Chef donates poker winnings to autism organization

Nation's Restaurant News,  Oct 8, 2007  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

MASHANTUCKET, CONN. -- Franklin Becker, executive chef of Brasserie restaurant in New York City, won the second annual Foxwoods Food & Wine Festival celebrity chef poker tournament, beating out Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass., and New York-based restaurateur and club owner David Rabin, who took second and third place respectively.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Becker's prize, $15,000, will go to Autism Speaks, which funds research of the condition.

Tsai's $10,000 winnings will go do the Cam Neely Foundation, which helps cancer patients and their families.

Rabin, who owns Lotus, the Double Seven and Los Dados in New York, won $5,000, which will go to New York Cares, which mobilizes volunteers for a range of social issues in New York City, and the Innocence Project, which assists prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing.

New York-based chefs David Burke and Harold Dieterle and Boston chef Michael Schlow also participated.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning