Photo Essay: Meals on Wheels’ Star Chefs and Vintner’s Gala 2015

The first of two photo essays for the Meals on Wheels Star Chefs and Vintner’s Gala fundraiser of 2015.

AJ and I were prepared for our favorite food event of the year, the stellar Meals on Wheels’s Star Chefs and Vintners Gala. Last year it was mad rush for us to drive up from the first day of the AIDS Lifecycle fundraiser that AJ was on, but this year we leisurely got dressed in our tuxedos, drove over early to try beat the crowd. We’ve long been supporters of the Meals on Wheels gala, and this year they raised over $2.6 MILLION! That’s going to provide more than 520,000 meals for homebound seniors. With more than 900 people attending the Gala, 100 chefs and 90 vintners as well as celebrity mixologists from around the San Francisco and Northern California area, AJ and I were ready to be impressed. It did not disappoint. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw the firehose of photos that I posted about the event using the hashtag #mowsfgala. I try to capture every nibbly bite there, but there was no way I could eat all of it, as much as I wish I could. Here’s a sampling of some of the images from the appetizer part of the event. Bounce back here in a couple of weeks for part 2 with photos of the dinner, behind the scenes and dessert!

Special thanks to Meals on Wheels San Francisco for providing my partner and me with tickets to the event. Even though our tickets were complimentary we were not compensated to photograph or write about this event.