AZ’s top female chefs & restaurateurs to offer special takeout meals

The newly formed James Beard Foundation Women of Arizona – 15 of the Valley’s top female chefs and restaurateurs – will roll out its first initiative next week, and it’s a doozy.

The women’s respective restaurants are banding together to create three-course takeout dinners for two over the next three weekends. Each dinner will feature an appetizer, entree, and dessert – each course from a different restaurant.

Menu 1

• Maya’s Cajun Kitchen: H.O.P’n creole cakes with remoulade;
• 24 Carrots: Moroccan vegetable tagine with rice pilaf and harissa-spiked tzatziki;
• Cotton & Copper: Coconut honeysuckle pie.

Menu 2

• The Farish House: Candied date pork belly atop radicchio-and-fennel salad with lemongrass pickled radish;
• The Joy Bus Diner: Lamb and sweet potato meatballs with turmeric-spiked rice served with Armenian cucumber tzatziki and mint gremolata;
• Songbird Coffee House: Mocha sauced brownie or two.

Menu 3

• FnB: Pickled wild shrimp, Meyer lemon, shiso, and buttered saltines;
• Hana Japanese Eatery: Okaasan’s Kare Raisu (Japanese beef curry) with ribeye, onion, carrots, potato, and Fuji apples in a Japanese kare over rice;
• Tracy Dempsey’s Originals: Black & Tan Pudding Jar (chocolate pot de crème and salted caramel pudding and whipped cream with espresso shortbreads).

Menu 4

• Fat Ox: Clam chowder with crispy pancetta, fennel seed, Calabrian chili, potatoes, and celery;
• The Market by Jennifer’s: The Market Bolognese (beef, veal, pork, mirepoix, pancetta, crushed tomato, red wine, Southwest mushrooms, garlic crème, rigatoni, parmigiana Reggiano cheese, ricotta, and fresh basil);
• Sweet Republic: Ice cream sandwich with banana toffee pudding ice cream between chocolate chip cookies.

Menu 5

• The Cellar: Fig panna cotta, pickled orange, crispy salted duck, orange-mint frisée;
• Nonna Urban Eatery: Cannelloni (house-made with Hayden Mills Sonoran wheat flour) filled with eight-hour pork, beef, and oxtail ragout with Grana Padano sauce;
• The Breadfruit & Rum Bar: Buttered rum cake with orange blossom buttercream icing.

The two-person meals, which are $55, will be available for three weekends – Jan. 15 -16, Jan. 22-23, and Jan. 29-30.

Orders can be placed through the website starting this Friday. Orders must be placed by 10 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding the weekend.