Chef Martin Yan cooks up $30K at San Jose Public Library Foundation fundraiser

We all know “Yan Can Cook,” but it turns out celebrity chef Martin Yan can fundraise pretty well, too.

Yan — energetic and effervescent as ever — was the guest of honor last Saturday at the San Jose Public Library Foundation’s inaugural Signature Author event. If Yan seems like an odd choice, remember that in addition to his award-winning PBS show, he’s also shared his culinary talents through a series of cookbooks.

But whatever the reason, Yan was the right ingredient to make the fundraiser at the Janet Gray Hayes Rotunda at San Jose City Hall a success. As the capacity crowd dined on a Chinese lunch, Yan delighted them with a demonstration of his cooking skills — including boning a chicken in a matter of seconds.

He was helped out by “sous chefs” Katharine Earhart, co-founder and partner at Fairlight Advisors, and Ame Ponce, assistant director of executive recruiting at Ernst & Young, and “tasters” Scott Smead, a partner at Robert Lee & Associates, and San Jose City Librarian Jill Bourne.

“It’s a beautiful library, and it really needs your support,” Yan told the crowd, which donated more than $30,000 — including direct donations and winning bids on a walking tour with Yan in San Francisco’s Chinatown and an eight-person dinner hosted by Yan at one of his favorite Bay Area Chinese restaurants.

And, in fact, the San Jose Public Library system could use all the support it can get. Both Bourne and SJPL Foundation CEO Dawn Coppin pointed out that the library ranks 26th out of 30 library systems in the Bay Area in per-capita local government funding. That’s only $55 per person annually, compared to $202 in San Francisco, $194 in Berkeley and $154 in Palo Alto.

No matter who you slice it, that’s a huge gap that the SJPL Foundation is working to bridge; you can find out more about the nonprofit’s mission at www.sjplf.org.

ALL THAT JAZZ: Symphony San Jose Executive Artist Director Robert Massey has an interesting history with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, the San Jose native who is the featured soloist for the symphony’s season opener the first weekend in October. (How featured is he? It’s called “Jon Nakamatsu and the Jazz Age” for a reason.)

Massey and Nakamatsu first met in the months after Nakamatsu won the prestigious Van Cliburn award in 1997 and was performing in Memphis. Massey worked in marketing for the performing arts center there and had responsibility for picking up visiting artists from the airport. Nakamatsu said while he meets people like that all the time, he remembered Massey for a very fun reason: “We had a day off and he said, ‘Hey, do you want to go to Graceland?’ and I said, ‘Of course I want to go to Graceland!’ So that’s our history.”

There’s no Elvis Presley music on the Oct. 5-6 program — which is inspired is by the Roaring ’20s and featuring Nakamatsu performing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Nakamatsu says he’s also looking forward to performing Aaron Copland’s blues-inspired Piano Concerto, which he hasn’t performed before.

“It’s a very short, kind of thorny but really jazzy piece that I think goes well with (“Rhapsody in Blue”),” Nakamatsu said at the Rotary Club meeting. “It’s incredible to be in the California Theatre as a performer but also just as a San Josean. Not having grown up with the California Theater and now having that, I think, is an incredible thing for the city, just culturally. It’s a wonderful place to sit in, let alone make music in.”

There’s a 7:30 p.m. concert Saturday night and a 2:30 p.m. matinee Sunday.

The season opener is being appropriately celebrated with a pre-concert Prohibition Party dinner at the Silicon Valley Capital Club, a perfect opportunity to slip into a flapper dress and sip on speakeasy cocktails while listening to live jazz. The deadline to buy tickets is 4 p.m. Sept. 25, though, and no secret password will get you through the door after that. Go to www.symphonysanjose.org for seats to the party or the concert.

KCAT-TOBER FEST?: I received a nice welcome Tuesday when I spoke at the Los Gatos Rotary Club, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. My colleague Isha Trivedi recently wrote about their centennial project to create a new grove of trees at Live Oak Manor park, but another event they’re co-sponsoring with KCAT-TV is this Sunday’s third annual Oktoberfest at the Los Gatos Civic Center Plaza.

There will be plenty of beer, pretzels and other food — along with music by the lederhosen-wearing band The Internationals. The festivities run from noon to 6 p.m., and you can get all the details — and pre-order a food package — at www.kcal.org/oktoberfest2024.