A Homegrown Hamptons East End Weekend

Pike Farms, Sagaponick

It’s only been a little more than a week since my jam-packed two-day Homegrown Author book signing visits but I still have visions of food and drink and chefs and farmers dancing ‘round my head, taste buds  – and social media.

And before I kick in for this big Hamptons Homegrown weekend coming up, I wanted to share with you the diary of the special two-day Homegrown East End extravaganza.

I met so many new wonderful Homegrown friends and fans.

This is just the best part of the book signings. 

My garden friend, Stephen Orr, Editorial Director for Gardening at Martha Stewart Living Magazine and author of the successful garden book, Tomorrow’s Garden: Design and Inspiration, pointed out this very thought to me in a recent email – and I couldn’t agree more.

If you don’t have Stephen’s book in your library yet – and why not? here is how to get it – or from your local independent book store:

http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Garden-Inspiration-Sustainable-Gardening/dp/1605294683

At the East End book signings, not only did I meet new foodie friends, there were also many instances when I was able to “put a face” to long-time Homegrown Cookbook enthusiasts that I hadn’t met in person till now, having communicated via email or blogs heretofore.  

In other circumstances, I reconnected with chefs and artisanal growers featured in The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook. 

I have so many stories to tell – all good.

The schedule was two days of the Sag Harbor Masters of Health and Wellness Preventative Health Expo– a health fair of sorts – put on by the same folks who run the Sag Harbor Farmer’s Market. 

I was introduced to Ana Nieto who runs the Sag Harbor markets by way of Bernadette Martin from the Long Beach, Long Island Farmer’s Markets that I worked last year  - the day before Sandy smashed that world… 

Ana Nieto, Turtle Shell Health, Sag Harbor Wellness Expo & Farmers Market manager

But see what a food network really is?  I love the homegrown spirit of support and generosity that the world of food and edibles brings to the, ahem, table.

Because of the weekend’s schedule-busting agenda, I thought I’d stay at The American Hotel in Sag Harbor for the two nights.  

The hotel is not only featured in the Homegrown Cookbook but I must add that I really do love the narrative I wrote for this profile.  Then again, there is an abundance of rich history and robust anecdotes surrounding the hotel’s storied past that I could mine. 

Today, it’s a haven for the rich and famous but owner Ted Conklin found it “… sagging from the burden of lost potential…” as I described it.  

I love it there – and feel more than a little bit like Eloise at the Plaza.  It’s all so Ralph Lauren-y looking, the food is great and the bar is too perfect – especially for martinis and oysters.  Make that crisp, salty, local Hog oysters.  

Alas, it was all too almost biblical, as Mary- from the American Hotel -  said there was no room at the inn.

Despite the fact there were just about no rooms to be had in the entire area for the weekend – in the summer months, many hotels require a three or four night stay and my wallet and schedule couldn’t do that.  I did find a Sunday night room at the Sag Harbor Inn that I was able to cancel on Sunday (they resold the room. Please do look to stay here when traveling out east – the proprietors were most accommodating on all levels.  I am very grateful for their great customer service.)

See, I could change the need for a reservations when I learned that the Great Chefs Dinner in Bridgehampton where I was to participate on Sunday with a book signing, moved the VIP dinner element to Toni Ross’ house rather than hold the dinner at the Hayground School.  I realized I didn’t need to stay till after dinner.  The cocktails and tasting would be finished by an early 7pm-ish.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rather than stay the weekend at a local inn, I took the Hampton Jitney Saturday and Sunday back and forth from New York City to the East End. So even though I got home relatively late both nights, I got to be in our Gotham apartment and also saved on the hotel costs.

Expo in Sag Harbor

Saturday at the Expo was great – my partner for the day was Peter Garnham, a featured grower from the Homegrown Cookbook. Peter is a charming British native and horticulturist, local farmer (ECCO Farms), bread maker and instructor, and gardener. Peter also designed and maintained Ted Conklin’s kitchen garden and the edibles were used in The American Hotel’s kitchen. Peter is also a healthy soil devotee – and is attending the Rodale soil weekend classes now, as a matter of fact.  

Peter Garnham, L, talking art

The Health & Wellness Expo featured presenters who offered expertise on healthy cooking, Feng Shui, food law, benefits of massage, and organic beauty products.

There was a solid, steady flow of attendees and I was thrilled to meet so many new Homegrown Cookbook fans--selling and signing a lot of books. 

Most were health enthusiasts who appreciate a locally grown, sustainable, non-GMO diet and menu.

Some of the new Homegrown friend highlights are Mrs. Mitchell – who is mother to the Pink Floyd’s Curt Mitchell.  She is beautiful.  A real cutie with a mirthful, mischievous, huggable demeanor.  

Mrs. Mitchell - mother of Pink Floyd's Curt Mitchell 

And Dina Manzo of HGTV’s “Dina’s Party,” owner of design and event-planning firm, Designer Affair and formerly of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. She is beautiful.  And very sweet.  She is one of 11 siblings!  If the others come even close to Dina's good looks, the parents should've gone on to a Baker's Dozen!
Dina had me autograph the book for her sister who is a cook and a baker.  Guess what her name is?  Cookie!  How sweet is that? (Cookie is new Twitter friend, too.)

Dina Manzo, HGTV star of Dina's Party

Everyone who purchased the book was a devotee of healthy, local-sourced sustainable foods.  I thoroughly enjoyed talking and learning from each and every informed foodie I met. 

Also, I posted pictures of all the new Homegrown friends on the book’s Facebook page.

I started this Homegrown custom last year at the East Hampton Author’s Night.

There I was surrounded by famous and accomplished authors.  It was a bit surreal.

And yet, attendees and guests eagerly came to get a signed copy of The Hamptons & Homegrown Cookbook from me and to take my picture.  I am so much more accustomed to and comfortable with promoting others – not me. 

To make it all more comfortable and familiar, I turned the tables after they took their photo of me, and took one of them with the Homegrown book! 

Admittedly, I’m a few events behind in posting images of Homegrown fans to the Facebook page- but I’ll double back and do it. Promise.

In the meantime, enjoy the images from this past weekend.

At the Expo, we also met the amiable Earl Fultz from Charissa – and Jeri Woodhouse, owner of A Taste of the North Fork  - specialty food purveyor. 

I learned Charissa is a cHarissa inspired spice created by the Greenport couple - Earl and his wife Gloria—who is a Moroccan native. Earl’s cumin inspired food condiment/marinade/dip/rub is very tasty – addicting in fact – and a welcome addition to most any meal.  One has to wonder – why didn’t anyone thin of this sooner??

He makes his sure-fire food accessory at Jeri’s commercial kitchen and Woodhouse is a Sherpa for this next big foodie taste.  www.authenticmoreoccanspice.com

I also learned from Jeri that she is a former NYC social worker, who then got into food and assuredly built her business by quality, reputation and – there it is again – the local food network.

I learned she makes so many of the sauces and relishes and condiments for most of the Long Island and New York City restaurants and chefs, including personal chefs, as well as the chefs in my Homegrown Cookbook. 

Jeri asked to sell the Hamptons & Long Island Cookbook at her commercial kitchen in Greenport. 

My pleasure! Especially for someone with such a stellar food resume and reputation for using local homegrown ingredients to create artisanal homemade food delights. http://www.atasteofthenorthfork.com

I also enjoyed spending time with my presenter mates at the Expo. 

Dr. Anne Van Couvering

Dr. Anne Van Couvering, Hamptons Naturopathic, is a medical doctor now – having successfully worked as a massage therapist before returning to school recently.  Her dedication and knowledge of a holistic and healing practice was in evidence.  I responded to her personal, dedicated medical service, especially in this day and age of “paperwork medicine” – meaning sometimes I feel like I spend more time filling out forms than I do with the medical professional!  Anne’s not at all like that!  www.hamptonsnaturopathic.com

It was a special treat to meet up with Homegrown enthusiast and kitchen designer, Toni Sabatino who it seemed dropped from the clouds to get two more autographed Homegrown Cookbooks for her kitchen clients.  She’s a design goddess!  And knows food, too.  Perfect combo. 

The heart of the home is the kitchen, after all.

But don’t take my word for it – take a kitchen tour with Toni: www.tonisabatinostyle.com  

Toni Sabatino, Kitchen designer

Oysters and Wine

Speaking of healthcare, after signing and selling a case-plus of Homegrown books, it was time to rejuvenate. 

I treated Peter to some refreshments at The American Hotel.  We took in two orders of the Hog Island or Peconic Bay oysters, described as “exuberant, butter-soft, with a piercing saltiness – a plump and ebullient gulp of summer.” Couldn't have said it better myself  

Peconic Bay/Hog Oysters 

It’s been written that Ted Conklin refers to his oysterman Howard Pickerell as the Patron Saint of Peconic Bay Oysters and the little bivalves could come stamped, “By appointment to the American Hotel.”

Homegrown horticulturist & oyster lover, Peter Garnham

Before we threw caution to the wind and ordered another dozen, we headed back to the Expo area where a fundraising talk, cocktails and a dinner for Slow Foods East End was being held. www.slowfoodeastend.org

The featured speaker was the non-GMO authority, Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director, The Institute for Responsible Technology, and author of “Genetic Roulette” and “Seeds of Deception,” http://seedsofdeception.com and his documentary film, “Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of our Lives.”

Jeffrey Smith, featured speaker @Slow Foods Cocktail party

Jeffrey M Smith speaks to Slow Food Cocktail party guests

See his research on the impact of GMO with the all-too-prevalent and not much discussed Crohn’s disease, IBS, Autism and Alzheimer’s and cancers. It’s a game-changer. www.tesponsibletechnology.org

Smith had them eating out of his hand.  They were held spellbound by his calm delivery of frightening health dangers and epidemics heretofore not-told or worse, covered up by pro GMO interests.  All the while benefactors were nibbling on Chef Todd Jacobs’ Fresh Hamptons hors d’oeuvres of pea soup, chicken satay and other Fresh creations.  

Treats from Chef Todd Jacobs' Fresh Hamptons restaurant

Drinks were offered courtesy of LiV Distillery, Long Island’s first and only locally made vodka and bourbon and Sorbet – made from freshly grown strawberries or raspberries or other seasonal fruit from nearby farms.  It’s the perfect summer drink.  

LiV libations 

All too soon it was time to kiss Peter goodbye, thank him for a special day and head back to Gotham.

And then do it all over again on Sunday.  I caught the early morning jitney to Sag Harbor, grabbed some coffee at LT Burger on Main Street - they make all their own pastries and roast their coffee.

Sunday and The Great Chefs Dinner

Sunday was a little slower at the Expo – and more humid.  But there were such wonderful folks who came out and especially to see the film premiere of Smith’s documentary.

My Homegrown friend, Nancy Twardowski-Valllarella, a cook, food writer at “What’s Cookin’ Smithtown,

 https://www.facebook.com/chef.noko.wcs?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

and big Homegrown Cookbook supporter met me a little after 3 in the afternoon.   

Nancy was my lucky Plus+1 for the Great Chefs Dinner at the Hayground School. 

She looked beautiful and cool in her elegant white dress. 

Nancy Twardowski-Vallarella, Homegrown enthusiast, What's Cookin Smithtown blogger

As we headed over to Bridgehampton, I tried to revive my humid, limp looks – without much success.

The annual fundraiser for the chef’s dinner series is the primary fundraiser for Bridgehampton’s own Hayground School www.haygroundschool.org

and an annual tribute to the late Jeff Salaway, a widely respected and beloved restaurateur and one of the school’s co-founders.  

Too many cooks in the kitchen?  Not here. The best of Manhattan and the East End’s chefs come together for a good cause at the Great Chefs fundraiser, using the local, homegrown bounty to create mouth-watering tastings. And the local drinks

The event is a family affair too - filled with the students and their parents. 

This year the kids cooked with Foody’s Chef Bryan Futerman making Tuscan Style Whole Roasted Pig from Wells Farm, mushroom’s from the Homegrown Cookbook’s featured mushroom grower, David Falkowski’s Open Minded Organics in the school’s wood oven pizza. www.openmindedorganics.com

Chef Bryan chose the Hayground School’s Jon Snow, and the children’s garden as his inspired growers for his profile in The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook. 

You can see why this cooking team was a very special Homegrown celebration.

Chef Jason, Almond, along with his adorable daughter, served up sweet and pretty vichyssoise.

Almond's Chef Jason & daughter (photo courtesy Twardowski-Vallarella)

I am so very grateful to Toni Ross, Jeff Salaway’s wife, who invited me to be a part of this extraordinary event.  

Toni Ross and admiring lads! 

And also big thank you's to her team: Samantha and Christy who made everything so non-drama and easy. 

My publisher sent two boxes of books and we got them downstairs in the newly expanded Jeff’s Kitchen building. (For me - that’s a spooky catwalk above the kitchen area and I proudly held my vertigo-inducing fear in check!)

Me & Nancy Twardowski-Vallarella set up Homegrown at Great Chefs Dinner

I pre-signed all the books and was prepared to just add the names of the Homegrown friends who would buy the book.  

Pre-sign  (Photo courtesy Twardowski-Vallarella)

Me setting up in Jeff's Kitchen @ Chefs Dinner (photo courtesy, Luciano - Out East Foodie)

I donated 10% of the book’s sales to Jeff’s Kitchen and the Hayground School.  (Afterwards, I wrote to Samantha that I know my little donation pales in comparison to the sums the other presenters and the guests donate but under the heading “that every little bit helps,” I hope they can buy a few more seeds or some whisks or something for the kitchen…)

Presenting with me in Jeff's Kitchen was TV food personality George Hirsch: 

George Hirsch & me

Right off the bat, I saw Nick & Toni’s Chef Joe Realmuto, and got an enthusiastic Homegerown hug.  We talked gardens and what he was preparing that night.  It was an extraordinary confection: garden basil panna cotta with heirloom tomatoes and crisp prosciutto.  It was soooo delicious.

Soon after, Chef Joe’s daughter Nicole, aka his sous chef, came by. I asked her to pose for this picture of her holding her father’s feature page in the book: (good looks are a family trait!)

Nicole Realmuto shows off the family's Homegrown pedigree, her father, Chef Joe is featured chef in the Homegrown book

As a courtesy, I offered to hold the book for the guests who bought the book on the way in.  See, it’s so very busy/crazy when everyone is clamoring to get in and to start tasting the food prepared by all the local chefs and drinking the local wines and spirits, and start the bidding on the auction items.

All that in just two hours.

I was honored and thrilled to be asked to be a part of the group photo shot! 

Here I am checking out the master chefs!

All the chefs and food artisans gather like a school photo, with Toni orchestrating, 

Like herding chefs! Toni Ross orchestrates group photo

It’s a big “Say Cheese” moment, documenting a successful Hayground fundraising event.

So there I was, holding the Homegrown book – my passport to all good food on Long Island.

Great Chefs Dinner culinary team

 

Nancy zoomed in for me and Chef Lia. We are so small we look ok here!

Here is the link to the Dan’s Paper group shot, photographed my former consumer electronics associate, Richard Lewin: http://danspapers.com/gallery/2013-chefs-dinner-meet-the-chefs-cocktail-party/

And the Dan’s Papers news story: http://danspapers.com/2013/07/2013-chefs-dinner-benefits-jeffs-kitchen-at-hayground-school/

But seriously, the BEST coverage of the Great Chefs Dinner is Homegrown enthusiast, Laura Luciano’s excellent blog, “Out East Foodie”  http://outeastfoodie.com

As an aside, I was up VERY late on Saturday – doing some writing and invoicing and lo and behold, I get Tweets from Laura/Out East Foodie at 2:30 am!  I was encouraging her to zzzzz nap.

She Tweeted she was so excited about the Chefs Dinner, couldn’t sleep.

A Homegrown Cutie after my own heart!

Laura Luciano: Out East Foodie blogger & Homegrown enthusiast 

Sleep or no sleep, Laura has a sharp eye for photo essays and her images are so alive: they really tell the story. She looks like a cub reporter with that camera slung on her shoulder - but she is all food-focused.

I was so busy with my book the entire cocktail and tasting time – so reading Out East Foodie really gave me a sense of the food and drink highlights.

I very much appreciate how Laura wrote that I am a “true ambassador for the chefs and growers of the Hamptons & Long Island; stories about their connections to the land and sea and the growers who inspire them.”

This could be the nicest thing anyone has written about the book and me.

I do indeed feel like an ambassador (wish I had a diplomat’s residence and license plate that reads Homegrown and allows me to park everywhere! Ha!)

Seriously, I am always very much honored to tell the homegrown stories and celebrate their devotion to growing and creating local, sustainable edible and ingredients. It’s hard work.  They are true culinary artists and it’s a privilege to work with them.

I love Out East Foodie’s coverage of my Homegrown chefs, Lia/Riverhead Project (http://theriverheadproject.com)

Bryan/Foody’s, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Foodys/118736102307

Jason/Almond (http://www.almondrestaurant.com/p7.php) and Joe/Nick & Toni’s (http://www.nickandtonis.com

Thank you, Laura.  And I do love those tomato-red eyeglasses you wore. So fetching with your red dress!

And I applaud your adventure in “learning to like oysters.”  All too soon, you will be obsessed with their taste and texture!  See above…

And then there was the veritable love fest with Le Bernadin’s Chef Eric Ripert. 

Chef Eric Re-Tweeted my Tweet sent when I posted the news from this blog - about the Chefs Dinner – and Chef Eric as VIP, sent on Saturday from the jitney on the way to Sag Harbor. 

I didn’t see the RT till later in the day – but was just tickled pink! I send a grateful merci RT. 

On Sunday, after Nancy and I set up the Homegrown books and I’d autographed them, I saw Chef Eric striding towards me.

It was like out of a movie – everything seemed to be in slow motion.

I was so flummoxed I didn’t have a chance to be nervous.

I simply said, “Ohhh Chef! Thank you so much for the ReTweet.” 

I think he said – in that frothy, French accent, “Of course. Thank you.”

Then he was upon the table looking at the book, saying how much he loves the Homegrown book! 

TV personality, George Hirsch, Chef Eric Ripert, Nancy Twardowski-Vallarella 

And he posed with TV chef, George Hirsch, and Nancy.

Homegrown Hamptons "Arm Candy" Chef Eric Ripert!

There were food paparazzi taking lots of photos, too. 

There was some operating technicality with my iPhone so I wasn’t able to send a Tweet of me and Chef Eric so that was more than disappointing... I didn’t want to hold him up there while I explained to hit the camera icon on the iPhone… After all, Chef Eric was the VIP and he’d already spent more than a bit of time with me at the Homegrown table … gulp.

I took some photos of Chef Eric and his gorgeous wife, Sandra. 

Because he couldn’t take the Homegrown book with him, I dropped it off at his Le Bernardin on Tuesday. 

What a swanky restaurant…

And what an elegant, classy, kind man chef Eric is – he sent the loveliest thank you email note: 

Thank you very much for sending over a copy of the Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook. The book looks wonderful and I look forward to reading it and sharing with the Le Bernadin team. It will make a great addition to our library!

I’m so very impressed. And humbled. A million merci's...

It just points out that the truly great leaders are that way for a reason.  They are sensitive and respectful. 

I for one am so happy I never worked with or met a yelling, crazy chef.  I’ll take the elegant ones, thank you. 

I was able to get some images from Nancy later in the week and posted a few to Facebook and will share more.  Here is one of my newer Homegrown friends, the lifestyle expert: Martha McCully.

Martha McCully (L) & friend

Edible Magazine publisher, Stephen Munshin w/Mother. His  "better half" Lindsay Morris is a  photographer for the publication & the Hamptons Homegrown Cookbook

Nancy got some good ones of her with Chef Tom Colicchio too. And Alec Baldwin.

When I heard the Baldwins where in the tent, I did step away from the book table to look for Hilaria – before she was married or pregnant, she was my yogi master in Gotham.  
I realized I could circle that tent for the rest of the night and not bump into the couple, so I Tweeted to her – and she Favorited it.  Sweet.

I sold all the books. Took everyone’s photos – which I’ll post to Facebook  -- and closed up shop, so to speak. 

I got a chance to give Chef Bryan Futerman a Homegrown hug.  Should’ve gotten a photo! But Nancy and I were scooting to her car in order to make the jitney.

We did.

Another Batman and Robin caper. Thank you, Nancy.

It was a jam-packed Homegrown Hamptons weekend, lots of work but filled with Homegrown memories of good food, food news and chefs and growers and friends and fans. 

I wouldn’t have traded it for all the oysters in the Peconic Bay.  Or maybe, just maybe….

Cheers.

Honor Chef Gerry Hayden, North Fork Table & Inn in Fight Against ALS

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 24^th 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.