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Chicago panel highlighted different paths of generosity in the culinary community
Members of Chicago’s chef community have a well-deserved reputation for their willingness to collaborate on philanthropic events. The same is also true for chefs in many other parts of the nation.
The James Beard Foundation showcased this generosity by presenting a panel on June 9 — the day before its annual awards ceremony at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House — titled “The Rise and Impact of Chef Civic Leadership.”
Each of the panelists is a recognized force for good. All convey this in their own personal ways.
Sarah Stegner, chef/owner of Prairie Grass Cafe in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, was a pioneer in the region’s farm to table community and co-founded the prominent Green City Market 25 years ago. She has also emerged as a powerful advocate for causes: For example, she is a co-founder of Chicago Chefs Cook humanitarian philanthropic coalition (which organized the panel), and is a leading supporter of The Evolved Network, which works to provide underprivileged youths with hope and opportunity through farm to table experiences.
Rick Bayless founded his landmark Frontera Grill regional Mexican restaurant in 1987 and made it his mission to help rebuild the community of local food producers that had been overrun by the rise of conventional agriculture. This resulted in his creating the Frontera Farmer Foundation, a non-profit that provides grants to farmers that help them grow and thrive. More recently, he also founded Impact Culinary Training, which provides 12-week intensives for young aspiring chefs from under-resourced communities.
Erick Williams, a leader in Chicago’s rising cohort of Black chefs, established and heads The Virtue Leadership Development Program at Virtue Restaurant, which serves as a vehicle to equip their team of local young adults of color to lead, manage change, problem solve, identify opportunities, and execute strategically. By applying the stated skills, their team creates an advantage for their shared business, industry, community, and most important their own lives in real time. The non-profit is named for and located at Erick’s award-winning Virtue Restaurant in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Matthias Merges is founder/head of Folk Art Management, a group of successful restaurants and drinking establishments in Chicago and North Carolina. He teamed up with Paul Kahan and Jason Hammel, two other leading Chicago chefs, to create Pilot Light, the non-profit that has helped teachers integrate food education into their curriculums in Chicago and school districts across the nation
Justin Pioche, a member of the Navajo tribe, is owner of the Pioche Food Group based in northwestern New Mexico. He has in recent years emerged as a prominent leader in the movement to restore and elevate the food traditions of America’s Indigenous peoples. He collaborates with Navajo Ethno-Agriculture who, according to its mission statement, is “a 14-acre farm along the San Juan River that sustains traditional Navajo farming methods through bilingual education and storytelling (Navajo and English), hands-on farming, community involvement, and cultivation of chemical-free traditional Navajo produce.”
The following are takeaway quotes from each of their presentations:
Sarah Stegner
“What has come into fruition over the past couple of years is that chefs really have a strong voice and are being part of the community and impacting the community... We are supportive of each other... We are stronger together. I see that when one of us succeeds, it elevates all of us.”
“We all here agree that food is a basic human right. Access to local, clean, sustainable food. We all want our communities to thrive, just like I want the chefs to accelerate and do as well as they can do. If our communities are in good shape, and our families are in good shape, then we live in a safer, healthier environment. And that's what leadership is aimed at.”
Rick Bayless
“The one thing that sets apart Chicago chefs is the fact that almost everyone that I know, that I look up to, that I respect, that I eat in their restaurants, all want to make Chicago a better place.”
“My wife and I were living in Mexico... We discovered that wherever there was great local agriculture, there was great restaurant food, there was great home cooking, there was more diversity... Remember, back 37 years ago, when we opened Frontera Grill, there was not a farmers market. Here, you had to drive all the way outside of the city limits to a farm stand to get any kind of local produce.”
“I started a no-interest loan program that we ran for the small farmers, the family farmers that we were buying from so that they could get the infrastructure that they needed. So then, after about five or six years of doing that, we turned it into a not-for-profit so that we could actually raise money, give it to the farmers instead of lend it to the farmers. And in the 20 years that we have been giving the grants we have given over three and a half million dollars in grants.”
“Over the last 15 years, I was unhappy with the people coming into our restaurant applying for jobs, because I didn't see enough black and brown people coming in there with enough education to be able to hold their own... We have had a number of cohorts come out of that program in the last two years.... There are so many diamonds in the rough. And all we have to do is give them the right kind of training and sense of self-respect. Let them show that they can hold their own in a great Chicago restaurant, and their careers are starting.”
Matthias Merges
“Food has been the number one vehicle to transform children's lives and families and communities...”
“During the Obama administration, Michelle Obama had Chefs at Schools.... It was about, let's go and let's get into schools and make things happen. Unfortunately, when we all came back [from Washington, D.C], we're like, ‘CPS is like locked down. There's no way you're gonna get in there.’... We had this big meeting at The Publican, that’s Chef Paul Kahan and One-Off Hospitality. And we invited teachers, we invited family members, we invited mothers and fathers and anyone who was interested in food and nutrition... That was 13 years ago.”
“The first project was, we'll go once a quarter, every classroom at 11 o'clock, we'll have one chef in every classroom, and they'll do an instruction of food as language for the core curriculum that they were teaching.... We realized that this has gone really great, every kid needs this experience... We decided to pivot and say, let's create an Institute where we pay teachers to come to us and work with chefs and nutritionists and other teachers to create curriculum that they can bring back to their own school... We would make this library of lesson plans they can bring back to school and access online. And that was a transformative moment for us.”
“We at Pilot Light created the first food education standards in the United States of America, that different states now and school districts are looking to adopt.... PIlot Light is in 17 states, most major school districts, we partner with chefs, we partner with farmers, we partner with families, pastors, anyone who is involved in creating change.”
Erick Williams
“I came from the inner city... The idea of eating new foods, even as a young cook, was a challenge for me. But I knew it was an undertaking that I had to embrace.”
“I had the opportunity to hear Chef Bayless talk about his investment in farmers. And I thought, wow, not only does that sound like an incredible business, but what an incredible way to close the loop in terms of sustainability. And I think a lot of times chefs talk about sustainability through the lens of the earth. But Chef Bayless was able to really articulate how he could sustain his team, because if that restaurant was profitable, then he would be able to sustain every single member in his company.”
“I spent my whole career training people. But how do we reach the demographic that we want to reach and a community that's war-torn. And so I decided that we weren't going to spend much more time raising money for folks outside of our nation and outside of my community. And we were going to turn inward. Virtue in essence means of high moral standard. So Virtue Leadership extends that moral standard. And that's the compass that I work.”
“So we started our program, to use our platform, to become a voice for how we can take these hardships that come out of inner-city communities and transform those hardships into excellence. And that excellence allows us to teach people how to be leaders in the communities that they come from.”
Justin Pioche
“My name is Justin Pioche. I'm a Navajo... and I am co-owner of the Pioche Food Group out of Farmington, New Mexico.”
“We also help with a non-profit educational farm called Navajo Ethno-Agriculture out in the mountains of New Mexico, where we get to teach students about planting, watering, irrigation, harvesting, and then what to do with the food when it comes out of the ground... We also get to teach the students about water rights, land rights, food rights, and also Native rights as well.”
"So Navajo believe that when we go out and we say we're going foraging and whatnot, we don't take what we want. We take what we need, and you leave enough for your neighbors. You leave enough for the animals because they have to eat as well. Everybody is all in this together. And we're like a full circle."
"I hear this catchphrase going around all the time, regenerative agriculture. To me, I don't really agree with that. Because had we been doing things the way my Indigenous peoples have been doing for millennia, we wouldn't have to re-do anything."
"There's one dish that I get to work with students. When you think of squash, we've been spoiled here in the city, you know what I mean? I've gotten to eat in many great restaurants and squash is amazing... But on the Navajo reservation, most of the time, they'll put it in a stew, so it gets boiled the crap out of and it just turns into like slime or mush. And that's what our Navajo kids think of when they pick up vegetables most of the time... So I do get to do a dish with them called Squash Nine Ways. We'll take a cut out and we'll make like a puck and we'll roast it and then smear it with a little bit of maple syrup because maple’s an indigenous ingredient. I'll take little ribbons and then pickle some. We'll take the seeds, we'll toast them, crush them, use it as like a little bit of a crunch factor. We'll take the whole little squash and throw it in the fire. We’ve done a new puree, I'll do like a pudding or turn it into snow or anything like that.”