By Larry Gordon
It was a night featuring the best in kosher food, wine, and spirits. And that is precisely what was being celebrated at the KFWE–the Kosher Food and Wine Expo held on Monday night at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. We were feting great kosher food and wine by partaking in some of the finest food and wine that the New York area has to offer.
So before we get down to some of the innovative food and wine purveyors that we encountered, let’s talk about the crowd. My estimate is that in the course of the evening, about 2,000 people passed through those West Side doors at what looked like a grand reception. Standing on line, I heard someone remark that there was everything one could possibly imagine, but just no chuppah.
This was the ninth annual KFWE event sponsored by the Royal Wine Company and the Herzog family, who milled through the crowd to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves. The party population as far as I observed is divided pretty much into two categories: those who come to drink, and those who come to eat. There is also an overlap–folks who are there to both eat and drink.
For food and wine connoisseurs, this might be considered one of the high points of the year. I did my own hobnobbing and milling around at first just to get the lay of the land and then to set my sights on what was potentially good and exciting to eat and drink. This was the seder ha’yom, the schedule and formula that most present at the expo followed. First a drink, then some food, then another drink, more food, another drink, food, food, and food.
So we arrive, and it’s a matter of first things first. I’ve been in touch with the folks at the Psagot winery just outside of Jerusalem, so that was my first stop. Then something caught my eye, the Shiloh Heroes Edition 2014–a special set of three single-vineyard wines exhibiting the uniqueness of the Shomron terroir.
They feature delightful wines with a mild but tasteful bite, and I figured that with the BDS campaign trying to impact Israel with more intensity than ever these days, it is important to promote the beauty and attractiveness of products from the Shomron more than ever before. So not only were we partaking of tasteful wines and spirits, but we were lodging a stylish counterprotest at the same time.
This expansive hall on the shore of the Hudson River on Pier 61 is truly something to behold. The ballroom, so to speak, is divided into two distinct sections. The larger area is for the display of kosher wines from all over the world. There are wines from Israel, France, Italy, Spain, and California. The wines take up about two-thirds of this large and impressive room.
The other area is where people seemed to be congregating as the clock struck the dinner hour because that is where all the food was stationed. For the purpose of full disclosure, let me say I was sticking pretty close to the Pelleh Poultry station, because it is owned and run by my son-in-law and daughter, Eliezer and Dini Franklin. The fact that it is one of the most popular stops in the room has nothing to do with me. It’s just that they have been producing some extraordinary duck products over the last two years that have been the rave of kosher food shows on a consistent basis.
So if you were a food presenter and your serving table or booth is in proximity to the Pelleh Duck table, then chances are that I checked in to see what you were up to and what you were serving.
Until this past Monday night, I had never heard of Judd’s Memphis Kitchen. But to Judd’s good fortune, he was right across the way from Pelleh, so I took a few steps over. Yes, as billed, Judd is from Memphis and he is running a Memphis-style kitchen, whatever that is. Judd resides and his commissary is on Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights. I tasted a hamburger that he made on the spot and then watched him thinly slice some delectable, perfectly cooked wood-smoked brisket. Without knowing too much, I ask Judd where his restaurant is located. He responds that as yet he does not have one, but he has a food cart that he moves around the city and even to the Five Towns in a shul parking lot on many Thursdays and some Fridays during the year.
Judd says that he has many followers and that they just know when he is in town. Later I met a friend at another food station and I told him how good Judd’s Memphis Kitchen is; he says to me that he knows–Judd catered his Super Bowl party. So now I have a new friend who is a great foodie and I think that after he reads this, our friendship will flourish and be even more meaningful.
While I was focused on food, a little later on I could not help but notice a table with a sign that read “Miami Beach Chocolates.” That is where I met the proprietor, Tzvi Schachter, who told me that he basically opened this popular Miami Beach chocolate emporium on 41st Street for his children to have a business. I’m sure you pass it all the time (it’s near House of Dog and downstairs from the jewelry store). Well, Tzvi was there all by himself, and I asked if his plan was to eat only chocolate all night. I told him I would bring him some duck to taste. I did and he was thankful.
Later in the evening, I met well-known food impresario Jamie Geller, who now lives in Israel but used to live in Far Rockaway before she made aliyah some years ago. Jamie has her name on the masthead of the Joy of Kosher magazine and had her start as an artisan chef right here in the pages of the 5TJT about 12 or so years ago. Not far behind Jamie was Shlomo Klein, the publisher of Joy of Kosher, and his buddy, the popular party planner and food-stylist magician Heshy, of Scoop fame.
I also ran into Menachem Lubinsky, the man who brought new identity to the concept of kosher food through his innovative Kosherfest events that take place just about every November in the Meadowlands. Jay Buchsbaum, the face of Royal Wine and one of the great experts on fine kosher wines, was making the rounds as well.
It was only Monday night, but there was at least one booth serving cholent and kugel, and that was the Wandering Que, a New Jersey-based catering company that does upscale parties as it makes itself known in the kosher market.
The list of food merchants and chefs goes on and on. Overall, the KFWE is quite a lively scene, with lots of young and not-so-young couples waiting on line to get in at $125 a head to partake of the latest in upscale kosher food and wine. It was also quite a social scene without being identified specifically as one, but that was fairly obvious as small groups of young men and women made their way around savoring sushi, duck, and brisket, as well as tasting Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and some fine and sweet dessert wines.
As the person quoted above said, this was quite a lavish, almost-wedding-caliber event with only the chuppah missing. Perhaps for some at the KFWE, that will be the result, and we will have a few of those in the weeks and months ahead as well.
Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.
