Tag: the pantry
It’s called the Pantry
Well. World events don’t seem to get any less troubling, so we might as well get back to business. Yes?
Last week, I said that I wanted to tell you about a new project, and I still do. It’s a project that grows out of Delancey, but it’s a whole new thing: a business headed up by two of our friends, Brandi Henderson and Olaiya Land. Brandon is technically the third partner, but this baby really belongs to Brandi and Olaiya. It’s called the Pantry at Delancey, and we’re all very excited about it. Excited. Maybe that word isn’t strong enough. Elated? Too strong? Thrilled? Let’s go with thrilled. We are thrilled.
Maybe you already know
Brandi.
She’s the executive pastry chef at Delancey. She’s been with us
since December of 2009, when she moved up from San Francisco to
take the job. Those of you who have been to the restaurant will
recognize Brandi as the woman behind the Meyer lemon budino, the
cider-poached apple with ginger streusel, the rhubarb shortcake
with mascarpone cream, and the cannoli with blood orange and
candied pistachios. I daydream about that cannoli sometimes. She
also makes the ricotta that we use at Delancey, writes a blog
called I made that!, and
in her meager spare time, likes to cure meat. (That’s pancetta
up there, in the top picture.) In general, Brandi likes
making things, and that’s why we like her. And handily,
she’s trained as an architect, which also makes her good at
building things. She’s currently the construction foreman for
the space that will soon be the Pantry. She’s also in need of a
massage.
You know Olaiya, too. I’ve written about her a lot, because she’s taught me so much about cooking.
Brandon met Olaiya in 2006, shortly after he moved to Seattle,
when they worked together at Boat Street Cafe and Kitchen. The
first time we ate dinner at her place, she made baked eggs with
caramelized onions, and as you can see, I still remember it. A
month or two later, she braised a pork shoulder in Coca Cola and
served it to us with a pile of warm corn tortillas, and even
though we were helping her move and had to sit on the floor to
eat, I still remember that, too. In the years since, Olaiya has
run her own
catering company
and taught cooking classes at
Sur La Table,
PCC, and
Delancey. I think it’s fair to say that she’s a gifted teacher.
She makes it look like an afternoon stroll. I’ve gotten to sit
in on her classes a few times, and if you’ve ever taken a
cooking class from me and felt that you learned something, it’s
not because of anything I did: it’s because Olaiya taught me how
to teach.
We’ve cooked a lot together, eaten a lot together, and worked a
lot together. Actually, I wrote a fair piece of my first book
while sitting next to her in a coffee shop near her apartment.
And I wrote the bulk of the proposal for my next book the same
way. I feel lucky to get to work beside her, both independently
and collaboratively. And really, when you get down to it, that’s
what the Pantry means to me: making things, and making our way,
with our friends.
I guess I should tell you what the Pantry is? Forgot about that.
The Pantry is a
community kitchen. It’s a space for hands-on cooking classes,
family-style dinners, private events, and locally sourced
catering. It’s located directly behind Delancey, on Alonzo
Avenue NW, with a garden entrance designed by
Fresh Digs. (There’s only
mud and fence posts right now, but not for long.) There’ll be a
16-foot farm table, a cooking camp for kids in the summertime,
and a small retail area stocked with independent food magazines,
Weck canning jars, Delancey cookie dough and pizza dough, all
our best stuff. Brandi and Olaiya already have a number of
classes in development: a pizza-making class with Brandon,
butchering and meat-curing with Russ Flint of
Rainshadow Meats, a
food writing course with
Francis Lam, a City Chickens class with the good people of
Stokesberry Farm, classes with Olaiya, classes with Brandi, a class or two with
me – more than I can easily list here. And eventually, the
Pantry will also make a lot of products for Delancey, products
that we currently have to source elsewhere, like fresh
mozzarella, pepperoni, bacon, pancetta, and salame. The
projected opening date is sometime in late spring. Cross your
fingers.
I took these shots a few Saturday mornings ago. They’re outtakes
– or, at least, I think they’re going to be outtakes
– from the
Pantry’s website,
which our friend Sam is
building. (More pages to come.) We were sitting there that
morning, Brandi and Olaiya and Brandon and Sam and I, at the
communal table in the dining room at Delancey, with cameras and
film and blood orange peels everywhere, and Olaiya said
something that I’m going to paraphrase badly, but maybe the
spirit will still come through. She said something like,
Look at this! Can you believe we get to do this? Each of us
doing what we like to do, each of us doing what we do best,
all of us working together?
I’m happy for our friends, and happy for that.