Brooklyn Bounty 2014: Delaware and Hudson

Excitement is in the air for Brooklyn Bounty, Brooklyn Historical Society’s premier tasting benefit this fall! On October 22, at the impressive 26 Bridge Street in DUMBO, guests will treat their palates to tastings from Brooklyn’s finest chefs and restaurants. With this year’s theme, “Kings County Agricultural Fair,” we celebrate Brooklyn’s vibrant sustainability movement with delicious and exciting samples from all across the borough. In the next few months leading up to the event, to whet our appetites for what’s to come we will profile several of the participating restaurants, as well as feature the prolific careers of our awardees. For tickets to Brooklyn Bounty or to participate, please visit our site.

Delaware and Hudson: A Delicious, Feel Good Choice

Chef Patti Jackson in front of her restaurant.

Delaware and Hudson, a new hit restaurant in Williamsburg, is an essential choice for an event like Brooklyn Bounty, celebrating Brooklyn’s burgeoning sustainability movement. Open since May 1, 2014, chef and restaurateur Patti Jackson brings over 30 years of culinary expertise to the table. Being a chef is ingrained in Patti, and visiting her in her element at the restaurant shows her passion and dedication to food. She is still a small town, Pennsylvania cook at heart, who has never lost her roots in simple, homegrown food. Her 38-seat restaurant is a warm and inviting place. Photographs taken by her husband of farms and fields hang on the walls and set the stage for the locally-sourced, creative, and inspired meal you will enjoy there.

Patti often starts her day with a visit to the farmer’s market, usually at Union Square or Borough Hall. A true food lover, she refers to perusing ingredients as “therapy time,” a time she can focus on concocting dishes and letting her creativity begin to flow. Based on what she finds and the inspirations that follow, she begins to craft a menu for the coming days. When I visited, she had picked up some green coriander seed, a unique flavor that was new to me. She began describing the many ideas she had for using this flavor, and I was fortunate enough to have a little taste.

Green Coriander Seed, fresh from the farmers market.

Green coriander seed as a dressing and garnish on a roasted and pickled beet salad.

Patti is creatively passionate about her cooking, but she is also a pragmatic environmental food steward. Sustainability is a popular movement these days, and consumers are bombarded with a whole host of terms meant to validate their food choices as environmentally friendly. But like many food-conscious people, Patti cringes at terms that have become generic, such as “farm to table,” “organic,” and “sustainable.” She points out that often

 

these terms are used with little value. “A farm can be in Iowa and the table can be in Brooklyn, and you could call it ‘farm to table.’”

Patti also points out that it costs farmers a hefty price to certify their farms as organic, a cost that can often be prohibitive for small-scale farmers, and yet their produce is a better choice than a corporate organic enterprise. So Patti primarily obtains her ingredients from small family-run farms with whom she builds relationships over time; she knows they are making responsible choices, despite the fact that they cannot be certified “organic.” She limits her ingredients to what can be found from Buffalo to Baltimore, while staying as close to home as possible. Her creativity produces endless results, making her food not only guilt-free, but exciting and delicious.

Delaware and Hudson, 135 N. 5th in Williamsburg

Luckily for all Brooklyn Bounty attendees, Patti’s fall creations will be on display for all to enjoy. Expect to see fresh, seasonal ingredients from Delaware and Hudson with unique but simple flavors, with a variety of local purveyors represented.

Purchase your Brooklyn Bounty 2014 tickets today!

Author: Avi Scher, Development Intern