American Meat Theatrical: Chefs & Butchers

Tuesday, April 16th

Chefs & Butchers: Any New Yorker will tell you that one of the best things about the city is its restaurants. And in those restaurants, you will not only find beautifully-prepared steaks and perfectly-seared hamburgers, but you’ll also see local farmers like Michael Yezzi dragging entire pigs into a kitchen--because many chefs and restaurateurs are devoted to supporting local farms that practice sustainable, humane methods of raising animals. This is a chance to hear leading chefs and restaurateurs talk about how they made their visions into reality, and how meat can be an art form.

• Mary Cleaver is the founder and owner of the Cleaver Co. and the Green Table in New York City. The Cleaver Co. is a full-service event planning and catering operation with a large roster of private, non-profit and corporate clients, and a full-time staff of 50. The Green Table is a farm-to-table restaurant in the Chelsea Market where guests enjoy delicious dishes that demonstrate a commitment to seasonal cuisine. Most recently, Mary opened two food and beverage kiosks at The Battery in partnership with the Battery Conservancy, which are bringing a local focus to concession-style food and drink. The Cleaver Company and the Green Table are widely recognized for utilizing local farms and purveyors in order to obtain the best-quality product, and for supporting small to mid-size farms and family farmers. Mary is a founder of the Farm to Chef network and a board member of Food Systems Network NYC and Local Infrastructure for Local Agriculture.  

• Tom Mylan is the executivebutcher and co-owner of The Meat Hook, a butcher shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he cuts, smokes and cures meat that is sourced from small, family-owned farms. Tom has been featured on the Travel Channel'sNo Reservations with Anthony Bourdain, the Cooking Channel's Food Crafters, NPR's All things Considered and The Brian Lehrer Show, in addition to appearing as a guest lecturer at Yale University. He has written for New York Magazine, Gourmet.com, and he currently writes a column for the Atlantic Magazine Food Channel. Tom is responsible for several community oriented-food projects, including the Unfancy Food Show, an annual, affordable event featuring local, artisanal food producers, which celebrates Brooklyn's return to hand-crafted, environmentally aware food ways.

• Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, found himself increasingly drawn to the food industry after spending years on a mostly unfulfilling corporate marketing career track. As he diligently researched food-based businesses to learn as much as he could about as many areas as he could, it became clear that meat was where his heart (and stomach) lay. He dug deeper and found that the meat options available to consumers were severely lacking in quality. How could it be that there were so few avenues through which people could purchase humanely raised and responsibly sourced meats? Following his passion, Jake started apprenticing at farms and butcher shops to get his hands dirty and immerse himself in the day-to-day operations of the meat business, in the hopes of starting one of his own someday. His dream became a reality in 2009 when he opened Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market. Now, his self-proclaimed, “candy shop for carnivores,” has become one of the most sought after purveyors of fine quality meats in the city and has expanded to a second location in TriBeCa’s All Good Things Market.

• Bill Telepan is the owner and founder of his eponymous restaurant “Telepan,” which opened in December of 2005 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Telepan was voted “Best Newcomer” by the Zagat Guide for 2007. Telepan is the author of the book “Inspired by Ingredients” and he serves on the Chef’s Advisory Board of the Institute of Culinary Education, City Harvest’s Restaurant Board, and a board member & executive chef of Wellness in the Schools. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. As Jonathan Gold wrote in his December 2002 review for Gourmet Magazine, chef Bill Telepan’s cooking is “like listening to a Haydn string quartet doubled at the octave. This is pretty much exemplary of Telepan’s cooking at its best: grounded in an American classic but lifted beyond it by absolute devotion to the quality and sourcing of produce, the smack of sharp fragrance, and the confidence to exploit subtle variations in flavor and texture.”

• Graham Meriwether is a documentary journalist who serves as the director at Leave It Better, a film production company committed to telling solutions-oriented stories about environmental challenges. Graham studied at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is based in New York City. For the past five years, Graham has been focused on directing and distributing  American Meat. In 2010, Meriwether founded the non-profit organization, Leave It Better Foundation, whose mission is to empower youth to heal our environment.

• Moderator: Rachel Signer is a Brooklyn-based writer focused on documenting and supporting social change projects. She received her M.A. in sociocultural anthropology from The New School for Social Research in 2010. Rachel is the Public Relations coordinator for American Meat and is a founding member of the Green Rabbits consultancy.

WHEN

April 16, 2013 at 7pm

WHERE

Cinema Village
22 E 12th St
New York, NY 10003
United States
Google map and directions

$5.50 USD · 5 rsvps

rsvp