by | Sep 16, 2024 9:34 am | Comments (4)
Lary Bloom photos
Though unknown to Johnny Appleseed, Cortlands (developed in a lab in 1898) are a must.
From palate-saving Red Delicious in Vietnam to three-star asparagus in Paris.
Some years ago on the road west through Pennsylvania, we noticed a billboard that announced, “Twenty miles to The World’s Worst Apple Pie!”
by | Sep 4, 2024 11:07 am | Comments (22)
Ronak Gandhi file photo
NOA on Crown St. According to downtown's top cop, "This establishment poses an immediate danger to its customers, the commercial businesses that it adjoins, pedestrians, and vehicular traffic."
Thomas Breen photo
Liquor permit suspension sign now up at NOA.
The state has suspended a Crown Street Thai restaurant’s liquor permit after an early Saturday morning shooting — following a stabbing last year and numerous complaints over the past two years — led investigators to believe that the business is being run “in a manner that imperils public safety.”
Continue reading ‘Restaurant's Liquor Permit Suspended After Shooting’
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:27 am | Comments (2)
Asher Joseph photos
Kismet Douglass: “One day, I’d like to have an event space of my own.”
Momma Kiss's jerk chicken, rice, and pigeon peas.
Kismet Douglass hurried from pot to pot under the shade of her tent at the Q House Farmer’s Market, where the “global flavors” of Momma Kiss Kitchen Cuisine were on display.
In one pot she cooked Jamaican jerk chicken with rice and pigeon peas, and in another, Thai curry vegetables with jasmine rice — all served up as part of a food business showcase featuring 10 local culinary entrepreneurs.
by | Aug 22, 2024 1:43 pm | Comments (47)
Thomas Breen photo
Elm City Market: Moving from 360 State to "Square 10."
(Updated) A downtown grocery store that has anchored a luxury apartment complex at Chapel and State streets for more than a decade will be closing up shop this fall — with plans to move two blocks down the road to a mixed-use development currently on the rise at the former Coliseum site.
by | Aug 15, 2024 9:33 am | Comments (4)
Eleanor Polak photo
Sandreen Fergusen: “I have a little twist on everything that I make.”
Sandreen Fergusen, the owner of the Jamaican food truck Cool Runnings, has loved cooking since she was seven years old. Fergusen’s mother used to give her money to go buy snacks, and she opted instead to spend it on new ingredients — chicken, turkey legs, rice — to practice her culinary skills.
by | Aug 14, 2024 1:34 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photos
Haven Hot Chicken's Jason Sobocinski: 25 spots by 2025!
Chicken aplenty at Wednesday's presser.
Haven Hot Chicken co-founder Craig Sklar ticked through the ways that the local Nashville-style fried chicken takeout restaurant strives to be a responsible employer in an industry too often beset by low pay and high turn-over.
Hourly employees start out earning above minimum wage, plus tips. There are ample opportunities to rise the ranks to trainer or shift lead or even into corporate. All workers are eligible to receive employer-provided healthcare after they reach six months on the job.
Fellow business co-founder Jason Sobocinski quietly interrupted, pointing at Sklar from the side of the press conference and urging him not to forget another perk. “401(k),” he said.
by | Aug 8, 2024 3:35 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Hamden, Woodbridge Starbucks workers have filed for union elections. New Haven (pictured above) not on the list.
Workers at Starbucks cafes in Hamden and Woodbridge filed petitions for union elections on Wednesday, alongside 13 other locations across the country that are hoping to join the more than 400 stores that have already won their unions as part of Starbucks Workers United.
Continue reading ‘Starbucks Workers File For Union Elections’
by | Aug 6, 2024 8:27 am | Comments (12)
Lisa Reisman photo
Danilo Mongillo's Ragú Napolitano
“This is the story of the ragú,” Danilo Mongillo said, sliding a small bowl of sauce from the refrigerator and setting it on the counter of the newly opened Strega New Haven on Chapel Street, “and it’s a slow story.”
The story began with a mix of pork and beef.
Continue reading ‘Grandmothers' Ragú Transported From Puglianello’
by | Jul 26, 2024 4:48 pm | Comments (34)
Laura Glesby Photo
Neighbor Radcliffe: "I want my meat in a package."
Your soon-to-be-beheaded dinner inside here?
“Which of these chickens would you like us to slaughter?”
Meat-eaters may have a chance to answer that question at a live poultry market on Kimberly Avenue, unless at least one Hill neighbor has a say in the matter.
by | Jul 26, 2024 1:18 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photo
Sublimity, in a bowl.
Omar Rajeh had the slow-cooked fava beans ready to go. A little mashing, pinches of seasoning, a drizzle or two, and a signature dish was ready to go.
by | Jul 25, 2024 9:25 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photos
At the gallery: Sonal Soveni and her Blue Vein Mural.
On the table: a Kale-Caesar salad.
On the wall next to the entrance of The Table & Gallery, located at 1209 Chapel St., is the “Blue Vein Mural,” which encapsulates everything that the culinary and artistic space is all about.
The mural is made out of pages taken from two eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books on patriarchy and the oppression of women, covered by flowing blue shapes that recall water droplets flung into the air. An educational message is transformed into a work that evokes cleansing and freedom, as well as the idea of going with the flow.
by | Jul 24, 2024 3:03 pm | Comments (5)
Asher Joseph photos
An Island Spice classic: oxtail, carrots, cabbage, and rice.
Nadine Tracey: "Jamaican food has more spice, more natural herbal flavors like thyme and scallions that boost the taste."
The stubborn ox is no match for the Tracey family.
Exhibit A: the Oxtail Lunch.
Continue reading ‘Daughter Honors Mom's (Island) Spicy Legacy’
by | Jul 22, 2024 5:09 pm | Comments (5)
CitySeed chief Sarah Miller (second from right) leads Sate Sen. Martin Looney, State Rep. Pat Dillon, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, city Health Director Maritza Bond, and state agriculture chief Bryan Hurlburt on tour of former factory.
The state’s top agriculture official walked into an empty Fair Haven factory Monday and reached for his wallet.
Well, metaphorically.
Continue reading ‘CitySeed Starts Pitching HQ/Commercial Kitchen Plan’
by | Jul 17, 2024 12:57 pm | Comments (6)
Francesca Liuzzi photo
Lino Liuzzi with brother Nicola, co-founders of Liuzzi Cheese.
The aging room at Liuzzi cheese — what Lino built.
Pasquale “Lino” Liuzzi’s first job upon immigrating to America in 1962 was pouring concrete for sidewalks in the Bronx.
A few weeks after landing that work, he saw an ad in an Italian newspaper: a factory in East Haven was looking for a cheesemaker. He decided to give it a shot.
So he took a train to New Haven station — and took his first steps towards building a Connecticut cheese empire.
by | Jul 15, 2024 3:52 pm | Comments (33)
Thomas Breen photo
Joe Sabino and Rosa DeLauro: Good friends - pointing the finger in different places for high food prices.
Greedy corporations are to blame for high grocery prices.
Or maybe global supply chain disruptors like avian flu, drought in West Africa, and the war in Ukraine are most at fault.
Or maybe we should point the finger at too few workers willing to put in an honest day on the job.
by | Jul 11, 2024 2:34 pm | Comments (1)
Charlotte Anderholt’s cranberry tart pie with hazelnut crust.
Abiba Biao Photos
Harris, Ray, and Sarah Harris Wallman.
Harris Wallman only needed an hour to craft his delicious blueberry-mint-cream cheese pie for the summer’s first Hi-Fi Pie Fest. The base, made up of sugar cookie dough, had a cream cheese filling seasoned with lemon juice, lemon zest, and ginger. The pie couldn’t be complete without the pièce de résistance: a creamy blueberry sauce layered on top.
by | Jul 11, 2024 11:18 am | Comments (5)
Asher Joseph photos
Rudolph Ford, serving up Jamaican culinary "classics" ...
... including rice, peas, cabbage, jerk chicken, fried plantains, and oxtail, at Sunday Dinner Everyday on Grand.
Fifty-two years after arriving in New York City at the age of 16, Rudolph Ford has helped his wife, Dorma Bryan, achieve the “American dream” — with a Jamaican twist, as one of the newer culinary outposts of a fast-growing local immigrant community.
by | Jul 9, 2024 2:26 pm | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
Marcus Harvin at Saturday's doc premiere, with Bill and Kathy Carbone.
In the trunk of his car, Marcus Harvin has a rock from the parking lot of a vacant building on Bassett Street. So does his friend Babatunde Akinjobi. The two met when they were incarcerated at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.
“Each of us carries it around, believing that one day soon we will cut a ribbon for that property,” Harvin told a spirited audience of 60 family, friends, and supporters at Peterson Auditorium at the University of New Haven (UNH) on Saturday night.
The occasion was the premiere of “Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story.” The short documentary, which was produced and directed by UNH film students Elisa Broche, Jay Sanders, and Gabe Nelson, chronicles Harvin’s journey from incarceration to Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) graduate to UNH presidential fellow to founder and president of the nonprofit Newhallville Fresh Starts, Inc., an enterprise to feed people’s dreams.
Continue reading ‘Documentary Spotlights Newhallville Community Activist’
by | Jul 9, 2024 9:10 am | Comments (12)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
At the new Jitter Bus cafe's grand opening.
While patrons celebrated the grand opening of Grand Avenue’s Jitter Bus Coffee, in the back corner of the café stood a framed coffee-stained page torn out of a notebook, tucked on a shelf.
It read: “This letter of correction serves to prove that Darlene A. Miconi sold a 1999 Chevy G30 Express to Daniel Barletta on February 6th 2015 for a sum of $3200.”
by | Jul 8, 2024 11:45 am | Comments (2)
Eleanor Polak photo
Stephanie Berluti.
Stephanie Berluti of South Haven Farm was selling vegetables and greens at her stand at the CitySeed Edgewood Farmers Market on Sunday when she was approached by a man asking if she had any arugula.
Unfortunately, Berluti hadn’t brought any arugula that day — it had been too hot for it recently. The man was disappointed, but he still left her on a note of praise.
“He said my arugula ruined him for other arugula,” said Berluti. “This time of year, in the heat, farming can get you down, so it’s nice to get compliments.”
Continue reading ‘Farmers Market Brings Community To The Table’
by | Jul 2, 2024 4:26 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen file photo
Sarah Miller: Taking on a new Fair Haven-based mission.
New Haven’s pioneering grassroots food-justice organization CitySeed is entering its third decade with a new home, a broadened mission — and a new leader.
by | Jun 27, 2024 11:13 am | Comments (4)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photos
Ariel Diaz: "I've been in the convenience store business my whole life."
For Ariel Diaz, who recently opened Big Apple Grocery & Deli on Blatchley Avenue, convenience stores are a family affair.
When he was growing up in Brooklyn, his father “had stores all over Manhattan and the Bronx.” His uncles own stores in Connecticut. His own brother has one in New Haven, too.
“You have to be running around” City Hall constantly in order to get anything done, Diaz told a group of city officials and fellow food entrepreneurs about the challenges of opening a business in the Elm City. “It’s very time-consuming and money, too.”
Continue reading ‘Food Biz Owners, Hopefuls Seek Clearer Path’
by | Jun 26, 2024 11:08 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Sherry Pocknett: "We've been here for 12,000 years and we're not going anywhere."
Catching and cleaning eels with relatives. Learning about the migratory patterns of birds and fish. Deciding that snapping turtle soup might be your favorite dish.
For renowned Indigenous chef Sherry Pocknett — who led a cooking demonstration at Gateway on Tuesday as part of the Arts & Ideas festival – the cultural and personal history is part of what makes the food so rich, and the reason she cooks it so well.
Continue reading ‘Celebrated Indigenous Chef Tells The Stories Behind The Flavors’
by | Jun 24, 2024 9:11 am | Comments (1)
Naseema, Aminah, Astou, and Adila serving their dishes on the Green.
“The word ‘refugee’ hurts,” said Aminah Alsaleh, “it means you don’t have a home.”
As she served yalanji — vegetarian stuffed grape leaves — to New Haveners on the Green, more than 8 years after fleeing war in her home country of Syria, she reflected that she no longer identifies with the label.
She was one of three representatives from Sanctuary Kitchen, along with Chefs Astou and Adila, who brought dishes from their home countries to Arts & Ideas’ World Food Bazaar on Thursday evening in celebration of World Refugee Day.
by | Jun 21, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (3)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Re-X Clinic attendees with their pickles.
The kitchen of MakeHaven was cramped and filled to the brim with the strong smell of vegetables, oil, and brine. Eight people gathered with Young Le Do on Thursday night to participate in a pickle-making workshop called Re‑X Clinic: In a Pickle!
Some people brought the contents of their fridge. Others darted across the street to Elm City Market to purchase vegetables and herbs. The group shared ingredients between them, until the air was as filled with camaraderie as the jars were filled with salt.
Continue reading ‘Half Water. Half Vinegar. Some Salt. Much Fun’