Hope's Harvest Success

Hope’s Harvest 2007 was a huge success and we thank all of our participating chefs, restaurants and markets. We encourage you to support their restaurants and businesses throughout the year!

Tomatoes and Peppers: Chef Jesse Hernandex – Tower Inn Café, Ypsilanti

Chef Jesse Hernandez from Tower Inn and Café (Ypsilanti). Chef Jesse prepared a Roasted Vegetable Lasagna at Hope’s Harvest 2007. Chef Jesse was born in Mercedez, Texas. He attended Washtenaw Community College’s Culinary Arts Program. He has worked at Tower Inn since 1999 as a sous chef and was promoted to chef in 2004. His creations have been featured in the Ann Arbor News, Current Magazine and channel 2 News Detroit.

Tomatoes and Peppers: Chef Janea Makowski from Carson’s American Bistro – Ann Arbor, Michigan

Chef Makowski prepared Stuffed Hungarian Peppers with Roasted Tomato Butter Sauce

www.carsonsamericanbistro.com

Roots and Shoots theme table: Chef Peter DiLorenzi, from Michigan State University Family Nutrition Program and Lo-Tech Foodways

Chef Peter DiLorenzi prepared a West African Root Vegetable Chowder featuring onions, chard, squash and pumpkins, sweet potatoes, carrots, corn and fresh herbs

Roots and Shoots Theme Table: Chef Peter Julian, Executive Chef Hiller’s Market

Chef Pete prepared a delicious Root Vegetable Pancake with aged cheddar and Michigan dried cherries. He is originally from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where he attended Culinary school. He relocated to Michigan in 1986 to pursue a culinary apprenticeship at an area hotel. In 1993, he noticed a new trend in HMR (home meal replacement) at various retail markets. He has been involved in the supermarket industry since then. The past 7 years he has been employed as executive chef of Hiller's Markets.

Bread provided by Bread and Flowers; Lambert Cheddar and Basil Bread

Bread and Flowers, is a pilot project of Fora LLC. Fora's function is
to incubate businesses and organizations until they reach their goals
of operational autonomy and social, environmental and economic
sustainability. The goal of Bread and Flowers, is to provide a
high-quality, organic product that supports sustainable growing
practices and forms of commerce while paying its staff a livable wage.
The project began as a concept this past March when Guillermo Maciel
and Jodie Emmett began planning their garden, but really took off with
the commitment of our baker Aaron Gilliam. Fora is in the process of
searching for new community members to become involved in Bread and
Flowers while increasing the capacity of the project and to help it
reach the following goals:
1) Supporting and promoting goods that are As Local As Possible (ALAP)
2) Encouraging organic growing practices
3) Creating our products with zero waste
4) Utilizing the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model to reduce
costs to the consumer and risk to the business
5) Expand our product line and market while maintaining the highest quality

To become a member of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Plan
or to get involved, please contact us at #503.886.9108 or via email at
breadandflowers@gmail.com.

Harvest of Herbs Theme Table: Chef Eve Arnhoff is the proprietor of eve – the restaurant, Ann Arbor.

Chef Eve prepared a refreshing Chili-Lime Gazpacho with fresh herbs and fresh herb croutons at Hope’s Harvest 2007.

Eve was born in New York and raised in East Lansing, Michigan. She graduated from Brandeis University in Boston with a BA in Comparative Literature. Graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France with diplomas in French cuisine and wine and spirits. She is working toward becoming a master of wine through WSET in London (now 5 years into the program!)

Chef Eve is an active member of the slow food movement and works to implement the slow food movement values through her restaurant. She has worked in the restaurant industry for 14 years in Boston, Ann Arbor, Israel and Paris

She has specialized training and experienced working at the nationally acclaimed Monahan’s Seafood and Durham’s Tracklements Smokery and has done consulting work with mediterrano and Café Zola.

Restaurnat background: Open Sept 2003; features contemporary cuisine based on the philosophy of French cooking – features north African, west African, Cuban and Vietnamese influences. There is a diverse, esoteric wine list featuring 40 wines by the glass as well as tasting flights and special value wines (called excursions).

There is a newly opened Wine Bar (Sept 2004) with over 40 wines by the glass, tasting and food pairing menu, tasting events, informal classes and discussions focusing on vinification and viticulture

Meat and Cheese Theme Table: Creamery Cheese Terrine provided by Zingerman’s Deli – a terrine of Zingerman’s Creamery Cheese and Great Hill blue cheese layered with pesto and oven-dried tomatoes

Meat and Cheese Theme Table: Chef Alex Young, Zingerman’s Roadhouse, Ann Arbor.

Chef Alex prepared Hungarian spiced lamb and chicken with heirloom tomatoes, potatoes and peppers

Chef Alex Young was born in London, England and moved at a young age with his family to San Francisco, CA. AT the age of 17 and with professional culinary training, he moved to NYC and got his first job cooking for the Central Falls Roadshow, which catered to feaure films and music videos such as Wall Street with michael Douglas and all of Madonna’s east coast videos. In his career, Young helped open Ne York’s China Grill with Mako Tenaka, worked with Chef Reed Heron (of Mark Miller’s Coyote Café) at San Francisco’s Corona Bar and Grill, and moved to London, England, to work at the Portabella Road restaurant, The First Floor, as the Executive Chef.

Additioally, his work has taken him to Traverse City, Long Beach CA and Pittsburgh PA where he worked as the corporate chef of Hilton’s Restaurant Group.

In 1997, a mutual friend introduced Young to Zingerman’s co-foundres Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, and in 2001 they decided to open a restaurant together. Zingerman’s Roadhouse opened in September 2003 and is dedicated to bringing food-loving folks really good American food.

Chef Alex Young and company focus on using the very best available ingredients such as heirloom corn and rice from Anson Mills in S. Caroline, chiles from Los Chileros, Ne Mexico, specialty aged country hams from Col. Nancy Newson in Kentucky, really wild rice, hand harvested in Minnesota and selected artisan cheeses from Wisconsin and Vermont, to name a few. The menu includes an extensive seafood selection with a wide variety of oysters from the East, West and gulf coasts. The Roadhouse also features organic produce grown on Alex’s family farm in Dexter. Saginaw, Weinzweig and Young are constantly traveling looking for lost but happily refound culinary traditions.

“The quality of the ingredients affects the quality of the food”, said Young, “and we are really interested in sustainable food production that preserves the environment while producing superior flavor.

Fall Fruits Theme Table: Blue Cheese Grapes provided by Zingerman’s Deli – Juicy red grapes with a combination of Great Hill Blue cheese and Zingerman’s creamery cream cheese, rolled in sugared pecans

Fall Fruits Theme Table: Fall Fruit Sorbet provided by Zingerman’s Creamery

Fall Fruits Theme Table: Spiced Pumpkin and Maple and harvest Carrot and Cream Cheese Mini-cupcakes provided by Cake Nouveau

Chef Courtney Clark of Cake Nouveau: Throughout her beginning years as a professional pastry chef, Courtney Clark’s keen artistic eye and flair for the aesthetic have earned her the reputation throughout Southeast Michigan as a go-to chef for wedding and event cakes with style. Her colorful creations have been described as whimsical, fashionable, and abstract—but are equally as celebrated for their standout flavor and exclusive use of pure, high-quality ingredients.

If it hadn’t been for five dark-suited businessmen in Chicago’s downtown, though, Courtney may never have made it out of the drawing studio and into the kitchen. As a class project at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Courtney took plain cakes to the city’s financial district and recruited businessmen to decorate and take home as their own personal pieces of artwork.

The project ignited Courtney’s passion for “edible art,” and soon after she transferred to the world-renowned French Pastry School of Chicago. Studying French pastry allowed Courtney to pursue her dream of “creating art that satisfied each of the five senses,” which she did under the intensive instruction of famed pastry chef Jacquy Pfieffer. The school awarded her the "L'Art de la Patisserie" certificate for mastering French pastry techniques in 2002.

Upon graduation, Courtney launched a wedding and event cake business called Cake Nouveau out of her tiny apartment kitchen in Chicago. She meanwhile continued to grow her skill and expertise in artistic pastry while assisting the accomplished Colette Peters at the 2003 World Pastry Forum in Las Vegas.

Later in 2003, Courtney moved Cake Nouveau to her hometown of Saline, Michigan. While she developed her business locally, she also served as the Head Pastry Chef at the joint-venture of Daniel’s on Liberty and The Moveable Feast—a four-star, Zagat-rated restaurant and catering operation located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was with the Moveable Feast & Daniel’s for 2 years before the rapidly-growing Cake Nouveau beckoned her to her home kitchen full-time.

Courtney’s decision to focus on specialty cakes paid off—Cake Nouveau is expanding to a storefront retail location opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in November. The store will offer a daily variety of “couture” cupcakes, gourmet cakes by the slice, full decorated cakes, and custom wedding and event cakes. Located in downtown Ann Arbor’s charming Kerrytown district, the shop will feature a fun, unique atmosphere for cake-lovers to enjoy.

For more information on Courtney and Cake Nouveau, visit www.cakenouveau.com.

Wines provided by The Earle and Everyday Wines, both in Ann Arbor

Water Provided by Arbor Springs, Ann Arbor

Coffee provided by Bombadill’s Coffee House, Ypsilanti