"Gala is a Market Lover’s Dream," By Carolyn Wyman

Gala is a Market Lover’s Dream
By Carolyn Wyman
Market Correspondent

It is the secret dream of every Reading Terminal Market fan: To have the funds and the stomach capacity to try foods from every single Market food stand.

That dream becomes reality next Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Valentine to the Market gala fundraiser.

From 8 to 11 p.m., anyone who has purchased a ticket at PartyTicketsOnline.com can wander the aisles of the Market, picking up food and drink from all their favorite stands, while enjoying (and/or boogieing to!) music by the Reading Terminals jazz band and the Caribbean Kabudi Project, among others.

This year’s party is actually a revival of a February fundraiser first held in the early ’90s to fund the legal fight to help save the Market from physical decline and development threats. In the later years of the Valentine’s ’90s run, monies raised were used to build the Market’s demo kitchen and to bring Market produce out to far-flung neighborhoods (an outreach that spun-off into today’s independent nonprofit Food Trust). While the party ended in the mid-90s, it was not forgotten.

It provided the Market-wide grazing model used for hundreds of private catered parties since. In fact, Market catering chief Stormy Lundy says even 14 years after the last Valentine to the Market event, people would tell her they wanted to stage something “like the Valentine’s party.”

But you had to be part of the group staging one of these private events to get this fantasy Market experience – at least until last year, when Market management bowed to RTM Preservation Fund president Becky Stoloff’s enthusiastic lobbying to bring it back.

Stoloff died just a few weeks ago and so this year’s party is part of her living legacy.
It’s also part of the Market’s 120th birthday celebration, which will be reflected in a ’20s lounge theme (most noticeable at the Market entrances and at the lounge musical stage). Philadelphia Brewing Company has also created an 1892 chocolate stout for the occasion.

Martin’s Meats will be back with their whole roasted pig, served with the traditional Amish chow-chow on freshly baked rolls from Beiler’s. Twelth Street Cantina will be making their famed margaritas. There will also be cupcakes from Flying Monkey Bakery, fried mac and cheese from Beck’s Cajun Cafe, mini sandwiches from Molly Molloy’s, cookies from Famous 4th Street and the Pennsylvania General Store, and all the Bassetts Ice Cream you can eat. (Talk about fantasies!)

In fact, Lundy says there is almost “100 percent merchant participation,” between these goodies from the prepared food stands and fresh-food stands that are donating food to be prepared by other stands or used to make the hors d’ oeuvres at the VIP party, an element introduced last year.

Starting at 7 p.m., that party prequel includes those fancy appetizers, specialty cocktails and a celebrity-chef contest modeled on the TV cooking show Chopped. In the Valentine to the Market version, local chefs Peter McAndrews of Modo Mio and Monsu, Louie Campanaro of Village Belle, Erin O’Shea of Percy Street Barbecue, and Bill Beck of Beck’s Cajun Café will be paired with media celebrity sous-chef helpers like Michael Klein of Philly.com and Lori Wilson of NBC 10 to prepare the best dish out of a basket of several known and some surprise ingredients (last year’s wild cards included the Valentine’s-appropriate but highly challenging heart-shaped marshmallows and red-hot candies).

Also different about the current decade’s Valentine to the Market: It’s black-tie optional. Just as everyone will benefit from the Avenue D market renovations the party will help fund, so everyone should feel comfortable being there.

Valentine to the Market, 8-11 p.m., $125; 7 p.m. pre-party and cooking contest plus party, $300; Sat., Feb. 25, at Reading Terminal Market. For tickets, visit PartyTicketsOnline.com.