By Khalida Sarwari
Some people scan the produce aisle and think “Caesar salad;” others take a look and think “Indian spice What separates the two perspectives is a level of skill and ingenuity, the difference between amateurs and masters.
Count Irfan Dama as among the masters. The Oakland-based chef and owner of Chef Dama’s Kitchen, a catering solutions company that specializes in Indian food, proved that when given a task recently. Dama was given 10 minutes to walk through the West Valley Community Community Services’ food pantry and select items for a salad to feed hundreds of people. Into his basket went bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, eggplant, cauliflower, apples, garlic and shallots.
“It was a walk in the park for me,” he said.
Being a proponent of whole grain and plant-based diets, Dama decided right away to make his salad vegan. But he wasn’t done brainstorming just yet. Later, he realized he wanted to showcase California’s produce, and while he was at it, why not also highlight his own Indian heritage? So he grabbed a few spice blends from his own pantry at home, did some roasting and marinating and about three days later, voila, he had an Indian spice roasted vegetable salad.
“The purpose of this was to get the message across: to incorporate more whole grains and plant-based food in your diet for better health,” he said.
That salad isn’t on the menu of local Indian restaurants, but it will make an appearance at least for one night only on the menu of Chefs of Compassion, the West Valley Community Services’ biggest fundraiser of the year.
Now in its sixth year, the “Chefs” event challenges four Bay Area chefs to prepare a four-course dinner with ingredients found only in the nonprofit’s food pantry. Proceeds support the organization’s programs that fight hunger and homelessness in the West Valley region. More than 200 people attended last year’s contest and helped raise $65,000, according to executive director Josh Selo. Over the course of five years, the event has raised $329,000.
That money has gone toward helping the thousands of people in the West Valley region living below poverty level, Selo said. The event supports West Valley’s food pantry, financial coaching and transitional housing programs, camps and back-to-school shopping excursions for kids, and an emergency financial assistance fund that prevents people from slipping into homelessness. At the core of West Valley’s resources is its case management service, which points individuals facing a crisis, whether related to housing, food or medical, in the right direction.
“When you are homeless, you don’t know where to turn; you don’t know what resources you’re eligible for,” Selo said. “Our people do. [We help them] create a network so they can build stability over time.”
West Valley has been providing family support and housing services to people in Cupertino, Los Gatos, Saratoga, West San Jose and the surrounding mountain regions since it was founded in 1973.
Chefs of Compassion debuted about six years ago under then-executive director Naomi Nagano-Matsumoto, said Kohinoor Chakravarty, director of development and communications.
“The clients here started taking food from the pantry and cooking here and competing against each other,” she said. The idea developed into a bigger event with the purpose of giving back to the community. And since then, that’s what it’s been about.
“I’m big on doing fundraising for a good cause,” said Jerome Ito, owner of Go Fish Poke Bar in San Jose and one of the four chefs. “One thing as chef and owner that I always wanted to do when I opened my own establishment was to give back to the community that supports us, whether it was by fundraising or donating to schools in the community or sports programs.”
The Santa Clara-based Ito is a former colleague of Dama; both worked as chefs at Google, and Dama even managed a restaurant on the campus. Philanthropy has always been a key part of his business, Ito said. In the past, he’s given athletic scholarships to students. Last year, he participated in the Plate by Plate event, a tasting benefit for the San Francisco chapter of Project by Project.
Dama said the cause resonated with him, too, given that “in America, we waste too much food” and yet there are still people who go hungry. So when he was asked to participate, he didn’t hesitate to accept the offer.
Ito will be following Dama’s salad with the main entree, which for this occasion he’s making a sous vide chicken with miso mustard glaze, paired with homemade udon ravioli. That’s what he came up with after picking out ingredients such as chicken, cauliflower, cherry and heirloom tomatoes, portobello mushrooms, lemon, lime, grapefruit, asparagus and corn from the West Valley pantry.
“I wanted it to be a new experience–different flavors, different techniques,” he said. “You want to come up with something creative, but at the same time chicken is chicken, so that was the challenging part.”
Keeping true to his Japanese heritage, Ito said he wanted to create a dish that was “light and fresh, similar to a lot of Japanese style food.”
“It’s the way I like to eat, it’s the way I like to cook,” he said.
The appetizer will be made courtesy of Kevin Kohlmann, an executive chef at Bon Appetit in Mountain View. Jessie Lugo, a sous chef at Alexander’s Steakhouse in San Francisco, is making the dessert: a refined peach cobbler.
The concept of Chefs of Compassion is simple. Months in advance, chefs are identified–typically through word of mouth–and invited to West Valley’s headquarters in Cupertino, where they get to draw a piece of paper from a hat. Each piece contains one course of a four-course meal that they’ll be tasked with making: appetizer, salad, main course and dessert. They then get 10 minutes in the pantry to choose ingredients for their course, save for spices. The chefs are allowed a few days to develop their recipe and tinker with it in the kitchen. Once they’ve got it down, they send the recipe to a catering company, which then reproduces it for the main event. For the past six years, West Valley has used the same company: Catered Too.
During the actual event, which this year is slated for Sept. 16 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, a short video introduces each chef and shows them discussing their dish and cooking philosophy before the audience is served the chef’s dish. In between courses, West Valley acknowledges a few people who’ve donated their time to the organization. This year, those people are Dorothy Stow and Kay Lohmiller. For the first time this year, a few clients will also take the stage to share their personal stories and how West Valley has helped them. Before dinner starts, there is a silent auction and guests are treated to hors d’oeuvre and wine. CNET editor Brian Tong is the emcee for the event.
Then, there’s a judging component to the event, both from professionals and the audience. Each course is judged based on its taste, creativity and presentation. This year’s judges are Alexander Hult, the owner of Hult’s Restaurant at 165 Los Gatos-Saratoga Road in Los Gatos, along with Isamu Kanai, Kathleen Ko and David Wiesner.
Though it’s not a prerequisite, it’s not atypical for former contestants to later become judges. Wiesner, a Cupertino High School graduate who now owns Siena Bistro in San Jose, was a chef in 2012. He made banana bread pudding for that year’s event.
“I’m looking forward to seeing these chefs, what they come up with,” he said. “I’m always interested in learning from people and tasting other people’s food.”
Wiesner said the event is “a nice way to give back to a community that has taken very good care of me for the past nine years.”
Food critics and magazine writers are sometimes invited to judge the competition. This year’s panel also includes Ko, a Saratoga-based chef with experience working at Manresa and French Laundry who now offers private cooking lessons. A student of hers recommended that she look into the event and upon doing some research online, she decided she wanted to participate.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be happy to help,’ ” Ko said. “It’s something I’m able to give once a year or every now and then. I like to help and I’m in this neighborhood.”
For more information about the event, visit chefsof compassion.org. To learn more about West Valley Community Services, visit wvcommunityservices.org.
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