Mona Shah-Anderson and Talia Samuels
Mona Shah-Anderson and Talia Samuels
Paul Buchanan
Gary and Dara Bowman
Karen Francis and John Alder
Drew Pierce
A hearty helping of crispy Mexican chapulin (yes, grasshoppers) was the crowning detail Primal Alchemy’s Paul Buchanan put on his lemongrass sablefish taco before handing it out to some 650 gourmands at Share Our Selves’ annual fundraiser—and he certainly caught a few unaware. But it’s not all that surprising: It was Wild & Crazy Taco Night, a no-holds-barred evening of culinary creativity for SoCal’s finest chefs. Five Crowns’ Steve Kling piled smoked chile-braised lamb in grilled flatbread tortillas, while Slapfish’s Andrew Gruel got fresh with a lobster BLT taco. The party gleaned $55,000 for the nonprofit’s food pantry—perhaps that bite of bug was worth it, after all. -Photos by Reza Allah-Bakhshi and Andy Templeton
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