BLT Steak, foodies bash benefits children

Typically, Mondays mean the end of the weekend's parties.

But Monday, BLT Steak at the Camelback Inn is hosting its first anniversary party and you're invited. And, OMG, is it going to be a great one.

The understated steakhouse has teamed with Valley-based foodie social group Foodies Like Us to throw an affordable, but decidedly glamorous dinner and cocktail party benefiting the Children's Miracle Network.

The Foodie group is a collection of Valley food obsessives who like to make friends while trying new restaurants and new foods and geeking out with behind-the-scenes tours, chef-hosted dinners and wine tastings, etc. And you can start attending the super-friendly parties by checking them out at foodieslikeus.com.

Or you can just mingle with them and the roughly 500 other guests expected at the BLT party where everyone will indulge in roasted pig, braised swordfish, short ribs, foie gras and the restaurant's signature large popovers. (They are the size of a woman's shoe, but taste like the goodness of a woman's love.)

BLT executive chef Marc Hennessy said he plans to roast “a number” of pigs, which are his favorite creatures to cook.
“I am a huge fan of the animal, it's my favorite thing to cook. I love pork,” he said. “But the night is all about the great comfort food that American people love—it's what BLT is all about.”

And while all that sounds tasty, I'm most looking forward to indulging in the four Prohibition-era cocktails designed by Camelback Inn director of beverages Trudy Thomas. Thomas is a cocktail queen. Every one of her drinks is so well-balanced as to defy easy description. Instead, one must reach for esoteric metaphors, perhaps ones even worse than that woman's shoe one a few paragraphs up.

“I love Prohibition-era cocktails,” Thomas said. “It's something I love studying and to me, they fit a steakhouse, these classic cocktails.”
She'll serve a Dark Storm, her version of a Dark and Stormy, a dark, rum-based cocktail, served tall, over ice, that is epic in its complex richness and mix of sweetness and gingery bite.

There will also be the BLT Manhattan, a drink she calls the “Cowboy Killer,” made with Maker's Mark, a dash of bitters and sweet vermouth, but set apart with Grand Marnier-soaked cherries.

And two lovely pink drinks round out the offerings—the Blood Orange Pisco Sour (a revelation in a coupe glass) and the Clover Club, a gin-based drink involving raspberries, bitters and lime, sort of the Cosmopolitan of its day.

Details: Tickets are $30 at foodieslikeus.com or $40 at the door. Dinner is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. 5402 E. Lincoln Drive, Scottsdale.