As most of you know, we at Open ChefAMe love charity.  In fact, we donate over 25% of our profits to at least one charity at every single Open ChefAMe night!

At the first event, our two chefs decided on Philabundance, the Philadelphia region’s largest hunger relief organization.  This time around, our four chefs have picked another great cause…

LCFS (Lutheran Child and Family Services) is an affiliate of Liberty Lutheran Services.  They provide a number of services to children and families including foster care, adoption, services to children in their own homes and after-school programs. In addition, LCFS plays a major role in refugee resettlement and the care of unaccompanied refugee minors. They are a great organization that helps families and children in their times of need.

We are happy to support another great cause.  We hope that everyone enjoys their night on June 22nd at our 3rd Open ChefAMe.

If you were unable to get into this event, take a look at our next one on July 27th.  We haven’t picked a place or chefs yet but we’re sure that it will be another wonderful Open ChefAMe night.

We think that Open ChefAMe nights are the bees knees and we hope you do too!  Now we’d like to make June 22nd’s Open ChefAMe the cat’s meow by having you and a guest join the fun!  We’re offering two free tickets to one lucky winner over the next 24 hours.

Want to know how you get in on this awesome contest?

It’s easy.  Simply send out a Tweet with two things:  1) The strangest dish that you have ever eaten and 2) Share this link with your friends: http://bit.ly/ChefAMe .  Let us know — Have you had snake?  Blood soup?  Fish heads?  Or anything else that might be strange and unique.

Some examples of Tweets could be:

• The strangest thing I’ve eaten was ENTER THE FOOD HERE http://bit.ly/ChefAMe
• Strange foods can be great too!  Have you ever had ENTER THE FOOD HERE? http://bit.ly/ChefAMe

You can phrase it any way you’d like.  Just be sure to include http://bit.ly/ChefAMe and the strangest food you’ve had.  We’ll end the contest tomorrow at noon (EST) and the weirdest thing we’ve heard of will win 2 tickets to the event on June 22nd!  Make sure you’re following @ChefAMe on Twitter because it’s where we’ll announce the winner!

Welcome to our 3rd rendition of Open ChefAMe.  We’ve listened to all of your comments and we’re going to have more space for people to move around, we’ll have more food and more chefs!  This means lots of variety in what you’ll get to feast on at this Open ChefAMe.

The Chefs:

We have 4 great chefs at this event.  They are all professionals in their own fields of culinary arts.  One is a pastry chef, one a past executive chef, another a sous chef for a delicious Italian restaurant and yet another owns his own restaurant in University City.  Steven Redel, Margaret “Maggie” Kennedy, Gregory Dooner and Honest Tom will dazzle your taste buds with a whole slew of dishes that they’re preparing just for this special event.

More Food:

This second Open ChefAMe had even more food than the first but we’re going to have our chefs make the most we’ve had to fill you up on June 22nd.  We’ll also have a vegetarian choice this time around.  Not only will there be more food per dish but we’ll have 7 courses!  Now that’s a real meal.

A Return to a Past Serving Style:

We’ve decided to go ahead and try the seated style of Open ChefAMe that we had at the first event.  We’ll be setting up long tables so that people can sit family style and share in the festivities.  You’ll be served all 7 dishes along with having a great bar with drink specials just like last time.

We hope that you’ll decide to join us on June 22nd at the Dark Horse Pub for our 3rd Open ChefAMe.  If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our many options.  See you all on June 22nd.

The second Open ChefAMe night was a fantastic success!  We had two incredible chefs who slaved for hours in the kitchen (from 2pm all the way through the event), 6 dishes that were out of this world (who would have thought to make a spicy watermelon soup) and all the great company anyone could ask for.

Lots of our Philly friends were out and about on Monday May 18th as the second Open ChefAMe got under way.  Two Guys on Beer were there to share their love of beer, much of the IndyHall crew showed up to cheer us on and our gracious hosts, the Dark Horse Pub, made sure that we were all taken care of.  In addition, we couldn’t have pulled it all together without the sponsorship from Origlio Beverage which allowed us to offer all of the draft beers and wines for only $4!  That’s a steal in the Philadelphia-area.

Alyssa and her husband dazzled us with a Thai watermelon soup, sake poached halibut with a marinated cucumber salad and a Korean style skirt steak that was “melt-in your mouth tasty” as one guest put it.  Felicia brought her whole crew down to lend her a hand.  She prepared quite a menu as well — Sweet corn soup with chives and bacon garnish, gougéres with dry-cured ham, watercress and Dijon cream and a Moroccan spiced braised lamb shoulder with lentils and minted yogurt.  At the end of the night, Alyssa whipped up a quick home made whipped cream and fruit dish that many people scarfed down (and even ended with an eating contest).

We’ll be sharing Alyssa’s recipes with you all very soon.  Felicia’s recipes are posted over at Meal Ticket, the City Paper’s food blog.  We hope that you’ll give these recipes a shot and let us know how you fare with making them in your own home.

Thank you again for coming out for the second Open ChefAMe.  Not only did we double the chefs and food but we also more-than doubled the amount of people that came out.  We think this is pretty cool and we can’t wait for the next event.  Speaking of, the next Open ChefAMe will be held at the Dark Horse Pub on June 22, 2009.  You can get your tickets online or offline but they must be purchased before the event.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill out our survey for the second Open ChefAMe night.  Your feedback will let us grow future ChefAMe events to be just the way you want them.  We’ll also pass along all of your comments to our two wonderful chefs.  They want to know what you thought about their food, so please let them know.

We can’t wait to see you at the next Open ChefAMe.  Get your tickets fast as we sold out last time and had people calling our cell phones and the bar trying to get in.  We want to make sure that everyone that wants to attend gets in.  Let us know if you any questions or comments about our next event or what ChefAMe is all about.

We’re so excited for this upcoming Open ChefAMe.  We have two amazing chefs (Alyssa and Felicia) who have quite the menu prepared for you.  Every time we read it, our mouths water and we’re that much more excited for Monday night.

As with the last event, we’re going to give you the menu ahead of time but it’s always subject to change.  We’ve put in our food orders with the vendors, got the specials on the beer and wine and the kitchen is prepped.  All lights are green and we’re ready to go.  The menu for Monday night will include:

• Sweet corn soup with chives and bacon garnish
• Gougéres with dry-cured ham, watercress and Dijon cream
• Moroccan spiced braised lamb shoulder with lentils and minted yogurt
• Thai watermelon soup*
• Sake-poached halibut with marinated cucumber salad
• Korean style skirt steak with pears

*This dish contains lemon grass

We’re also excited to let you know that we’ve set it up so that all beer and wine at the Dark Horse Pub will be $4.  Red, white, lager or Guiness — It’s all $4.  We thought this would make most people happy as this time around you can order what you like.  We’re sure that our chefs (and Two Guys on Beer) will also have recommendations as to what will go well with their menu items.

If you can’t tell already, we can’t wait for the night and we can’t wait to see you there.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us via any of the contact methods that we’ve laid out.  Also, if you know anyone that would like to cook at a future ChefAMe event, send them to our FAQ page and they can find out how to get on the list.  Thanks for all of your continued support in our crazy, but fun, foodie idea!

P.S. – Park at one of the lots at 2nd and Lombard if you need parking.  It’s only $3 for the night with the Dark Horse’s stamp of approval!

You’ve met Felicia,  the amazing writer and foodie, now meet Alyssa, our amazing past chef and future pastry-treat-maker.  She and Felicia will be guiding your night along with their culinary creations.

She’s local, she’s fun and she’s going to knock your socks off with tasty food.

Alyssa Shilliday is currently enrolled in the pastry arts program at The Restaurant School to put the finishing touches on her natural culinary abilities.  Her interest in food and the restaurant industry started long ago.  Alyssa has worked on every front from catering, waitressing, and cooking to planning, managing, and purchasing.  In addition to her own independent catering of small events she has also worked for The Olive Garden, Iron Hill Brewery, World Café Live, Washington Square Restaurant, and Cuba Libré.  Her experiences at these restaurants as line cook, lead line cook, and Sous Chef have only intensified her desire to create dishes and menus of her own.

Alyssa is an alumnus of Temple University.  She and her husband Justin just bought their first home in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia in August of 2008.  Alyssa and Justin hope to soon open their own restaurant in the Philadelphia area — Keep your eyes open!!

Not only are we going to have great food, great drinks, awesome people and a fun time but our two chefs are highly talented individuals that will make this night a special one.  One of our chefs is Felicia D’Ambrosio, a writer for the City Paper:

Felicia D’Ambrosio is the child of lapsed Catholics, themselves the children of second-generation immigrants to Philadelphia: Italian, Irish, Polish. All of her family members are bad-ass cooks. (Except her dad, a neurologist who once baked a frozen pizza with the plastic still on it.)

Her Mom-Mom and Aunt Gina, both chefs, taught her to work both a stove and a room at a young age; her first job was catering weddings with them in Lancaster County. Since then, Felicia has had a long and infamous career in the restaurant industry, hoisting the tray at a Manayunk meet market, an artisan gelateria, and the smallest restaurant with the best view on Rittenhouse before finding her spiritual home with the Monk’s Café cartel.

Felicia writes for City Paper’s food and drinks blog, Meal Ticket, and when she’s not chained to her laptop you can find her feasting like a Roman at numerous hotspots, sucking up the last tomatoes of the season at Greensgrow Farms and pouring at the Belgian Café.

I’m super excited to announce an addition the the Open ChefAMe experience — Giving back to the community.

We’ve decided that not only will you get a night of fun, food, drinks and an experience of a lifetime at Open ChefAMe but when it’s all over, we’re going to donate money to charity.

We’re looking at donating over 20% of our profits this time around.  When the night comes near an end, both chefs will get to announce who they would like the money to go to.

The hope is that this type of thing continues to happen at every Open ChefAMe event.  We’d like to find more and more ways of giving back to the awesome community that we all live in.  We’re not sure who will get the money — Philabundance, the Red Cross, LiveStrong — but we’re sure that it will be a worthy cause and everyone will win!

If you’re interested in attending the night, please don’t hesitate to buy your tickets early.

The second Open ChefAMe is on for May 18th, 2009.  We’ll be opening the doors at 6:30pm and beginning the food flow at 7:30pm.  This time around we’re going for a different format.  We hope you like it.

Last time we had over 40 people attend the Open ChefAMe and we gave you all a spot to sit and relax while we served 40+ dishes.  This was a lot of fun for everyone there and we hope you really enjoyed it.  This time we’re going to set it up for a tasting style meal.  We’ll have two wonderful chefs (not one), Chef Alyssa Shilliday and Writer Felicia D’Ambrosio, who will prepare 3 dishes and 1 dessert each.  This means more variety, more food and more fun for everyone!

You’ll get to meet the two chefs (online) and see the menu very soon but for now get your tickets early.  We wouldn’t want you to miss this extraordinary event.  If you’d like to purchase your ticket offline, check out our contact page for more information.

Our first event was a great success.  We’ll have some photos up here soon!

Photo by David Snyder