“L.A. Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand returns for their 12th annual cookout in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Royce Quad scheduled for Saturday, October 5, 2024, and tickets are now on sale.”
“The 2023 event was an overwhelming success raising more than $1.3 million for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Presented at Royce Quad on the campus of UCLA, the cookout is always a perfect day for chefs and fans to come together to support childhood cancer research.”
The list of participating high-profile chefs includes the top rung of L.A. chefs and prominent culinary talents from across the USA. Also on display are premium wines and standout spirits. Since the beginning the local event has been enthusiastically coordinated by Restaurateur Caroline Styne, and Chefs Suzanne Goin and David Lentz.
“Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of 4-year-old Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who was fighting cancer and wanted to raise money to find cures for all children with cancer. Her spirit and determination inspired others to support her cause, and when she passed away at the age of 8, she had raised $1 million. Since then, the Foundation bearing her name has evolved into a national fundraising movement. Today, ALSF is one of the leading funders of pediatric cancer research in the U.S. and Canada raising more than $250 million so far, funding over 1,000 research projects and providing programs to families affected by childhood cancer. For more information, visit AlexsLemonade.org”
Continuing with us previewing L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade 2024 is Co-Founder of the L.A. event, Chef Suzanne Goin, and her daughter, Alex Lentz, heading the local Kids Campaign.
This is Anne-Marie Panerinkan, Culture OC's food columnist. You can follow me online at cultureoc.org. When I want the best in food and dining news outside of Orange County, of course, I tune into the SoCal Restaurant Show on AMA 30KLAA. - And welcome back. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AMA 30KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AMA 30KLAA Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. And I think I neglected earlier to mention that we have at least this morning with us in technical excellence. Good morning, Elise, glad to have you at the controls. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Well, if you like food and you like premium wine and you want to support a great cause, then coming up on October 5th at UCLA is LA Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand. This is really a wonderful event celebrating really its 12th annual LA cookout. And representing them is the co-founder of LA Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand, multiple James Beard award-winning chef Suzanne Goan, who's also here with her daughter, Alex Lence, who heads up the Kids Campaign in LA. Welcome back. One thing you were mentioning, Suzanne, that I don't think we can really emphasize enough is the karam rotari at this event between the chefs, the restaurateurs, the winemakers, the spirits people, everyone, they really enjoy being there. And chefs are competitive. I think we'll agree on that. And nobody is going to slouch in terms of what the taste they are going to be doing. And the other great thing is, is you get these wonderful out-of-town chefs that unless you happen to be in Philadelphia, you're not going to be able to chat with Mark Vettry. And you get the opportunity to do that. Donald Link from New Orleans, who's one of the most prominent chefs in New Orleans, you can chat with Donald. You know, he's a genius with butchery and sausage. So tell us a little bit more about that aspect of this, because no one that participates in this Suzanne is phoning this in. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would say chefs are nagged to do things all the time, but I would say our event is the one where people will be calling your tech team, me saying, what's the date for the event? Because they want to make sure that it's on their calendar. And they do really all bring their A game. I mean, the food is incredible. The only bad thing is you probably can't eat 54 dishes in one day, but we have a lot of people who try. And we support and envy them, Suzanne. Yes, yes, exactly. And, yeah, you're right. I mean, Mark, Vetry, Donald, Link, they've been here since the very beginning. Paul Kahn, Nina Compton this year from New Orleans. She was supposed to come last year and something came up. She couldn't make it, so we're so excited that she's going to be joining us. Michael Mina will be there. Jonathan Waxman from Barbuto. Chris Bianco has been there every year. And then Giada will be there. She also, you know, the other big part of our event, as you know, is we put on this auction at the end of-- or in the middle of the event, we get up and we do an auction. And one of our auction items that we've done, I think, every year for 12 years is we do a women's chef dinner. So it's Nancy Oakes and Nancy Silverton and Sherry Yard. And Giada De Laurentas and me and usually somebody else dumps into. And that's one of our biggest-- that's one of our highest-grossing auction items. We usually sell it a couple times. And I think just the chefs there, we all get up on the stage and everybody is just so excited to be able to raise money for this incredible cause. I don't know if you know that children's cancer is actually the least funded of all cancers, which seems insane to me. Hard to believe. Yeah, that is-- Wow. It is hard to believe. And Alex's Lemonade stand is really doing everything they can to change that. They've raised hundreds of millions of dollars since their inception. And it's such a great group of people. Like I said, it's still run by Alex's parents. So it's a very close-knit group all around. Everybody's really there for the right reasons and very passionate. You know, which, again, is incredible. And I just want to second the motion about Nina Compton out of New Orleans. She definitely is one of the headlining chefs in New Orleans right now, has two very successful restaurants. Her food is really incredible. I just was fortunate enough to have been there a few weeks ago. And I can't recommend it more hardly. And she's also a lovely person on top of it all. And, of course, you're only inviting the good people to the event, Suzanne. So no worries there. But just some special, honorable mention there, because, again, you do get the best to the best. Now, before we go on, the one thing we have not done is, what are the ticket prices and how do people get tickets? Because we do want to see our listeners at LA loves Alex's lemonade stand on October 5th at UCLA. We definitely do. Well, the general admission ticket is $250. $150, that is tax deductible. And then there's VIP tickets and an all-access ticket, which includes the VIP ticket, or the all-access ticket, includes-- we do a chef's welcome dinner at Nancy Silverton's house the night before. So that includes an invitation to that event. And you can buy the tickets online at Alex's lemonade. If you just Google, LA loves Alex's lemonade, it will pop right up. There's a QR code. You can do it on your phone. You can do it. You could use a credit card, however you would like to do it. And I will say, we sold out last year, I think, two or three weeks before the event started. That was our first time that we had sold out. We usually sell out, but it's usually a day or two before we sold out a couple of weeks in advance. So I know it's a very LA thing to wait to the last minute. But I would say, in this case, do not wait to the last minute, because you don't want to miss out. And also, children under 12 are free. So if people want to bring their kids, we have a kids' own. And it's always fun. I don't know. I feel like part of why we wanted the event to be outdoors and in the daytime was for it to really feel like a lemonade span, like a family event. So there's wine, and there's cocktails, but there's kids running around. And it's just a really feel-good day. Suzanne, let's talk about wine for a minute, because I think we've covered the food component well. But your partner, Carolyn Stein, every year, does this incredible job with the wineries. And as you mentioned, you're out of space. Thanks to the fire marshal, and you really can't expand-- And our popularity. You can't expand in the space you're in, which is pretty big. But there is a specific wine area. And the selection of premium wines, both domestic and European, is just absolutely incredible, because if you are a winery, or you are a wine distributor in Los Angeles, if Carolyn calls you and asks you to participate in this event, there's only one answer. And she doesn't really even have to worry about that anymore, because I have this discussion with her every year. There's no room at the end. You have really outstanding wines waiting in line to get to be part of this. And there's just no room. So it's an enviable problem to have. And just to add to our wine enthusiasts that are part of our listening audience, you're just not getting a sales rep from these wineries. Oh, no. Exactly. Well, it's kind of a winemaker at importers. Yes, absolutely. You know, again, and there's really no other event in LA with the depth of wine that LA loves Alex's lemonade stand has, or that, again, attracts the principal. So it's pretty amazing. Before we run out of time, I want to bring Alex back into the conversation. Alex, please let our listeners know that they have kids and want to participate in the Kids Campaign. How do they get involved? Yes, you just have to go onto our website. We have an LA love values lemonade stand website. You just type in the Kids Campaign. And all you have to do is press the create your Kids Campaign page button and sign up, and then just start having your lemonade stand. And like we said before, it doesn't have to be like $1,000 stand. It can be a $50 stand. It can be a $75 stand. But really, just building, monitoring, continuing to have stands, raising the awareness. And honestly, it's so much fun. So it's not something that you're forced to do. Everyone loves doing that. Well, and Alex, every little bit helps. And as you say, it's a joining together of the community. It's the 2 plus 2 equals 5. And whatever level anyone wants to get involved in, of course, is highly encouraged. Exactly, yeah. We've had really great luck with kids getting their soccer teams involved, or getting their friends from elementary school involved. It's lots of different ways that community has been built. And like I said, once the kids get in, once they do it once, they just kind of get the bug and they want to do it again. Again, a very positive sign. Now, last year, Suzanne, I believe the number from LA was a cool $1.3 million. What are you looking at this year because I know chefs are all goal oriented? Yes, we are. We're hoping for $1.5 this year. I think it's-- there's all the economy stuff. There's the people are stressing about the election. The people are stressing about what I'm hoping. We're really hoping people will-- it's a really nice way to escape for a day. Come and just feel what it feels like to be there for the right reasons. I mean, the nice things you also really enjoy yourself. So we're hoping that between the kids campaign and our auction and our VIP ticket sales, that we can hit that $1.5. Looking forward to being able to report on that, Suzanne, as we need to say goodbye, one more time about where people go for tickets. And again, we encourage you to make your plans now because no kidding. This event does sell out. And you will be very disappointed if you're not able to be there. Correct. And I just-- I would literally just Google LA. Love Alex's Lemonade. It will be the very first thing that pops up. Click on there. Click Buy Tickets. And you'll be good. And you can even just scroll down and hit that Kids Campaign button. And it's kind of fun. Think of if you don't have kids or if your kids are older, just think about-- we all know people with little kids. And it's such a valuable thing for them and for the foundation. And that's what Alex was really all about. It was kids. She was a kid who raised $1 million to help other sick kids. So my Alex used to say when she was little, well, I'm not even sick, so I should really be able to do a good job. Suzanne and Alex, thank you very much. It is October 5th at UCLA. LA loves Alex's Lemonade stand. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. When in return, it is the report on Team USA 2025s. This is the culinary team USA at the Bocuse Door semi-finals in New Orleans a few weeks ago. It is the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's world variety produce and West Coast prime meats. We'll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)
