Whether you’re not sure what to serve to surprise guests or you just want a convenient food option after a night of shopping that doesn’t involve dialing out or driving through, there is reason to rejoice this holiday season. A new partnership between DC Central Kitchen, Alexandria-based Cuisine Solutions, and six of the D.C. area’s most celebrated chefs is bringing gourmet holiday meals to the frozen food section of a store near you. The meals will be produced with all local ingredients and all proceeds will benefit DC Central Kitchen, which provides hunger relief and training programs for the D.C. community.

The new initiative, dubbed “Eating Local, Doing Good”, was the brainchild of Cuisine Solutions CEO Stanislas Vilgrain and project manager Mark Bucher (who also owns Burger Joint in Bethesda) and grew out of what Bucher describes as a desire to find the next way to “be exceptional at what we do.” Cuisine Solutions already has a line of frozen meals by celebrity chefs, including The French Laundry’s Thomas Keller, that are sold under it’s Five Leaf label but, according to Bucher, they felt that D.C. chefs are an often under-appreciated group and that the rich pool of area talent would be perfect to launch a new line of Five Leaf products.

Bucher says that the project started out with a list of 22 chefs and eventually narrowed it down to six: Michel Richard of Citronelle and Central; Jose Andres of Café Atlantico, Jaleo, Oyamel, and Minibar; Nora Pouillon of Restaurant Nora; Jeff Buben of Vidalia; Kaz Okochi of Kaz Sushi Bistro; and Roberto Donna of Bebo Trattoria.

Jeff Buben's shrimp and grits (courtesy of Cuisine Solutions)

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It was Jose Andres who helped get DC Central Kitchen involved. Bucher says that he went to meet with the chef at Café Atlantico one afternoon and mentioned the idea of involving the Kitchen. Andres, who is a Chairman Emeritus of DCCK, drove the pair across town to meet with the Kitchen’s executive team and that same day the partnership was formed.

That kind of speed was typical of the entire project. According to Bucher, it normally takes Cuisine Solutions six months to roll out a line of Five Leaf projects; the D.C. version came together in two weeks. Everyone involved with the project was so dedicated to what Stanislas Vilgrain said is “a brand new way of raising money for a very very good cause.” The project was also fortunate in that all of the chefs involved had partnered with the Kitchen before and were dedicated to supporting the charity.

Another crucial component in getting the initiative off the ground was figuring out the supplier issue. Everyone involved wanted the ingredients for the dishes be local. But first, says Bucher, they had to figure out what exactly local meant. It became quickly apparent that everyone has a different idea of what local means. One source said local was anything within six hours, another was anything within six hours by plane, train or automobile.

Finally, the partnership agreed that local would be anything within 200 miles from the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and K Street NW. The only exceptions would be for products that were not available at all within that radius and then the next closest source would be used. Only one ingredient ended up actually being from outside the 200 mile radius: shrimp for Jeff Buben’s dish which were sourced from North Carolina’s coastal waters, about two miles from the Virginia border.

Speaking about the importance of using locally sourced ingredients, Chef Andres said that this initiative wasn’t just about fighting hunger locally, but also about “fighting for the economy at the local level.” That commitment is why the chefs worked with the R&D department at Cuisine Solutions to adjust their recipes to fit what was available locally. The finished product is something that is local in nearly every possible sense: recipes from local chefs using local ingredients, development into items that can be mass produced by locally based Cuisine Solutions, preparations for the dishes being done at DCCK, and even using local photographers for the promotion and a local paper company for the packaging. All the meals are cooked sous vide and then frozen in the pouches. The recommended reheating method is to thaw the packets to room temperature and reheat in a pot of hot water.

DCCK founder Robert Egger said this project comes at an important time for the Kitchen, with 2009 marking the 20th anniversary of the charity. He characterized this initiative as “Charity 2.0” and as an outgrowth of desire for all involved with the Kitchen to “not just celebrate, but to evolve” as they approach such an important anniversary.

Egger points out that the one missing component of the project so far is retailer participation. According to DCCK Chief Development Officer Brian MacNair, the group reached out to all of the major retailers in the D.C. area including Safeway, Giant, Harris Teeter, Magruders, Wegmans, and Whole Foods. There is no word yet on which retailers are definitely on board to participate, but the goal is to get as many as possible involved and to make the meals available for the 2008 holiday season, November 1 through December 31.

Egger notes that local retailers have been extremely supportive in donating food to the Kitchen and that this is an opportunity for them to participate at a different level. With the completely local nature of the project and all of the proceeds from this venture going to DCCK, he sees this as “a breathtakingly important step, not just for the Kitchen or the city but for philanthropy.”