In the few seconds that I dared to open my eyes during the Death Race by Yellow Cab from LaGuardia Airport to our hotel in Greenwich Village, I thought I spied a metaphor for the chefs who were here from South Florida to cook dinner at the renowned James Beard House.
Photo courtesy of Lisa Ozag
Like the passengers in the rampaging taxi, the quartet of executive chefs from Boca-based Rapoport’s Restaurant Group—Ben Burger (of Henry’s in west Delray Beach), Jon Greening (Deck 84 in east Delray), Jay Prisco (Burt & Max’s at Delray Marketplace) and David Innes (pastry chef)—would be jammed into a hot, sweaty, crowded space, deadly determined to make it from Point A to Point B. They would endure and overcome the inevitable glitches and delays, soak in the atmosphere of New York City at full bore and finally arrive at their destination, exhausted but exhilarated and ready to do it all over again.
It’s no small honor to cook at the Beard House, the former residence of James Beard, “America’s First Foodie” and a champion of stateside cuisine when the phrase itself made European chefs giggle at its seeming presumptuousness. You don’t ask to cook at the Beard House; you’re invited. Invited to prepare a multicourse meal for up to 80 Beard Foundation members and Big Apple food mavens.
Invited to fly your chefs, their equipment and the “product” (aka, food) to New York—plus cover your team’s hotel, meals and expenses. In the case of Restaurant Group proprietor Burt Rapoport, the invitation came with a tab in the neighborhood of $28,000. Not exactly a low-rent neighborhood.
So why, you may ask, do they do it?
