Food and Wine and Southern Living magazines partnered with Alabama Chefs for Children's Table, a night of recipe tasting at the Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center, where all proceeds went to Children's of Alabama. On March 3 from 6 to 8 p.m., attendees tasted the work of local chefs who created high quality and nutritious dishes.
At Children's of Alabama, many patients at the hospital are under strict dietary restrictions, leaving the children to become knowledgeable about the food they eat and sometimes inspiring them to learn how to cook and create recipes. Being a private, not-for-profit hospital, they serve every child regardless of their ability to pay and depend on the support from the community.
Her eighth year with Children's Table, Chandler Bibb, chief development officer at Children's of Alabama, says the original inspiration for the event came from the patients wanting to test new recipes. The magazine teams would come to the hospital and let the patients try the sweet recipes.
"To come to Auburn and to have chefs from Birmingham and Fairhope and the Auburn area, it really represents so much energy and kindness and generosity on their behalf to be here tonight to share their talent to help the kids that we serve," Bibb said.
Timothy Walley, 11, was adopted by his parents, Jamie and Stephanie, at five months old and was born with a condition called congenital nephrotic syndrome, the Finnish type.
At the time, the Walleys were in Mississippi and in need of specialized care, when they were recommended to Children's of Alabama.
"Through all the dialysis, I was in Mississippi and Stephanie was over here with Timothy, and that dialysis team, from the nurses to the nutritionist, became a family to us," Jamie Walley said.
In early 2020, Timothy Walley had a nephrectomy, where they removed both of kidneys and in September 2020, he received a kidney transplant. After his transplant, Timothy shared with his parents that he feels like a "real boy."
Dr. Daniel Feig, professor and director of Pediatric Nephrology at Children’s of Alabama, encouraged attendees to put themselves in a patient's shoes.
"Think about some of the ingredients that go into foods," Feig said. "Kids within our care cannot have potassium, they cannot have phosphate and they have to restrict their water. While you may not be familiar with what the content of a lot of foods is, that restricts essentially everything that tastes good and anything with preservatives. Most processed foods are completely off the menu and to make things worse, the ingredients that we need to use to actually feed kids safely are very expensive and beyond the reach of many families. So no matter how much they want to support their kids and do the right things it's not necessarily within their means."
Gulf-Yellowfin Tuna Nachos prepared by Chef David Bancroft at the Children’s Table event on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
He shared that in unsuccessful cases in feeding children, they end up not growing and not being large enough to receive a transplant. This along with feeding patients the wrong foods causes the development of additional severe diseases and can cause a life expectancy within the 20s.
"The content of food is most important to them and is every bit as important as medicine," Feig said. So we call this program the Food is Medicine Program and what you're supporting tonight is the ability for us to help families buy ingredients, get monthly ingredient boxes, get training to prepare the foods in a way that their children are willing to eat them, so that they can grow up and live very long lives and that's thanks to you all."
Since moving to Alabama and making it home, Jamie Walley expressed his gratitude to the hospital who made life possible for his son.
"For us, the impact that Children's of Alabama has had on our family, I don't know how to express that the hospital, from top to bottom, saved his life and we are forever grateful for that," Jamie Walley said. "This hospital gave us hope when we didn't have any."
Chris Hastings, owner and executive chef of Hot and Hot Fish Club, shared his support for the event.
"I've been a long time supporter of Children's of Alabama, partly as a company, we always try to support Children's [of Alabama] and the ancillary communities around that do different things for the kids," Hastings said. "I'm also a member of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club, which is one of the largest supporters of Children's Hospital and so, you know, it's the kids, I'm a softy."
Two assistant chefs preparing more servings in the kitchen during the Children’s Table event on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
"So whatever we do is clean, it always includes a balance of vegetables and starch and the protein is less of the hero," Hastings said. "It's always super delicious and it's not loaded down with butter or fat or all those things that we struggle with in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia where communities are struggling with obesity and young kids are struggling with health issues. We take all of those old things that I grew up with and try to reinvent them to a certain extent and lighten them up."
Sophie Snyder, junior in hospitality management, is the owner and founder of Sophie Cheffy who hopes attendees are uplifted by the true meaning behind the night's event.
"I hope they [attendees] take away a great experience supporting the Children's Hospital," Snyder said. "Beyond the food and fun, I hope they get to think about and appreciate what Children's Hospital is doing and what a big impact it's making, considering people's lives."
Leo Maurelli, executive chef of Arricia Tratoria and The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center, shared how events like this one allow him to think about diverse dietary needs.
"It's at the forefront of everything we do," Maurelli said. "Obviously when I chose my dish for this evening I purposely made it vegetarian. You have different chefs doing different things, but for us, vegetable forward is always something that I like to do and take into consideration when we do things like this. So we try to make sure that we're able to provide for a wide variety of guests; Obviously you can't hit on everything, but for the most part that's kind of our approach."
Bill Briand, executive chef of Little Bird, shared what he hopes attendees took away from the event.
"The understanding of how to help I mean, that's what it takes," Briand said. "You aren't always gonna be in a fancy wine and food event. Donate money, figure out how to help and that's what matters. Learn more about it, read about it because knowledge helps all the way around."
David Bancroft, owner and executive chef of Acre, shared how important it was to him to bring the philosophy of local source ingredient to an event, censored around health and nutrition.
"The most important part of focusing on farm-to-table was really to get the rest of our community involved, all the resources that we already have," Bancroft said. "All these farmers and these families were already in our community, but none of them were featured in the restaurants, so now they are the celebrities of the town."
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