Q: What do you get when you cross a licensed clinical social worker with a social justice champion and the best cook in America?
A: Stephanie Goldfarb, a self-taught chef who is feeding Chicago, literally and figuratively.
Some might say social work and culinary arts make strange bedfellows. But for 32-year-old Stephanie Goldfarb, they go together like peanut butter and jelly. She works as a full-time social worker at the Jewish Federation of Chicago and when the week is over, she heads to Seven Species, her dining establishment that’s leaving its mark on the city in more ways than one.
“I’m really interested in the intersection of social justice and food. That’s my purpose in the world,” she says.
Stephanie has degrees in social work and gender studies, which she considers one of the “last frontiers.” Cooking brings it all together every weekend. That’s when 28 diners sit down to a seven-course meal, experiencing the intimate supper club that is raising money for local community organizations.