Saturday, June 21st foodies and fans of Chef
Mitchell SuDock and Long Island homegrown food are in for a triple treat.
Acclaimed chef, Mitchell SuDock is executive chef and
co-owner of the award-winning Mitch & Toni’s American Bistro, http://www.mitchandtonis.com/ located
in Albertson. The restaurant was
recently voted one of Long Island’s Best New Restaurants.
Chef Mitchell is also a featured chef in this Examiner’s
just-released book: “The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook.” In its firsts book review, Long Island Newsday
wrote: The just-published ‘The Hamptons
& Long Island Homegrown Cookbook’ by Leeann Lavin is a full-color love
letter to Long Island restaurants and farms. Lavin profiles 27 of LI's top
chefs, each of them paired with a local grower who supplies them with food….”
The Farmers’
Market
Beginning at approximately 9 am, Chef Mitchell will walk the
local GreenMarket in Port Washington, as he does most every day the market is
open.
Chef Mitchell will be selecting fresh, homegrown ingredients
to inspire his weekend menu, along with gathering the local produce and herbs
for the Penne with Basil Pesto he will cook at the Dolphin Bookshop’s Meet,
Greet & Eat Event immediately following the market walk.
Chef Mitchell will be looking for the freshest Long Island
basil, corn, string beans, and tomatoes for his standout Penne dish, as well as
for his famous and much-loved Market Vegetable Salad with Buttermilk and Dill
Dressing. Both are a sensory experience.
According
to the market, “The Port Washington Organic Farmers' Market is the only completely organic market in New York State. The market is
open on Saturday mornings from 8 to 12 at the Town Dock off Main Street.
They
feature fresh organic produce from Long Island, goat cheese, honey, organic
bread and baked goods, flowers, our famous "market muffins" and
scones, and fantastic organic coffee (with organic milk and organic sugar!).
The
market is a sustainable living project of Grassroots Environmental Education, a
non-profit organization based in Port Washington. Our market was recently
featured in the Region section of the New York Times.
Book signing at Dolphin Books
Just
around the corner from the Farmers’ Market is The Dolphin Bookshop. www.dolphinbookshop.com/ where the
Meet, Greet & Eat Book signing will take place.
Serving
the community for more than 65 years, The Dolphin Bookshop web site notes: “Come meet the author Chef
Mitchell SuDock of the new book "Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown
Cookbook" as he signs his book and prepares a featured recipe. (Penne with
Basil Pesto and Market Vegetable Salad)
Chef
Mitchell and the author, this Examiner, will talk about the making of the book
and the importance of showcasing homegrown ingredients to create recipes that
are seasonally delicious and authentic to produce the region’s distinctive
cuisine; best prepared by Chef Mitchell.
Chef
provided three of his Farm-Forward recipes for the book:
- · Pistachio-Crusted Halibut
- · Grilled Octopus
- · Spiced Roasted Venison Loin
Excerpt from Chef Mitchell’s Food
Story Profile featured in The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook:
Mitchell says being exposed to fresh-from-the-farm ingredients
early in his restaurant career helped him establish his own cooking philosophy
so that in 2004, when he opened Bistro M in what was formerly a Long Island
candy store, he knew food from local producers would be the basis for his
menus.
When Mitchell
was growing up on Long Island, his family had a modest ornamental vegetable
garden in their yard, along with wild mint and a spot for growing basil. Today,
at his successful Nick & Toni’s American Bistro restaurant, Mitchell grows
the same plants for garnishes. His brother and sister-in-law bring him fresh
fruits and vegetables from their garden’s end-of-summer surplus, as does one of
Mitchell’s neighbors. And Nick & Toni’s American Bistro manager has a
neighbor who simply leaves foodstuffs on their doorstep. The bounty of Long
Island is such that it turns the locals into botanical Robin Hoods.
Mitchell is happy to once again be close to the Long
Island farms he knew growing up, including the Rottkamp Farm, located a few
miles from his restaurant. The Rottkamps are part of a Long Island farming
dynasty that goes back generations. Today, these two Rottkamp farmers are
brothers, married to two French sisters, Anne Marie and Michelle, who help
manage the 150-acre farm along with their husbands. Mitchell rediscovered the
Rottkamp Farm when setting out to establish his farm resources for Bistro M.
“I grew up on a Long Island street where my family’s
backyard bordered the Rottkamp Farm and Rottkamp Lane,” Mitchell says. “My
friends and I would sneak onto the farm and have vegetable fights before the
farmers would chase us off.”
Food purveyors continually offer to get him anything
at any time of year, but Mitchell says cooking with out-of-season or
out-of-state food is not what he wants to do. “Why would I want to get peaches
from Ohio or Ojai? . . . We already lost one generation to Betty Crocker,” he
says with restrained judgment. While it seems like restaurants would buy from
local farmers as a matter of course, Mitchell points out that many restaurants
don’t. For example, there was a restaurant across the street from him who
didn’t work with fresh ingredients. When he asked them why, he was told, “It’s
too much of a bother and hassle.”
“I just don’t understand that philosophy, especially
when the farm is less than a half mile away,” he says.
Mitchell sometimes thinks of himself as a teacher for
the restaurant’s staff and customers, and he finds that customers are always
eager to learn more about what they are eating. Mitchell leaves the kitchen
most nights to greet his guests, urging them to try this or that. Sometimes
customers are ambivalent about eating something they haven’t had before,
preferring the familiar or safe, so he sends out things for them to try. The
food’s quality and extraordinary taste have earned him not only followers, but
also glowing, three-star reviews from the New York Times, Newsday, and Zagat.
Mitchell is so keen to expose more people to good food
that he has produced a series of successful tasting events. He creates new
Mitch & Toni’s Bistro menus every week with daily additions in each of the
categories, based on market conditions. Out of respect for their work and
contributions to the restaurant’s success, he includes the names of local
farmers and fishermen on the Mitch & Toni’s Bistro menu.
The biggest changes he sees coming in the world of
Long Island food are “how [regular] things get redefined,” which suggests that
Mitchell SuDock is already looking at things in a new way, using the limitless,
local possibilities waiting to be rediscovered.
 |
| Me/Author with Chef Mitchell after long, seasonally hot photo session! |
Mitch
& Toni’s American Bistro: 516-741-7940
http://www.facebook.com/MitchandTonis
Recipe for Success: YouTube Campaign Kicks Off “The
Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook Launch”
Publisher launches first-ever YouTube Ad Campaign for
The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook.
With
the production of its first-ever YouTube advertising campaign, Quayside
Publishing is betting on the power of Google’s YouTube channel to reach the
vast food and drink enthusiast audience for “The Hamptons & Long Island
Homegrown Cookbook.”
The
Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook YouTube Advertising Video: http://tiny.cc/9xmlhw
Acknowledging
the continued, passionate interest in food, cooking, and producing artisanal
ingredients, as well as a burgeoning interest in cultivating a Hamptons
lifestyle, an compelling and fascinating YouTube video episode ad offers a
unique opportunity to showcase the natural beauty, distinctive, inspired
cuisine, food stories and recipes as told in the rare collection of chef and
grower profiles celebrated in the Long Island Cookbook.
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