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| Chefs Claudia Fleming & Gerry Hayden, North Fork Table & Inn. Photo: Katherine Schroeder |
So many of the stars in the culinary constellation will be out, shining in support of chef Gerry Hayden.
It is unfathomable that the disease ALS, more commonly known
as Lou Gehrig’s disease, has claimed dominion within this spirited, talented,
food thought-leader and master chef.
Hayden is co-owner of the astonishing North Fork Table &
Inn, www.northforktableandinn.com)
with his wife Claudia Fleming, pastry chef and author, along with their partners,
Mike Mraz and his wife, Mary.
Chef Tom Colicchio, a former boss from their days at Gramercy
Tavern, and now a part-time North Fork resident, is hosting a culinary
star-studded benefit on Sunday, June 24th at Colicchio & Sons
restaurant to raise monies for chef Gerry’s newly formed organization,
“Hayden’s Heroes” that is “dedicated to raising money to assist Gerry and
Claudia with the overwhelming medical expenses that come with having ALS and to
channel proceeds to finding a cure for this life ending disease.” http://www.giveforward.com/haydensheroes#
Here is a video of Chef Gerry telling his Hayden's Heroes story:
The culinary community is widely recognized as one that
supports their communities in the food chain – from the farmers to children’s
nutrition and school lunch programs to greenmarket youth education – - to
supporting each other. With food as
their weapon, they wield their powerful alchemy to offer gastronomy-as-reward
for a good and worthy cause, with love being the most powerful ingredient.
Rallying around Hayden’s Heroes to deliver the mortal knock
out are chefs David Burke, Waylie Dufresne, Jonathan Waxman, Marco Canoro,
Bobby Flay, Charlie Palmer, Alfred Portale, Sherry Yard, Mark Ladner, Michael
Mina and other celebrity chefs.
Everyone else can lend a punch or two via the online
donation webpage. The outpouring has, so
far, placed the purse near the goal. If
foodies lend their support, that will easily be surpassed.
Hayden is a two-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef
Northeast.
Along with his wife and culinary partner, chef Claudia,
Hayden is also a featured chef in my just-released book: The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook
The book features the best
locavore Long Island chefs and the growers who most inspire them and infuse
their cooking with fresh, delicious, homegrown flavor.
In addition to a cash
donation, this Examiner, author and fan of chef Gerry, his work, and The North
Fork Table & Inn, will donate 10% of the sale every Homegrown book purchased to
Hayden’s Heroes, and provide Free shipping.
Please email me at foodanddrinkny@gmail.com
Here is an excerpt from chef Hayden’s profile from the Homegrown
book:
A lot has been written
about Chef Claudia Fleming and Chef Gerry Hayden, the husband and wife culinary
couple co-owners of the North Fork Table & Inn.
She’s a 2000 Pastry
Chef James Beard Award winner and the best-selling author of her cookbook, “The
Last Course, The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.” He’s worked alongside some of
the best chefs in American (she has too) including Charlie Palmer, David Burke,
Michael Mina, picking up awards too including Esquire Magazines for Best
Restaurant. Mainly there is the all-star
resume of their outstanding credentials that could make a Broadway actor’s
listing in Playbill green with envy at their impressive accomplishments. Followed by how they left the bright lights
of New York City behind to open their North Fork Table & Inn, nestled among
the vineyards and farms of Southold.
But the experts got it
all wrong.
They didn’t “leave”
anything behind. That was all just the
first act. You could even say a
rehearsal.
Combined, their
groundbreaking contributions to the culinary world, not to mention to their
home base on Long Island casts a long shadow.
These pioneers don’t
know when to leave well enough alone.
It’s no coincidence they find themselves on the leading edge of each
successive wave of the American gastronomic revolution.
Their insatiable
curiosity, respect for the people who work to provide them with the best
ingredients and the compelling desire to build a better local infrastructure of
quality, sustainable relationships to build better community are the reasons
why. And their relentless innovation.
And it’s their cooking. Their
creative culinary art renders the just picked and just caught simply sublime.
Separately they were
both at the ramparts of the second stage of a golden age that swept major
restaurants as the American culinary revolution took hold in New York.
Chef Gerry was working
at the epicenter, The River Café, with executive chef Charlie Palmer, Larry
Forgione who left River Café to open up An American Place, Jonathan Waxmen had
returned from Chez Panisse to open Jams, and Anne Rozenweig was at
Arcadia. 1986 America really coming on
scene
What inspires such
driven-to-despair-devotion?
Claudia hugs the
seasons, first and foremost, to parse what’s ripe and ready.
When she worked with
Tom Colicchio at Gramercy Tavern he always told her, “If it grows together, it
goes together. “ She agrees. “You are pretty much guaranteed it will go
together on the plate if it grows together in the garden. It’s a creed I embrace. It’s how I think about food,” she adds.
She selects a
particular fruit that belongs to that season. And takes it from there. She may
do a panicotta with rhubarb, move to blueberries, blackberries and then
peaches. She can dial it up depending on the harvest cycle.
Using local
ingredients is in fact easier, she claims….
…When asked if she and
Chef Gerry coordinate or balance menu items, she demurs and thinks for a
minute. They don’t plan it, but given
their taste and style and devotion to the seasonal menu, the desserts and
entrees are on the same page. And linked quite romantically, no doubt.
She describes
themselves as pioneers here.
She admits it may not
be Napa or Sonoma. Yet. But she’s
convinced someday it will be a food mecca.
The area has already
become a magnet for innovators like she and Gerry who want the very best
quality ingredients steps away from their door.
They couple developed
their growers, saying that it wasn’t easy. Growers or the fishermen were not
used to providing product on regular basis. There are no business terms. They
wanted cash. At the same time, it’s difficult to get a bill. It’s a very
complex arrangement, she sighs. But
clearly worth the effort.
The emerging and
reinvigorated local community is passionate and driven to establish an infrastructure
that will yield to a middle ground they create – looking back to a quality,
slower way of life to truly enjoy the unmatched flavors of fresh, local foods,
with the reality of providing that food given government regulations,
distribution and costs and the scrutiny of unforgiving master chefs. “We are all at the beginning together.” They
have allowed passion and experience to guide them. “There is a certain, lovely
camaraderie here,” she says. “We are very proud of the people that grow for us.
It’s a great way to live.” It is a food and nature lover’s paradise. The vineyards and B&B’s and the
restaurants are a food destination unmatched on the east coast...
Chef Gerry is an impatient chef.
He wants the best of everything.
He’s uncompromising.
It can’t come together soon enough. Not for the community of farmers or
vintners.
Not when he is seeking to establish an artisanal hog grower nearby.
Nevertheless, the hands on the clock hold on to each other, poised, as
he determinedly cooks and coaxes the food he adores onto the plate.
When Chef Gerry is creating his culinary masterpieces, there is nothing
else.
For a chef this focused, is there any doubt that he always knew he
wanted to be a chef?
In fact there was never anything else.
He is the youngest of seven children in a family of much older
siblings. His mother always worked – at
the telephone company, in department stores.
Plus the family had a vegetable garden she tended.
Gerry said he’d give her a hand in the garden where they grew zucchini,
tomatoes, herbs and eggplants. He also helped her with the cooking, especially
on the holidays.
His parents came from the same ethnic Brooklyn neighborhood of
Bayridge. His mother learned to cook
from her Italian neighbors; Good Housekeeping magazines, tearing out recipes;
and old cookbooks.
She was always preparing something, he remembered. She prepared food for the next day. After dinner.
Don’t get him started about people saying they don’t have time to cook
at home!
His family moved to what was then “the better life” in the suburbs of
Long Island the year before Gerry was born, moving to Stony Brook where he was
raised. One of his favorite memories of the open farm area then was that his
family frequented the local farm stands in Rocky Point and Wading River, known
for their strawberries, peaches, corn, apples, pears and melons. Later he and his friends worked at the farm,
harvesting.
His first restaurant job was in junior high school as a dishwasher.
That’s all it took. Young Gerry
wholeheartedly loved the kitchen environment and by the age of 15 he was
already cooking.
His first real restaurant job on the line at the family-owned Country
House in Stony Brook left a lifelong impression.
He remembers the father had been the maitre’d at the legendary Stork
Club in Manhattan. All his sons had been
cooks there, too.
Eventually, the father moved the entire family to Long Island to work
in their new family-owned restaurant.
Gerry remembers they had great cars and always had a lot of money in
their pockets.
The restaurant in the 70’s and early 80’s was a fun place to be. He
says he was fascinated; always learning.
Specifically, he was taught how to pound out a leg of veal, make veal
Oscar with béarnaise sauce, and how to make hollandaise sauce.
He also remembers working hard. Very hard.
Mainly his memories of The Country House were that it was a
sophisticated restaurant with a New York City polish.
He laughed when he realized that’s kind of what he’s doing now.
“I worked in New York City for 25 years and now I’m in Southold
bringing a bit of that sophisticated New York dining experience to the North
Fork….”
Gerry graduated from the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York,
successfully completing the school’s 21-month program.
Significantly, there were two people there who played defining roles in
his developing career.
Chef Leon Dennon, a Belgian instructor, was responsible for helping
Gerry to secure his career-making externship with Chef Charlie Palmer at the
famous River Café in Brooklyn.
Ultimately, it was Gerry’s father, a New York City fireman in marine
company #1 who, as part of his unit patrolled the riverways of the city from
the World Trade Center on the Hudson, up past the tennis bracelet of bridges
that span the East River. His father is
the one who suggested Brian investigate two restaurant prospects to consider
for his externship: The swanky Sign of the Dove, but especially the River Café.
Gerry recalled how the restaurant impressed his father and fellow
firefighters as they passed the gleaming restaurant located under the Brooklyn
Bridge; perfectly positioned to take advantage of the unstaged sorcery and
romantic backdrop of the world’s most glittering skyline just across the
river.
In turn Gerry told Chef Leon about his wish to work at The River Cafe.
As it turned out, Chef Leon had been a benefactor to Chef Charlie and so he was
happy to make the call on Gerry’s behalf.
According to Chef Gerry, the other positive role model happened as a
result of a lucky coincidence that landed French Chef Roland Henin as
instructor when the regular CIA teacher was taken ill.
For seven days Chef Roland taught an intensive class on how to make
consommé, terrine and sauces. Gerry recalls Chef Roland was at turns brilliant,
strict, great. He says, “It was a
mind-blowing experience.” There was
something about Chef Roland’s comportment and depth of knowledge that other
chefs didn’t have. Chef Gerry says there
are some things you can’t really appreciate until afterwards, after your own
experiences.
He imbued Gerry with the pride of the culinary profession that has
stayed with him all through his career.
Only years after graduation did Gerry discover that Chef Roland was
very instrumental in teaching Chef Thomas Keller; and Keller acknowledges so in
his first cookbook.
After graduation Gerry was asked by executive chef Charlie Palmer to
return to work full time at The River Café.
Working for Chef Charlie Palmer, it seemed Gerry’s eyes were seeing
food for the first time. There were
miniature vegetables, fresh morels from the Pacific Northwest, ramps, and
fiddlehead ferns.
The fact that Chef Charlie had grown up on a farm fueled his adherence
to a seasonally based menu.
In a restaurant at that time, it was all pretty new, says Gerry. Likewise the darling of purveyors,
D’Artagnan, was new then too. The
company was new in the United States, but in fact stemmed from a well-respected
heritage of French food purveying, provided the chefs with freshly killed game
birds and organic foie gras. Up until
then, most things that passed as food had been pre-packaged, Gerry notes. “This was big news.”
“No one was going to farms then,” Chef Gerry is quick to add. “There
was always the broker between the grower and the restaurant.”
Yes, there were some New York state farms starting to ship greens.
There were tadpole-sized, fill-in trips to the fish market on Fulton
Street. And some also infrequent visits
to what was then a real meat packing district over on the west side of
Manhattan that is now home to designers and boutiques: both fashion and hotel.
Overwhelmingly, though, the only way business was conducted was over
the telephone. The one with bologna-curl
umbilical cord tethered to the desk or mounted on the wall.
There was no relationship with the growers, no contact with the
fisherman or dairyman or herders or any of the artisans who the chefs would
soon help to develop.
Today, he says he feel compromised if he uses the telephone to order
the food for his restaurant. He is
compelled to find the best, local ingredients.
And nurture them or make them if they don’t exist, as he did recently
when he worked to establish Iberco Pigs in Mattituck, Long Island. That food journey took Chef Gerry from Spain
and Hungary to a slaughtering and butchering class with an Austrian Mangalitsa
wooly pig master butcher in New Jersey and back to Long Island.
In 1988, when Chef Charlie opened Aureole, there was really no doubt
Gerry would accompany him to his new restaurant. Gerry says he had been
developing and collaborating menus with Chef Charlie when he asked him to take
on the full responsibility as the opening pastry chef for Aureole.
That position impacted his career tremendously, he states.
Ever the innovator, Chef Gerry created a new wave of desserts.
What was revolutionary was he worked on plating desserts.
It seems impossible to fathom but before this, desserts and pastries
were, by and large, cut from a bigger cake or pie or mouse or ice cream
mold. Think of those dome-shrouded
desserts at the diners. Just better.
“There were a lot of tortes, cut in the 80s,” he said.
Radically, Chef Gerry took a cook’s approach to pastry.
He established a pastry station.
He formulated a hot dessert category that would extend the sole entry
on any restaurant’s menu of the wonderful, but traditional soufflé.
Basically Chef Gerry created a cook’s station for Pastry.
The desserts became an individual item to order.
“A cobbler in a dish that we individually baked to order had
essentially never been done before,” he explains.
From his vaulted vantage point now, Chef Gerry says he didn’t start
getting into the farm movement until he moved to Sam Francisco to help open
Aqua restaurant in 1990.
“There were more small farms and farmers market at that time out there
that were light years ahead of New York,” he says.
Somewhat ruefully he acknowledges that if in 1989 Union Square
Greenmarket in NYC was there, and open, he wasn’t aware of it and wasn’t going
to it!
Oftentimes, when you move out of your element, you see things in a new
way he observes.
After several years, he moved back to New York. Chef Gerry worked in the Hamptons for five
years after TriBeCa Grill, where he and Claudia met. This was in between Aureole and before Park
Avenue Café.
When he worked at the East Hampton Point- a 400 seat restaurant for
Jerry DellaFemina and Drew Neirpont, Gerry says he liked being near the water,
loved being in his home of Long Island, but something was missing.
The couple wanted to buy a home on Long Island but didn’t know exactly
where. They took their time exploring
the magic of Long Island’s landscape:
its waterways that jab and poke the land here and there, the wide open
farmland, the colonial shingled houses and quaint towns, the movie-set mansions
from every century since it was settled in the 1600s.
He and Claudia visited on a number of day trips to the area, taking the
ferries to Andrew Wyeth-inducing scenes from across the South Fork to Shelter
Island and on to the North Fork.
It was soon clear. Here in the
North Fork, they could have it all: enjoy the water and more agriculture and
the vineyards and the community’s active commitment to preserve it.
“My godmother had a place in Jamesport and we had bungalows on Nassau
Point, as a kid. So I always liked the area of the North Fork. We had a boat house and enjoyed the
beach-combing in Stony Point too.”
The good news was Gerry and Claudia found a house. The “bad news” was they recognized they
couldn’t afford the city and the country house.
Together, they still had Amuse restaurant in the Chelsea neighborhood
of New York City. But now they had to
ask, “What will we do?”
He was ready to make the change.
Claudia said she was ready to get out of city.
Was it Destiny? Vision?
“We knew it was destiny,” said Chef Gerry.
The couple catered their own wedding at the Wolford Wolf Vineyard in
Bridgehampton. “Everyone loved it.”
It was late June, 2001. They served very simple striped bass, farm
fresh salad, peas, and fava beans. Not unlike what they do for their clientele
today, they developed the menu based on the time of year. “We cooked with the
farms,” he says.
Not surprisingly, all the guests agreed the wedding dinner created a
feeling of casual elegance inspired by the season.
Claudia and Gerry formulated their restaurant style based on that
unsolicited, genuine positive feedback.
Casual elegance, seasonally inspired
it would be.
And don’t forget Love.
Chefs Gerry and
Claudia opened North Fork Table and Inn’s 110-seat restaurant in 2005 to rave
reviews. It’s been wowing customers and fans ever since.
In fact, the North
Fork Table & Inn has become a food-lover’s destination.
Not unlike the area
Chef Gerry is compelled to develop.
Today, he is dedicated
to fulfilling the North Fork’s potential as a food lover’s paradise. They opened the restaurant here because he
believes it offers the best of the culinary world’s future.
And lest we forget,
this culinary couple hasn’t missed a beat in the evolving world of good, fresh,
delicious food.
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