Chef Jonathan Forgash: Talking comfort food and healing recipes with an improbable chef

Chef Jonathan Forgash’s culinary career began simply by saying “yes” when a friend asked him to cater a photo shoot. He’d never really cooked professionally before, but he’s always believed in saying yes when opportunities come knocking. The Brooklyn-born, Long Island– and Greenwich Village–raised Astoria resident is a self-trained chef.

Forgash taught cooking classes in youth programs in the 1990s before it became popular, and has also catered to the culinary elite. Through it all, he’s learned the power of comfort food. He lives by two ideals: service to others and personal well-being. His mantra: community, connectivity, communication and compassion. 

Keeping Immigrant Families Together and Nourished

Last summer, Forgash learned of Yeni González, a Guatemalan mom who was separated from her children by ICE agents at the border after the “zero-tolerance” immigration policy went into effect. As González remained in a detention center in Arizona, her children were transported to New York City. 

Forgash also heard about grassroots activist Julie Schwietert Collazo [Editor’s note: Julie is one of our writers here at Edible Queens], who with other generous volunteers created Immigrant Families Together, a group that works to reunite moms separated from their children at the border. 

Hearing that the only thing standing between González seeing her kids in New York City was the money, Schwietert Collazo reached out to the lawyer representing González. Schwietert Collazo started a GoFundMe page to raise the $7,500 for bond and additional funds for travel expenses. Within 24 hours, she had raised enough. (As of this writing, more than $550,000 has been raised with over 20 individuals bonded out, including financial assistance for acute needs like food, medical expenses, hotel stays and more.)

Forgash found the story and Schwietert Collazo’s work compelling. He also knew an important fact.

“I know the power of a home-cooked meal and how food can comfort you and make you feel at home, even when you’re far away,” said Forgash.

He mobilized his culinary network to get chefs with restaurants across the country to provide free meals for individuals and families affected by the U.S. border detention and separation policy. Forgash also asked home cooks to pitch in, aware of a home-cooked meal’s power, particularly one that represents the food of someone’s home country. Forgash hopes that having this network in place will provide some comfort for families to reconnect to the familiar through food.

Food as Medicine

For over 20 years, Forgash helmed Star Struck Catering, providing pampered catering for the television, film and fashion industries of New York City. Some of his catering clients included Food Network shows with culinary luminaries like Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and Rachael Ray. 

About this time in his career, and the star factor of the chefs he worked with, Forgash notes, “They’re all chefs and they connect with others in the industry, even if they’re not in front of a camera. They’re always appreciative of having a meal cooked for them.”

One day, Forgash received a call from an executive producer he’d worked with. The producer had been diagnosed with stage four lymphoma, and due to treatment protocols resulting in a compromised immune system, he would need to be quarantined for 100 days.

“The producer knew my cooking style,” Forgash said. The producer-patient knew it was important to maintain his nutrition through the process, and wanted food that was healthy and delicious.

Forgash told him, “You know how I cook—I’ve never cooked for a cancer patient before.” 

The response was quick: “I’ve watched you feed a family meal to my cast and crew every day for the last couple of years, and there wasn’t ever a complaint.” It was also mentioned that if Forgash could prepare meals as the patient’s mom had, that would be great—food to remind him of his childhood, to bring him cheer. When Forgash agreed to cook for the producer, he learned how food with “emotional content” could aid in recovery and wellness.

“As a chef, you understand how stress and trauma affect appetite, and then, how you might feed someone who is a cancer patient.”

Forgash cooked for the producer every day, then tapered down to a few days a week. 

During that time, Forgash met Anne Ogden, the founder of a website dedicated to teaching healthy cooking to “people touched by cancer.” Ogden conducted cooking demos at Hope Lodge, a facility that offers free lodging to cancer patients who travel for treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. 

Forgash began assisting her classes, and was eventually asked by Hope Lodge to conduct some of his own classes, teaching culinary care through food with “emotional content.” He designed his classes to help caregivers cook meals that would be comforting not only to the patient but, just as importantly, to the caregiver: “So as you cook for others, you’re also helping yourself.”