Chef Lasheeda Perry with other chefs at the Taste of the NFL event in San Francisco.
PHOTO COURTESY: GENYOUth
By Shara Taylor
An award-winning chef from cooking reality television shows and a native of Philadelphia, returns to the kitchen with the Food Network for “The Ultimate Baking Championship” after recently serving up desserts and smiles at schools across the country.
Last month, Lasheeda Perry joined Taste of the NFL, an NFL-sanctioned culinary extravaganza that brings together chefs from around the nation with current and former NFL players for a tasting event that benefits the national non-profit, GENYOUth. It was her 6th year participating in the event, which raises money and awareness for youth fitness and nutrition. Perry’s participation has allowed her to pay it forward, particularly this year prior to Super Bowl LX in San Francisco.
“It really means a lot to me,” Perry said. “I get the opportunity to meet with the students, go into the schools and see how these programs are being implemented.”
GENYOUth, which aims to help school children live well-nourished and physically active lives by aiding schools with access to food and fitness, often includes activities as part of their Super Schools initiative at schools in the host cities of the Super Bowl.
During her visit to schools in this year’s host city, San Francisco, Perry witnessed the meaningful ways in which GENYOUth contributed to local schools.. She said that they provide Grab-and-Go snacks that students can take to eat between meals. Perry was also excited about the students’ performance in the first GENYOUth Culinary Showdown in the area.
“These kids are cooking, but they’re cooking nutritious meals — meals that they would serve their peers, but also following the nutrition guideline[s] for it, and it was so flavorful and good,” she said.
Perry helped judge students on teams from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), who competed to develop original, nutritious, and culturally relevant school meal recipes.
The Super Schools culmination event this year was held Feb. 5 during the weekend of Super Bowl LX activities at Grass Valley Elementary School in Oakland.
“With one in five children in the Bay Area living in poverty (according to the Public Policy Institute of California), the completion of Super Schools represents a “touchdown” for student well-being,” said Ann Marie Krautheim, CEO of GENYOUth. “We have equipped 60 Bay Area schools, including 10 in the Oakland Unified School District, with the tools they need to nourish and keep students active every single day.”
The initiative increased access to 9 million school meals, including the Grab-and-Go mobile meal carts, and expanded physical activity opportunities for over 33,000 Bay Area students, with the help of the NFL FLAG-In-School kits.
“The Super Schools program has made a profound difference for our students at Grass Valley Elementary and across Oakland Unified School District (OUSD),” said OUSD Superintendent Dr. Denise Saddler.
Perry was introduced to GENYOUth while she was working for Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, the host city for the Super Bowl at the time. GENYOUth’s mission to stop student hunger resonated with her.
“I was definitely all in, because I grew up in public school systems, and I remember we never went without food,” Perry recalled. “We went without shelters sometimes, because we lived in the shelter, but our mom always made sure we were fed. I was still relying on school meals, too, because she might have been working or whatever the case may be, especially once she got sick later on. She ended up passing away [in] my senior year of high school.”
Today, Perry is a renowned pastry chef who is known for winning Season 2 of Food Network’s “Sweet Genius,” being a finalist on Season 2 of “Best Baker in America,” and for competing on “Beat Bobby Flay.” Perry beat Bobby Flay with a lemon meringue pie in season 28.
“Here I am, a pastry chef, using my skills to support GENYOUth’s mission to end student hunger and to see the work that they’re doing,” Perry said, describing the full circle moment.
Perry is the owner and pastry chef of “Queen of Flavor,” a dessert tasting room which hosts dessert events, including workshops, baking classes, and tastings. She has worked as a chef for 14 years but has been in the industry for about 25. Perry was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, spent time growing up in North Philadelphia and the surrounding area, and graduated from Frankford High School.
“Luckily for me, we had an awesome culinary program in my high school, and that’s where I found my voice at 15,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be a chef.”
She earned a full-tuition scholarship to attend Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, thanks to a nonprofit called the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP). She studied baking and pastry arts, with a concentration in career writing. Following her graduation, she worked with the Four Seasons Hotels, starting in Four Seasons Resort Dallas, and later transferring to Four Seasons Philadelphia. Other stops were Baltimore, Palo Alto, and Beverly Wilshire. She rose in rank from cook to sous chef to executive pastry chef. She worked at the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta when she became acquainted with GENYOUth.
Taste of the NFL helps make GENYOUth’s mission possible. Money raised from the organization aims to benefit schools in the Bay Area and throughout the nation.
“Tonight, was really about food, football, and philanthropy,” Krautheim said the night of Taste of the NFL in San Francisco. “We were celebrating the Super Bowl, bringing together chefs and football players, but at the end of the day, it is about ending student hunger. Last year we raised 2.2 million dollars.”
PHOTO COURTESY: Shara Taylor
Students were provided with over a million meals then, but this year event organizers hoped to have an even better outcome. They hope to have the final amount raised this month.
“The kids actually get flag football equipment and that is really geared towards getting the kids to actually participate in the NFL flag in schools program,” said Nancy Dalton, GENYOUth board chairman and director of Amazon Access, a corporate sponsor for the event.
Other celebrity chefs like Carla Hall, Cat Cora, and Andrew Zimmern participated. Zimmern, attending for his 32nd year at Taste of the NFL, made a delicious rockfish tomato cioppino (an Italian-American seafood stew originating from San Francisco).
“It’s got local bass and shrimp in it, tomatoes, a lot of oregano,” he said, describing the dish. “GENYOUth is wonderful. I’ve been fighting childhood hunger for about 30 plus years and they’re the best partner you can have.”
PHOTO COURTESY: Shara Taylor
Local chefs, like Chef Annabelle “Anne” Goodridge, the executive chef and owner of Cocobreeze Caribbean Restaurant and Bakery in Oakland, CA, also shared treats from her restaurants. Cocobreeze is known for authentic Trinidadian and West Indian comfort food, and Anne cooked a spicy jerk chicken.
“The restaurant has been open six years, but I’ve been in business for 40 something years,” she said. Perry said the dishes at Taste of the NFL are often inspired by the area. “I think I was introduced to yuzu while I was in the Bay,” she said. “So I made a yuzu lemon cheesecake for San Francisco.”
In addition to event organizers and chefs, restaurant owners and current and former NFL players participated. Former Pittsburgh Steelers Center Maurkice Pouncey, and his twin former NFL Center Mike Pouncey, took photos with fans and shared information about their business Tropical Distillery in Miami. specializing in liqueurs (including Florida-inspired flavors like mango and key lime). Other current players also shared why the event was meaningful to them.
Mike and Maurkice Pouncey
PHOTO COURTESY: Shara Taylor
“Growing up there were times when you would have to go to sleep because you didn’t have food,” said Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Darnay Holmes who was drafted by the New York Giants and has also volunteered with other efforts to stop food insecurity.
According, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 13.5 percent (18.0 million) of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2023. The 2023 Taste of the NFL helped make an impact totaling $1.8 million and delivered over 100 million school meals to food insecure students across the country. Taste of the NFL was founded in 1992 by Wayne Kostroski and has raised awareness and generated funds to fight hunger and food insecurity in Super Bowl host cities for 33 years.
GENYOUth has also provided resources to schools in the Philadelphia Eagles market.
GENYOUth leaders said 2,139 schools were impacted there, 592 schools received NFL FLAG-In-Schools kits, and 426 schools received GENYOUth End Student Hunger grants.
PHOTO COURTESY: GENYOUth
Perry has mentored students in Philadelphia, but the Taste of the NFL has allowed her to share her talents and inspire students nationally.
“They see me on TV and they’re just, like, ‘It’s so cool — I love the work that you do,’” she said.
Perry returns to the Food Network on The Ultimate Baking Championship, premiering March 9 at 9|8c. She said she is now faced with a challenge as she currently seeks resources to repair her shop following a recent fire in the complex where the business is located. Looking ahead,
Perry has upcoming food and wine festivals in Florida, and hopes to make a trip back home to Philadelphia soon.
Leave a Comment