Chef Benny DelValley began working in kitchens at age 16, and has worked in many over past 20 years with different styles, from seafood to Spanish and tapas. (First was Scully’s Chicken and Fish in Urbana.) He has been an executive chef and has worked in catering.
“I really don’t have a culinary identity because I have just been exposed to so many cultures because of my family and my upbringing. I just love everything.”
DelValley’s mom is registered with the Native American Community. He remembers, “We had a 28-foot tall Lakota-style tipi that we lived out of every summer growing up my whole life. We would go all over the United States with it and go to different campgrounds.”
Tiyospaye means “extended family,” which is what they called gatherings, where they would often have drum circles, and his mom would make ribbon shirts for the boys and jingle dresses for the girls. “We would eat Native American food,” he said.
“I wanted to do a Native American menu (at Supper Club) because I just felt like that hasn’t been exposed much in our area so I wanted to be able to offer something different to people,” he continued.
The menu was “created specifically for this dinner party.”
“Succotash is actually a Native American dish, and it is called the Three Sisters because it is the three main elements that Native American tribes would use, which is corn, beans and squash. So that succotash will go on top of the sweet potato mash, and on top of that will be a beef filet.”
Dessert will focus on corn: sweet corn, honey butter cake, sweet corn custard and lavender infused sugar.
After expenses are paid, Chef Benny plans to donate his proceeds to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (USA).
“That is an organization I’ve donated to before, and they really bring awareness to women and children who go missing in reservations or are murdered on reservations,” DelValley said. “It really gets overlooked a lot. Every little bit counts.”
When asked why people should come to the April 7th Supper Club, Chef Benny stated: “People should come to experience something different. That’s what food is about. That’s what art is about. I think that’s what I am about.”
