Nine Valley chefs went head-to-head Monday night in Staunton, cooking with local ingredients and a little pressure, all to raise money for a community gardening project working to make fresh, affordable produce more accessible in Staunton. WMRA’s Bridget Manley reports.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES ARTHUR DEAN: Alright chefs, you have ten minutes to make your dish…Three…Two…One…GO! Alright, here they go, they are going to start cooking….
Monday night, in a packed cafeteria at Staunton High School, nine prominent Valley chefs faced off in three rounds of cooking for the inaugural Chef Showdown, a farm-to-table event benefiting Jones Gardens, a community garden initiative started in 2021 by Staunton sisters Naomi and Sarah Jones.
The gardens provide free and low-cost organic fresh produce to the Staunton community, producing over 8,000 pounds of goods this year alone.
The cafeteria became an elevated dining experience. Long tables, adorned with fresh flowers and candlelight, set the mood, while dozens of volunteers prepared the chef’s creations and served each guest generous portions at each round.
Chef Chris Porter, with a background in Mexican cooking, led the first round, preparing a fresh shrimp dish with a tangy, tomato-based sauce.
CHRIS PORTER: So, this is essentially an elevated Mexican shrimp cocktail. My lovely mother brought the shrimp back on Saturday from the Outer Banks, so they are fresh, never frozen. All the components of the dish are from partner farms, except the avocados and limes.
But it was Chef Ian Redshaw, with his perfectly cooked Chicken Kiirage – sweetened with local plums and citrus – that won both the judges’ choice and the crowd favorite of the first round.
Cassandra Yourist is a strong supporter of Jones Gardens. She brings her compost to the gardens and spends time weeding with her partner, Dan, and their four-year-old son. In return, they receive affordable, fresh veggies throughout the season.
During the appetizer round, Cassandra and Dan debated which dish they liked better before voting for the crowd favorite.
CASSANDRA YOURIST: Oh, wow! Mmmm….I don’t know, because these both have meat, and I love meat, but this one doesn’t, and the taste… is amazing. Mmmm….
The event was a fundraiser for Jones Gardens, which will begin a new, exciting chapter in its outreach – Züka Café and Grocery, a place to access local groceries and prepared meals.
The café and grocery will be located in the former Newtown Bakery in Staunton, which owner Laurie Berman donated in full to the sisters.
The garden has always been a family labor of love. Naomi and Sarah are two of the thirteen children of Jerome and Theresa Jones, who spent much of their lives cultivating a love of growing food among their children.
THERESA JONES: Growing up, my husband was the big gardener when everybody was young, so they kind of got that nurtured in them as youngsters. Then I fell in love with gardening, and Naomi was my biggest helper.
Theresa said that Naomi came up with the idea for a community garden to address food insecurity after graduating from JMU in Health Sciences.
THERESA JONES: And she just came up with this – you know, after graduating – wanting to do something meaningful. So she came up with this idea to take plots of land that are barren in the community and make gardens out of them.
Naomi told the audience that her father worked several jobs, including washing windows at downtown Staunton businesses.
NAOMI JONES: Sometimes as he got older in age, me and my siblings would help him wash windows, and one of the businesses that he would wash was a place called Newtown Baking and Kitchen. (applause) And so, never, if I rewind ten years, would I have thought that I would get to know the owner of that building, and that she would value and appreciate the work that I do enough to want to literally give me the key to the building…of where I used to wash the windows.
Laurie Berman is the woman who gave Jones Gardens that key.
LAURIE BERMAN: I have been so impressed with all that the Jones family has done with Jones Gardens. I am so passionate about food, and people eating healthy, and helping our neighbors, and people in our community learn more about how to prepare foods and grow it yourself, that I decided that the best thing to do with the building was give it to the Jones family.
Every dish featured local ingredients from farms, gardens, and creameries in the area.
TASSIE PIPPERT: So, all of the blends, they were very good. And we enjoyed everything that we had here.
Judge Tassie Pippert, an Emmy Award-winning creator of PBS’s Un-Wine’d, was one of three judges for the showdown.
PIPPERT: I just can’t say enough about thanking you for putting such great emphasis on local ingredients and really using to the best what you could get.
CHEF ANNE ANDERSON: I can’t fathom not knowing where my food comes from, because it was ingrained in me. But I know how many people don’t know.
Chef Anne Anderson grew up in a farming community in Northern Minnesota, where farming was second nature to her.
ANDERSON: I love that everyone here – not just the Jones organization, but everyone – has seen a need and is meeting it.
Anderson’s dessert – a raspberry habanero gateau – was sweet and tart, with a wisp of spice at the end. It pleased the judges, who ranked it the best of the night.
