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The devastation leveled across the restaurant industry during the pandemic has been well documented. Historic steakhouses are offering delivery, international destinations are reconfiguring menus and many others are closing. Horn Barbecue, the first restaurant from celebrated pop-up chef Matt Horn, was planning on opening up in Oakland, California this spring. Obviously, that’s been put on pause.
There is, however, a bright side for both you and the Oakland community. For the restaurant, Horn was partnering with our favorite cookware upstart Made In to create some custom kitchen equipment, and now they’re offering it to the public with 100% of the proceeds going to the chef’s newly formed charity.
“Made In partnered with us to outfit the entire kitchen and create a custom Sheet Pan that we could use from oven to table to serve our guests,” Matt Horn told InsideHook via email. “When the pandemic hit, we halted the opening and created the Horn Initiative, as a way to serve our community and give back. Now, sales of the pan will benefit the Horn Initiative so we can continue to serve those most in need.”
The Horn Initiative started with a GoFundMe that raised money in order for Horn and his team to cook and serve free meals outside the restaurant to those in need during the COVID-19 fallout. So far, they’ve served over 4,000 meals and will continue to with the proceeds from sales of the sheet pans.
What’s so great about these sheet pans, anyway? They’re made in the U.S., for one, which is probably not the case for whatever you’ve got in your kitchen. But these kitchen workhorses were made to stand up to the abuse of a restaurant, acting as both cooking implement and serving tray, so you can rest assured these’ll hold up to whatever you’re mixing up in quarantine. And they’ve got the Horn Barbecue stamp in the corner, to remind you to give back during this time, like Horn and Made In.
Be aware that the pans are currently on preorder and will ship on June 12, which gives you plenty of time to perfect your barbecue skills. But when we asked Horn for the perfect recipe to use the sheet pans for, he kept it simple:
“A go to recipe I’d suggest for at home cooks using this sheet pan is roasted garlic and butter baked salmon with roasted vegetables, it’s a one pan meal,” he wrote. Say no more.
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