Staff Report
Innovative chefs will showcase their culinary skills by turning sweet and savory treats pink throughout October at the Chumash Casino Resort in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Pink-colored treats, including pastries, desserts, snacks and beverages, will be on sale in Chumash Casino Resort to mark its Project Pink efforts, in which a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Breast Cancer Resource Center of Santa Barbara.
“We have talented chefs at the Chumash Casino Resort who pour their creativity into everything they do, and it’s moments like these that give them a chance to shine for a great cause,” said Kenneth Kahn, tribal chairman for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.
“All divisions of our Food and Beverage Department rise to the occasion for this annual fundraiser to make sure every guest who enters an eatery at the Chumash Casino Resort knows it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” he said.
The special pink items will be featured throughout the Chumash Casino Resort, including the Café, the Buffet, Grains & Grounds sandwich shop, Center Bar, food cour, and Willows, the resort’s AAA Four Diamond-rated restaurant.
Highlights for chocolate lovers will be special molds of a pink high heel shoe ($25), a pink flat shoe ($20) and a pink purse ($50). The shoes will each feature six truffles inside, while the purse will need to be cracked open to reveal its 12 truffles inside.
Levi Richard, executive pastry chef at the Chumash Casino Resort, has designed more than 20 pastries and desserts for Project Pink, including bubble gum meringue, a pistachio rosewater cake, a ruby chocolate and champagne cake, raspberry mousse with chocolate brownie, and his jamaica coconut mousse cake.
“It’s coconut cake on the bottom with key lime foam, jamaica jelly and coconut mousse around the outside, and it’s glazed in pink with a chocolate garnish on top,” he explained.
Willows will offer a lemon mousse drizzled with raspberry coulis and topped with a pink puff pastry, the food court has a pink-colored, rice-paper-wrapped eel sushi roll for sale, and Grains & Grounds will be a Project Pink showcase selling raspberry cheesecakes, pink velvet whoopee pies, strawberry cakes, pink chocolate-dipped cake pops, Mexican conchas and Rice Krispies treats.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an annual campaign to raise awareness of breast cancer risks, the value of screening and early detection, while raising funds for cancer research.
Located on Highway 246 in Santa Ynez, the Chumash Casino Resort is open 24/7 and is an age 21-and-older facility. For more information on menu items, visit www.chumashcasino.com/dining.
