Last year, I blogged about a list of vegan, vegetarian, and vegetarian-friendly restaurants in the New York City area that have kosher certification. Cathy Resler, organizer of the NYC Jewish Veg*ns MeetUp group, has created a Web site featuring an updated version of her list. It’s now quite easy to navigate through the myriad options by alphabetical, geographic, or cuisine-based sorting.

As I mentioned in my previous post, “If you’re looking for a kosher establishment with plentiful vegetarian and vegan options, there’s no need to check both vegan and kosher restaurant guides when you can check only one list.”

While I personally feel comfortable from a kosher perspective if I know that food is vegan, I respect that other people look for a hechsher regardless in their efforts to keep kosher. For them (and for people trying to pick a restaurant to meet them at), this list is an invaluable resource.

I listed about a dozen of the restaurants that I’d been to in my previous post, but it’s worth noting that Buddha Bodai, Peacefood Cafe, and Sacred Chow aren’t just places I’ve been to once or twice. I probably have gone to those three restaurants more than any other in New York City, and I highly recommend each of them.

This entry is cross-posted at marriedwithbackpacks.com

It’s now been seven weeks backpacking through this meat-lovers paradise, tough going for a pair of Jews spoiled by home cooking and New York’s great vegetarian restaurants. Vegetarian cuisine in Peru and Bolivia is, like their economies, ‘developing.’ We were pleasantly surprised at the number of vegetarian restaurants in Lima, Arequipa and Cusco. In many of them we had a set menu consisting of a soup, a main, tea and possibly desert for $1.50-$5. Now it could be that South American vegetarian cuisine is relatively immature, or did the Spaniards run off with all the Inca’s seasoning as well as their gold… because all most all of our Andean meals were quite bland. The vegetables or grain soups would have been enlivened by adding almost anything. The mains usually consisted of rice, eggs and glisteningly oily fried vegetables. Most of the vegetarian restaurants rely heavily on eggs and cheese, so if you are travelling vegan, it might end up being the rice and oily vegetables for meal after meal. If you risk eating at a non-vegetarian restaurant, the vegetarian menu usually consists of pizza and spaghetti. I should mention that it wasn’t all bad news, we did enjoy a veggie version of a traditional Arequipa dish (at a restaurant called Lakshmivan), a large pepper stuffed with vegetables, tofu and chillies, as well as scrumptious burritos at the Hearts Café in Ollantaytambo.

When it comes to snacks there is more to get excited about. Street vendors roast potatoes over coals, although unfortunately for us, always together with chunks of meat. At night, bands of mobile popcorn makers roam the streets providing a cheap and delicious snack, available salty or sweet. One can also find puffed Quinua and other Andean grains, available in small bags or pressed with honey into a type of granola bar. In the right hostel you can find a breakfast of yoghurt, sweet puffed grains and fresh papaya and bananas – delicious. When it comes to fruit, we didn’t try as many exotic varieties as I would have liked, but we did enjoy a juicy cherimoya in La Paz.

On one occasion our diet was supplemented by some wild protein. On a jungle trip in the Bolivian Amazon we were fishing for piranhas using hand reels when I was luckily enough to drag in a fish around a foot long. After checking for fins and scales, we decided it would be a welcome addition to what were some otherwise meager jungle rations. I killed the fish, a first for me, using the most readily available means, the oar of our canoe, and the fish was cooked up for lunch the following day.

Civil unrest in Bolivia led us to fly early to northern Argentina, where we traded charming street markets for expensive, industrialized supermarkets where everything contained corn syrup, beef fat or both. The cattle industry is so enormous that the excess fat makes its way into bread, crackers and other baked goods. Additionally, in many places vegetarian food is nowhere to be found, indeed one should not be surprised to have one’s vegetarianism openly mocked. In this region we did a fair bit of self catering, utilizing our pot to make pasta and tomato sauce.

Upon reaching Buenos Aires, home to around 100,000 Jews and some of the world’s best kosher restaurants, we joined in the gluttony of the locals. An upmarket sushi chain has a kosher branch where we paid through the nose for a roll featuring mango, salmon and fried cheese, and another featuring citrus marinated salmon. At the Al Galope restaurant we enjoyed a traditional Argentinian parilla, meat grilled over a wood fire. The steak, sausages, sweetbreads, meatballs and tripe were brought to our table on a mini grill with its own coals to keep it warm. The leftovers lasted two lunches but the meal itself was well, too meaty. It was tough to go straight into that much plain roasted unseasoned meat.

Now I don’t think I have ever ingested a McDonald’s hamburger in my life, but if you are in Buenos Aires and for some reason there is a kosher McDonalds, why not? OK, I can think of many reasons why not, but we went for what would be a first time and last time experience. My frustration began when the worker took minute after gratification delaying minute to put together our already prepared meal. This is supposed to be fast food! Then I almost threw a fit trying desperately to open their tiny ketchup packets, which cannot be opened with greasy fingers. The bun was soggy and the meat bland – I’m assuming this is standard – not an experience I’ll miss. If I can give them credit for something is that their prices appeared to be the same as the non-kosher McDonald’s. And of course, the sight of a frum woman standing in the middle of a McDonald’s kitchen checking lettuce for bugs is priceless.

The culinary highlight of our trip is a restaurant in Buenos Aires called Asian. After trying a few albeit delicious options we realized their pineapple, soy and ginger marinated steak ($22) is quite simply the best thing we can ever remember eating. Quality kosher wine is served by the bottle only, but for only $13 a bottle there is no fear in erring on the plentiful side. It was very expensive by Argentinean standards, but with quality and service that shamed anything we had experienced in the US, even at top dollar New York kosher restaurants. Argentineans eat ridiculously late, restaurants are usually packed at around 11pm, such that when we came at 8pm we had the whole place ourselves. A great way to finish off the first continent in our round-the-world trip. Bring on Australia.

Uri L’Tzedek is now accepting applications from college and graduate students for our 2nd annual Summer Fellowship Program! This 6-week program is an opportunity to work alongside Uri L’Tzedek’s staff and board, experiencing the many mechanisms that come together to create an effective non-profit organization, gaining exposure to communal Jewish life, effecting change, and learning Torah, social justice philosophy, and community organizing models.

Fellows will be based in New York City and will dedicate their time to some of the following innovative projects: Tav HaYosher (the ethical seal for kosher restaurants), organizational development, communications, education, service, community outreach, website development, multi-media, and technology.

Fellows will participate in weekly seminars focusing on the role of social justice in the Torah, workshops devoted to social justice and community organizing, and dialogues about the religious and emotional dimensions of the Fellowship. Sessions will be led by Uri L’Tzedek’s staff and board, local rabbis, and social justice professionals. Uri L’Tzedek Fellows are volunteers.
To apply, email Shani Porter , Fellowship Director, at porter.shani@gmail.com

Can the Jewish Deli be sustainable? Can a retro cuisine be part of the avant- garde?

Local, organic VS. the externalized costs of cheap, industrial food and . . . collective memory and food traditions?

Deli is at a crossroads. In New York, only a handful delis remain from hundreds. Across the country, beloved Delis continue to disappear. Popular expectations of “real” Deli conflict with today’s economic realities. And these expectations conflict with environmental sustainability.

For example, towering pastrami sandwiches once signified success, security and abundance, an immigrant’s celebration of the American Dream. At “real” Delis, the meat is piled so high it topples. But given the realities of meat production in America today – 99% is factory farmed – how can we continue to stand by this as an icon?

Meat at the center of the plate is gradually losing ground in the American diet. Innovative chefs and new farm-to-table restaurants draw informed, activist eaters, ready to pay for the true cost of food, and celebrate carefully prepared vegetables at the center of the plate. Young Jewish foodies re-examine Kosher, going back to the land. And vegan/vegetarianism has become the paradigm for many Jewish foodies concerned with sustainability and humane treatment of animals.

Meanwhile, Deli mavens come to Saul’s with a hankering for a huge pastrami sandwich to relive cherished taste memories. Deli is part of the grand tradition of secular, cultural Jewish identity. So people come to Saul’s for many different reasons. Eating sustainable, local food doesn’t always top the list. Some changes to Deli that have made Saul’s a battleground over the years:

• No more Dr. Brown’s – housemade, seasonal soda instead
• Non-mammoth-sized pastrami sandwiches
• Artisanal, fermented, brown, organic old-world style rye bread
• Seasonal, local produce moved to the center of the plate
• Chilled borscht only in summer and when beets are in season . . . .

How can a popular Jewish deli, working to become more sustainable, keep the goodwill of its most traditionally supportive customer base?

To open this conversation, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli in Berkeley, CA is hosting a referendum on the Jewish Deli menu with three Saul’s regulars:

Michael Pollan, Willow Rosenthal, and Gil Friend. Evan Kleiman will moderate. Questions that might guide the discussion:

Even “authentic” cuisine can obstruct progress towards more just, sustainable food. How does a business committed to being part of the solution persuade traditionalist customers of the importance of change?

What taste memories and flavors of The Deli have been provided by an industrial food system? How can we look at our nostalgia and expectations critically?

How might we evolve a shared cuisine together? How can we bring our people along with us – away from grieving the disappearing deli, into the conversation and into the future?

Referendum on The Deli Menu Can a Retro Cuisine be Part of the Avant-Garde?

To accomodate demand:

**Venue has been changed from Saul’s to JCC of the East Bay around the corner**
1414 Walnut Street
Berkeley, CA 94709
Directions to JCC of the East Bay

6:30 pm Tuesday, February 9
Doors open at 6pm
Registration/Will Call check-in from 5:30 on

Tickets $10 in advance, $15 at the door

Proceeds benefit The Center for Ecoliteracy

Panelists:
Michael Pollan, Journalist, Author: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food
Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, Author: The Truth About Green Business
Willow Rosenthal, Founder, City Slicker Farms
Karen Adelman, Co-Owner, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli
Peter Levitt, Co-Owner, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli
Moderator: Evan Kleiman, Host, KCRW’s Good Food, Owner-Chef, Angeli Caffe

What is Jewish food? Avoiding shellfish and pork and never eating meat with dairy? Hummus? Kreplach? Whatever your Bubbe used to make?

What makes a cuisine Jewish?  Other East Asian cultures have vegetarian diets, which by default wouldn’t be mixing meat with dairy.  Hummus is wildly popular throughout the Middle East. And are kreplach so very different than Italian tortellini?

So what is Jewish food?  It’s like what is asking what your comfort food is.  Probably whatever your family makes.  If you have an Eastern European background, brisket, matzoh ball soup and knishes may be the norm.  A Sephardic background may involve more Mediterranean dishes.

But can this identification with food change?  When I was in college, my comfort food was Macaroni and Cheese out of a box.  As an adult, my go-to comfort dish is sautéed mushrooms and kale.  So yes, I’m a believer that people can change.  So can what we think of as Jewish cuisine change?

As the generations pass our diets change.  As technology improves, as do our diets -with the invention of preservations methods we were able to enjoy food differently.  So why not our ethnic cuisines change with the modern sensibilities and technologies?  Vegetable oils were not readily available in Eastern Europe so many of the Ashkanzi dishes involve using rendered animal fat (schmaltz).  Yet today vegetable oils are plentiful and can be used in kosher meat dishes.

Now, for full disclosure changing what we think of as Jewish cuisine was not entirely my idea.   Last year I was fortunate enough to have a lovely dinner with Rabbi Ponet at the Yale Hillel.  He had set up a meal at Miya’s Sushi in New Haven (more on that in a minute) and challenged the table to talk about what made cuisine Jewish.  At Chanukah, he pointed out, we talk a lot about the miracle of the oil then deep fry potatoes in oil.  But if Chanukah is a festival of lights, why couldn’t we make the foods we eat about light?  Flambé anyone?

And as many of us become far more aware about how our eating practices have an environmental impact, could we also evolve our traditional cuisines into environmental sustainable ones?  This is where I get back to Miya’s Sushi.  My boyfriend and I were passing through Connecticut on New Year’s day and we decided to go back for their creative (and sustainable) sushi rolls and firecracker sake.  But what really caught my eye was the chef, Bun Lai’s new conceptual menu.

Photo by Jim Oca, reprinted with permission

The concept is pretty simple.  Due to globalization we have introduced invasive species of plants and seafood into areas that can’t sustain the interlopers – often choking the natives species.  So if there is an abundance of plants and seafood that are bad for the local environment, can you put these invaders to use in some other way?  That is what Bun is proposing – eat these abundant, and otherwise unwanted plants and seafood.  Although these dishes are not yet available on the menu, I can’t wait to try them when they are.  Using what is available, and make the environment healthier by doing it.

Now I’m not proposing that shellfish is going to be okay to eat for all Jews, but kashrut aside the idea of using invasive species as part of our ethic cuisine is an interesting concept.  It’s eating sustainably to a whole new level.  And something I think is very Jewish.

Photo by Jim Oca, reprinted with permission

In July of 2009, Uri L’Tzedek began a small project in New York to change the way the (Orthodox / Jewish) community approached its food. Modeled after Israel’s Tav Chevrati, the Tav Hayosher, ethical seal, would certify that a kosher eating establishment was meeting legal and ethical standards in the way it treats its employees. Uri L’Tzedek granted the Tav to kosher restaurants and supermarkets after confirming that their employees were paid at least minimum wage, overtime, were granted appropriate breaks,  and work in a healthy and safe environment.

Six months later, the Tav Hayosher is proudly displayed in the window of 20 kosher eating establishments, has expanded to Maryland, and continues to grow on a daily bases (for a list of restaurants that have the Tav visit our website). Uri L’Tzedek hopes to continue to inspire the (Orthodox/Jewish) community to no longer only be concerned whether their food is kosher, but also that it is yosher. For more information on Uri L’Tzedek visit their website at www.utzedek.org.

I’m stuffed. Not from my Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family in the US – although everything on the table was delicious – but from five days of intellectual, spiritual, and gastronomical nourishment while participating in Hazon and Heschel’s first Israel Sustainable Food Tour. From November 15th though 19th, twenty-seven foodies and I explored Israel from the perspective of sustainable food. We met with farmers, chefs, community gardeners, a permaculture expert, a food scientist, volunteers at an innovative soup kitchen, the founder of a food co-op, an expert on food insecurity in Israel, and many other passionate people who shared their experiences working on sustainable food issues throughout the country.

Our group, fearlessly led by Natasha Aronson of Hazon and Jeremy Benstein of The Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership, was an incredible mix of individuals with varied backgrounds on food and environmental issues: farmers, nutritionists, public health analysts, journalists, CSA coordinators, and many more.  The stimulating conversations I had with the other participants were certainly one of the most memorable parts of the tour.  And on the final day, we joined over three hundred people at the first annual Israel Sustainable Food Conference in Tel Aviv.

Over the next few weeks, as I continue to digest this fantastic experience, I’ll be sharing some of the highlights of the trip here on The Jew and the Carrot. One theme that I had not anticipated, and that I found most moving throughout the tour, was the role that memories played in many people’s understanding of food sustainability. It was touching to hear how sharing memories through food – often memories of an older generation, a simpler time – was a means for putting sustainability in action. Our first meal together, at the Eucalyptus Restaurant in Jerusalem, included a cooking demonstration with chef Sofian Ayash, who explained that his culinary degree came from MMK University – “my mother’s kitchen”. Thus, his dishes often reflect his earliest memories and knowledge he gained from cooking with his mother. As the trip progressed, I realized that the group and I were creating our own memories – with each other, with Israel, with the phenomenal meals we experienced – just as others shared their own memories of food with us. Our understanding of sustainability was undoubtedly affected by the people we met, the sites we took in, the stories we listened to, and the foods we tasted. Powerful nourishment, indeed.

Photo by Evan Namerow, taken at the Machaneh Yehudah outdoor market – “the shuk” – in Jerusalem.

Recently I had the chance to speak with Noah Alper, founder of the eponymous Noah’s Bagels.  Noah, who sold Noah’s Bagels in 1999, has been in the food business since the 1970s, when he started Bread and Circus, the East Coast natural food chain (bought by Whole Foods in 1992).  He’s kept kosher since the early 1990s, and at one point Noah’s Bagels was the largest kosher retailer in the country.  (For those on the prowl, there’s still one kosher Noah’s Bagels, in Seattle.)  Nowadays, he’s committed to preaching the gospel of socially responsible business practices, and to that end he’s come out with a book called Business Mensch that aims to connect Jewish principles to good business practices and convince business leaders that community values are good for their bottom line.  Basically, it’s a Jewish business handbook for the post-Madoff world.  Noah and I chatted about how the food movement has changed since his days as a natural foods grocer, how the Hazon food conference stoked his interest in eco-kashrut and why the Bay Area is a foodie mecca.

Q: What drove your interest in going into the food business?

Noah Alper: My father was a manufacturer’s representative for main brand food brands in the New England area, so I grew up with it as a kid.  It was a kind of logical transition.

Q: And how did you become interested in natural foods?

N.A.: In the early 70s, the natural food movement was just beginning, and my former wife was very interested in natural foods.  Through her I got an understanding that this was something important.  In those days, it wasn’t so much of a sustainability issue, but it was more about health, getting rid of processed foods and what alternatives were available.  There were also almost no natural food stores, so it interested me as a business opportunity.

Q: How has the food movement and the public’s interest in organic and sustainable food changed since you opened Bread and Circus?

N.A.: When we were getting started, brands like Celestial Seasonings and Tom’s of Maine were just beginning.  Now they’re mainstream American items, as are natural food stores themselves.  Natural food went from Ma and Pa stores to a Whole Foods in every neighborhood across America.  It’s like a whole generation of people came to see the importance of eating natural foods and leading a healthy lifestyle.  Probably around the early turn of the century, I saw the sustainability issue becoming more important.  I think that Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie was a major influencer in people’s understanding of their impact on the earth.  The ecological movement kind of merged with the health movement, and also with the gourmet movement, which I was also involved in the late 80s.  For different reasons, Americans were going to fresh ingredient meals, partially for taste and aesthetic reasons, and that merged in with the natural foods movement as well. 

Q: Why did you choose to open Noah’s Bagels as a kosher chain?  Did it add complications from a business perspective? 

N.A.: It was about making a whole community feel comfortable eating there. It had a perception amongst the population at large that there was a higher level of inspection, and we attracted kosher eaters, travelers, and so forth who were drawn to the restaurant because it was kosher. There were complications in certifying the stores, but most of the ingredients, like bagels and lox, are kosher anyway.  We also had an image and reputation, by closing for Passover and keeping kosher, that this was authentic, this was the real deal. It was good for business. 

Q: Do you feel that your kosher practice has an ethical as well as a ritual meaning?

N.A.: I think it should, and I think that things like Magen Tzedek [the Conservative movement’s forthcoming eco-kosher hekhsher] and these new movements are trying to make that connection, which I don’t think has typically been made.  I’ve long felt that way regarding unhealthful ingredients.  They may be within the letter of the law, but they’re certainly not in the spirit of the law, which should be offering healthy food that is kosher.  Not to mention recent discussions about fair trade and ethical treatment of workers.  We’re getting beyond the previous narrow definition that’s just about being ritually correct. 

Q: As a businessman, do you think that Magen Tzedek will be successful in attracting producers to pay for certification?

N.A.: I think on the consumer end of it, there’s a big demand and interest.  On the part of the producers, I think they have to be convinced that it’s important enough for their clientele to spend the money.  I think it’ll take some time, but I think it will catch on.   You’re already seeing fair trade coffee being a gold standard now.  I don’t see why it shouldn’t be across the board in the food milieu.  I think it will be up to Magen Tzedek or whoever leads to pack to demonstrate there’s enough interest on the part of the consumer to make the manufacturer interested.  It’s up to anyone who’s going to do this to appeal to the non-Jewish audience as well.  Something like 70 percent or more of people who buy kosher are not Jewish.  It’s because they’re vegetarians or they eat halal or they think there’s a higher level of inspection, and I think likewise Magen Tzedek has to make that case to the manufacturer at large.

Q: How long have you lived in the Bay Area?  Why do you think this area is so energetic about food issues? 

N.A.: I’ve lived here for 25 years.  We’re so close to the food source here, many, many food sources.  I don’t know what percentage of the country the Central Valley feeds in terms of fruits and vegetables, but I have to believe in the winter it’s pushing the 80 percent level.  I think the other thing is the Bay Area has always been a nexus of fresh ideas and new ideas that have socially redeemable values at the core of it, from civil rights to gay rights to 60s antiwar stuff.  Again and again and again, California leads the way.  Also, in the late 80s the whole gourmet thing started in San Francisco.  You get all of those things impacting one another and you come up with the origins of new movements.

 For more about Noah Alper and his book, Business Mensch, go to his website, www.businessmensch.net.

Hazon’s friends and partners in Food Justice, Uri L’Tzedek, have been busy. They’ve just  launched a new website Utzedek.org. You can find Torah sources and articles, activist resources, hundreds of volunteer and campaign opportunities, social justice events, opportunities to contribute, and much more!

Among Uri L’Tzedek’s important work is the Tav HaYosher (ethical seal) – a local, grassroots initiative to bring workers, restaurant owners and community members together to create just workplaces in kosher restaurants.

You may already be familiar with the campaign in Israel through B’Maaglei Tzedek and their hugely successful Tav Chevrati campaign — this is a version of that based here in New York. Mazal tov to Uri L’Tzedek on all their great work.

For your reference, I include these excerpts from this note from Rabbi Ari Weiss,
Uri L’Tzedek’s Lead Professional:

As we enter the new year of 5770, we can reflect upon some of Uri L’Tzedek’s successes from the past year. This past summer, Uri L’Tzedek launched its first summer fellowship with great success.  I would like to share with you a reflection from one of our fellows.  Laura Berger graduated from NYU with degrees in Journalism and Latin American Studies and is currently a first year law student at Fordham University School of Law.

Explaining her activism to build the Tav HaYosher, Laura wrote the following:”In fact, many owners of restaurants that we talked to openly confessed that they didn’t pay minimum wage or overtime and furthermore, didn’t see a point.  ‘It’s not Jewish law,’ they would say.  It is true there is no specific law about overtime pay in the Torah, but for people to be so machmir (strict) about washing their lettuce and so negligent about sustaining their workers made me really upset.  One thing I learned this summer is how incredibly important it is that Uri L’Tzedek is doing this work.  Kosher restaurants in this city are by no means above the terrible corruption and abuse implicit in New York restaurants.”

Laura is one of the many college students who have been deeply impacted by Uri L’Tzedek’s transformative programming:

In May, Uri L’Tzedek launched the Tav HaYosher, an ethical seal affirming a kosher restaurant’s commitment to uphold U.S. labor laws and create just workplaces and practices.  Since its launch, fifteen kosher eating establishments have been awarded the Tav HaYosher.  The full list can be found here.

In the 2008-2009 academic year, Uri L’Tzedek led programming attended by over a thousand students at over fifteen university campuses.  I believe our program alumni will serve as a model for creating Orthodox communities committed to social justice that can be replicated across the country.

In the past year, Uri L’Tzedek has hosted thirty social justice Batei Midrash across the country that have been attended by over seven hundred participants. Guided by innovative scholars and educators, each Social Justice Beit Midrash layers textual study and discussion together with cutting edge activism.

In the coming year Uri L’Tzedek will:

-Expand the Tav HaYosher to five new cities.

-Run programming for Jewish activists at twenty different university communities, and

-Play a leading role in the Jewish public square through writing op-eds, speaking at conferences, and teaching across the country.

I would like to take this opportunity to bless you with a year full of health and joy in which we continue to “awaken to justice.”

Learn more about the important work of Uri L’Tzedek by visiting their new website. The Hazon Food Conference will be a great chance to learn more about food justice work within the Jewish communty and now is a perfect time to register before our early registration discount ends on 10/16 — visit www.hazon.org/foodconference for more info.

Chag sameach and shabbat shalom!

Maybe it is cliche but they say dinner and a show makes for a great date.   I’m hoping so because this weekend my boyfriend and I will be eating at Conni’s Avant Garde Resturant – which is both dinner and a show.  But this is not your average local dinner theatre. They are really serious about their local food.  I got the chance to talk with some of the folks working on the show about their menu and focus on local food.  Below the jump is a brief interview and information on how you can get your own tickets to this fun event.

1. How do you conceive of your menu? Is it different from show to show?
We create entirely different menus for each show but sometimes we do reprise seasonal hits, for example, you just can’t beat curried butternut squash soup in the winter.  The “writing” for the menu and for the show itself starts with where we are at any given moment in time.  We ask: What’s fresh, local, topical, fun to eat, and easy to share?  All other considerations are trumped by the interest of the actor-cooks, which is essential to me.  We must love what we are making before we share it with the audience, and it must integrate playfully with the writing of the show..

Each Restaurant grounds itself in common experience with the audience (with our own special twist, of course), and tries to create the feeling of a special occasion.  Since our guests are entering an unfamiliar situation, we provide meals that are comforting and have broad appeal (again, with our own special twist).  That childhood question “What’s for dinner?” is a powerful marketing tool.  We try to announce menus in advance that will make the audience crave the show.  For one holiday show, we had potato leek soup, roast chicken with classic stuffing, and cranberry sauce.  For the show in late August, the menu included the cooler offerings of a chilled gazpacho, watermelon-mint-feta salad, cold meatloaf sandwiches with pesto pasta salad and a dessert with fresh local blueberries.

2. Prepping a theatrical production is as challenging as prepping a meal for a large number of people. How do you keep your theatrical content and menu items fresh? And how do you avoid burnout?
We rehearse the scripted material and musical numbers as if we were mounting a more traditional show, but the format for the evening leaves plenty of room to improvise and be spontaneous.

Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant was made from scratch.  Everything about our current show– the characters, the narrative, the format of the evening, the role of the audience, and the food service – was developed by a company of actors who work together to stage ideas in the absence of a director or sole author.  In the first two years of this project, the content varied widely from event to event.  This year we have been concentrating on refining the writing so that we can present it at different venues.  Many loyal return audience members now know the “routine” and act as unofficial guides for new audience members (kind of like in the Rocky Horror Picture Show).  What they look forward to most is the new menu each time.

The whole project could be described as a live episodic show about a fictional theater ensemble that is running a restaurant. As a company, we have all “done time” in New York’s downtown, experimental theatre scene. Many of us have worked in restaurants.  These are the common points of departure when coming up with new material.  We’re also highly influenced by popular culture and we love to make reference to our favorites: sitcoms, rock/pop music, public television, etc.  There is always something new to say, there is always something that can be done or said just a little better, and the audience always throws us something new to work with.

3. Since this a food blog, I’m sure the readers are very curious – Where do you source your food from? How do you choose your food vendors?
We seek more and more to know our vendors personally, and we build the menu around featured, seasonal ingredients that we source locally. We have three cooks in the restaurant who divide authorship of the courses: I do soup, Jerusha Klemperer does appetizers and salad, and Jesse Gustafson does the entree and dessert.  Jerusha is on staff at Slow Food USA and is also a native New Yorker with encyclopedic knowledge of the cultural and culinary offerings of this city.  She provides us with most of the leads for food sourcing.  You can read her blog.
With each iteration, we accumulate more knowledge but it is a slow process and is deterred by practical and financial concerns.  Let me be clear: sourcing locally is not more expensive, its just more difficult to know that quantities will be available in advance or to arrange transport where we need it when we need it.  For example, we wanted to source the watermelon locally for our early August menu, but the rain destroyed the local supply.  We had already promised the audience watermelon, so we got it delivered from Fresh Direct.  We are learning.

Our next show is at the Ohio Theatre in Manhattan and opens on Friday, so we will shop at the Union Square farmers market on Wednesday for the main produce items needed for the food we actually prepare in the theater itself—portobello mushrooms for the vegetarian sandwiches, and greens, berries and apples for the salad.  I will get New York State Bartlett pears for the pear soup.  This month they are inexpensive, plentiful, fresh, delicious and available even in local supermarkets.  For the last show, I went to the Sunset Park farmers’ market and got tomatoes and jalapenos for the gazpacho from Rexcroft Farm, and the cucumbers from Angel Farm..  We like getting our bread from Grandaisy Bakery our ricotta cheese from Salvatore Brooklyn and berries from Fantasy Fruit Farm.  We especially enjoy it when our vendors come to the show and we can incorporate them into the celebration.

4. I have heard that the company places an emphasis on Slow Food. Does anybody in the company have a food background or any kind of specialized training?
As I mentioned, we have a strong direct connection to the Slow Food movement through Jerusha Klemperer who is on staff there.  Jesse Gustafson is a self-taught, talented mastermind in the kitchen who comes to the project out of creative interest in the latest innovations in cooking, recipes and trends.  I care about conviviality and the way that food builds community. We balance one another well and argue about the menu until something inspires us all.

I think of our food concept as Slow Food from a cultural perspective—not only knowing where your food comes from, but knowing the people grow, prepare and share the meal with you.  In a moment of supreme inspiration or foolishness (jury’s still out) I took a year off from my day job last year and attended the Culinary Management Program at the Institute of Culinary Education.  In addition to the nuts-and-bolts, I was surprised to find that their main teaching was that the best restaurateurs are stage magicians.  From a management perspective, more important than the food was creating an experience.  They even made us write scripts for what a guest experiences step-by-step through the meal.  I was pleased that what they were teaching was that the most successful restaurants have staff that, like the best theater artists, have a sense of ownership and sincerely care about the whole experience they provide.  This is what we try to do at Conni’s: bring theatricality to the restaurant and hospitality to the theater.

Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant
starring Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant
with design by guest artist David Barber (sets) and Jeanette Yew (lights)

Two Nights!  Friday and Saturday, September 25-26
@ The Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster Street, Manhattan
Doors open at 6:30; Curtain promptly at 7:00pm
Click here to reserve in advance through SmartTix