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Got dinner plans on Sunday night? Now you do: Dana Rodriguez, chef/owner of RiNo’s Super Mega Bien, is coming to your kitchen to help you make an incredible three-course menu. Virtually, that is. Rodriguez is representing Denver in this week’s Chefstreams online cooking class, a national program born of the pandemic as a way to keep diners connected to their favorite chefs and restaurants.
“I think it will be very good for people to remember we’re still here!” Rodriguez says. “This thing going on (COVID-19) is really going to hurt the business. We don’t know if we’ll still have a restaurant.”
Rodriguez, a current James Beard Award finalist in the Best Chef: Mountain category, will walk you through the steps to making a seed-studded beet salad with lemon crema, the Super Mega Bien favorite carne asada with Argentinian chimichurri, and butterscotch pudding with Butterfinger crunch for dessert. Your $30 ticket grants you full recipes with instructions, access to the live-streamed class, and a recording so you can cook the menu again and again. In addition to cooking along with Rodriguez in her home kitchen, you can ask her questions along the way, like should you be eating the chimichurri by the spoonful in between steps?
“It’s easier for people to see how you actually cook in your own kitchen,” she says of conducting the class from her house. “These are things people can make at home. They’re very easy to do.”
If you’re somehow still not convinced that this is the best possible way for you to spend your Sunday evening, know that for the entire month of June, Chefstreams will donate all profits from its classes to the National Bail Out, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Black Lives Matter, a bonus for Rodriguez. “I think it’s very important we find ways to give back to the community—and this one will be a lot of fun.”
Do good and eat good with Dana Rodriguez on Sunday, June 14, starting at 5 p.m.; get your tickets here.