Chef Kurt Evans and Kalaya are planning a virtual Thai dinner to benefit End Mass Incarceration

We’re at a time of reckoning in America and chef Kurt Evans wants to talk about the racial inequities in the criminal justice system, and he plans to join a discussion over dinner.

Specifically, by way of his End Mass Incarceration Dinner series, whose next event will be Aug. 20, held virtually. The Thai BYOB Kalaya in South Philadelphia will prepare the dinner, which participants will pick up from 3 to 5 p.m. and eat at home while joining a 7 p.m. Zoom call.

The subject of mass incarceration is personal for Evans, who is building Down North, a pizzeria near 29th Street and Lehigh Avenue that will employ formerly incarcerated people. Evans worked with South Philly Barbacoa’s Cristina Martinez and Ben Miller on their right-to-work dinners.

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Evans intends to use this Zoom-dinner strategy as a model for other fund-raisers nationally.

Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, which works to facilitate expungement, pardons, and commutations for low-income Philadelphians, will lead the talk, titled “Collateral Consequences of Criminal Records.”

The menu ($180 for three people, $300 for six) includes some of Kalaya’s hits: coconut rice; som tum (green papaya salad with long beans, cherry tomatoes, fish sauce, Thai chili, dried shrimp, and peanuts); khao pad pu (crab fried rice with scallion and egg); and the house specialty known as nua pad luk phak chee (stir-fried beef with coriander seed, palm sugar, and fish sauce). Dessert will be a cake with chocolate, peanut butter, M&Ms, and Oreo cookies.