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A day of issue-focused panels attached to the James Beard Awards ended with flair
Photo by Bob Benenson
There is Chicago Southern-food royalty in the photo above. From the right are D'Andre Carter and Heather Bublick, the married team behind Evanston-based Soul and Smoke, with Darnell Reed, chef-owner of Luella's Southern Kitchen in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.
The scene was a tasting reception, orchestrated by the Chicago Chefs Cook non-profit, that came at the end of a series of three issues-focused panels held on Sunday (June 9) a day in advance of the annual James Beard Foundation Awards Ceremony at Chicago's Lyric Opera House.
D'Andre and Heather were serving reception guests. Darnell was fresh off the panel about the challenges of raising children while working in the culinary industry, presented by Chicago's The Abundance Setting non-profit.
The reception reflected both the culinary excellence and the diversity of Chicago's chef community. There is more below, with some mouth-watering food photos, after this important message.
Photo by Bob Benenson
Food is in Chicago's DNA. The city rose from the prairie as a center for marketing and distributing the Midwest's agriculture bounty. The nation's industrial food system was invented here in the 19th century; today, Chicago is a center for advocacy for a healthier, more sustainable, more humane and more equitable food system.
So it comes as no surprise that many leaders seeking to revitalize Chicago's underserved and underresourced communities are promoting the development, by people of color, of community gardens and urban farms.
These small growing projects are helping restore hope, jobs and opportunity to challenged communities, while helping residents who face food insecurity to feed themselves — as Chicago manifests what has become a powerful national movement under the banner of food sovereignty.
This is the topic of Local Food Forum's next "Better" Dialogues webinar, "Gardens in a City: Cultivating Hope in Chicago, which takes place on Monday (June 17) at 7 p.m. central time. The title references Chicago's official motto, Urbs in Horto, which translates from Latin as "city in a garden."
The program will focus on the work of Community Food Navigator, a Chicago non-profit launched in 2020. Its focus is on providing tools and resources to help people of color in underserved areas produce food for themselves and their communities — the core of the concept known as food sovereignty.
Our featured guest is Nick Davis, managing director of Community Food Navigator. As Nick told Local Food Forum for an article published earlier this year, “The purpose of the Community Food Navigator is really to build power amongst growers of color, build connections and relationships in our food system, and coordinate our food system a little bit better.”
He continued, “It's important that the community has a sense of how other people, block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood and then the region, define that for themselves, and how we can start to organize and convene people and tighten up our relational networks so that we can actually move towards those definitions of visions of food sovereignty.”
Nick also said he wants to make it clear that Community Food Navigator is powered and informed by the community of growers, food educators, food mobilizers and organizers who have been doing incredible work for years. “We just co-design and implement strategies to address issues they raise,” he added.
Nick will be joined by Angela Taylor, whose work focuses on bringing the benefits of hyper-locally produced food to the underserved Garfield Park communities on Chicago's West Side. She serves as wellness coordinator for the Garfield Park Community Council, focusing on the Garfield Park Garden Network, the seasonal Neighborhood Market (an outdoor farmers market), youth interns, and integrated wellness activities.
Other leaders in the urban growing community who are aligned with Community Food Navigator's work may join us for the webinar.
Join co-hosts Bob Benenson of Local Food Forum and Chef Sarah Stegner of suburban Chicago's Prairie Grass Cafe for this free program. There will be Q&A, so bring your questions.
This Food Was Very Well Received
Photo by Bob Benenson
I referenced D'Andre Carter and Heather Bublick of Soul and Smoke above. This beautiful slab of meat that they served is a pastrami. It's not a preparation seen on too many barbecue restaurant menus. But as a born-and-raised New York kid (whose great uncle owned a Jewish deli), I feel qualified to pronounce their version as awesome. It is certainly one of the juiciest pastramis I've eaten.
Their Pastrami Bites were served with green tomato chow chow and Carolina Gold sauce.
Photo by Bob Benenson
Chef Sebastian White puts his culinary energies into The Evolved Network, the non-profit he launched and runs, which helps underprivileged youths by providing them with farm-to-table experiences. Here he is plating his Ancho Chile Biscuit, made with Maitake mushrooms, ramp chimichurri, salsa macha oil and chive butter.
Photo by Bob Benenson
A closeup of Sebastian's preparation.
Photo by Bob Benenson
These filled pastries, some with lentils and others from mushrooms produced by Chicago's Four Star Mushrooms, were the result of a collaboration between Chefs Tigist Reda of Chicago's Demera Ethiopian Restaurant and Sarah Stegner of the suburban Prairie Grass Cafe, who is a co-founder of Chicago Chefs Cook and co-host of Local Food Forum's "Better" Dialogues webinar series.
Photo by Bob Benenson
Frontera Grill, the legendary starting point of Chef Rick Bayless' regional Mexican restaurant empire, weighed in with Tinga de Puerco Tacos. The recipe created by Chef Javauneeka Jacobs (right in the photo) included pork shoulder, roasted tomato, chorizo, Mexican oregano, garlic, homemade Fresco cheese, avocado and crispy potatoes.
Photo by Bob Benenson
The dessert capper of the meal, created by Chef Casey Doody of GT Prime, was a combination that you may never have seen before: crème fraiche ice cream and caviar atop Casey's focaccia.
Chicago is proud of its culinary leadership and of its diversity. It's always an honor to be present at events where both of these assets are on display.
Bob's World, and Welcome to It
Photo by Bob Benenson
The location for Sunday's events on Michigan Avenue in Chicago's Loop had breathtaking views of Grant Park and Lake Michigan beyond. At the far right in the above photo is a giant plume of spray from Buckingham Fountain; the dark building to the left is Adler Planetarium, located on Chicago's Museum Campus.
Photo by Bob Benenson
The famous reflective Cloud Gate sculpture, better known as The Bean, was even closer to the meeting site. The re-surfacing construction that's visible in the photos is temporarily keeping visitors out of the popular site.
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