From affluent patrons of Chez Panisse in Berkeley to seventh-graders at Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos, Chef Kerry Billner has cooked for all types of people.
Billner made the switch to working in food service and nutrition departments for school districts in the South Bay when her kids were born and she was looking for more consistent hours and a reliable schedule. As director of child nutrition for the Los Gatos Union School District, her days no longer consist of the restaurant grind, but she still gets to exercise creativity in school kitchens in addition to the administrative work she does around nutrition.
“I’ve kind of fallen in love with it; it’s got this 50/50 balance of running around the kitchen and being creative and helping the cooks to make beautiful food, and then this whole nutrition and administrative follow-up that I really love doing as well,” she said.
Now, the San Francisco California Culinary Academy alumna and San Jose native will use her skills for a new cause on March 8 : West Valley Community Services’ 13th annual Chefs of Compassion fundraiser.
The fundraiser comes as the Cupertino-based nonprofit celebrates its 50th anniversary and will support the services it provides, including a food pantry and assistance in finding affordable housing for residents of Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino and West San Jose.
Billner will be competing along with chefs Katie Voong of Mayan Kitchen in Sunnyvale and Apurva Panchal of Rooh in Palo Alto to put together a multi-course meal for fundraiser attendees using ingredients solely from West Valley Community Services’ pantry.
Each chef is responsible for a different course, with Billner in charge of dessert. The chefs put together their respective dishes and then pass the recipes along to a catering company that will re-create them on a larger scale for the fundraiser. A panel will judge the dishes based on taste, appearance and creativity and award an “audience favorite” based on attendees’ votes.
As an advocate for local foods and plant-based alternatives, Billner knows that good food can come from humble ingredients as easily as expensive ones. Hence, the cardamom-infused pear tart she crafted for the dessert course, inspired by the canned pears she saw in West Valley Community Services’ pantry.
But she’ll just as easily sprinkle edible flowers onto her seventh-graders’ avocado toast as she’ll include canned pears in a catered meal, keeping true to her fine dining roots while serving children, the toughest food critics around.
“Most American desserts are really high in sugar and really high in fat, which of course I love,” she said. “But working in schools, it’s like you’re constantly having to be restrictive of those items but still create flavor.”
Chefs of Compassion starts at 6 p.m. at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Tickets are $185 per person or $1,850 for a table of 10 at chefsofcompassion.org.