The Minority Chefs Summit

photo by TEP

On a recent afternoon I was monitoring my Twitter feed while multitasking when a post caught my eye. The James Beard Foundation announced a representative would be attending The Minority Chef Summit . I was just wrapping up my interview with Chef Ron Reid and wondered who else I could interview for my upcoming blog series. I retweeted the James Bard Foundation post and followed the links in the post the Minority Chef Summit website.

The  Minority Chef Summit is the brainchild of internationally renown Chef Erika Davis. Collaborative efforts with other chefs in 2010 and 2012  led to the launch of the inaugural Minority Chef Summit in 2014. The mission of the Minority Chef Summit is clearly stated on its website : To introduce, share, and cultivate minorities in the field of the culinary arts.  
 

photo by TEP

The following  paragraph on the site 's mission page made me pause:  "One of the questions consistently asked of organizations like Culinary Wonders and of events like the Minority Chef Summit is why we feel the need to talk about race at all. There is the sense that we have our focus on the wrong issues and are race baiting or in some way complaining about racial injustice in a time of unprecedented minority achievement. Very often critics of the very concept of a racial dialogue are either unaffected by race themselves, or simply refuse to acknowledge the realities of race and its effect on issues ranging from cultural culinary hijacking and limited culinary educational access, to the racial media myopathy that polarizes the gift of ethnicity into either a dirty word or a culinary catchphrase. Even within our community there has been some critique that by addressing issues of race we are somehow diminishing our place in the culinary world, separating ourselves from the rest of the profession in some major way, to which we summarily dismiss."

 Were the  dining giving a silent nod to my blog series  project?

photo by TEP

The website indicated the Summit would take in Nassau, Bahamas and the   theme was "CELEBRATING CUISINE IN PARADISE.”. Lovely Nassau, picturesque home of the celebrated Graycliff Hotel and Restaurant  and Atlantis Resort  Questions swirled in my mind: was the event open to the public? if yes, were spaces still available?  if the event was  not open to the public, could non-industry supporters make donations? I looked for people on Twitter and Facebook who could answer these questions while I attempted to move my calendar just in case the event was open to the public.

The dining gods intervene: I stumbled across an article about the 2014 Minority Chef Summit that listed Nicole Albano as the point of contact for questions. I sent an email with all my questions and asked if it would be possible to interview the chefs for my blog.  Nicole replied in short order: 1- the event was open to the public, 2- space was still available, 3-donations were accepted and encouraged. Nicole encouraged me to attend, but my schedule wouldn't allow it. Nicole asked if I would be willing to send my list of questions to her. In turn, she would distribute the question list to the chefs and send the completed sheets and related materials back to me. I sent the question list to Nicole, hoped for at least one response and thanked the dining gods for Nicole.


A few days later I received an email from Nicole. She had received a completed question list. Check back tomorrow to see who replied first.

Want to know more ?
Follow The Minority Chef Summit on Twitter: @minoritychefs
Like The Minority Chef Summit on www.facebook.com/MinorityChefSummit2012
Follow Nicole Albano on Twitter: @NDANY



Be well,

Technicolor girl

photo by TEP