Ask Chefs Anything

Immigrant workers in the food industry have been serving us for decades. They are now left with no jobs or unemployment benefits. It's our turn to serve them.

Chefs and industry tastemakers from across the city — including Andrew Zimmern, Aaron Bludorn, Drake Leonards, Rebecca Masson, Ronnie Killen, Ford Fry, Hugo Ortega, Anita Jaisinghani, Chris Shepherd, Christine Ha, Justin Yu and more — will auction off 30 minutes of their time to share their favorite recipes, cooking tips, and really anything you want to ask them!

Funds raised will go directly to vulnerable immigrant households connected to the Southern Smoke Foundation and living in Houston.

When the auction closes, each winner will receive an email from the organizers to coordinate the call with their elected chef.

Calls will take place over Zoom; the organizers will create that URL and share it with the winner and chef.

During your call with you will be able to #AskChefsAnything and yes we mean anything! So get started thinking about all the things you have always wanted to know about your favorite Chefs!

The #AskChefsAnything campaign was launched in April of 2020 by Gaeleen Quinn, founder of Q&A Hospitality consulting and the Bogota Food & Wine Festival and Anna Polonsky of Polonsky & Friends to raise awareness and funds for the community most impacted by the COVID crisis within the US restaurant world: the immigrant workers. The enterprise was so successful in New York City that satellite fundraisers have been held in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Nashville and Houston cumulatively raising over $180,000, enabling us to deliver 165,000 meals. In September, #AskChefsAnything's first international edition was held to benefit those in desperate need in Beirut, Lebanon, which was roiled by an explosion that killed, injured and displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed the city’s buildings and infrastructures.