Two Redmond chefs will be cooking up a storm on Sunday — all for a good cause.
Lisa Dupar of Pomegranate Bistro at 18005 N.E. 68th St. and John Price of Spazzo Italian Grill & Wine Bar at 16499 N.E. 74th St. will be two of a dozen chefs participating in the 13th annual Chef’s Night Out (CNO).
The sold-out event, which will be at The Golf Club at Newcastle, is a fundraiser for Cooking Matters, a program that focuses on cooking and nutrition education for low-income populations throughout the greater Puget Sound area.
Cooking Matters is partnered with Solid Ground, an anti-poverty nonprofit based in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. The organization provides various social services such as help with housing and food and nutrition services.
Cooking Matters in particular offers free nutrition and cooking classes with volunteer nutritionists and chefs to teach people how to prepare low-cost, healthy and tasty meals from scratch, said supervisor Claire Leamy. She said most of their classes are in Seattle, but Cooking Matters does offer classes on the Eastside.
“We are all over Seattle and just starting to expand outside of Seattle,” she said.
Leamy said money from CNO goes toward Cooking Matters to help continue this expansion as well as pay for food and equipment.CNO will feature 12 chefs from the greater Puget Sound area who will be preparing five-course meals — with each course paired with a wine — for attendees.
“It’s totally over the top,” Leamy said. “It’s really extraordinary.”
She said the chefs are usually a mix of newcomers and veterans of CNO and that a number of them — including Dupar — also volunteer for the Cooking Matters classes.
Leamy added that the chefs will be volunteering their time as well as providing the food and wine themselves. Each chef is assigned a table for 10, which they have decorated as well. Leamy said chef-table assignments for attendees will be based on a spin of a wheel. However, people will be able to view the chefs’ menus ahead of time and can enter a raffle to choose a specific table.
“It’s just amazing to see all the food,” Leamy said. “It’s kind of magical.”
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