SPOKANE, Wash. — Second Harvest lit up the Steam Plant smokestacks in orange for hunger awareness Wednesday night.
September is Hunger Action Month. Second Harvest leaders want to remind people that hunger is a very real problem right here in the Inland Northwest.
Second Harvest also took the opportunity to honor one of their special volunteers, a local chef who offers free cooking classes.
Chef Laurent Zirotti teaches people how to use basic items from the food bank to prepare healthy and delicious meals. He is the chef and owner of Fleur de Sel in Post Falls and Fleur de Sel Artisan Creperie on the lower South Hill.
Chef Laurent said he has dedicated his life to cooking and teaching others how to cook. The chef is originally from France, but has called the Inland Northwest home for years. In addition to running two restaurants, he teaches free cooking classes to children through Second Harvest. He says after cooking at a Second Harvest fundraiser he decided he wanted to do more.
Chef Laurent said it's important to him people learn how to make healthy, great tasting food.
"I feel fortunate that I have a great wife and partner in work, I have great children, healthy and I need to give back what I received in life. The main motivation is to show them that whatever they create, that they are going to make and share with others, with their loved ones is going to taste so much better than what they are going to buy." Zirotti said.
He took his talents to network television on Wednesday night. The local chef made his Food Network debut on the show "Guy's Grocery Games." It's a show where professional chefs compete in challenges to win up to $20,000.
In this episode, called "The Global Games," four chefs represented different countries. There was a chef representing Korea, Mexico and Italy. And of course, Chef Laurent cooked French cuisine.
If he won the competition he pledged to donate the money to Second Harvest.
The first challenge in "The Global Games" the chefs had to recreate a dish from their childhood. The twist during this challenge was they had to incorporate hash browns. Chef Laurent made a popular French dish called croque-monsieur. It is a fancy ham and cheese sandwich. The judges loved it. One judge said he "wanted to grow up where he grew up".
The second round challenge was to make a rice dish, but they could only use what they could fit in a tiny shopping bag. Chef Laurent made a rice pilaf with scallops in lobster sauce.
Unfortunately, this was where the competition ended for Chef Laurent. He was sent home in the second round. He told KREM the day it aired that it was an amazing opportunity.