CINCINNATI — Two months into the war in Ukraine, the grassroots group, Cincy4Ukraine is working to keep their home country in the local spotlight while continuing to send aid back home.
On Monday, the group teamed up with dozens of chefs from across Cincinnati to hold “Pierogi for Peace,” their latest effort to capture the city’s hearts by aiming for the stomach.
The event, which took place Monday, featured all-you-can-eat pierogies, uniquely designed by 35 chefs from across the Cincinnati area and handmade by volunteers at La Soupe in the nonprofit’s kitchen.
All of the funds will be split between Cincy4Ukraine and World Central Kitchen, which is cooking meals for refugees and Ukrainian citizens within the war zone.
Jane Nemik with Cincy4Ukraine spent the past few weekends helping prepare the thousands of specialized dumplings, traditional treats from her home country.
“I think every single mother, grandmother and grandkid in Ukraine know how to make it and how difficult it is to make it,” she said.
Nemik said it’s easier though with the help of a professional dough-maker, and Tyler Aiken, Taste of Belgium’s production manager, was happy to lend his services.
An experienced pierogi-maker himself, he works just next door to La Soupe in Taste of Belgium’s commissary, often making dough and dumplings for one of their clients, Babushka Pierogies.
“Naturally I wanted to be a part of this, and help everyone get trained to produce good pierogis,” he said.
He provided the dough and the lessons, and dozens of other chefs provided the fillings, each with a unique twist to represent their own restaurant.
“Honestly, some of them mind-blowing, but none of them as far as I know is traditional,” Nemik said.
Some included a beef, blue cheese, potato and green onion mix from Arnold’s, pimento cheese from Share Cheese and short rib from Salazar.
DeYoung boils the pierogies
La Soupe’s founder Suzy DeYoung, who helped bring the chefs together, said she understands many of these restaurants are facing difficult and stressful situations themselves between supply chain issues and continued labor shortages. Still, she said she wanted to offer an easy way to help.
“Chefs are always the answer to food, so they are the ones that kept everybody fed during COVID when it first hit,” she said. “So I reached out to all of them again to see if they’d be willing just to make a pierogi filling.”
They provided tray after tray and La Soupe, Nemik and their volunteers took care of the filling and cooking the dumplings.
“It is absolutely incredible to see such a big restaurant like Jeff Ruby, Salazar, you know, joining and bringing their fillings and doing all of this,” Nemik said. “Absolutely heartwarming.”
Cincy4Ukraine already raised tens of thousands of dollars to help provide humanitarian aid and already sent several pallets of supplies to Ukraine.
