Sip For The Sea. at the Central Park Zoo Sept. 12, will feature a food and wine tasting, including special offerings from some of New York's top restaurants.
The event will also be an opportunity to learn about the importance of marine conservation in the waters around New York.
Two chefs joined us on Eyewitness News Sunday Morning to demonstrate some of the dishes that will be served at the event.
The Aquarium partially reopened in May, seven months after Sandy devastated the 14-acre aquarium campus, and hopes to be fuly reopened in the spring of 2016.
"We have worked nonstop to ensure that the marine life in the aquarium was safe and secure," Cristián Samper, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said. "We want to share this progress with New Yorkers and be a part of the Coney Island comeback."
Sandy's surge overran carefully calibrated tanks with oily, debris-filled water, knocked out even backup power to all the exhibits and made it impossible to check on some of them for days. Managers contemplated shipping animals away and wondered whether the institution itself could survive in its spot on Coney Island.
But more than 80 percent of the collection is intact; a planned expansion remains on track, now coupled with rebuilding and flood-proofing an institution that aims to be an object lesson in enduring on the shore.
The partial reopening included Glover's Reef, which features sea life found in Belize; and exhibits in Conservation Hall that highlight the Coral Triangle of Fiji, the Great Lakes of East Africa, and the Flooded Forests of the Amazon.
It also included the outdoor spaces of Sea Cliffs, with walruses, sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters and penguins; and a fully remodeled Aquatheater, with a new sea lion demonstration.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.wcs.org/sipforthesea/
Here is one of the recipes for a dish from the event:
Mushroom Terrine
Mushroom Mousse:
850g button mushrooms
200g onion
4 cloves garlic
4 sprig thyme
400g heavy cream
200g butter
½ cup Madera
½ cup Brandy
10 sheets gelatin
Salt - Melt butter with aromatics, add garlic, diced onion, mushrooms.
Add alcohol and allow to cook out. Add cream.
Cook until mushrooms are soft. Add bloomed gelatin, puree, pass.
Pour into plastic lined ¼ sheet tray so tray is full ¾ to the top. Allow to cool.
When completely cool fill the rest of the tray with room temperature sauternes gelee.
