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’
by | Jun 7, 2024 11:35 am | Comments (0)
One hundred sixteen years after George Smith’s Grand Avenue workers started flattening warmed hard candy into circles on a stick, Connecticut’s governor has officially recognized his contribution to American culinary culture.
Continue reading ‘It's Official: New Haven's "Lolly" Is Connecticut's Candy’
by | May 28, 2024 5:29 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photo
4th-generation Louis' Lunch burgermeister Jeff Lassen tends to lunchtime crowd in between hosting elected officials.
Fresh off planting New Haven’s pizza flag in D.C., Mayor Justin Elicker led an official delegation to Crown Street Tuesday to lay claim to yet another round-and-flat New Haven original.
by | May 23, 2024 1:29 pm | Comments (0)
The following photos were taken on May 22 during a trip that a 100-person-strong delegation of New Haven apizza makers and boosters made to Washington, D.C. to witness U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro enter a statement into the Congressional record declaring New Haven the “Pizza Capital of the United States.” Click here for a full story on the day’s events.
The delegation, holding custom "Connecticut: The Pizza State" pizza boxes in front of the chartered Avelo plane.
Continue reading ‘In Photos: Apizza Delegation Heads To D.C.’
by | May 22, 2024 3:44 pm | Comments (47)
Arthur Delot-Vilain Photos
Mayor Elicker and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, surrounded by New Haven pizza-lovers on the steps of the U.S. Capitol: Pizza accomplished.
Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "I like pizza."
“Nothing ah-beetz New Haven apizza!” Mayor Justin Elicker led the chants of 100 assembled New Haven pizza-makers and boosters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol as the delegation that had traveled to Washington, D.C. for the day reached its destination — to witness U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro enter a statement into the Congressional record declaring New Haven the “Pizza Capital of the United States.”
On the Capitol’s steps, DeLauro read from the declaration she had entered into the Congressional record Wednesday. She spoke about her family’s connection to New Haven pizza: “Frank and Filomena Pepe were at my parents’ wedding,” she said, and “my mom and Sal Consiglio played baseball together on Wooster Street.”
She reiterated the importance of the declaration as the rest of Connecticut’s congressional delegation joined her on the steps. “There are some naysayers from Chicago,” DeLauro said. “Really? No contest. Connecticut has the most pizzerias of any state per capita.”
Continue reading ‘U.S. "Pizza Capital" Declared; MTG Dodges Question’
by | May 13, 2024 2:03 pm | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman Photo
New House Garganelli at Hotel Marcel.
Legend has it that garganelli originated with a Bolognese housewife who was making tortellini for her guests when she realized her cat had devoured all the filling. So she took the squares of pasta she had already cut for the tortellini, and then rolled them around a stick and over a loom comb for ridges.
“She made it happen,” said Megan Gill, the 28-year-old executive chef at BLDG, a 70-seat, three-meal restaurant inside the iconic Hotel Marcel on Sargent Drive, as she added the pasta into boiling, salted water on a recent afternoon.
by | May 9, 2024 1:35 pm | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Miriam Camacho, back at FAME with her new book.
Former Principal Miriam Camacho returned to her old school in Fair Haven to encourage students to always hold on to their home cultures — and, when possible, to make sofrito from scratch.
by | Apr 30, 2024 12:16 pm | Comments (4)
Lisa Reisman photo
Jimmy Apuzzo and Joseph "Pino" Ciccone at the meat counter.
Ex-business owners make the best employees, according to P&M Orange Street Market meat department manager and ex-business owner Jimmy Apuzzo, who’s retiring on May 15.
“I have almost a photographic memory,” Apuzzo, 69, said on a recent morning in the basement storeroom of the East Rock market where he began his working life on Dec. 6, 1967. He was 13. “I can walk into the cooler, look around, and instantly know what’s there and what’s not.”
by | Apr 18, 2024 9:30 am | Comments (49)
Thomas Breen photos
162 James St., now owned by CitySeed.
Food truck owner Clementine Johnson (second from right) checking out the space Wednesday.
A factory building that once churned out button-down shirts and laminated credit cards could soon grow local food businesses.
by | Apr 17, 2024 11:37 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Brandon Haynes and Javon Culbreath on a mission: groceries first, then basketball.
Sixth- and seventh-graders Javon Culbreath and Brandon Haynes headed to The Shack to kick off their spring break playing basketball in the sun — and wound up grabbing some free groceries to take home, too.
by | Mar 25, 2024 12:47 pm | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden Photo
Student composters Akira Torres, Zuhal Jamal, and Juliette Bolanos...
...and their life-saving food scrap stats.
11 New Haven Academy (NHA) students have helped to divert 3,285 pounds of food scraps from landfills so far this school year.
Continue reading ‘NHA Composters Get To Work Saving Food Scraps — & The Planet’
by | Mar 12, 2024 1:39 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photos
It fits! Eddie's Everything Extravaganza, prize item (above) at Whalley's newly opened Lea's Falafelhaus.
Would all those fixings fit into that palm-plus-sized pocket of flexible flatbread?
“We’re gonna learn,” Eddie Eckhaus said, “right now.”