On Sunday, for instance, host chefs Thomas Kalb and Vanessa Tilaka Kalb of Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery<\/a> will join more than 70 restaurants, bakeries and beverage companies for the Masters of Taste food festival <\/a> to support the Pasadena-based Union Station Homeless Services<\/a>. One of fall\u2019s highlight events is L.A. Loves Alex\u2019s Lemonade,<\/a> hosted by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne of the restaurant A.O.C. to support kids with cancer.<\/p>\n And last Saturday, one of the year\u2019s biggest give-back events took place for Share Our Strength<\/a>\u2018s No Kid Hungry campaign<\/a> with a powerhouse lineup of chefs from L.A. and around the country \u2014 many known to viewers of Bravo\u2019s \u201cTop Chef\u201d and shows on the Food Network. <\/p>\n Chaired by chefs Brooke Williamson<\/a>, Mei Lin<\/a> and Melissa King<\/a>, the Night Out for No Kid Hungry <\/a>event, which raised $1 million<\/a> by early estimates, was formidable in scope. More than 60 chefs served bites during a $250-per-person walk-around tasting while a simultaneous $1000-per-person sit-down dinner emceed by actor Anthony Anderson was served with courses by Dominque Crenn<\/a>, Ludo Lefebvre<\/a>, Alex Hong<\/a>, Shirley Chung<\/a>, Michael Mina<\/a> and Williamson.<\/p>\n Later in the night, attendees from the tasting and the sit-down dinner came together for dessert and other bites by Duff Goldman<\/a> and Michael Voltaggio<\/a>, plus performances by Andra Day, Warren G and DJ SuperNova. <\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about Share Our Strength is that they really understand chefs,\u201d says Mary Sue Milliken<\/a>, who was on the host committee for the sit-down dinner and, along with business partner Susan Feniger, had their Border Grill team serving at the walk-around tasting. \u201cThey make it really easy to plug in and use your platform to be impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n She knows better than most. Milliken and Feniger, who run Border Grill at LAX and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas as well as Alice B. in Palm Springs<\/a>, were among the original chefs to work with Share Our Strength in the mid-1980s when chef-driven fundraisers were still a new phenomenon. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first organization that I recall working with,\u201d says Milliken, who has served on Share Our Strength\u2019s board, co-founded the nonprofit group Regarding Her for women\u2019s entrepreneurs<\/a> and has contributed her time and resources to many other nonprofit groups. <\/p>\n Founded in 1984 by brother-and-sister duo Billy Shore and Debbie Shore to aid those suffering from famine in Ethiopia, Share Our Strength is now largely focused on ending childhood hunger in this country with robust school meal programs across the U.S. Its fundraising style has also evolved. In its first years, Share Our Strength asked chefs to donate a portion of their restaurant profits to the organization. That wasn\u2019t an easy ask for many restaurants, which often operate on razor-thin margins. Tasting events, which still require a chef to donate their time and food, became the way many restaurant pros preferred to give back. <\/p>\n Share Our Strength founder Bill Shore with some of the 35 chefs who helped cook for a 1998 fundraising event for the organization at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Iris Schneider \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was 1987 when Share Our Strength came and said, \u2018Would you be part of this tasting?\u2019\u201d Milliken says of the event that became known as Taste of the Nation. \u201c[The fundraiser] was in Beverly Hills and my net worth was, like, $12,000.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Wow, this is so cool,\u2019\u201d she continued. \u201cI can give back to the community and all I have to do is what I love doing more than anything \u2014 which is cook and serve and talk to people. It was a real epiphany for me. I was like, oh, I love this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe now have a donor base, but we didn\u2019t for many years,\u201d Debbie Shore told me at a dinner at A.O.C. last year. \u201cWhat fuels us is people coming to have an experience and get value back while knowing they\u2019re making a difference in their community. We wanted to involve restaurants because they were the first line of defense.\u201d<\/p>\n Debbie Shore at La Brea Bakery Cafe in 2014 at a No Kid Hungry event in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Ari Perilstein \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Of course, the most famous chef-pioneer of this fundraising model is Wolfgang Puck, who with ex-wife Barbara Lazaroff started the American Wine & Food Festival to benefit Meals on Wheels in 1983 from the parking lot of the original Spago above Sunset Boulevard. The event, which lasted more than 25 years, featured star chefs from across the country \u2014 including New Orleans legend Paul Prudhomme in the early days. It quickly expanded to the Pacific Design Center and then the backlot of Universal Studios. <\/p>\n By 1985, Ruth Reichl, who was then this paper\u2019s restaurant critic, noticed that the chefs who were reshaping our ideas about American restaurant food \u2014 more modern, more seasonal, more local \u2014 were being recruited for ever-more charity events. <\/p>\n \u201cChefs who were asked to give to charity used to send a check, a recipe or a dish,\u201d she wrote at the time<\/a>. \u201cNow, they send themselves. … Big-name American chefs hit the road for charity with such regularity that many of them have regular road crews.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re more professional about running these benefits,\u201d Puck told Reichl after admitting that his first Meals on Wheels event raised just $3,000 after the costs of rentals, hotels and travel expenses were factored in.<\/p>\n Larry Forgione, known for his now-closed but hugely influential New York and St. Louis restaurants An American Place \u2014 told Reichl in 1985, \u201cI think the most important part … other than raising money for a charity I care a great deal about, is that you get together with all these people. … We\u2019ve all gotten to be friends. And the people we bring with us \u2014 the next generation \u2014 it\u2019s really wonderful for them to see what\u2019s going on all around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Milliken gets a lot of her satisfaction working up-close with nonprofits. From her years serving on Share Our Strength\u2019s board, she\u2019s been able to see how a lot of the money she helped raise is being used, sometimes making classroom visits. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been so innovative about attacking the hunger problem,\u201d she says of Share Our Strength. \u201cWe focused for a couple decades on school feeding programs because they\u2019re really effective \u2014 breakfast, lunch, and after school. Then, we started focusing on zero to five, which is such an important age for children and their brain development. That required a whole different set of ways to reach those kids.\u201d <\/p>\n Milliken has been especially impressed with the breakfast-in-the-classroom initiative that Share Our Strength has supported in schools across the country. <\/p>\n \u201cIt used to be that if you were poor, you had to come in early to get your breakfast. There was a stigma around it,\u201d she said. \u201cSo to see every child in a classroom having the opportunity to have breakfast together after the bell, to make it part of their everyday routine, it\u2019s pretty awesome.\u201d <\/p>\n In recent years, Share Our Strength has again been working on a global level, with an ambitious campaign in India<\/a> that Debbie Shore is especially passionate about. Some of the group\u2019s work here in this country is about finding ways to cut through bureaucratic hurdles. Milliken says she loves that Share Our Strength helps \u201cconnect people in need with federal money that\u2019s already been allocated but is just sitting on the table unused.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I see more thoughtful and forward-thinking work being done,\u201d Milliken says, \u201cthat makes me excited.\u201d<\/p>\n See you at the book fest Senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey with the new L.A. Times Food tote bag from Big Bud Press.<\/p>\n (Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Food\u2019s senior editor Danielle Dorsey and I will be at the L.A. Times Food x Now Serving booth near the L.A. Times Food Stage for both days of this weekend\u2019s L.A. Times Festival of Books. Also making appearances will be restaurant critics Bill Addison and Jenn Harris, reporter Stephanie Breijo, deputy food editor Betty Hallock and food editor Daniel Hernandez. Signing books beside us will be some terrific cookbook authors chosen by Michelle Mungcal and Ken Concepcion of the great L.A. cookbook store Now Serving. You can also buy our new L.A. Times Food tote bag, custom made for us by Big Bud Press, along with Burlap & Barrel spices, sweatshirts and aprons made by Hedley & Bennett. Check the full schedule of food-related signings, demos and interviews here<\/a>.<\/p>\n L.A. Times Food tote bags, spices, sweatshirts and aprons.<\/p>\n (Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Where to eat now Electric Bleu\u2019s steak au poivre with a side of fries sprinkled with \u201celectric\u201d salt.<\/p>\n (Yasara Gunawardena \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n \u201dElectric Bleu,\u201d writes restaurant critic Jenn Harris in her latest review<\/a>, \u201cis French food caressed with California seasonality and the occasional pop of Aussie nostalgia.\u201d It\u2019s also home to what Harris calls \u201cthe best p\u00e2t\u00e9 en cro\u00fbte in Los Angeles\u201d and \u201cone of the most accessible tasting menus in the entire city.\u201d The five-course menu is $79 and, unlike many other restaurants, the entire table doesn\u2019t have to order it \u2014 your friends can go a la carte if they want. The stand-out a la carte dish: steak au poivre, which Harris says is so good it \u201ccould put your favorite steakhouse out of business.\u201d With it, she suggests finger-licking fries coated with \u201celectric salt.\u201d<\/p>\n Steak frites with masala au poivre along with a bowl of lamb neck korma at the new Badmaash Venice, where a cocktail program complements new, modern Indian dishes.<\/p>\n (Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Steak and fries is also on the menu at the newest and most ambitious location of the Mahendro family\u2019s Badmaash. \u201cThe downtown restaurant Badmaash helped shape how Angelenos enjoy Indian food,\u201d wrote Stephanie Breijo in her most recent report on new openings<\/a>, \u201cand with a new, reimagined version in Venice, they\u2019re changing the narrative again.\u201d One of the new menu\u2019s highlights: Steak frites served with masala au poivre.<\/p>\n Among the foods to try at this year\u2019s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: lobster fries, a Coachella sunset cocktail, a vegan crunch wrap and loaded prawn chip nachos.<\/p>\n (Los Angeles Times photo illustration; photographs by Danielle Dorsey)<\/p>\n If you\u2019re heading to the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, senior food editor Danielle Dorsey was there last weekend and has tips on what to eat and drink<\/a>, plus a separate guide on Coachella meals for $20 or less<\/a>. <\/p>\n What to cook Lima beans with bitter greens <\/p>\n (Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Novelist and Food section contributor Michelle Huneven came up with a simple and delicious vegetarian meal<\/a> that centers on bitter greens tempered by what she calls the \u201ccloud-like softness\u201d of luscious lima beans. For dessert, a \u201csurprising and versatile\u201d pineapple tart inspired by a dessert she ate at the Louvre in Paris. I can vouch for the tart \u2014 my daughter Isabel made it this week and loved it.<\/p>\n And if you are in the mood for queso, Stephanie Breijo shares a recipe for queso \u201claced with Thai Panang curry\u201d<\/a> from \u201cAsian Smoke,\u201d the recent cookbook from \u201cthe trio of friends behind Texas and Tennessee restaurant Curry Boys BBQ.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018There will still be cheese\u2019 DTLA Cheese Superette partners Reed Herrick and Lydia Clarke in 2023 at the downtown L.A. shop.<\/p>\n (Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Finally, one of my favorite shops downtown closed this week \u2014 Lydia Clarke and Reed Herrick\u2018s DTLA Cheese Superette. Clarke\u2019s passion for cheese always led me to happily buy more than I intended and Herrick\u2019s grilled cheese sandwich has always been one of the city\u2019s best. It\u2019s also the place Jonathan Gold and I first discovered<\/a> Rodolphe Le Meunier\u2019s Beurre de Baratte back in 2014 when the shop was still at the Grand Central Market. Deputy food editor Betty Hallock talked with Clarke and Herrick about their decision<\/a> to close and the news that cheese will soon be available to order online and pick up at their downtown wine bar Kippered, which remains open. Visit it! As Clarke put it, \u201cThere will still be cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019re reading Tasting Notes <\/p>\n Our L.A. Times restaurant experts share insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they\u2019re eating right now.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n Eat your way across L.A. <\/p>\n Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get it in your inbox every week.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n ![\"May](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776568693_15_.jpeg\")
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