Rockland

The chefs have spoken, but you have to wait until 7 p.m. Feb. 29 to taste the recipes judged best of the many from BOCES students who have links to other countries.

The five winning recipes will be featured at this fundraiser for a new BOCES adult education scholarship that will be given to English as a Second Language students. The dinner will be held at the gym at BOCES, 65 Parrott Road in West Nyack. Tickets are $45; available at www.rcwc.org or by calling 845-445-7625. The snow date is March 1.

The honoree is Rockland County Clerk Paul Piperato, who has sworn in many new American citizens.

But to go back a bit – the chefs gathered Feb. 7 at Union Restaurant in Haverstraw and decided that the best recipes came from El Salvador, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Azerbaijan. Each winner has a great story about where they came from, what these recipes mean to them, and how a scholarship opportunity can help them launch their careers.

The Rockland County Welcome Committee is organizing the event, and one of the folks involved said “We originally set out to ask a few of our local restaurateurs/chefs if they would mind being recipe judges to our wonderfully diverse ESL student recipes that were submitted.”

Well, a lot of chefs responded, as you can see from the picture below taken by Richard Quinn. The folks involved included, starting from the left:

Paulo Feteira of Union Restaurant; BOCES instructor Kendell Brenner; William Boydston, director of Rockland BOCES Adult and Career and Technical Education, Marcello Russodivito of Marcello’s; Al Moschetti, adult education supervisor Rockland BOCES; Alain Eigenmann of Alain’s French Bistro; Ula Robertson of At Your Service NY Caterers; chef Jose David Martinez of Union Restaurant and Bar; Ellen Emmert and Christine DeLillo, both of the  Rockland County Welcome Committee; Mike Fasciano of  Giulios Restaurant; Doug Trabal of Restaurant Depot; Maryanne Olive of  Sour Kraut Restaurant and Olive’s Bar; Ayal Lindeman; Bosede Akamiokhor of Affinity Health; Emmett Woods of Emmett’s Castle; Dorothy Clark, owner of Laraia’s Cheese Shop; and  Joe Rispoli, owner of Savory Cinema. Patrick Sherrill of Harbourside Grille was there, but the camera screen ran out of space! And unfortunately, Udaya Prakash of Bombay Grill couldn’t make it.

The dinner had its inception when culinary instructor Kendall Brenner asked his ESL students to bring in a home-cooked family meal for a celebration. One thing let to the other organizers have been swamped with chefs offering to help and/or donating items for the event – like copies of Russodivito’s cookbook, gift certificates and so on.

Among the groups contributing to the event’s success are Shoprite, Restaurant Depot and Stop & Shop; Affinity Health, the Nanuet and Blauvelt Lion’s Clubs and the Blauvelt Club’s  Leo’s youth group.

 

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