Chefs Beverly Kim, left, and Johnny Clark are seen at their restaurant Parachute on May 26, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
A James Beard award-winning chef will host a Ukrainian dinner series to raise funds for a humanitarian crisis with family connections.
Chef Johnny Clark named the project in honor of his late maternal grandmother, Anelya Ochatchinskiya, who was from Kharkiv in Ukraine. Clark owns the critically acclaimed restaurants Parachute and Wherewithall with his wife, chef Beverly Kim, in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago.
“We had initially done a couple weeks of Ukrainian dinners back in May,” he said. “They gave me the idea to do something more substantial to help raise funds for the humanitarian crisis that’s still unfolding in Ukraine.”
The chef wanted to highlight the food more in depth, but did not have many family recipes with which to work.
“My grandmother only cooked about five different Ukrainian dishes,” Clark said. “Because during her lifetime, growing up in Ukraine, there wasn’t a lot of food.”
She did make borscht and varenyky, the dumplings similar to pierogi.
“During Soviet times, they tried to suppress Ukrainian culture,” he said. “So they did that even through food.”
Clark found help for his menu from a recent refugee. Marina Yakush and her husband came through the United States refugee program. They’re now living near the city with a family friend.
They connected when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, and the chef looked for ways he could help.
“I read (about) this chef, Igor Mezencev, who’s from my grandmother’s hometown in Kharkiv,” Clark said. “I reached out to him on Instagram, saying I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, but if there’s something I can do for you, let me know.”
Mezencev told him about Yakush. She had opened and run restaurants, but most recently headed a symposium for chefs and Ukrainian food culture in Kyiv.
“Marina knows a lot about Ukrainian food and history,” Clark said. “She’s going to help me cook, and talk about the history of these dishes during the dinners.”
Anelya will take over the private dining space at Wherewithall on Fridays and Saturdays, beginning this Friday through Dec. 3. Space is limited to 12 diners at a communal table, with five courses per night. Tickets are $225 per person.
When guests arrive, they’ll start with Ukrainian aperitifs.
“And hors d’oeuvres, or zakuski it’s called,” Clark said. “Different fermented pickles, chilled sausages and assorted snacks.”
On the opening menu, a tomato salad will feature brynza, like a cross between feta and farmers cheese, he said.
“Then we’re going to do borscht, but with duck,” said the chef. “There’s a different borscht for every region of Ukraine.” They’re making one similar to the soup Yakush grew up with in Zaporizhia, but the duck is not traditional.
They’re also offering three different kinds of varenyky.
“We’re also doing halupki,” Clark said. “Typically it’s stuffed cabbage, but we’re using Swiss chard, with sturgeon and caviar.”
They’ll end the dinner with honey cake.
“It’s graham cracker-type layers, layered with honey cream,” he said. “It’s iced with the same cream, and sits overnight to hydrate into this soft, but dense honey cake.”
After dinner drinks, tea and coffee will conclude the evening.
Wherewithall will continue to operate normally. The private dining room is detached from the main dining room on the same property through a small courtyard.
“It’s going to feel very homey,” Clark said. “Almost like a home dining room.”
All profits will go to BlueCheck Ukraine, an aid network co-founded by actor Liev Schreiber, whose late maternal grandfather, Alex Milgram, was also a Ukrainian immigrant.
The chef also connected with Schreiber through Instagram, and worked closely with the organization to create Anelya.
“If you really want to donate to Ukraine, I think BlueCheck is the best way to do it,” Clark said. “Because it’s going directly to the people doing the hard work on the ground.”
He and Kim continue to do their own work in Chicago, with two restaurants, three children and numerous fundraisers. They also founded The Abundance Setting to support working mothers in the culinary industry, early in the pandemic. The Tribune recognized them with a Critics’ Choice award for best new industry resource in 2021.
“Beverly and I, when we have feelings for something, we want to be able to contribute in the best way we can,” Clark said. “Our lives are quite chaotic. Maybe it’s a way of escaping from the stresses of the past three years.”
Anelya at Wherewithall, 3472 N. Elston Ave., 773-692-2192, wherewithallchi.com
Ethiopian chef Tigist Reda, owner of Demera restaurant in Uptown, will host Chicago Chefs Cook for Tigray on Wednesday.
Proceeds will support humanitarian relief, with an emphasis on women and children living in Tigray, Ethiopia, and refugees in Sudan. Health Professionals Network for Tigray heads disaster relief programs, and Reda founded the nonprofit in 2020 to aid her hometown amid a devastating conflict that has left an estimated 6 million people without access to medical care, sufficient nutrition and clean water, and other critical needs.
Previously, event organizers raised more than $600,000 with the Chicago Chefs Cook for Ukraine event at Navy Pier in March.
Tickets are $150 per person for the walk-around event at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
The impressive lineup includes many returning chefs and restaurateurs, ranging from fine-dining establishments such as Esmé and GT Prime Steakhouse, to award-winning chefs Erick Williams (Daisy’s Po’boy and Virtue), Noah Sandoval (Pizza Friendly Pizza), Dana Cree (Pretty Cool Ice Cream), Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim (Wherewithall) and Paul Kahan and Greg Wade (Publican Quality Bread). Some of the city’s most popular restaurants, from Rose Mary to Avli Taverna, will also take part. Find the full list of participating chefs and restaurants here.
Chicago Chefs Cook for Tigray, givebutter.com/EXKQu4; National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, 3015 W. Division St., 773-486-8345, nmprac.org
On the local front, chefs at 35 restaurants have collaborated with Kitchen Possible for an Empowering Menus fundraiser with selected dishes across the city and suburbs.
Katie Lowman founded Kitchen Possible in 2017 to build empowered mindsets in kids through cooking. She’s taught weekly cooking lessons to kids aged 8 to 12 in Pilsen, East Garfield Park and Englewood. Chefs and other volunteers have joined her, including Darnell Reed of Luella’s Southern Kitchen and, full disclosure, this writer.
Among the fundraiser’s participating chefs, Jenner Tomaska of Esmé first taught a recipe to a Kitchen Possible class back in 2019. In 2021, he volunteered for an eight-week session to work personally with a team of three kids, Lowman said. The chef showed up every Saturday, she added, while opening his debut restaurant, which earned a Michelin star in its first year.
Tomaska has created a 15-course tasting menu at Esmé inspired by and in support of Kitchen Possible, now through Oct. 31. Each course ties to one of the life lessons in the class curriculum — for example, getting out of your comfort zone or resourcefulness. They are presented as nostalgic and whimsical experiences with rainbow bendy straws and school lunch trays.
Tickets for the Esmé x Kitchen Possible dinner are $235 per person.
Along with a portion of proceeds from the Esmé dinner, money from each of the dishes sold at the following restaurants will go to Kitchen Possible until the end of September, unless noted otherwise:
All Together Now, fried goat cheese curds
Avli, flambéed cheese (saganaki)
Bang Bang Pie, Key lime pie
Bar Goa, lamb keema
Batter and Berries, butter cookie French toast
Big Jones, fried green tomatoes
Birrieria Zaragoza, quesabirria
Boeufhaus, short rib beignets
Boka, beef tartare
Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar, Whiskey Bird cocktail
Coalfire, Margherita pizza
Daisies, “over priced tomato”
Dear Margaret, duck liver mousse
Dos Urban Cantina, chicken enchilada dinner
The Duck Inn, duck wings
Esmé, Esmé x KP tasting menu (through Oct. 31)
Gaijin, shirokuma kakigori (polar bear shaved ice)
Galit, gazoz (spirit free seltzer)
Giant, saffron tagliatelle
HaiSous, bò nướng tỏi (grilled rib-eye)
Honey Butter Fried Chicken, honey butter fried chicken sandwich
Luella’s Southern Kitchen, chicken gumbo
Lula Cafe, spaghetti pancetta, queso fresco plus sweet and spicy chile salsa rosa
Mi Tocaya Antojería, steak burrito
Monteverde, spaghetti al pomodoro
Pan Artesenal, cookie monster concha
Parachute, haemul pajeon (seafood pancake)
Peanut Park Trattoria, polpette (beef and pork meatballs)
Rooh, Bengali lamb shank
Scofflaw, steak frites
Segnatore, freestyle “lasagna”
Soul & Smoke, pulled pork sandwich
Steingold’s, Uncle Steven sandwich (pastrami-spiced turkey, bacon and pimento cheese)
Superkhana International, butter chicken calzone
Tempesta Market, The Dante sandwich
Kitchen Possible, kitchenpossible.org; Esmé, 2200 N. Clark St., esmechicago.com
Billy Zureikat, aka Tripping Billy, will offer his new TriBilly’s pizza bread at TriBecca’s Sandwich Shop in Avondale on Saturday and Sunday, until it’s sold out.
A portion of each sale will be donated to Zureikat’s Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraiser, which has raised more than $13,000 since November, helping people living with muscular dystrophy, as he does, as well as ALS and other neuromuscular diseases.
Zureikat describes his dish as cafeteria pizza on steroids. It’s focaccia with J.P. Graziano giardiniera, topped with housemade pizza sauce, Muenster cheese, Italian sausage and even more giardiniera.
Follow the home cook, pizza maker and baker on Instagram for more in his ongoing fundraising guest chef series at restaurants around the city.
Tripping Billy, instagram.com/therealbillyz; TriBecca’s Sandwich Shop, 2949 W. Belmont Ave., 773-878-2717, tribeccas.com
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