An Intimate Evening with Farm-to-Table Dining Pioneer Chef Peter Hoffman!

2424 East Main Street,Columbus OH 43209

04 October, 2021

Description

Peter Hoffman, Culinary Pioneer in Farm-to-Table Dining, in Conversation with Food System Expert Amy Bodiker Baskes! Join culinary pioneer Peter Hoffman, former owner/chef of the famed Savoy, the NYC downtown restaurant that pioneered farm-to-table dining, and author of What’s Good? A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients, in conversation with food system expert Amy Bodiker Baskes, Founding Director of Chefs Collaborative and former manager of Produce Perks Columbus. In this intimate evening, learn about the outer life of a restaurant and the inner life of an extraordinary chef. This event is free. Registration closes at 6:00 pm on the day of the event. As long as the Delta variant is active in Franklin County, we ask that only vaccinated attend in-store events, and we encourage wearing a mask, especially during the book signing portion. Local Matters is Gramercy's Community Partner for this in-store program. What goes into the making of a chef, a restaurant, a dish? And if good ingredients make a differ¬ence on the plate, what makes them good in the first place? In his highly anticipated first book, influential chef Peter Hoffman offers thoughtful and delectable answers to these questions. “A locavore before the word existed” (New York Times), Hoffman tells the story of his upbringing, professional education, and evolution as a chef and restaurant owner through its components—everything from the importance of your relationship with your refrigerator repairman and an account of how a burger killed his restaurant, to his belief in peppers as a perfect food, one that is adaptable to a wide range of cultural tastes and geographic conditions and reminds us to be glad we are alive. Along with these personal stories from a life in restaurants, Hoffman braids in passionately curious explorations into the cultural, historical, and botanical backstories of the foods we eat. Beginning with a spring maple sap run and ending with the late-season, frost-defying vegetables, he follows the progress of the seasons and their reflections in his greenmarket favorites, moving ingredient to ingredient through the bounty of the natural world. Hoffman meets with farmers and vendors and unravels the magic of what we eat, deepening every cook’s appreciation for what’s on their kitchen counter. What’s Good? Is a layered, insightful, and utterly enjoyable meal. Chef Peter Hoffman is the curious cook’s cook. As the former chef/owner of Savoy and Back Forty restaurants, he trailblazed farm-to-table cooking in New York City. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Edible Manhattan, and Food & Wine. Peter served on the boards of the Greenmarket and Chefs Collaborative and is a Slow Food NYC Snailblazer award recipient. For more than thirty years, he has been cycling to the Union Square Greenmarket to source the best in local and seasonal ingredients. Amy Bodiker Baskes has held national leadership positions in the food system sector, including the founding Director of Chefs Collaborative, the first Development Director for Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and the interim Executive Director for the Organic Farming Research Foundation. Locally, Amy is the former manager of Produce Perks Columbus, part of Ohio’s statewide farmers’ market incentive program. She helped establish Bexley Farmers’ Market and volunteers with the Franklin County Local Food Council. Gramercy Books is a locally-owned, independently-minded neighborhood bookstore located in the heart of Bexley, Ohio (just outside of downtown Columbus) that opened in December of 2016. Inspiration and discovery through books is cultivated in a variety of events throughout the year that include author visits and festivals, book signings, poetry readings, a monthly book club, and songwriter performances. Gramercy Books shares space with Kittie’s bakery café.