A iniciativa, focada na promoção de refeições mais saudáveis e sustentáveis, culminou com o anúncio oficial de uma terceira edição

O Pine Cliffs Resort em Albufeira acolheu, no passado dia 20 de outubro, o almoço de encerramento da 2.ª edição do programa Missão D’Chef, um projeto de formação e competição destinado a capacitar cozinheiros de instituições do setor social do Algarve, cujo evento culminou com a consagração de Sandra Leal, representante da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Tavira, como a grande vencedora do concurso culinário.  

O Missão D’Chef é um programa inovador que alia a formação teórica e prática em áreas como a nutrição, higiene e segurança dos alimentos e cozinha, sempre sob a orientação de especialistas. O grande objetivo desta iniciativa é permitir que os participantes aprimorem as suas competências na preparação de refeições mais saudáveis, sustentáveis e seguras, ao mesmo tempo que o concurso culinário os desafia a aplicar os conhecimentos adquiridos, incentivando a criatividade e a melhoria da qualidade das refeições servidas nas instituições sociais. 

O almoço de celebração e reconhecimento foi confecionado pelos próprios concorrentes, em estreita colaboração com os chefs que os acompanharam durante as diversas provas do programa. A refeição foi servida a cerca de 60 convidados e reuniu representantes fundamentais das entidades envolvidas, nomeadamente o administrador dos Serviços de Ação Social da Universidade do Algarve, a Senhora Bastonária da Ordem dos Nutricionistas, o diretor de Food & Beverage do Pine Cliffs Resort, Jorge Lavos Costa, os formadores e os representantes das instituições participantes. 

Na edição deste ano, foram distinguidas as três primeiras classificadas: Sandra Leal conquistou o primeiro lugar, sendo premiada com uma experiência de lazer no Pine Cliffs Resort, um troféu individual e uma placa de reconhecimento para a sua instituição.

Maria Celina Pereira, da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Monchique, garantiu o segundo lugar, e Célia Mendes, da Obra Nossa Senhora das Candeias, fechou o pódio no terceiro lugar. Ambas foram também premiadas com experiências de lazer no resort. Para além dos vencedores, todos os participantes receberam um certificado de reconhecimento pelo seu empenho e dedicação ao longo da formação.  

O evento encerrou com uma intervenção do presidente do Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome do Algarve, Nuno Alves, que sublinhou a importância da continuidade e do impacto desta iniciativa no setor social da região, tendo anunciado oficialmente a realização da 3.ª edição do Missão D’Chef, que voltará a ter lugar no Pine Cliffs Resort.

Sobre Missão D’Chef

A Missão D’Chef é uma iniciativa do Banco Alimentar em parceria com o Pine Cliffs Resort e o projeto SOMOS MAIS (programa de responsabilidade social do grupo UIP). Realizado no MIMO Algarve, o projeto reúne cozinheiros de IPSS (entidades de apoio a pessoas vulneráveis) para um ciclo de formação, partilha e desenvolvimento com os Chefs do Pine Cliffs, promovendo a transferência de conhecimento em áreas como cozinha, nutrição, higiene e segurança alimentar.

Ao longo de seis encontros, os participantes acumulam pontuação até à final, na qual o prémio monetário será entregue à IPSS do vencedor. Mais do que um concurso, a Missão D’Chefe traduz o compromisso do Pine Cliffs Resort e do SOMOS MAIS com a sustentabilidade e a responsabilidade social, valorizando pessoas, estimulando talentos e usando a gastronomia como motor de inclusão e mudança na comunidade local.

Centottanta chili in meno e una vita ritrovata. Anthony Marra, chef professionista seguito da oltre 300mila persone sui social, è passato da 278 a 98 chili con una dieta. Ospite a La Volta Buona, ha spiegato come ci è riuscito e quanto sia costato, in termini di fatica e di paura, un cambiamento che ha toccato il corpo ma anche la mente.

Il punto di svolta sono state delle semplici analisi del sangue. A raccontare lo scenario che ne uscì è stata la conduttrice Caterina Balivo: “Aveva il diabete altissimo”. Ma a convincerlo davvero sono stati i genitori. Una sera, davanti a un piatto di zeppole fritte, Anthony ha incontrato lo sguardo preoccupato del padre.

“Ho sentito il dolore attraverso i suoi occhi. Quel giorno mi disse: ‘Non hai capito che sei lì lì per lasciarci? Perché vuoi darci questo dolore?’“, ricorda. Da lì è nato l’impegno con la famiglia: “Ho detto che avrei cambiato vita: ho ripreso a studiare e ho dedicato del tempo a me stesso“.

Il punto di partenza era tutt’altro che semplice, anche nella vita di tutti i giorni. In un video condiviso sui social, l’uomo ha raccontato come trascorreva le notti: impossibilitato a dormire nel letto, era costretto a riposare su una poltrona a causa delle apnee notturne, che gli impedivano un sonno ristoratore. Il percorso seguito è stato rigoroso ma essenziale: “Ho adottato le linee guida della dieta mediterranea, considerata tra le più equilibrate e complete”.

L'articolo “Non hai capito che sei lì lì per lasciarci?”: lo sguardo del padre che ha cambiato la vita di Anthony Marra. Lo chef: “Così ho perso 180 chili con la dieta mediterranea” proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

• I visited an NYC coworking space, where startups spend up to $9,000 a month for a spot.
• There was a private chef, a robot, and a love for in-person work.
• The overall vibe more closely resembled a college campus than a midtown office.

I've been following and interviewing tiny team founders for the last year. As part of my ongoing research, I popped into the Series HQ workspace last month to observe how these founders are running their small teams.

As the elevator doors opened on the top floor of the Chelsea office building, the Series HQ office manager, a 21-year-old NYU student, greeted me. Balancing on a skateboard, the tall, young, and very casually dressed Gen Zer fit right in among the cohort of founders he works for.

Most of the founders at Series HQ are either straight out of college or under 30, with many of their startups being in early funding rounds.

"I do honestly think if you're 35 or 40 thinking about starting a company now, it's probably too late," Nathaneo Johnson, the 22-year-old Series cofounder, said. He recognizes that as a "harsh belief" but believes the average founder age at Series HQ reflects a growing community of young entrepreneurs.

Series itself was launched in 2024 by Johnson and Sean Hargrow as an AI social networking app for iMessage. After they both graduated from Yale and raised $5.1 million in pre-seed funding, the pair signed a lease for over 10,000 square feet of office space. They tacked on "HQ" to distinguish between the coworking space and the business.

When they moved their company into the building last October, they had roughly eight to 10 people on their team. The pair was preparing for growth, but AI has helped to keep their head count lean, and their tenants operate with similarly sized staff.

As I scanned the still mostly empty office, it seemed the tiny teams didn't require much to function. What stood out to me — more than the young, mostly male office demographic — was each company's desire to be around more people, despite operating with as few employees as possible.

The tiny teams here can spend up to $9,000 a month for shared space

I was at the office around 3 p.m. on a Thursday, and about a dozen people from at least five different companies were working, mostly young men and a few young women. The space usually hosts about 15 to 20 startups, and members have 24-hour access when possible, Johnson said.

In August, Series HQ charged between $1,250 and $4,000 for workstation pods that hold up to four people. For more privacy, founders can rent the glass pods for $5,000 to $9,000 a month. The more expensive rental options include meals cooked on-site by the private chef they hired last year to curb their takeout costs.

In the massive main room, across from the scattered row of founder workstations, was a basketball hoop and a roughly $21,000, beat-up robot holding a football.

When they talked about their robot, which was slightly broken during my visit, the room lit up.

It fascinated me that these founders would incur the expense to work in such a large office. They didn't need all of this physical space — which was, in some ways, obvious, as most of it still looked sparse with objects.

Many of the founders I talked to are around my age — 23 — and graduated from high school during the pandemic, when so much social and work interaction moved online. Now building companies, the appeal of Series HQ seemed to be less about the fancy office with a private rooftop and chef, and mainly about having like-minded coworkers to build in-person with.

Long hours mean more time together

Zain Ahmad, who was a summer tenant at Series HQ, works at the AI startup Evos. He said Evos found Series from the promotional drone videos that took over their social media platforms all summer.

"We figured if they're good enough to end up on both of our For You pages and get this much traction, there's a lot to learn from them and be in that space," he said.

Evos rented one of the private glass pods and, during my visit, gave me a tour of their space. Inside the small glass office, we stood in front of their two desks, chatting directly across from a small couch and coffee cart.

In between investor calls, which he said were powered by cups of tea with creatine honey, Ahmad confessed he has taken quite a few naps on that couch. An average workday for them is around 8:30 a.m. to around 10 p.m., sometimes longer. As tenants of Series HQ, they were in the office around six days a week.

He explained the concrete environmental benefits for Evos, which creates specialized agentic AI workflows for traditional industries. Ahmad said they were able to meet a new hire because the new hire was another tenant at Series. They even learned about their most-used AI tool at the moment through the Series team: Aside, an AI-powered browser.

Turnover was high at the beginning of the experiment, Johnson said. Partly because some of the summer tenants were just in town between school semesters. But those tenants probably didn't feel too far from home, since the vibe here more closely resembled a college campus than a midtown office.

The most important piece of growing an AI startup is still the human network

The majority of companies working in the space are AI or technology startups. Logan Milano, the 23-year-old founder of the drink brand Amryth, is one of the few non-tech founders. He recently graduated from college and said he spends well over 40 hours a week here despite living close by.

Milano said all he needs to operate his business is "my laptop, a good place to lock in, and being around other people who are building."

This was an overall sentiment I heard. Many of these young founders lived a hop, skip, and a jump away, based on the commutes they told me about. But simply being around others who are building is, in some ways, one of the biggest benefits.

"Even if we're getting dinner or going out or something, it's like you're still kind of thinking about work and it's all kind of related," he said about the Series community. Adding that "sourcing opportunities" everywhere likely drew them together and is their biggest similarity.

At a time when AI is making it possible to build companies with fewer employees and building solo can be the dream for many, these young founders don't need, or necessarily want to run their business with tons of employees, but they still seem to really want coworkers.

When I asked Milano if he's ever spent the night at the Series office, he smiled, looked over at one of the Series team members, and said, "Am I allowed to say?"

Do you have a story to share about working on a tiny team? If so, please reach out to the reporter at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• I made chili recipes from celebrity chefs Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Giada De Laurentiis.
• Garten's recipe, which didn't call for any beans, didn't really feel like traditional chili.
• One of my favorites had white beans and chicken, a far cry from a traditional beef chili.

Cold weather is always better with hearty meals, like a warm bowl of chili.

In search of the best one to make on repeat all fall and winter, I tried recipes from celebrity chefs Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Giada De Laurentiis.

Here's how the dishes turned out, and which ended up being my top picks.

I started with Garten's recipe, which didn't feel familiar to me at all

Garten's chicken chili recipe, which I found on the Food Network website, seemed fairly straightforward.

I needed easy-to-find ingredients like yellow onion, minced garlic, red bell peppers, yellow bell pepper, chili powder, cumin, dried red-pepper flakes, cayenne, basil, chicken breasts, and cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes in puree.

I simmered the onions and garlic until translucent, added the spices and herbs, diced bell peppers, and whole tomatoes, and cooked for about half an hour.

This mixture was very similar to a chunky pasta sauce.

Instead of roasting the chicken breasts, I sautéed them in a pan

Though the recipe said to split olive oil-covered chicken breasts and bake them in the oven, I decided to sautée them in a pan since it seemed more efficient.

I sautéed them for about 12 minutes on each side, diced them, and combined them with the tomato-and-pepper sauce.

I let the chili simmer for another 20 minutes.

Garten's recipe didn't quite satisfy my chili craving

This recipe wasn't as hearty as a typical chili and had a strong tomato flavor and a lot of bell-pepper chunks.

The chicken was juicy but could have benefited from a different, more potent seasoning blend.

Topped with shredded cheese, it was filling, but not what I would want if I were in the mood for a traditional chili.

A few of my Filipino relatives tried this chili and loved it on top of white rice without cheese, though.

The next recipe I tried was Drummond's, which felt like a traditional chili

I followed a recipe for Pioneer Woman's "simple, perfect chili" that I also found on the Food Network website.

Its ingredients seemed very classic for a chili with things like ground beef, chopped garlic, tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper, and canned beans.

I was surprised to see masa harina, a dried maize-based flour often used as a thickening agent, as an ingredient.

Drummond's recipe was super easy, though I made a substitution

To start, I browned ground beef in a large pot with minced garlic and drained the fat.

I added chili powder, cumin, oregano, and cayenne pepper to the meat and incorporated the tomato sauce.

After stirring, I let the chili simmer for an hour, adding a half cup of water when the mixture looked a bit dry.

I didn't have masa harina, which needed to be turned into a paste for this recipe, so I substituted it with corn grits.

To do so, I mixed the grits with water and stirred them into the chili. Then, I drained and rinsed my cans of pinto and kidney beans, and added them to the mixture along with more seasonings and salt to taste.

I let all of that simmer for about 10 minutes.

Drummond's recipe made an excellent traditional chili

Drummond's easy-to-make recipe was meaty, hearty, and filling.

It was nice and thick, and I liked the ground beef and texture from the pinto and kidney beans. The cumin and spices added a warm flavor, too.

For me, it checked all the boxes for a tasty chili.

De Laurentiis uses ground chicken in her chili recipe

Next, I tried De Laurentiis' recipe for white bean and chicken chili as found on the Food Network website.

The ingredients were fairly simple, including ground chicken, onion, cumin, chili powder, Swiss chard, canned cannellini beans (or other white beans), frozen corn, fennel seeds, chicken stock, and red-pepper flakes.

For serving, she suggested topping the chili with Parmesan and chopped parsley.

To start, I simmered chopped onions and minced garlic until translucent and added ground chicken, salt, cumin, fennel, oregano, and chili powder.

After the meat cooked through, I added the roughly-chopped Swiss chard, beans, corn, and chicken stock.

Per the recipe, I made sure to scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pot

I let the mixture simmer for about an hour, added chili flakes, and cooked for about 10 more minutes.

When plating, I sprinkled Parmesan and parsley on top.

This chili had some great flavors

De Laurentiis' chili wasn't particularly conventional — with the Swiss chard, ground chicken, and Parmesan — but I thought it was tasty.

I enjoyed the savory flavor of the crunchy corn, tender white beans, and vegetal Swiss chard. The stock and ground chicken gave this a rich, meaty taste, too.

I thought this was the perfect, comforting bowl of chili.

For me, the recipes from Drummond and De Laurentiis tied for first place

I loved both Drummond's traditional chili and De Laurentiis' chicken version for their hearty, savory, and complex flavors.

They were different types of chili, but equally delicious for game day.

Though Garten's recipe wasn't bad, the chunky texture wasn't my favorite, and it just didn't do it for me in terms of what I look for in a chili.

Check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we've put head-to-head so far.

This story was originally published on February 11, 2022, and most recently updated on October 19, 2026.