For a community reeling from the North Bay fires and still in the thick of it, a sense of collective grief cast a shadow over Jubilee, the annual conference on women and food held Oct. 14 and hosted by Cherry Bombe magazine. Some participants, like Dominique Crenn and Williams Sonoma brand president Janet Hayes, had just swooped in from hours of cooking and serving meals to those affected.
“Just this last week, the Williams Sonoma brand organized and fed over 1,200 meals in three days to first responders in Napa and Sonoma,” Hayes recounted. “But it wasn’t lost on me that everyone who was cooking, organizing and delivering to push the towns to let them feed us were the women I work with. And it wasn’t lost on me as we dropped off 250 meals of chicken parmigiana just last night, someone said, ‘Wow. Definitely the best-looking dropoff crew that’s been here.’ And while I said thank you, it was a reminder that we still have lots of room to go, because the comment although it was nice, didn’t actually need to happen.”