This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Business & Tech

A Slope Supper Club

Our resident foodie hobnobbed with the leading lights of Brooklyn's culinary world at Ger-Nis' quarterly Supper Club

I recently sat down for a six-course “modern French country farm-style” dinner in a beautifully outfitted loft space on President Street, between Third and Fourth avenues. At least 30 other foodies and I had all gathered to attend the latest Sunday Supper Club at Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center, a “recreational and educational cooking center” focused on sustainable, organic and fair-trade products which just celebrated its first anniversary.

The Supper Club, which is held quarterly, could truly be called “the event of the season" — alongside foodies like myself, noted local chefs often show up to celebrate the bounty of fresh, seasonal foods.

I had previously taken two cooking classes at Ger-Nis in the fall — one in roasting, and the other focused on squash. So I was looking forward to the gala event, which included live jazz, an art raffle, fine food and wine, and scintillating conversation, both with fellow guests, and even the purveyors themselves.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

The evening began with cocktails which made interesting use of fresh herbs — mine combined Lillet, cucumber gin, fresh cinnamon basil syrup, and fresh blood orange juice, while others relied on lemon balm, tarragon, or garden cress.

Dinner began with a light soup of spring garlic with American caviar and a glass of sparkling Sekt-style Riesling, with which we toasted the birthday of Nissa Pierson, a chef, organic herb specialist, and the genius behind this remarkable space. The wine was poured by the vintner, Christopher Nicolson of Red Hook Winery, which provided the evening’s libations. Our second course was cured trout (from the Union Square Greenmarket) with fiddlehead ferns; this was paired with a minerally Burgundian white. 

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

Next on the menu was “heritage pig face,” which was provided by Patrick Martins of Heritage Foods USA.  It was served with baby mustard greens from Long Island City's rooftop farm, Brooklyn Grange.

Now, while it’s fashionable to eat offal these days, and sustainable in that you’re eating an oft-discarded part of the animal, even though no particular facial feature was recognizable, some rebranding might be in order.

But with Martins looking on from a couple of seats away, it didn’t feel right not to dig in — that’s the catch of having dinner with the folks who brought you your food. I did notice that others at the table made fast work of the fatty morsels, but I opted to eat just the tasty rillette on the side of the plate, accompanied by an egg-yolk/mustard gribiche sauce, and the greens. The wine with this course was rosé of saignée — which, we agreed, was the best of the night.

And I enjoyed talking with Martins, the former head of Slow Food New York, about his mission. He specializes in heritage breeds of animals, which have unique (and sometimes very flavorful) traits which are being lost because of industrial farming.

“You’ve got to eat them to save them,” he likes to say.

The next dish was a generous portion of grass-fed lamb shoulder from Jamison Farm in Pennsylvania, with potatoes and ramps, and brightened with preserved lemon. The wine was a full-bodied and intense Cabernet Franc.

After dinner, we had a cheese course — a ripe, raw-milk, washed-rind cheese called Hooligan from Cato Corner Farm in Connecticut (and available at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket).

The cheese was provided by the lovely Anne Saxelby, a former fine artist turned cheesemaker and owner of Saxelby Cheesemongers in the Essex Market (“with a name like Saxelby, what else could I have done?” she quipped). She explained to me that washed-rind cheeses are bathed in brine, wine or other alcohols regularly to encourage the growth of bacteria, and were a favorite product of Trappist monks.

The cheese's pungency was cut perfectly by diced pickled rhubarb, and complemented by a dry VSP white wine, made by Abe Schoener, whom Esquire magazine refers to as a “renegade vintner.” Mostly Chardonnay with a touch of botrytized (moldy) Riesling that’s been allowed to interact with oxygen, the wine smells sweet, like a Vin Santo, but isn’t.    

The pièce de résistance of the evening was a superb millefeuille, with delicate layers of chestnut honey, buckwheat crepes and ricotta by Salvatore Brooklyn.  And we finished off with a dessert wine called The Electric. Some have called this wine “completely shocking” and something to “enjoy on an intellectual level”— in the spirit of full disclosure, I must say I was right sozzled by this point in the evening, and it tasted just fine by me.

All the dishes were prepared by Chef Gabe McMackin of Roberta’s in Bushwick, and Chef Colin Flynn, who was the food stylist for the foodie flick Julie and Julia.

Completely sated at the end of the evening, I made my way home with a charming painting (by Nissa’s sister Jennifer) that I won in the raffle. Sadly, I forgot my goodie bag — but I hear it was good indeed, with homemade fresh ramp-basil pesto and lemon mint-chili chimichurri.

While the price of admission to the Supper Club was a bit steep, at $130, that covered everything, including cocktails and the raffle ticket. And it was a delightful way to spend a spring evening, sampling some of what Brooklyn has to offer in the way of fine food and wine, and rubbing elbows with culinary movers and shakers—all right in my backyard.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?