Valentine’s Day Homegrown Goodreads Gift Giveaway
With Valentine’s Day upon us, what better time to showcase
Long Island’s Culinary Cupids and their Homegrown food philosophy and recipes?
After all, no less than George Bernard Shaw said, “There is
no love sincerer than the love of food.”
To honor food lovers and lovers of romance, a special
promotion from Quayside Publishing and Leeann Lavin, author of The Hamptons
& Long Island Homegrown Cookbook is featured on Goodreads, Facebook’s
primary, go-to online book club.
Here, one can enter to win a Free, autographed Homegrown Cookbook.
Plus a gift certificate to The North Fork Table & Inn
Restaurant in Southold, Long Island.
The
Hamptons and Long Island Homegrown Cookbook profiles the area’s best chefs and
the artisanal growers who inspire them. Filled with food stories, delicious
recipes and sumptuous photos, the book captures the authentic, homegrown
ingredients that are the hallmarks of the Island’s food culture.
Goodreads
Homegrown Restaurant Gift Certificate
There is an undeniable dynamic about the food culture in
Long Island.
There is a heavy dollop of Love measured into the dreamy,
foodie-fueled recipes and menus.
Maybe it’s the rich, lusty terroir and sweet, crisp merroir.
Like Cupid’s arrows filled with desire, Long Island love and
love of food is a potent combination and an influencing role in the locavore
food scene.
That amore has endowed and inspired a cooking cohort of
Hamptons & Long Island culinary artists.
Not unlike the Zen of a sensual, practiced tango, the Culinary Cupids
work in syncopated tandem in their restaurants. They blend not only a romance
and marriage but they also shine as working partnerships.
In the high pressure, stress-inducing atmosphere of a busy
restaurant kitchen, front of house balancing act and holidays on the job;
couples who are cooks, owners and lovers with a crushing 24/7 schedule, have a
lot to teach the rest of us about passion.
Heady stuff.
The winner of the Goodreads Homegrown restaurant gift
certificate will enjoy world-class dining at The North Fork Table &
Inn, recently voted by food fans as an
“American Cuisine & Comfort” jewel, number one in Food and Service
in the Long Island Zagat 2012/2013.”
From the North Fork Table & Inn Web site: (www.nofoti.com)
The restaurant’s menu focus is
seasonally inspired featuring locally grown biodynamic and organic produce, the
freshest seafood from the pristine Peconic Bay and Long Island Sound and award
winning North Fork artisanal cheese. Increasingly distinguished and awarded
Long Island wines are highlighted on the wine list
 |
| North Fork Table & Inn Chefs Claudia Fleming & Gerry Hayden & wife & husband. Photo courtesy, Katherine Schroeder |
The James Beard cooking couple is chef Gerry Hayden and chef
Claudia Fleming.
The culinary couple is, in turn, the other half to their
front of the house North Fork Table & Inn partners, Mike and Mary Mraz, who
are also married.
Double the love.
So what better homage to food and romance could there be?
Perhaps not surprisingly, the chefs refer to “combinations”
with some frequency when discussing their approach to cooking: there are food
combinations, balance, and dreams and rhythms…
The sparks flew for this culinary tour de force not long
after they first worked together at Danny Myers’ Union Square Café.
Chef Claudia and Gerry have allowed passion and experience
to guide them. “There is a certain, lovely camaraderie here,” she says,
referring to the North Fork. “We are very proud of the people that grow for
us.”
Further, she adds,
“It’s a great way to live.”
The North Fork is undoubtedly a food and nature lover’s
paradise. The combination of vineyards,
B&B’s and 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.
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.
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.
For the full story, read www.masterchefsandtheirgardens.blogspot.com
and soon on http://www.examiner.com/food-in-new-york/leeann-lavin
More Culinary
Cupids & Romantic Getaways
In a locale as food-obsessed as Long Island, no surprise that
there’s an abundance of Culinary Cupids.
Here’s a sampling from the Homegrown Cookbook: (check out
the book for complete profiles)
Satur Farms: Celebrity
Chef and farmer, Eberhard Muller and his wife Paulette Satur, horticulturist,
who holds a masters degree in plant physiology, farm and supply fresh, organic,
locally-grown produce to supply restaurants and retail accounts. www.saturfarms.com
Cuvee Bistro &
Bar, Greenporter Hotel: Chef Deborah & her husband, William manage
the hotel, restaurant, bar and on-site garden. www.greenporterhotel.com
The Frisky Oyster:
Chef Robby & his wife, Shannon are co-owners of this Greenport food
mecca. www.thefriskyoyster.com
Vine Street Café:
husband and wife Culinary Cupids, Chefs Terry and Lisa Harwood are co-owners. (They
also recently opened The Blue Canoe Oyster Bar & Grill, Greenport)
18 Bay: Culinary
Cupids Elizabeth Ronzetti and Adam Kopels are chefs and co-owners who produce a
magical, market-inspired menu.
Kitchen A Bistro
and Kitchen A Trattoria Exacting, award-winning Chef Eric Lomando and
his wife Julie are co-owners of three restaurants (at last count). A total family affair, his father in law,
Bill is his inspired grower.
The Lake House: Chef
Matt Connors and his front of the house manager, decorator, gardener, wife
Eileen, are co-owners of this award-winning, sterling restaurant.
Restaurant
Mirabelle and Mirabelle Tavern: Iconic Chef Guy Reuge creates homegrown,
palette-perfection infused with his French epicurean instincts, and his wife Maria
runs the front of the restaurant and co-owner of Mirabelle. Beautiful, elegant
Chef Guy Reuge’s Valentine’s menu includes:
Amuse Bouche: Cream of Chestnuts, toasted brioche
First Course: choice of Six Fishers Island Oysters, Seared
Foie Gras, Lobster Fricassee in Sauternes Bouillon, Hamachi
Main Course: Pheasant Breast and Leg, Caramelized Scallops,
Roasted Veal Chop, Pan-Seared Grass Fed Shell Steak, Poached Halibut
Desserts: Passion Fruit Tart
Angel Food Cake
Ginger Almond Tart
Mirabelle Sorbet Trio
 |
| Mirabelle's Valentine Menu from Chef Guy Reuge |
Hamptons &
Long Island Homegrown Cookbook and Edible East End Magazine photographer
Lindsay Morris and her husband, Stephen Munshin, Edible East End and Edible
Manhattan’s co-publisher, are stars in the Long Island culinary constellation
and culinary cupids, too. www.edibleeastend.com
Be sure to check out these romantic getaways, featured in The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown
Cookbook:
North Fork Table & Inn: www.northforktableandinn.com
Jedediah Hawkins Inn: www.jedediahhawkindsinn.com
Bridgehampton Inn: www.landcookshop.com
The American Hotel: www.theamericanhotel.com
1770 House: www.1770house.com
The Living Room at the Maidstone Inn: www.careofhotels.com/maidstone
Mirabelle: www.threevillageinn.com
Greenporter Hotel: www.greenporterhotel.com
All the Culinary Cupids and romantic getaways are featured
in the top-selling book: The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown
Cookbook. (http://tiny.cc/usp1rw)
And be sure to Follow the food journey and adventures on Facebook:
The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Facebook page
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Complete Chef Gerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming Profile written for
The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook (before edits and cuts to fit the book space)
A lot has been written about Chef Claudia Fleming and Chef
Gerry Hayden, the husband and wife culinary couple and 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.” http://tiny.cc/ahp1rw
He’s worked alongside some of the best chefs in America (she
has too) including Charlie Palmer, David Burke, and Michael Mina, while picking
up awards including Esquire
Magazine’s for Best Restaurant.
Mainly, the narrative 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 Long Island restaurant modestly 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 two 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.
It’s 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 based on a foundation of quality.
And their need to develop sustainable relationships and
establish community.
And then there is their relentless innovation.
And their cuisine.
Their creative culinary art renders the just-picked and
just-caught, supplicants to their masterful creations.
Separately, they were both at the ramparts of the second
stage of a golden age that swept major New York City restaurants and now
referred to in some circles as the American Culinary Revolution that took hold
in the 1980’s and 90’s.
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, and others including Anne Rozenweig who opened
Arcadia.
Claudia was excited to be working
at the beginnings of the whole new American food movement too.
In 1983 Jonathan Waxmen had
returned to New York from Chez Panisse to open Jams restaurant in New
York.
Not long after, she was working
there. Her professional dance network helped her land a job at the exciting new
food emporium.
As a struggling artist in New York City, Claudia always
worked in restaurants to pay the rent.
She told herself if she got to age 25 and not in a major
company, she’d call it quits.
That time had arrived.
At Jams, the food left her awestruck. She had never seen anything like it. She grew
up in a Long Island Italian family and explains that while they ate very well –
never canned or frozen food -- she had never seen such exotic food before. This
was all a mystery.
Her eyes opened wide to never-before-seen ingredients such
as baby vegetables and baby greens. A salad with cold duck! Never mind that
everything was flown overnight from California.
She was smitten.
She could also see it cost a lot of money to eat in such
luxury. In 1984, a Jams’ free-range
chicken and fries menu item cost $32.00, she reports with a laugh.
Claudia was a modern dancer; classically-trained.
It can be said she channels the limitless, experimental
expression of the dance genre allowing her to transport inner feelings and
pushing-the-limit movement themes to create the never before dreamed of works she
unveils daily in the kitchen.
The demanding, repetitive drills, training, and physical
stamina she mastered in the dance studio serve her well in the athletic
backstage drama of that is a restaurant kitchen.
Having discovered her true artistic calling, Claudia decided
she needed some formal training. She attended Peter Kump’s cooking school in
Manhattan but there was no pastry program; so she worked and studied for a year
in Paris at the Fauchon Patisserie.
Having moved from the front of the house to cooking to
pastry, Claudia worked in New York City’s best restaurants including Union
Square, Montrachet, Luxe and TriBeCa Grill, where she met Gerry.
Why pastry?
It’s not because she’s a girl.
Well, in a way it is.
She says it started rather as an accident. Sounds like a modern kitchen version of All
About Eve.
When she worked at the then groundbreaking Danny Meyer Union
Sq. Café, executive chef Michael Romano asked if she’d like to assist the
pastry chef.
She jumped at the chance.
“I loved it!” she exclaims.
She goes on to explain how cooking professionally has always
been a male-driven career. Kitchens are very regimented. Militaristic. She says by nature, men are
trained to obey coaches and are part of the team. Men are better with that, she
believes.
On the other hand, pastry chefs are more or less left alone
in the kitchen. No questions. She
believes women are freer thinkers and gravitate toward the independence
inherent in being a pastry chef.
Or maybe, Chef Claudia is just more artistically gifted.
And that it is her undeniable talent that led her to create sumptuous,
no-holds barred desserts.
How else do you explain sweet corn ice cream? Or elegant and delicious, seasonal fruits,
layering and contrasts. Hot and cold. Sweet and textured.
Since her debut, she has continuously created confident,
opulent desserts.
What inspires such magical creations and audacious pairings?
Claudia hugs the seasons, first and foremost, parsing what’s
ripe and ready.
When she worked with Chef 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.
Chef Claudia is an accomplice to the seasons.
If a fruit’s just been picked, juicy, sweet and
aristocratic, she’ll find it a partner.
Or two. The alchemy she performs
will blend and contrast nature’s chic accessories of herbs, spices, nuts, and
fruits blended to unimaginable compositions.
Using local ingredients is in fact easier, she claims. The parameters are smaller for her
desserts.
“But I will also do ‘Indigenous.’ ”
What does that mean?
She says while she’ll never do berries from South America
because we do berries -meaning we grow them here locally on the North Fork (her
inspired grower is Oysterponds Farm); she will use bananas and coffee, for
example, because while it’s imported, it’s sourced locally.
A product that comes from Mother Nature’s garden as it
were.
Think local, as in natural; authentic.
Her indigenous “Rule of Claudia” mandates it’s OK to use if it comes
from a region naturally, not as a substitute for something that is out of
season and unavailable nearby.
This is Brilliant.
Another part of her culinary inspiration is travel; and she
and Gerry get away as much as they can.
When she worked for Chef Tom Colicchio at Danny Meyer’s
legendary Gramercy Tavern restaurant, she traveled a lot for international food
festivals. “I was invited to many countries and saw a lot, she recalled. “Other cultures are incredibly inspiring.”
Maybe not surprisingly for one-half of a married cooking
couple, who in turn are the other half to their front of the house North Fork
Table & Inn partners, Mike and Mary Mraz who are also married, Chef Claudia
refers to combinations with some frequency.
Food combinations, balance, rhythms, dreams, reality -- all
are blended in Claudia’s recipe for success.
When talking about the cooking process, she admits that
grinding it out, day after day can be monotonous. Some are lucky to be creative
– and if chefs are viewed as rock stars and people find it entertaining, that’s
not reality, she explains.
She knows she is one of the lucky ones.
The creativity stems from making a combination of things,
coming up with combinations to add personality or a twist -- always something
new and exciting.
“We have a prix fixe menu and dessert comes with the
meal. I don’t want my regular, loyal
clientele to get bored.”
She also succumbs to the flexibility needed when using
fresh-picked fruits. “If the berries
aren’t ripe enough, I don’t have the option.
They are not on the menu that night,” she states.
She needs to balance the creative spark with
consistency.
The staff needs to be able to excel at preparing the
desserts and if she is constantly changing the recipes she says she’ll not only
frustrate them but also run the risk of losing the level of quality and taste
she’s developed. She won’t confuse her team.
“All recipes are doomed if the quality is not held up to the
highest standard,” she states uncompromisingly.
In terms of recipe development, she always starts with what
is fresh and in season.
Then she refers to her recipe books.
Then she dreams.
With all she has in her repertoire, Claudia has more than a
couple of signature dishes. She cites the top three most often requested
desserts:
1. The coconut tapioca with passion fruit caramel and basil
syrup.
2. And her dessert for all seasons: buttermilk panna cotta
with the fruits cycled in as the calendar turns: sweet, red rhubarb gives way
to melt-in-your-mouth strawberries that turn the baton over to blackberries and
blueberries, and then peaches or honeyed figs and… She can dial it up depending
on the calendar and harvest cycle.
Tom Stevenson, Oysterponds, her berry grower down the road
brings them to her by three pm, still warm– right up till the first frost.
Like dazzling jewels, in shades of white, pink, ruby red and
sapphire, the sexy berries adorn the top of her elegant dessert
confections.
3. And there’s Chef Claudia’s impossible rose meringue
sandwiches that can be described as wafer thin step sisters to those CaravelÒ
flying saucer-like fantasies, filled with raspberry sorbet, drizzled with
locally-sourced yogurt zabaglione and served with scandalously local berries.
There is something about desserts – especially these otherworldly
confections – that make us giddy, clapping our hands in anticipation and grinning
uncontrollably.
That’s just fine with Chef Claudia. In fact, she wants you
to have fun.
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 on the North
Fork.
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.
Upon establishing the restaurant, the couple had to develop
their growers. She describes the process of building their food network as “not
easy.”
To say the least.
The growers and fishermen were not used to providing product
on a regular basis to a single source.
There were no business terms. They wanted cash. At the same
time, it was difficult to get a bill or invoice from the growers. It was a very complex arrangement, she sighs.
However, the couple persevered, building relationships that
proved there was a mutually beneficial foundation.
The emerging and reinvigorated local food community is
passionate; 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 food that adheres to government regulations, distribution costs and
the scrutiny of unforgiving master chefs.
“We are all at the beginning together.”
Chef Claudia and Gerry 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.”
Further, she adds,
“It’s a great way to live.”
The North Fork is undoubtedly a food and nature lover’s
paradise.
The combination of vineyards, B&B’s and restaurants are
a food destination unmatched on the east coast.
Finally, she does not believe the popularity in homegrown
food is a trend.
Not for a second. “Oh
Nooo. Fast food was a trend!” she says
firmly.
“People are beginning to understand eating good food does affect
your life, your family. How you bring
them together on a daily basis says a lot to your children. Mealtime is very
important. We need to slow it down and
enjoy that time together,” she contemplates.
She thinks we won’t go back to her grandmother’s approach,
but neither can we continue the way it’s been so there will be that middle
ground. “Maybe McDonald’s will serve
grass fed beef?” she suggests not altogether irreverently.
At the same time, because America is a melting pot, the food
influences from different immigrant groups offer ever-more unlimited cooking
possibilities.
“Look how Mexican culture is one of the most favorite in the
US today?” she points out. “We’re going to keep discovering new cuisines
meld into our own! “ Chef Claudia says exuberantly.
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 river ways 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 Gerry 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 sailed 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 Palmer, owner of the River Café, 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 you generate your own experiences.
Roland 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. 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, providing 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. “So 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-curled 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 feels compromised if he uses the telephone
to order the food for his restaurant.
He is compelled to find the best, local ingredients.
And nurture the food artisan or create them if they don’t
exist, as he did recently when he worked to establish iberico 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 restaurant, 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 recalled.
Radically, Chef Gerry took a cook’s approach to pastry.
He established a pastry station.
Further, he formulated a hot dessert category that would
extend the sole entry on most restaurants’ menu: that 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. He 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:
it’s waterways that jab or 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 Andrew Wyeth-inducing ferries 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. 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.
It would be casual elegance, seasonally inspired.
And don’t forget Love.
Chefs Gerry and Claudia opened North Fork Table & 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.
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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