A Memorable Night with Chef Nigel Jones and the Bayview Opera House
At Imperfect, we believe that food can be fuel for social change. This is why we teamed up with Andrea Baker Consulting and the Bayview Opera House to kick off the Race and Equity Community Dinner series. These dinners aim to spur conversation about the experience of people of color in the San Francisco Bay Area. This week, the guest chef was the talented Nigel Jones of Kingston 11 in Oakland and Kaya in San Francisco
The Bayview Opera House, just a few blocks away from our San Francisco office, “provides opportunities to engage in the arts for a community with a long history of disinvestment, creates a sense of belonging and community ownership of the only significant cultural resource in the neighborhood, maintains inclusiveness of the traditional population in the light of gentrification, and provides educational and employment opportunities.”
Their central mission is “to serve as the focal point for Art and Culture in the Bayview Hunters Point community by providing accessible, diverse, and high-quality arts education, cultural programs and community events in a safe environment and to employ the arts to support aspirational values, hope and passion, and to inspire the self-confidence and self-esteem needed to be successful, especially for our youth.” This mission is very much in line with our mission of increasing food accessibility, so teaming up on this dinner series was a no-brainer.
The day before the dinner, the Imperfect team and Chef Nigel Jones prepped Imperfect vegetables. We sliced sweet potatoes, chopped cauliflower, cut Brussels sprouts, and prepared the rainbow chard for Jones’ delicious menu.
The following day, we got to cooking! The menu included Roasted Spanish-Style Chicken, Sauteed Swiss Chard with Dried Cherry and Pine Nuts, Brussel Sprouts with Apples, Roasted Yams, and Steamed Rice.
Members from the Customer Care team, Supply team, Marketing team, and others, including co-founder Ben Chesler, served dinner to attendees (and got to enjoy a bit themselves when no one was looking!).
We’re proud of the work that the Bayview Community Opera House is doing and we’re honored to be partnering with the talented Chef Nigel Jones on this dinner series. We are committed to being a trusted resource in every community that we deliver to so we can continue to expand access to fresh produce and bring you stories like these.
