Taste Talks, a food-centered conference that launched in Brooklyn in 2013, returns to Chicago this weekend for its third year. A day full of panel discussions and chef demos is bookended by several events dedicated to eating food rather than talking about it—most notably the All-Star Barbecue on Sunday, with chefs including Jason Hammel (Lula Cafe), Brian and Jennifer Enyart (Dos Urban Cantina), Jared Van Camp (Leghorn Chicken), and Chris Pandel (Swift & Sons).
Hammel, who’s a cofounder of Pilot Light, an organization in Chicago that partners chefs with teachers to educate kids about food and nutrition, knows what he’s talking about. “One thing I see in my work with Pilot Light is that food does have this preternatural ability to level the playing field in terms of people’s ability to converse and discuss and come together,” he says. “I think there are a lot of ways that the food community, because of its incredible power to connect, can reach outside of its small footprint and really make an impact for the better.”
