The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, Danny Meyer's annual, free mega-event in Madison Square Park, just announced the participants for June 7 and 8, and we are pleased to see familiar, delicious names. Ed Mitchell of North Carolina will do his legendary whole-hog BBQ, and Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur, Alabama, will be on hand with his pulled pork. Jimmy Hagood of Black Jack BBQ in Charleston, South Carolina, is a notable newcomer, bringing his state's distinctive mustard-based sauces to a city more familiar with the North Carolina tradition. The New York contingent consists of Blue Smoke, Hill Country, Dinosaur, and the rarely mentioned but worthwhile Rack and Soul.

Big Apple BBQ [Official site]
Earlier: The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party Steamrolls the Opposition

So you’re a staid East Side burgher flush with the acquired riches of a lifetime who wants to step out for a meticulous banquet cooked by six great chefs to benefit a noble cause next Monday. Well, we have the event for you. Or let’s say you are a high-living bon vivant with a love of food and theater. We have another event, the same night. The first is Share Our Strength’s Tasteful Pursuit, at Artisanal. It starts with a Balvenie whisky reception, followed by six courses prepared by chefs including Terrance Brennan, David Burke, Jacques Torres, and Aaron Sanchez. The second, at the Metropolitan Pavilion, is Cabaret Gourmet, a gala honoring editor Judith Jones and featuring its own chef lineup, highlighted by Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter and Suvir Suran and Hemant Mathur of Devi, along with performances by Broadway actors, including Anthony Mackie, Myra Lucretia Taylor, and Penny Fuller. That event benefits the Play Company’s artistic programs. So which will you attend?

Tickets for the SOS event are $1,000 a head. Call Andrea Agalloco at 202-478-6528. Tickets for Cabaret Gourmet start at $99 and go up to $5,000 for VIP tables. For reservations and information, call Hilary Leichter at the Play Company at 212-398-2977.

Long Island wines don’t get much press, but some of them are pretty good, and given how much locavore sentiment is floating around nowadays, they deserve more attention. For that reason, Edible Brooklyn will for the second straight year be presenting Brooklyn Uncorked, a tasting event to be held on Wednesday, May 14, at BAMcafé. It’s not all wines, either: Edible Brooklyn wants the world to know that the event also includes “Long Island and Brooklyn microbrews, plus tastings from a dozen favorite Brooklyn restaurants, cheesemongers, potato chippers, sorbeteers, and other artisanal grub.” Visit Edible Brooklyn to buy the $50 tickets and to get more information.

Related: Coming Soon: 'Edible Manhattan'
The Brooklyn Food Mag You Should Be Reading

On April 29 the IFC Center will screen the documentary The Burger and the King: The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley, followed by a Q&A with director James Marsh. Via interviews with Elvis’s cook, personal assistant, doctor, and the Denver restaurateurs who once delivered to his personal jet no less than 22 gigantic peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches (each containing 42,000 calories), the film tells how Elvis ate fried squirrels as a kid, Sloppy Joes in junior high, creamed beef (a.k.a. Shit on a Shingle) in the army, and eventually hot dogs smuggled into the hospital. Nothing beats the big screen when it comes to watching PB&B sandwiches being fried in butter, but you can also see the whole thing on YouTube.

Locavores, listen up! One of our favorite gastropubs and home of the “Secret Chef,” Jimmy's No. 43, is hosting a “100-mile dinner” Sunday night. The meal, in which all the materials come from within a 100-mile radius of Jimmy's, benefits Slow Foods in Schools programs throughout the city, so that the eaters of tomorrow can be inculcated with Haute Barnyard orthodoxies. Chef Philip Kirschen-Clark has a big menu all planned out, including “surf and turf” with venison and yellowfin tuna, braised mutton cheeks, roasted duck hearts and livers, Tropia Onions “Agrodulce,” and so on, all accompanied by local ciders and wines. There are two seatings: at 6:00 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets for $85 (for Slow Food N.Y. members) and $105 (nonmembers). But it's for a good cause: your physical satisfaction.

Related: Jimmy's Secret Chef Performs Culinary Miracles in the East Village

Film and food go hand in hand — from the meal that prompted Scarface to ask “Is this it?” to Seth in Superbad ruminating that all the best foods are shaped like…well, you get the idea. We have no idea whether food historian Francine Segan will serve Popsicles or “the best roast beef” (as Scarface's original script had it) at her 92nd Street Y event, “Food in Film,” but you’re likely to come out of it well fed and culturally enlightened.

Francine Segan's World of Tasting: Food in Film: An Evening of Flavors From the Silver Screen [92nd Street Y]

When we first heard about Umami Food and Art Festival, “a meeting ground to people who use food as a medium and who present their audience with a multi-sensory experience in the dining room or gallery space,” our first thought was: Will Goldfarb has to be involved with this. And, sure enough, the cake whiz with the city’s most inexhaustible line of high-concept patter is a panelist. Other activities at the ten-day “food and art festival” sound equally high-concept and fun. Our favorites are below; get your tickets soon.

Ilan Hall’s last night in town before departing out west to open his tapas truck looks like it was a pretty sweet one, judging from the images of Friday’s charity dinner. As we wrote last week, Studiofeast, a swank “culinary collective,” a.k.a. underground supper club, brought in the Top Chef–at–large to cook a fairly elaborate meal for charity. (A portion of the proceeds went to the West Side Campaign Against Hunger.) The slideshow is thin on images of dishes like Hall's bacon-poached swordfish or crispy American Lamb breast with ginger and mint vinegar, but it was enlightening sociologically. Is it just us, or does this look like the Logan’s Run of supper-club events? We knew that Ilan was a member of the beau monde, but assumed that at least some of his customers would be the usual Billyburg lows. In fact, they all looked like people you would expect to be friends with Ilan.

Studiofeast: Special Ilan Hall dinner [Studiofeast]

Earlier: ‘Top Chef’ Victor Ilan Hall Stealthily Cooks for Williamsburgers

Last night’s Village Voice Choice Eats tasting at the Puck Building would have been better called Sietsemapalooza — its far-flung outer-borough diversity was a testament to his dedication and mobility. The Puck Building also hosted Taste of New York last year, but this crowd was a different demographic. Piercings replaced pearls, and a young, scruffy, and hungry crowd overwhelmed the restaurants accustomed to serving only a few regulars at a time. Highlights: the extraordinary barbecued pastrami from Fette Sau; the fried rice and pork from Krik Krak; and the beef rendang, the best thing on Fatty Crab’s menu. Nearly everything we tried was good, especially the starches: couscous, grits, various exotic-bread puddings, and even some spongy Ethiopian bread from the Queen of Sheba. Sietsema, presiding over the event like a proud father, could be seen eating all of the above — and a lot more besides.

Related: Sietsema Previews His Own ‘Choice Eats’

We are pleased by the imminent return of Brooklyn Eats, the borough’s own multi-restaurant tasting event that was on hiatus last year. Come April 30, you’ll find at least 30 participating restaurants at the Navy Yard. But why not even more? If you have a roti shop, trattoria, or Uzbek kebab house, contact the organizers: Brooklyn is a big place, and there’s room for everybody.

Brooklyn Eats [Official site via Brooklyn Paper]