THE OPT OUT CHEF

MY NEW BLOG IS THE OPT OUT CHEF WE ARE NOW ON TUMBLR

 

Off the menu Wednesday’s New York Times

check it out and come up and see the leafs peaking this weekend

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/dining/20off.html?ref=dining

Bagel video

watch me make New York City bagels and teach you how to make them at home.  After researching I have found that a good bagel does not exsist anymore.  It is a dead art and hopefully I will start to bring them back. You can taste the bagels at All three Fred’s enjoy

Barneys/Fred’s Scottsdale, AZ opening

I’m happy to announce that Barneys New York and Fred’s will be opening in Scottsdale, AZ on October 15, 2009.

Check your newstands, as Barneys and Fred’s are featured in a beautiful cover story in this week’s Arizona Republic.

In Scottsdale, the store and restaurant are located at:

Fashion Square, 45oo N. Scottsdale Road

602.337.6111

www.barneys.com

Come visit us in lovely, warm Scottsdale!

Chicago Sun Times Pat Bruno give Fred’s Chicago 2 1/2 stars

Fifty nights of hard work and the commitment of Chef Jean and his Sous Chef Sean netted great results. For a New York Based Restaurant to be Loved by Chicago is no small task. It takes a totally Chicago team of GM Mark, Lauren and Michelle in Front and the Local Culinary team to make the restaurant shine.
Here is the link and enjoy

1629615,WKP-News-BrunoFred19.restaurantreviews

Serious Eats Loves Fred’s Chicago pizza

Here is the link Chef Jean and I worked on this dough recipe for weeks and its always good when the Press love it.
Thanks for reading
freds-barneys-department-store-chicago-illinois-il-pizza-review.html

Fred’s Chicago makes Artisan Bread

Our daily bread

Pain Levian

Mark’s hand made brunch bagels

Chef Jean and I baking artisan bread at Fred's Chicagp

Homemade bagels and Aritisan baking at Fred’s Chicago

• Artisan Pizza •

Made from 100 % king Arthur Flour our dough is kneaded and Fermented in the true Neapolitan style. Our mozzarella is homemade and our tomato source imports directly from the san marzano valley.   The Olive oil is Monini made from 100 % Italian olives Spoleto Italy.

Trade Fossil Fuel for Human Fuel

First appeared in Huffington Post

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer in beautiful, historic, depressed Sullivan County, New York, an area about 2 hours outside of New York City that’s better known as The Catskills. Except for the iconic 1969 cultural event that was Woodstock (actually held in Bethel, NY) the last heyday of this region was during it’s borschtbelt resort era: the 50’s and early 60’s (immortalized in the movie “Dirty Dancing”), when middle class New York families flocked there to the large hotels—The Concord, Grossingers, The Pines—for their summer vacations. Golfing for Dad, camp for the kids, cards for Mom. The towns of Sullivan County were thriving then. The big hotels and restaurants provided lots of jobs, and other local businesses did well too: dry cleaners, delis, bookstores.
The deregulation of the airline business in the 70’s ushered in the global economy we have today, and slowly killed the resort industry in Sullivan County. Suddenly it was affordable to travel to Europe, and in a jumbo jet it didn’t take all that much longer than driving north. The Main Streets of the towns all over Sullivan County slowly emptied and deteriorated.
We’re living with the effects of the global economy in more ways than one today. Look at the food on our tables. Here in New York, like everywhere else in America, our fruits and vegetables are flown in from all over: Florida, Texas, Mexico, California. They’re the products of globalized, corporate farming conglomerates that are accountable to Wall Street and their shareholders. These farming corporations are constantly finding new ways to produce abundant harvests faster and cheaper for better profits. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with profit. But corporate farms make their profits at a steep price.
For one thing, the growing methods of most corporate farms are not sustainable. Traditional, sustainable farming requires that crops be rotated from year to year, which enriches the soil but changes your yield (and hence your profits). Wall Street doesn’t like that kind of uncertainty, and so corporate farms use mono-cultural growing methods, which deplete the soil on a massive scale. In addition, the produce needs to be transported around the world, consuming large quantities of fossil fuels at a time when it’s clearly in our best interest to use less. So the cost of food has skyrocketed and food banks are running dangerously low. If that weren’t enough, throw in the salmonella that randomly contaminates our produce and is hard to trace because our food travels a path that leads all over the world. The fruit of NAFTA and globalization is, literally, poisoning us.
I look out the window at the rolling fields of Sullivan County and I see a solution. How about growing fruits and vegetables here in Sullivan County to supply the supermarkets, restaurants and schools of New York City? The price of gas is giving us the opportunity to begin a shift back to a local economy. Doing so would give us control of our own food supply, help us use less oil, and revitalize regions, like Sullivan County, which have lost local industries to a global marketplace.
A Wall Street day trader in the 90’s told me an axiom I’ll never forget: the market always gives you a second chance. Well, gas prices are giving us a second chance to evaluate our economy, our values, the very way we live. I say one solution is to grow our own crops, locally. Trade using fossil fuel for growing human fuel and in the process revitalize Main Street America

Artisan Pizza at Fred’s

• 

• Artisan Pizza •
Made from 100% King Arthur flour.  Our dough is kneaded and fermented in the true Neapolitian style.  Our mozzarella is homemade and our tomato sauce imports directly for the San Marzano valley.  The olive oil is Monini made from 100% Italian olives from Spoleto, Italy.

Margherita  $18
Mozzarella, tomato, basil and olive oil

Wise Guy  $21
Mozzarella, tomato and freshly ground hot and sweet sausage
and roasted peppers

La Bella Donna  $19
Sautéed mushrooms, roasted peppers, caramelized onions,
sautéed zucchini, mozzarella and tomato

Emilia Romagna  $24
Bianco mozzarella, Parmesan drizzled with 12 year-old Aceto Balsamico
Pizza of the year 2004 Naples, Italy

Prosciutto with Arugula and Shaved Parmesan Cheese  $21
Thinly sliced Parma ham, tomato, mozzarella and arugula

Maccelleria  $22
Mozzarella, tomato, soppresata, coppa and caramelized red onions

Robiola with Truffle Oil  $24
Ciro’s focaccia with Italian cream cheese and truffle oil

Focaccia Gene  $19
Italian tuna, arugula and sliced tomatoes with smoked mozzarella