Will the cacio y pepe beat the Korean burger slider? Will the cowboy bean casserole do better than the potato latkes? Will the pumpkin pudding whallop the glazed tofu bites? Will the rivalries lead to trash talk at the table?
One may hope.
Community leaders will play chef for the night early next month for Chefs Take a Stand, in the name of helping survivors of domestic violence.
Jessica Smith, program director of Aid to Victims of Violence, a program of the YWCA, said it’s the program’s biggest fundraiser of the year, as the program survives mostly off of grants.
“We have a variety of people from different organizations in the community,” Smith said. “They are donating their time, their money and their talents and each creating a dish.”
Chefs include retired Cortland Police Chief Paul Sandy, District Attorney Patrick Perfetti, Cortland Mayor Scott Steve, Executive Director of the Center for the Arts of Homer Ty Marshal, and Tammy Timmerman, president of the Cortland County Restaurant & Tavern Association.
Marshal will make an Epicurean peanut butter and jelly sandwich, unlike any peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever experienced before, he said. Marshal has won before, third place one year with a cheese dip and second the next year with a reuben egg roll. But he didn’t win last year. Jim Durkee, executive chef of Cayuga Medical Center, won for his pancetta-wrapped diver scallops with asiago and roasted garlic.
“I will be participating, but not competing this year,” Marshal said. “I think it’s time to give participants like Mayor Scott Steve, Mayor Hal McCabe, Homer Chief of Police Robert Pitman, and Tammy Timmerman, a fleeting chance at taking home an award. I wish them luck, and realize the only way they’ll have a chance at winning is if I step out for a year.”
Timmerman will make some kind of boozy dessert, but she doesn’t have a fun name picked out for it yet, she said.
“It’s a fun event, and the vibe is great.” Timmerman said. “I mean, it’s a bunch of fun people getting together to raise money for a good cause.”
Tribal Revival will play music. Tickets are $50. This year, voting will be done using a QR code.
The money raised by this event typically covers costs deemed non-essentials by grants, like a survivor of domestic violence needing an outfit for a job interview, Smith said.
“Grants don’t necessarily cover everything,” she said. “When someone needs a haircut, it is not necessarily considered a necessity, but we don’t want to send children off to the first day of school without being able to get a haircut and feel that sense of normalcy.”
“All joking and friendly competition aside, domestic violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse, and child abuse are serious issues that often go unnoticed and are not talked about openly or often enough,” Marshal said. “Victims suffer in silence.”
It’s important for people to understand the amount of domestic violence happening in our community, and how it affects the victims and children, Smith said.
“When I first started working here, I had no idea how much domestic violence was happening in our community,” she said. “It’s kind of hush-hush. It’s always been ‘no, that’s a family matter,’ but when you don’t talk about it, you aren’t working through it. Children grow up keeping that inside, and then think it’s normal in their next relationship. It becomes a generational thing. If people talked about it, more people would be willing to get out of those situations.”
