In 2019 I started talking to Chef Paul Gerard about an idea that I had to teach nutrition and health and wellness classes in partnership with a Chef who was working at the highest level. I asked Chef Paul if he would help me with the pilot program that I was developing with an organization on Manhattan's Lower East Side and share recipes from his own kitchen so that I could share them with the youth and adults in the workshops. The pilot program was the seed of an idea to begin a community kitchen that would educate and support the community in learning about healthy food, nutrition, wellness, food preparation and other topics around eating healthier meals, and Chef Paul Gerard agreed to share his recipes with me to share with others. The workshops were a hit and we had planned to begin a longer and more in depth series in 2020, but then of course that became impossible. And as I've written before I began developing the Love & Plenty project which was also in its own way an outgrowth of the community kitchen concept, and then Love & Plenty grew and expanded and I was connected with a group of people from around the world through the Food Systems Game Changers Lab to begin developing a solution to the question of how do we create a more equitable food system through education. That solution became "Education = Power In Choice (EPIC): Empowering Communities Through Food System Education" and we presented it at the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. Following that we were given the opportunity to apply for a grant to further the growth of our solution, and I've been in the process this past year of developing the video community cooking class and food system education model that we were awarded the grant to create.
A very short few weeks ago I sent Chef Paul Gerard the logo that had been created by the beautiful Artist Dana Gambale for the EPIC project, and he responded that he thought it was great and said that he was around for a bit and if I needed any help he was available. I knew exactly what I wanted to ask him, which was something that I'd asked him indirectly before, because the entire project from the very beginning was something that I'd designed with him in mind. He was the inspiration for Love & Plenty, his food was the model for the logo for that project, and as Love & Plenty was introduced to other ideas and people from around the world and it began to grow and develop in concert with them, EPIC was the result and it still had its roots in the kitchen and food and personality of Chef Paul Gerard.
When I described what I would like in my dream of this project for him to do, I gave him the option of working with us remotely. I had originally written the proposal with that idea as a fallback in case people were not available or the issues surrounding the health crisis of the past few years kept people from traveling or meeting together. There is a wonderful Artist collective in Jersey City Heights that goes by the name of DERTY. I've written about them before in these pages and I had begun to discuss having them be a part of some aspects of the project. They're very young and very interested in learning about things, and their brand also has a foundation of being devoted to the ideas of sustainability and recycling, saving the planet and changing the world for the better. It seemed an excellent fit for the project and something that would bring a sense of fun and hip coolness to the concepts we were trying to share with people and help them get inspired and energized around. Two of the members of DERTY are brothers, and their mother is a wonderful cook. I'd already spoken with her and with them about having one of the video shows be focus around her working with a Chef to create a community meal at a DERTY pop up event. When Chef Paul Gerard offered his help I described the project I was thinking about, and somehow or other though the combination of all of the people involved and the information I described he said yes.
He came out to New Jersey for a meeting with DERTY and the mother of the two members, something that to this day seems like a miracle occurred. In all my wildest dreams and with everything that I'd been speaking with him about these past two years the fact of him standing in the DERTY Garage, talking about art and food and planning an event really felt like I was dreaming. And now here we are and with so much that has happened in the past week, not only do I know that I'm not dreaming but the reality is better than any dream I had ever was. As one of the beautiful people involved in this group of friends and family surrounding DERTY said, "And this is only the beginning."
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