Food

What A Locavore Chef Learned From His Bubbe

Image by Courtesy of Gramercy Farmer & The Fish

By Michael Kaminer February 25, 2017

Image by Courtesy of Gramercy Farmer & The Fish

Michael Kaphan’s bubbe helped get him into the New Yorker.

No, she’s not his publicist. But Kaphan, chef-owner of recently opened Gramercy Farmer & the Fish in Manhattan, features her chopped liver recipe on his farm-to-table menu. “Sautéed in chicken fat and mixed with herbs and hard-boiled egg white, it’s luxuriant enough to be the main event, instead of its traditional billing as a side dish,” the magazine raved.

A locavore menu heavy on fish and veg, Gramercy Farmer & Fish is Kaphan’s second eatery; Purdy’s Farmer & The Fish, in Westchester County north of Manhattan, opened five years ago.

Kaphan spoke to the Forward from his restaurant.

Image by Courtesy of Gramercy Farmer & The Fish

Your bubbe was the star of that New Yorker piece. How did she influence your cooking?

My bubbe was a classic Eastern European Ashkenazi cook, whose repertoire included potato perogies, potted chicken, brisket and rugelach. I learned her techniques by watching her and cooking with her. What she would cook back home in Poland is what was harvested from their farm. I learned to do the same with my farm and her technique has always stuck with me. I follow Bubbe’s classic recipe with no alterations.

Your restaurants emphasize farm-to-table. What does that mean in your case?

Our farm, Purdy’s Farm, is in North Salem (Northern Westchester County). I spend all winter doing a crop plan with my farmers for the next year’s crop. Come spring and summer we harvest daily and run daily trucks to the restaurants. I choose which crops to bring based on thinking about what I want guests to experience in their meal. Some crops may be regular stand-bys such as broccoli and kale and then I try to introduce new vegetables that guests may never have encountered or seen locally such as yacon.

What Jewish food do you think could improve with some farm-to-table components?

Latkes. Instead of just using potatoes I always make them with carrots and turnips from the farm, or any other root vegetables we’re growing at the time. It gives it a fresh farm-to-table flavor.

Michael Kaminer is a contributing editor at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected].

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO