PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The James Beard Foundation Taste America fundraising dinner takes place this weekend with modified COVID-19 safety protocols — so modified that you don’t even have to leave your home.
“The Taste America dinner would typically be a one-night event at one location with a few different chefs coming together in one city,” said Philly chef Andrew Henshaw of Laser Wolf, sister restaurant to Zahav.
This year, 12 chefs from 10 cities across the country are each creating a full dinner and packaging it up for people to pick up and enjoy at home while they watch the event online on Sunday.
“And people across the country are going to experience it together, which typically would never happen,” said Henshaw.
He’s making the take-home dinners for Philadelphia: “Our theme, like our restaurant, is an Israeli shipudiah, or like and Israeli kabab house or skewer house.”
Money raised from the nationwide event will go toward the James Beard umbrella initiative Open For Good.
“James Beard has put together a few different foundations and fundraisers within the James Beard Foundation. So the Open For Good campaign will help a few of those funds that are specifically targeted to helping smaller, independent restaurants,” he explained.
Henshaw’s three-course meal includes pita with hummus and various dips and meze; Moroccan chicken, lamb or Iraqi barbecue beef short ribs; and a lemon curd bar made of shredded phyllo.
For more on the Taste America virtual dinner, listen to the KYW Newsradio original podcast What’s Cooking on the Audacy app.