Top chefs cook up recipes to end poverty

By Emma Fischer

A popular charitable organization in the heart of Centretown will see local chefs scrambling for ingredients as they fight for first place in Operation Come Home’s annual Poor Chef’s Competition.

This year’s series of awareness-raising events includes 24 Hours of Homelessness, a bottle drive, and the Poor Chefs Competition. The competition involves five top chefs from Ottawa competing to create the healthiest and most delicious meal using only $3 and three items from Operation Come Home’s food bank.

OCH is an employment, education and support centre for homeless and at-risk youth aged 16 and up. The group aims to prevent homeless youth from becoming homeless adults and hosts a variety of projects and fundraising events throughout the year to raise money for the organization.

Lynda Franc, OCH director of programs and services, said most of the money raised this year will go directly towards the educational resources at the centre.

“We have a built-in high school geared towards helping at-risk and homeless youth complete their education,” she said. “They haven’t been able to succeed in the traditional high school system and without our support would otherwise not have the chance to graduate.”

For more than a decade, Operation Come Home has hosted the Reality Campaign – a month-long campaign full of events dedicated to raising awareness about youth homelessness in Ottawa.

Youth homelessness is an unfortunate reality that not many Ottawans are familiar with. In 2015, there were more than 6,000 individuals who accessed an emergency shelter due to homelessness, according to the City of Ottawa. Operation Come Home is working towards a future in which nobody in the city is left unsheltered.

Confirmed competitors for the 2017 challenge include chefs from Union Local 613, Andaz Ottawa Byward Market and Beechwood Gastropub. The event will be held at Jean Pigott Place at City Hall on Feb 23.

Tickets are $25 per person and include a recipe book with last year’s as well as this year’s meals and as other low-budget healthy recipes.

Some of the past dishes in the chef’s competition included chickpea and oat cakes with eggplant smear – made by chef Mark Steele last year.

Part of the fun of the competition is watching how the chefs create unique and tasty flavours using limited resources. Franc said that it’s really easy to get the chefs involved and it’s exciting to watch, but these kinds of dishes are unfortunately not what most homeless youth would be eating.

“We all recognize that a homeless youth would not have the skills to prepare such delicious dishes with the budget we’ve allocated…so as much it’s all for fun and awareness, it’s important to note that they don’t eat this way on a regular basis. It’s a lot of bargain brand Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles,” said Franc.

Confirmed competitors for the 2017 challenge include chefs from Union Local 613, Andaz Ottawa Byward Market and Beechwood Gastropub. The event will be held at Jean Pigott Place at City Hall on Feb 23.

Tickets are $25 per person and include a recipe book with last year’s meals, this year’s meals and other low-budget healthy recipes.