Chef Matt Fresinski puts pasta bolognese into food containers for 24Meals, a nonprofit that delivers chef-prepared, home-cooked meals to households in need, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020.
Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Volunteers with this Las Vegas nonprofit delivered a chef-prepared meal to a 70-year-old amputee who was cutting frozen meals in half to stretch rations.
They also dropped off a box of homemade tamales to a teacher who said just one night of not having to make dinner lessened the burden of adjusting to the new normal of providing distance education.
Additionally, they have fed residents in isolation from their families while recovering from coronavirus and unable to afford takeout meals.
The meals are restaurant-quality from local chefs in partnership with Matthew and Katinka Fresinski, who began preparing and delivering home-cooked meals at no charge seven months ago when the pandemic began.
The Fresinskis have found people to deliver meals to in veteran groups, churches, on a Facebook unemployment page and by word of mouth. In addition to meals, a recipient might get canned soup, bread and ramen noodles to bulk up their pantry.
“At no point, especially in our community, should anyone wonder where their next meal is going to come from,” Matthew Fresinski said.
Matthew Fresinski is a corporate chef with V&E Restaurant Group overseeing three restaurants on the Strip: Mercato della Pescheria at Venetian, Cafe Americano at Paris and Cafe Americano at Caesars Palace. Katinka Fresinski owns an event-staffing company.
Matthew Fresinski’s connections in the food industry and Katinka’s event-staffing contacts created a network that quickly expanded their reach. They initially started in March when the pandemic shuttered the state economy by making and delivering 24 meals, hence the group’s name 24Meals.
The operation has advanced to three to eight chefs cooking 24 meals a week, bringing together 68 Las Vegas-area chefs since March. In total, they distributed 7,000 meals.
“It really took off like a wildfire, for lack of a better term. Everybody wants to get involved,” Matthew said.
Comparing the effort to the reality-based cooking television show “Chopped,” Katinka Fresinski said chefs nominate one another to cook 24 meals and pass on a mystery ingredient for a fun challenge to use their culinary skills. The Fresinskis give the nominated chefs a milk crate of ingredients and 24 to-go boxes.
“It reminds us chefs why we do what we do. Our focus is just feeding people and having fun with it,” Matthew Fresinski said.
Chefs make anything they want using the donated ingredients.
A few dishes prepared recently included sambal and mango-marinated steak with caramelized onions and teardrop peppers, roasted butternut squash and whipped potatoes with smoked gouda, by Chef Carlos Cruz-Santos; citrus-chili grilled steaks, saffron rice and peas and a Romesco sauce made with bacon jam, a mystery ingredient, by Chef Jeff Weiss; pork and gigante bean stew with bakers potatoes and charred broccoli-green tomato salsa, by Chef Paras Shah; and pork ragu over shells with ricotta cheese, by Chef Robert Chaney.
Sometimes chefs finish cooking 24 meals in a couple of hours if they stick to simple recipes, Matthew Fresinski said. Others are already working long shifts in their restaurants and need a few days.
The response of their colleagues has been nothing short of phenomenal, they said.
For Roberto Lomeli, the former executive chef at the Strat's Top of the World restaurant, a scheduled surgery delayed his opening to cook 24 meals.
“Once I healed, I said, ‘I’m ready to go. Let’s do this,’” he said.
Lomeli received long grain rice, beef, mushrooms and a green sriracha and ouzo sauce, so he “went the Asian route” and cooked braised beef with mushrooms and an Indonesian-style gravy with charred broccoli fried rice.
“It took me the whole day because of the beef. I wanted to cook it low and slow,” he said.
24Meals has a Facebook page that features photos of the chefs' creations.
“They did that with the food I made ... I didn’t want to comment too much. I’m a little bit shy when it comes to that, but I really wanted to make sure I saw what people said to see if they liked it,” Lomeli said.
He said it was touching to see people praising his meals in the comments.
“It was great to see it made a difference in someone’s day,” he said.
Chefs have volunteered to cook meals without being asked or, like Pete Ghione, executive chef of Canyon Ranch Las Vegas, prepared 60 meals instead of 24.
The Fresinskis converted a spare bedroom in their Henderson home to a pantry with three refrigerators, stocking it with donations from Wilder Gourmet, a Las Vegas specialty food retailer, Sickies Garage Burgers & Brews, a new restaurant in Town Square Las Vegas, and Giving Life Ministries, a church in Henderson.
They have two full-time volunteers and one part-time volunteer to help deliver meals and applied for nonprofit status.
To maintain 24Meals, the Fresinskis need gas money for deliveries and funds to buy containers and food. People who want to donate can send money through Venmo to @team24meals or visit 24meals.org.
“Every amount of support helps us serve more of our neighbors by delivering a nutritious, chef-prepared meal along with some much-needed encouragement,” Katinka Fresinski said, noting her 11-year-old son Caleb writes inspirational notes on the lids of the to-go boxes the meals come in.
“It’s a teaching moment for our kids,” Katinka Fresinski said.
