Diced

Last night at the Schuster Center thirteen chefs took on the challenge faced by Miami Valley Meals team on a daily basis, how to create a tasty dish from donated food for over 4000 meals/week.

Each chef got  a mystery box of four ingredients a few days before the friendly competition so they’d have time to compose a winning dish.  They were asked to prep 300 portions to be tasted by a sold out crowd of over 300 guests for the 4th annual DICED fundraiser. All 4 ingredients most be featured in the dish and they were also given a gift card to the Gem City Market to pick up additional items for their dish.

There were 4 different boxes randomly given to this years competing culinarians:

Box A: breakfast sausage, yukon gold potatoes, okra, blackberry glaze

Blueberry Cafe created a Midwest Tartiflette

Box B: brisket, lentils, turnips, sweet pickles

Box C: tofu, bell peppers, ketchup, farro

Chef Jay Jones dish from the plant based box

Box D; whole turkeys, kohlrabi, corn on the cob, cabbage

Guests at the event visited each Chef’s table and sampled their dish, eventually casting their vote for the people’s choice winner.

A panel of 5 judges also rated each dish based on use of ingredients, creativity, taste and presentation. Judges from left to right:  Liz Valenti,  Chef/owner Wheat Penny, Rick Schaefer, Chef and former owner of Brock Masterson’s Catering, Keith Taylor, Executive Chef Table 33, Chef Laura Cotton of Miami Valley Meals and Dustin McGillivray, aka crustymcg- digital content creator. 

The judges selected Chef James Blythe from Otterbein’s fresh corn tamale, filled with shredded turkey, and wrapped in a fresh corn husk, topped with candied red and green cabbage and cilantro as their top dish,  while the people’s choice was Chef Jacob Rodibaugh from Bistecca’s sausage meatball with with blueberry dijon glaze over a potato a potato rösti, served with a charred fresh corn and okra salsa.

Both were presented with a new mystery box of ahi tuna, watermelon radish, pickled ginger and  couscous and given 20 minutes to create their final dish.

Here were the final dishes, Chef James on the left -wild mushrooms, watermelon and couscous topped with crushed cashews. Chef Jacob on the right served a veggy couscous with an Ahi tuna salad,  pickled  watermelon chips with  toasted sesame seeds.

And the Diced Champion for 2025 is Chef James Blythe from Otterbein
Senior Life.

Upon being named the winner Chef James shared he “had a great time creating his dishes and was  happy to be part of such a great cause.” He was also quick to thank his sous chef Pam Hayes and invites the public to  visit the 3 restaurants at Otterbein, the 1912 Dining Room, Great Wave Cafe and outdoor dining at Terrace Place.

Diced finalists and judges

Miami Valley Meals Executive Director and co-founder Amanda DeLotelle was overjoyed with the success of the event,  ““Celebrating service during Hunger Action Month with such amazing local culinary talent and community support is what Miami Valley Meals is all about. The awareness and funds raised tonight uplift meals made with love, creating a ripple effect that nourishes and supports our neighbors who need it most. Thank you to the many sponsors, volunteers, guests, donors, partners and my board and team for making the event a success and our work possible”

Last night’s event worked with the Food Bank  and are “excited to share that thanks to all of the great volunteers and folks who helped plan and use the composting stations, we were able to divert 365 pounds of compostable items from going to the landfill, says Courtney Curtner, the Garden Lead at the Food Bank.

While they are still calculating the numbers the early estimate is a gross of $70,000, which will allow MVMeals to continue to feed nourishing meals made with love that honor and  dignity to the people in our community that need of assistance.  That’s currently about 4000/meals a week, distributed by 50 nonprofit partners.