up in an Italian and Lebanese family. My mom is one of the best cooks you’ll ever meet. She definitely influenced me to become a chef.

Q: Where did you start your career as a full-time chef?

A: My first cooking job was making pizza and calzones at Sbarro’s. Continue reading “Earth Day Goodness”

Read More