By Kimberlee Preish
Upon our arrival in NYC, we got in one night’s rest and then set straight off to preparing for the week! After orientation at the James Beard Foundation where the entire team was finally united for the first time, the kitchen brigade traveled to Long Island City in Queens to start prepping for Monday’s event at HSFI at Mi Kitchen. Mi Kitchen is a food incubator where new businesses and entrepreneurs can rent space to test out new recipes or prepare items for an event. The first order of business was to check all the items delivered with the ones received, and then they starting preparing and cooking.
On the other end of things, the service team set off to run errands and complete service tasks. One of our first jobs was to pick up any items that could not be found by a purveyor. Most of the items we needed were easily found at larger grocery stories, however, with some specialty items like the sheep’s milk ricotta or fresh brewer’s yeast, we needed to look elsewhere. Fortunately, the TuttoToscana program has been coming to New York for 9 years now, and has discovered some unique places that appreciate Italian style ingredients just as much as we do. For example, an area in the Chelsea Market called Buon Italia has everything from finocchiona to sheep’s milk ricotta. After finding everything we needed, we hopped on the subway to Queens (which might have been the most challenging aspect of my day because it was my first time riding the subway!) and met up with the rest of the team. After arriving, we assisted with sourcing a few additional times. Being the first day, the chefs had a few items to iron out but it exciting to be able to contribute.
After double and triple checking that the kitchen had everything they needed, we stood back and let them work their magic. I cannot wait to see the end result tomorrow, both in the food aspect and how it’s my first time presenting and managing for an event this size. Wish us all luck!!!