Last night, the basement ballroom of the Southwest waterfront’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel was transformed into a sweet tooth’s paradise. Pastry chefs proffered confections of every kind for Sweet Charity, an annual fundraiser to benefit the Heart of America foundation, which revitalizes libraries and collects books for DC’s at-risk children. The evening’s entertainment was a fashion show in which models—including two former Miss DCs and a few wives of Wizards players—sported outfits made of sugar and chocolate. Check out our slide show and read on for some of our favorite moments and tastes of the night:

Hungry Girl Lisa Lillien's diet includes Ooey Gooey Chili Cheese Nachos and Dreamy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge. Photograph by Amanda Friedman.

Who: Calling all healthy eaters—but still lovers of delicious food.

What: Book signing for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World by Lisa Lillien. Get Lillien’s John Hancock while dining on free snacks (Vitalicious VitaTops and Fiber One bars) and asking the author which recipe she made last night.

Where: Tysons Corner Borders (8027 Leesburg Pike, Vienna)

When: Tonight (Monday) at 7:30

Why: In 2003, Lillien, a Los Angeles native, transformed her love of guilt-free foods into a free daily e-mail called Hungry Girl. The newsletter started out small, going to only 78 people; today it has more than 400,000 subscribers. Lillien has been a guest on Today and appears regularly on Extra. She also writes weekly columns on Yahoo! and WeightWatchers.com.

Her daily Hungry Girl emails include news, food finds, recipes, and weekend survival strategies. “I’m not a nutritionist; I’m just hungry,” says Lillien, who’s struggled with weight issues all her life. She’s a self-proclaimed “foodologist” on the lookout for foods that taste great but still allow you to zip up your jeans in the morning.
 

Here’s an opportunity for wine lovers to support a great cause and taste some wonderful wine. Each May, the American Heart Association sponsors Heart’s Delight—the premier wine-auction event in the DC area—with the support of several leading Bordeaux châteaux and some top restaurants in Washington and from around the country. This year’s event, which runs Thursday, May 8, through Saturday, May 10, features the outstanding 2005 vintage, which has been heralded as one of the best in Bordeaux for several years.

Emeril Lagasse is ready for your challenge. Photograph courtesy of Planet Green.

Attention, aspiring reality-TV stars and Food Network junkies! Emeril Lagasse—the boisterous celebrity chef known for his obsession with garlic and all things bam!-worthy—is filming a show for Discovery’s soon-to-launch Planet Green network at the Fair Lakes Whole Foods in Fairfax, and he’s casting locally for participants.

The premise of the new show, Emeril Green: Emeril comes to the rescue, solving the “cooking challenges” of everyday folks and throwing into the mix a few tips for ecofriendly cooking. The bam-ster is looking for “enthusiastic and fun people with creative and interesting cooking challenges,” according to a Discovery press release.

Pitching a challenge with an ecoconscious bent seems to be a plus—the press release gives examples such as “how to be eco-friendly while still deep-frying a turkey.”

If you’ve got a unique challenge to propose, e-mail your name, address, age, occupation, and idea for the challenge plus a recent picture to foodshowcasting@gmail.com.

For more posts on Washington dining news and restaurants, click here.
 

They say the best way to learn more about wine is to drink as much as possible. But if you feel as if those couple of bottles each weekend just end in a blur, sip on this: On Thursday, April 17, the French Wine Society’s Rhône Renaissance lecture and winetasting will help you decipher the spices in a Syrah and the citrus notes in a Sauvignon Blanc.

Lisa Airey, FWS’s director of education, will lead a short lecture on France’s Rhône Valley. That’s followed by a tasting of some of the area’s top appellations, including Crozes-Hermitage, Côte Rotie, Gigondas, Château-du-Pape, and Tavel.

April showers don’t usually call for celebration—unless you take part in the Songkran Water Festival, Thailand’s New Year’s festivities held every April.

This year, area restaurants are celebrating Songkran by holding the first-ever Thai Restaurant Week from Sunday, April 13, through Saturday, April 19. Spearheaded by the Thai Embassy, 20 local Thai restaurants will offer special menus, discounts, holiday activities, and samplings of Thai fruit.

What was on the menu at the $575-a-plate gala?

Forget the typical rubber-chicken, black-tie dinner. When serving dinner to a crowd of more than 500, Patrick O’Connell does it up. At a star-studded, $575-a-plate gala at the Mellon Auditorium, the chef celebrated the 30th anniversary of his award-winning restaurant, the Inn at Little Washington, with a seven-course gourmet dinner. From soup—a demitasse of minted pea soup—to nuts—served with the cheese course—the meal was a gourmand’s delight. And in between courses the foodie set had stars in their eyes as culinary pioneers from the last 30 years were honored, including former Washington Post food critic Phyllis Richman and chefs Thomas Keller, Alice Waters, Charlie Trotter, and Daniel Boulud.

Read on for the best moments of the night.

Host with the most: O’Connell kicked off the evening saying that the only thing you could compare the night with was an Irish funeral or Jewish wedding. He then toasted the crowd with “Mazel tov!” and slugged back a shot of Irish whisky.

Best entrance: Guests were saluted by children dressed as toy soldiers at the top of the red carpet.

Best junior-high-dance moment: The guest who remarked, “Did they just play ‘Pump Up the Jam’ as mistress of ceremonies Andrea Mitchell walked onstage? Did they steal this soundtrack from an eighth-grade girl’s mix tape?”

Most awkward moment: Andrea Mitchell describing husband Alan Greenspan as “such a romantic.” No one wants to think of Greenspan as a Casanova, just the maestro of America’s economy.