Patrick Martins/Anna Harrington on Anne Saxelby Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene. We have a special show for you today because we're talking about Anne Saxelby, the champion of the American farmstead and artisanal cheese movement and passed away last year at the age of 40, leaving behind an entire community of cheese makers, farmers, chefs, customers, and foodie fans, not to mention her family and three young children. Anne was widely regarded as one of the nicest and most genuine folks on the food scene here in New York. She was the founder of Saxelby Cheese, which you can find both online and at Chelsea Market here in New York, and also authored the book The New Rules of Cheese.
Joining me today is Anne's husband, Patrick Martins, another much loved person on the New York food scene. Some of you might know Patrick from his work at Heritage Foods or from the two organizations he co-founded, Heritage Radio, where Radio Cherry Bombe got its start, and Slow Food USA. Patrick is here to talk about his wife Anne and the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund, which is dedicated to keeping Anne's spirit alive and helping support the independent food system she loved deeply. Joining Patrick is Anna Harrington, who is leading the charge on the legacy fund's big event, which will take place Wednesday, September 14th at Chelsea Market and will feature dozens of top chefs and purveyors. Tickets will go on sale in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned. I personally loved Anne very much and I'm honored that Patrick and Anna are joining us today.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by Käserei Champignon, a 100-year-old cheese producer based in the heart of Bavaria that happens to be the maker of Grand Noir blue cheese. This exceptional blue cheese marries a silky smooth texture with bold notes of blue and irresistible complexity. A 2022 best in class winner at the renowned World Championship Cheese Contest, Grand Noir starts with fresh Alpine milk from family farms throughout Bavaria. Each wheel of Grand Noir is carefully dipped in black wax and then aged at cool temperatures to develop a luxurious texture and incomparable taste. Grand Noir is also lactose-free and vegetarian friendly. Easily recognized by the distinctive black wax mantle, the award-winning Grand Noir is the perfect choice for impressive cheese and charcuterie boards or for topping your favorite steak or salad. For inspired pairings, recipe ideas, and more, follow Thisisfinecheese on Instagram or head to thisisfinecheese.com to find Grand Noir at a retailer near you. While you're there, be sure to enter the Cambozola Taste the Extraordinary giveaway for a chance to win one of three luxurious beach vacation up to $10,000 in value. Visit thisisfinecheese.com for more. No purchase necessary to enter. The sweepstakes ends December 31st, 2022 and is open to legal residents of the 50 United States and Washington, DC who are at least 21 years of age at time of entry. Subject to official rules, which are available at cambazolasweeps.com. Void where prohibited.
We've got a little housekeeping. Our May member meeting will take place Wednesday, May 18th on Zoom. If you are a member check your inbox. If not, you can head to cherryBombe.com to join. The contemporary cake artist, Bronwen Wyatt of Bayou Saint Cake, I'm sure you've all seen her on Instagram, will be joining us for a demo and conversation. And then of course, we will have networking at the end. It's been fun meeting a lot of you through the networking sessions, so I hope you stick around. The member meeting is presented by California Prunes, so thank you to our prune pals out on the West Coast. Prunes are one of my favorite healthy snacks and I often have a pack of prunes in my bag, true story.
Lastly, I hope you all caught the final episode of Julia on HBO Max. I am the host of the companion podcast, Dishing on Julia, so if you haven't listened to that, please do. You can find it wherever you listen to your podcasts. I have had a ball interviewing the cast and the crew and special guests like Ina Garten and Claire Saffitz.
Now, let's check in with today's guests. All right. Patrick, Anna, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Anna Harrington:
Thank you.
Patrick Martins:
Thanks.
Kerry Diamond:
It is very good to see you both. Before we get into everything about Anne and the fund, I want us to talk about what we mean when we say American cheese, because people are automatically going to have one thing in their head and that is the Kraft Single and that is not what we're talking about today.
Patrick Martins:
Absolutely not, although Anne did grow up with the Kraft Single and not even the yellow one, the white version of it in Libertyville, Illinois, so that's all she ate. And then one day she was like, "I think there's a bigger world out there. I got to try it," and she fell in love with American farmstead cheeses. Her first apprenticeship was with Cato Corner Farm, which you can see here at the New York City green markets. They have stands all over. I don't know exactly what that apprenticeship entailed, but I knew it involved a lot of cats and sleeping in an attic. But she did learn a lot and it prompted her, not to become an expert on how to make cheese, but it opened the door to that side of the world. And she then went on to do different apprenticeships like that in France and England, one with a winery, other cheese makers, and she grew a passion to start a shop called Saxelby Cheesemongers, which some say is the first all-domestic cheese shop in the United States.
Kerry Diamond:
How and why did she launch Saxelby Cheese?
Patrick Martins:
Anne was a very outgoing, loving person and she loved to open doors for people and she loved to learn by meeting new people. That was how she learned. It wasn't so much through books, it was experiential, and so she studied on these farms. She had these 30-day long apprenticeships on these various farms around the world and said, "We need to start a shop where these farms could have a spot, where I could be their spokesperson, where I could provide samples." I mean, she must have provided 10 million samples to all these different New Yorkers. I mean, we would walk down the street anywhere, Brooklyn, Queens, Upper East Side, and people would be like, "Anne Saxelby?" and I was always like, "Hey, I'm Patrick Martins. I started Slow Food. I started Heritage Foods. I save endangered breeds from extinction." No, nothing. Nobody wanted me. Everybody wanted Anne. They were in love with her and they all had a story of her. So she started a cheese shop to help infuse money into rural communities, rural dairies. I mean, she really wanted to help and she also just loved cheese. I think in high school she wrote her high school essay on decomposition.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I read that, and fermentation.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah, fermentation, so she always had some passion for that whole thing.
Kerry Diamond:
It's very advanced for high school.
Patrick Martins:
She was very smart. I think she had one of those photographic memories. She remembered everything. Everybody's name, their story, things like that.
Kerry Diamond:
And she studied art in college, right? She didn't know cheese was her future.
Patrick Martins:
But yeah, she became disinterested in that culture. It wasn't a friendly culture. It was a tough culture to navigate so she went fully into cheese from fine art.
Kerry Diamond:
The original Saxelby Cheese was in Essex Market, the original Essex Market. So some of you might only know the new Essex market, which is bright and shiny, and the previous Essex market across the street was a grittier, funkier place, right?
Patrick Martins:
Low ceilings.
Kerry Diamond:
Low ceilings.
Patrick Martins:
People forget that market, the original one was started by Fiorello La Guardia as a spot to move the push cart vendors off the streets of New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Patrick Martins:
So it didn't have the highest beginnings, in terms of ... It was delicious food, but these were people that were manning the streets, the sidewalks for years and then they were funneled into this place. So they didn't get the best architecture, whatever the best respect from the city, but the vendors were amazing. It was the best place to buy Spanish foods and cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
And Kenny Shopsin was there.
Patrick Martins:
They called it the Cape of Good Hope because Anne and right next to her was Kenny, who was famous for being tough on people, but his daughter is going to be represented at our fundraiser on September 14th. Shopsin's is going to be there's, which is cool.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's fantastic. Well, we will get to the fundraiser in a little bit. But the original spot, how did she wind up there?
Patrick Martins:
She just wanted a spot to open a cheese store. And her father was like, "Go low overhead, low overhead. Don't buy a space. Go to an existing market or something like that." And they fell in love with that spot, but Anne was there with a very, very tiny space and 100% only domestic cheese as well. One exception Parmigiano Reggiano, which has never been imitated.
Kerry Diamond:
So, Anne really owned her niche. I mean, there were no other shops in New York City specializing in, I was saying artisanal cheese, but used a different term. What did you say?
Patrick Martins:
Well, American artisan cheese, farmstead cheeses. That's where I think the cows are on the very same farm where they make the cheese. She studied in France, in Italy. But when she ...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, is that the definition of farmstead?
Patrick Martins:
Farmstead that I understand, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it. Okay.
Patrick Martins:
But she studied in those places, but when she started cheese shop here, she was not interested in bringing those cheeses. She believed that American food culture legitimate and had the full potential. I mean, she's a real pioneer. She was very young. I mean, Saxelby Cheese just turned 16, so she was 25 when she started this and it took real guts to say, "No European cheeses." So when someone tried to buy Gorgonzola, she would be like, "You have to buy Gordonzola," this weirdly named cheese that's respecting the terroir name of Italy, but made here.
Kerry Diamond:
And then Anne was one of the original food podcasters. She had a show called Cutting the Curd.
Patrick Martins:
Well, I wanted her to call it Curds Whey, but she stuck with Cutting the Curd.
Kerry Diamond:
So you started Heritage Radio, which is where Radio Cherry Bombe got its start, so we have Patrick to thank for Radio Cherry Bombe even existing.
Patrick Martins:
I'm happy you left us behind there in Bushwick because this is much nicer digs where you are.
Kerry Diamond:
Rock Center, Roberta's ...
Patrick Martins:
Similar.
Kerry Diamond:
They're both great places.
Patrick Martins:
Both high quality.
Kerry Diamond:
Both high quality, a hundred percent. But you started Heritage Radio because you have a company called ...
Patrick Martins:
Heritage Foods. Heritage Foods is the country's largest distributor of rare and endangered livestock, so we sell heritage turkeys, heritage pigs. They have to have a long history in the US and be pasture-raised and antibiotic-free. So selfishly, I just wanted to start a radio station where my chef friends could come and talk. I always felt that food got short shift by the media and it was always viewed as a fashion or a trend, when in reality, chefs were really powerful business people. They were employing tons of people. They were representing cultures through their cuisine, sometimes the only representative of that culture, in New York with that cuisine. And it's where everybody wanted to spend their time, at restaurants, at bars, at a cocktail bar, and so nobody was giving them the respect they deserved about how they started, who were their influences, where they learned their trade, their craft, so we started that ...
Kerry Diamond:
What year was that?
Patrick Martins:
2009, we started. I had the worst four hours in the history of radio. I started a four-hour show. I was determined. So I started selfishly because I wanted the chefs, my customers to have a place to come hang out without me having to go visit them in the kitchens. And also, I wanted to honor Carlo Petrini, the great mentor, founder of Slow Food, who started a pirate radio station in Italy in 1974. So his was on the radio waves, this was a podcast, but we dropped two shipping containers in the back of Roberta's who was more than happy. They figured they were going to get two free shipping containers out of the deal once we gave up or went out of business. But 12 years later, it's still going strong.
Kerry Diamond:
So, I'm going to repeat that for everybody. So Heritage Radio has operated out of two shipping containers in the back of Roberta's, the famous pizza place in Bushwick. And for years we, Radio Cherry Bombe, broadcast out of there and it was a fun, quirky place. So, Anne came on as a guest.
Patrick Martins:
And I went up to her.
Kerry Diamond:
One of the early shows.
Patrick Martins:
With Roni-Sue from Roni-Sue Chocolates.
Kerry Diamond:
So you were drawn there for some reason and you get there and you're like, "Oh, I want to ask this woman out on a date."
Patrick Martins:
She's very tall, very beautiful. I think she had something wrong with her knee so she was wearing a boot, some medical boot. And I was like, "I got to ask her out," so I asked her to do a show called Cutting the Curd or Curds Whey and then she said, "I can't," and I asked her out. And so we talked more about it and she eventually did the show and then we went on to get married and have three kids, so it worked out. Radio was good to me.
Kerry Diamond:
Anne was so drawn to indie movements. She loved this cheese world. She loved the podcasting world. She loved the indie food world in New York. What was it about her that she was so drawn to that?
Patrick Martins:
She was also a small business of the year and has a photo with Bloomberg. She was high and low and all things. She treated everybody the same, but she was cut from some tree, some bark that goes back thousands of years. It's about somebody who is always positive, who took everything in and dealt with it elegantly. She was very elegant. She was very gracious. She was very kind. She gave you her full attention to everybody, every customer, or with you, and then she would stop and then go to the next person and give them the full attention. I don't know how she did so much, but no one ever felt that she was rushed or unkind. She was ambitious, but it didn't seem that. It was this one-in-a-million person that everybody loved. She could be at a disco. She could be with the king, a queen, the butler in the basement and the penthouse and she was comfortable and people were comfortable with her.
Kerry Diamond:
She also loved the chef community so much.
Patrick Martins:
And they loved her.
Kerry Diamond:
And they loved her back. What was it about the chefs that she loved?
Patrick Martins:
That they were like pirates in their pirate ships, under the ground drinking beer, and she saw in them their importance as celebrities and as individuals who were able to drive economies, especially in these rural places that weren't getting the attention. And so she was there always on her bicycle. Cheeses were always on her bike. I mean, her thighs were so strong from riding everywhere. She would drive Upper West Side everywhere in the city, Brooklyn, Queens, all on her bike with 50 pounds of cheese in the back. It used to be a basket and then it was the kids' seat, so it would be full of cheese, and she would go and provide the samples. Chefs loved having her come over because of her magnetic energy and she would slice all the cheeses and do the taste. And then they would become customers of those dairies. And Jasper Hill wrote a lovely obituary to her saying that she changed the destiny of rural communities throughout Vermont and New Hampshire through her little spot in New York and through her going around on her bicycle, providing samples, introducing this concept of quality food. And the chefs loved it because they tasted these cheese and they were like, "These dairies are amazing. I don't need to import. I have this right here." It might not be called Brie, but it's just as good and creamy and local.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned the bicycle. For folks who have never seen the Saxelby logo, that's inspired by Anne. That's Anne on a bicycle.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah. She has a bicycle, everywhere on a bicycle. She was so healthy. Then sometimes she would call me or I'd call her. Mostly I called her and she would pick up and I'm like, "Are you on your bike? Where are you?" And she's like, "Oh, I'm driving up the hill in Park Slope." I'm like, "I can't even hear you out of breath." I'm out of breath in an elevator and she's going up on a ...
Kerry Diamond:
I can barely walk up those hills, let alone ride a bike up them. Anne also authored a great book that's available today, The New Rules of Cheese. Tell us about the book.
Patrick Martins:
Favorite chapter was Cheese your own Adventure. But she just in her typical style and conversational, simple style, simple words, just talked about, she also knew all the complicated science terms too, but she just talked about how to enjoy cheese, how to build a cheese plate, the history of cheeses in America. She broke down blues and can you eat the rind, so it's basically a friendly little pocket guide. It was designed as a pocket guide. You keep it in your back pocket, keep it in your kitchen, and it has all your questions answered right there.
Kerry Diamond:
Did she always want to write a book?
Patrick Martins:
No, she just took it on as another task. She always said yes. Her mother, Pam Saxelby, wrote children's books and was like, "Anne, can you design all the drawings?" Anne's like, "Of course, I can do that. I'll do it." I'm like, "Anne, stop." And by the way, no one noticed that she wrote the book, me included. She would just wake up early. She always said she had two or three breakfasts and she would just wake up at 5:00 and do all the drawings. And then in three months she had a whole book done for drawings or she would write a whole book in six months, but it was never instead or it was never complaining that she was working or never like, "I can't go out on the weekends with you and the kids." It was always all the things yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the fund. I thought it was very interesting that the fund's called the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund. You could have just called it foundation. Why did you choose the word legacy?
Patrick Martins:
Because of our lawyer. No, just kidding. We had a guy next door, Herb. When it's law, we have to call him Herbert. When it's just hanging out in the elevator, I call him Herb and then my daughter calls him Herbis, because she's only five and doesn't know how to pronounce his name. So Herb was like, "Call it a legacy fund." He loved Anne. His wife is a judge. They helped me start this because they knew Anne so well and liked her so well and so they wanted to see this be successful. So I don't know, it's a legacy fund because personally, I like this idea of Anne still being in the news, still being current, chefs still wheeling and dealing an event for her. Her apprentices still going onto farms to do like she did many years later in her name.
Anna Harrington:
And I think of it as a way of really trying to carry on all of these things that you describe of about Anne, all of these personality traits of hers that are so extraordinary and passing that on to other people through, in particular, the apprentices. But even with our benefit, the amazing, good feelings from all of the chefs that are coming together for this and really carrying on for years to come with all of these different apprentices and every year that we do the benefit in Anne's legacy and in her memory and really trying to honor and live out all of these exceptional qualities that she had.
Kerry Diamond:
Patrick, what would you say are the main goals of the fund?
Patrick Martins:
The main goals are to provide fully paid month-long apprenticeships for young adults to live and work on a farm and to learn the new trade the way Anne did in her 20s.
Kerry Diamond:
And was that your idea?
Patrick Martins:
It was Anne's but it was us who remembered that she had done that. And Anne had an idea right before she died, that Republicans and Democrats would send their teenagers to each other for a month and see if that fixed things a few years down the line, red state and blue state teenager exchanges. I don't know if she had that idea independently or had read it somewhere, but I always was inspired by that. And then she herself would spend these 30 ... She literally walked on or talked her way on to farms. She'd be in the town square, she'd go up to a farmer booth and say, "[foreign language 00:20:48]." They were like, "Oh, this nice person," and they would trust her. And they would say, "Yes, absolutely," and so she would spend 30 days with them and it was beautiful. And so we wanted to provide those opportunities to young adults who might not otherwise have had access. We also wanted to decrease the barrier of entry by paying them $20 an hour for four 40-hour work weeks and pay all travel, all food, a monthly stipend so that we could accept applications from anybody. And we also have a very strong focus, thanks to our partner, Winona LaDuke on Native American Food Sovereignty and actually, a third of our apprentices, we have 35 apprentices going for one month this year ...
Kerry Diamond:
That's a lot. Congratulations.
Patrick Martins:
13 of them are going to be in Minnesota at the Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute, which is Winona's work. They grow hemp, they raise horses, they have heritage potatoes, they do maple syrup, they do wild rice, wood parched wild rice out of canoes, so we have 13, a third of our total apprenticeships are going to be going to Northern Minnesota to work with Winona and her team there.
Kerry Diamond:
That's right. I guess you're calling it your first class, your first group of applicants. What surprised you about the applications?
Patrick Martins:
The diversity. I mean, it's funny. I think that marginalized groups are often pioneering in that they see something that's just starting or struggling or they appreciate that something needs help and their help. These were people that saw in these farms or these apprenticeships or in Anne passing away, something struggle and they came to help and they're going to be the ones going on to these farms to help and to, hopefully be, like I said, the first class of what ends up becoming a modern day agricultural-based Peace Corps, the way Kennedy started in the '60s. I mean, we have high ambitions to be 150, 200 apprentices next year, 3 or 400 the year after. We want to be an accredited part of different universities' curriculum, where a kid can get credit for their time with us and actually learn something.
Kerry Diamond:
This is really ambitious.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah. Well, I mean, it was ambitious to do 35 in the first year. A lot of people were like, "Start with one."
Anna Harrington:
It hasn't even been a year. It's been six months and there were 200 applications for 35 spots. It's amazing that you guys were able to secure 35 places.
Kerry Diamond:
Who are some of the other participating entities?
Patrick Martins:
Jasper Hill Farm, which has the largest cheese caves in the United States. We have Stony Pond Farm, which makes amazing cheese and also milk for Horizon Organic Milk. Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax, Virginia. We have Uplands Cheese in Wisconsin. We have the Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute in Pondsford, Minnesota.
Kerry Diamond:
This is remarkable. Congratulations on that part of it.
Patrick Martins:
We have Frank Reese, the famous poultry farmer in Kansas, David Newman in Myrtle, Missouri who raises the oldest line of Berkshire pigs in the world. So yeah, these farms really came out for Anne. It was amazing. The chefs have come out with instant yeses to participate at our fundraiser and these 20 farms came out with instant yeses to help Anne. It was very touching. Winona didn't even know Anne, but she's like, "You count us in a hundred percent," and I took that sentence, and I was like, "We have Winona."
Kerry Diamond:
So the fundraiser is a big part of what's going to keep this alive and let you hit those goals in terms of the number of apprentices you send out into the world. The big fundraiser is Wednesday, September 14th at Chelsea Market. Anna, you are in charge of the event, correct?
Anna Harrington:
Yeah, exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how you got involved.
Anna Harrington:
I have a small cookie company. It's called The Rounds. It's a mostly savory cookie company and I have a couple of sweet cookies as well. The savory part of the business, they're really things that you would serve at parties or have for cocktails and cheese plays a big part in the ingredients. And I'm a pretty new business. I started in 2018 and I am 47, so I pivoted late in life full-time to food. I'd had a career as a creative director in the design and accessories world and had been trying to go full-time into food for many years and finally did in 2018 and ended up starting this business out of my kitchen. And then I'd moved. My first commercial kitchen was with Fany and Danny over at La Newyorkina in Red Hook.
Kerry Diamond:
Fany Gercen.
Anna Harrington:
Fany Gercen.
Kerry Diamond:
One of our cover gals. We love her so much.
Anna Harrington:
Yeah. She's so wonderful. And they're so talented and do so many incredible things. I was so lucky to be in their kitchen. They have such energy. They're so generous. They're so open, just so generous with me. And Fany said to me one day, "Oh, I have to introduce you to Anne. She's right down the road." And I had known about Saxelby Cheeses because of Essex Market. And also, my parents live in Vermont and we are very big Vermont cheese consumers in our family and have been eating them for many, many years. So Fany introduced me to Anne and at the time the cave was right down the street, so it was just perfect. I walked over there and hung out with Anne and Anne pulled everything out of the refrigerators and was like, "Taste this and taste this and taste this and da, da."
And we didn't know each other for that long. It was only a couple of years, but she was just so gracious. And she welcomed me with such open arms. And it really touched me so profoundly because I don't have a big food community and I didn't come up through restaurants. I don't have that many people who want to bring me in and introduce me to people and she just was so welcoming and so warm and, "Anytime. Come over and this. And of course, and have this and try this and da, da," and it was such a pleasure to work with her. And I would always just go and pick my stuff up from them so I could see what was happening and talk to them.
And so when I learned that Anne passed, I reached out and I sent an email to Patrick and was just expressing my condolences. And he created the legacy fund so quickly that I remember in that letter, I think it was in November, I said I was so impressed already with what he was doing in the wake of this incredible tragedy and just life changing event for him and his family. And Patrick, it's amazing. He has such incredible energy and I don't know how he takes care of three kids and his business and does all of this stuff, but he's also a huge doer. He's been singing the praises of Anne a lot, but he also is pretty remarkable. And he's the type of person who actually writes back to every single person who writes to him about Anne. So he got back to me and he was like, "Oh, great. Thank you so much. Terrific. Maybe we can do some sort of fundraiser together."
And I'm very active, politically. I mean, I've spent a lot of time over the last 20 years of my life, actually, it even started in high school, but I've always been very engaged in community work. And then recently it's been a lot of political work and then things with Instagram and the internet just changed so you can do a lot of fundraising online. So I had done about 13 years of in-person work, organizing this huge benefit for Sanctuary for Families, it's a thousand person seated dinner with another thousand people for the after party, and really saw that go from this tiny seed where we raised $300,000 to the first time we broke a million to now it raises $8 million in a night, so it's gone through this whole process.
But Patrick said, "Oh, let's do something," and I said, "Great. I can't do it now, November and December is hell for me. Let's talk in the new year." So he touched base again in January and we set up a phone call and he was like, "Hey, so what do you want to do? Do you want to make a cookie for Anne? Do you want to do this?" I also had been talking to these chefs and the chefs all want to go big and they're telling me, "I need to do an event but I can't do it by myself and I don't know how to do an event." And I was like, "Well, I could do that. I know how to do events," so we met. And when it started, it was like, "Ah, 15 chefs, a couple tables in Prospect Park." And I was like, "Great, piece of cake. This I know how to do." And now it's become a little bit more ambitious.
Kerry Diamond:
So how big will this event be?
Anna Harrington:
So we have over 50 chefs and artisans participating and we are doing it in Chelsea Market, which is terrific because Saxelby had moved to Chelsea Market, as Patrick described. Anne is such a market person and she really loved the role of markets and the community there. And Chelsea Market have been amazing partners. They have been so pleasurable to work with and they have such an amazing team.
Patrick Martins:
And they're closing half the market almost.
Anna Harrington:
Yeah. They're going to close half the market for us.
Patrick Martins:
Early. So it's from 6:00 to 10:00 and the restaurant lineup is just so amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Tell us some of the chefs.
Patrick Martins:
Well, I mean, I'll name the restaurants because I know they have many chefs, but Frenchette, Rian Lee, Winner, Daniel, Win Son, Claro, The Meat Hook, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Momofuku, Huertas, Marlow Events, Pastisse, Roberta's, Mel's, Anson's, Gage & Tollner, Shopsin's.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, you got everybody, basically.
Patrick Martins:
Fan Fan, Emma's Torch, Ernestos. We have Red Hook Winery.
Anna Harrington:
I Sodi.
Patrick Martins:
I Sodi.
Kerry Diamond:
So I guess the bigger question is, "If you're not participating, why?" for those of you who are listening. So well, that's remarkable and obviously a testament to how much everybody in the community loved Anne. When will tickets go on sale?
Anna Harrington:
May 15th or June 1st. We're not entirely sure.
Patrick Martins:
Just say June 1st.
Anna Harrington:
We'll just say June 1st. Tickets will go on sale. June 1st.
Kerry Diamond:
We will remind everyone when tickets do go on sale.
Patrick Martins:
There's going to be a limited number of $50 and $100 tickets, so anybody who would like to spend that much or needs to spend that much.
Anna Harrington:
Yeah, so it's accessible.
Patrick Martins:
Do that right away because they're limited, but basically the tickets will cost $250, but they'll be tickets that cost more as well.
Kerry Diamond:
How many folks are you hoping to have for attendance?
Anna Harrington:
We're hoping for between 800 and a 1000.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, that'll be fun. Okay. Big night for the food world in New York.
Anna Harrington:
And each chef or artisan is preparing something really special just for this night and a lot of them are coming up with really amazing, unique dishes. I really want it to be a New York celebration and just bringing people together who all loved Anne. I mean, that's really the credential for the chefs and the artisans that are coming, because obviously there are so many more chefs in New York and there are so many other extraordinary talents, but these are all chefs that had relationships with Anne and loved Anne, so that's really what's bringing everyone together.
Patrick Martins:
It was so touching how quickly the chef said yes. There were like, "Enough said. How many people?" I was like, "A thousand." They were like, "I'm in. You count me in a hundred percent." I just told Anna the story of our friend Chris Howell, who's very close with Anne. 90% of his vineyards burned down in the fires. And I said, "Wow, that's the most shocking loss for you, your home. And now you just have these few bottles left. I mean, it's tragic." And he's like, "Well, I'm coming to the event." And I was like, "As an auction item with one bottle?" He's like, "No, I'm pouring a thousand tastes. This is Anne we're talking about here."
And then I talked to my friend Rich Ho from Whole Foods. I was like, "What are you going to make, one of your traditional soups?" And he's like, "No, no, no. I got to come with something special for Anne. I adored her. I'm going to bring my oak barrels that my grandfather brought from Taiwan and I'm going to be rolling rice cakes right there."
And my friend Jonah from Huertas is like, "I want to do it like in a Spanish market. Anne loves market. I want to be killing octopus right there and putting them on the grill. I mean, I want a spectacle." So I just imagine these chefs wheeling and dealing and doing something special. And selfishly, because I loved Anne so much, I want one of New York's greatest events of the year to bear her name. And until I met Anna, that was not going to be possible, so we got so much more than a flavored cookie out of van.
Kerry Diamond:
That's right. In the beginning you thought maybe it would just be a cookie. If our listeners can't be here for the event or don't snag tickets fast enough, because I would imagine this is going to be a very hot ticket, how can our listeners help support the legacy fund?
Patrick Martins:
Well, anything helps. I always say just donate whatever's significant, whether that's $5 or a thousand. So it's the annesaxelbylegacyfund.org and we've been very lucky. We don't have our nonprofit status yet, so we've been running through Slow Food USA, who's been our generous host as a nonprofit until our application gets accepted. So you can go onto our site, read all about Anne, read all about these fantastic farms and donate there and you would link to the Slow Food website who has a Saxelby Legacy Fund component.
Kerry Diamond:
And for our younger listeners who might want to apply to be one of the fellows and apprentices, what are the qualifications?
Patrick Martins:
Just a desire to learn and not to be a complainer, to be willing to do hard work, to be industrious. We are looking for people between 17 years old and 25, but we're open to all ages, people with career changes.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it is all ages.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah. We have some 35-year-olds.
Kerry Diamond:
Take back the young part then.
Patrick Martins:
Well, no. We say young because that's the spirit.
Kerry Diamond:
Young spirit.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah, young in spirit that's ...
Kerry Diamond:
You will be put to work.
Patrick Martins:
Oh yeah. You're going to be working.
Kerry Diamond:
So you have to be able to do that.
Patrick Martins:
Lift 50 pounds is a requisite on most of the farms or 30 pounds. That's the cutoff.
Anna Harrington:
It's physical work.
Patrick Martins:
It's physical work. You're really there to help the farm and to learn a trade. And at the end, have that beer with the farmer and say, "We accomplished something together."
Anna Harrington:
At the benefit we'll have video and some of the apprentices we hope to attend and we really want to be able to tell the story of what they accomplished over the summer and what they learned and their takeaway. We really see this as investing in the future generations of sustainable farming, amazing craftsmanship, incredible artisans, and really making these small farms sustainable going forward. We know how many challenges, environmental challenges, just financial challenges, staffing challenges ... It's very hard right now. And I think it'll continue to be difficult and so we really want to invest in these apprentices as an idea of investing in the future.
Kerry Diamond:
Patrick, when will the applications open for the class of 2023?
Patrick Martins:
Well, we are going to go rolling after this because a few of the farms already need, so basically check out on the website as these first group of apprentices go in July and August. The application for September onward will be available online. We'll still be a summer-based program because many of our apprentices are students and they have college or high school schedules, but we're going to be placing people in September, October, November, throughout. Brooklyn Grange, by the way, they're year round. They're largest rooftop farm in America and they'll be hosting people as well.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, the legacy fund sounds like it's such a huge undertaking. And I mean, Patrick, I loved Anne. I understand why you're doing this. How are you doing this? Are you working on this full time?
Patrick Martins:
No. Well, first of all, my mom says I surround myself with great women. So I do want to shout out people in my life and I posted this on Instagram, but we took such a blow, my family. And while we were blown back, my business colleagues who own Heritage Foods, Catherine Greeley and Emily Pearson, they were also devastated, but they stepped forward and they basically run Heritage Foods and day-to-day operations. And that's a big responsibility because Heritage is a major source of income for maybe a hundred farms, farm families based in agriculture between the processors and the farms. And they rely on Heritage to move product each and every week, 52 weeks a year, so they took over to run Heritage and I worked there two days a week.
And then June Russell, who's a dear friend, formerly of the Green Markets and now works with Glenwood Center, said, "Patrick, you don't even know how to use the internet. You've never been on a Zoom call. You write everything on a convoluted piece of paper. You need someone to help you. Take this resume." She introduced me to Maya Netzer, who is an artist, a farmer, and so she and I have basically been doing it. But we've also had unbelievable support from Ann's mother, Pam Saxelby, who's on the board and who's been really helping get the word out to get those 200 apprentice applications. We were very nervous. We were afraid nobody was going to know about us and no one's going to apply. So when we got 200 applications and we were ecstatic, because it's a high, tall order to honor Anne. You can't do something lame in her name because she was not lame at all and so it's a high pressure. So we wake up early, we work really hard, but essentially it's been Anna who's on the radio today, Maya, myself, Pam, and another lady, Pam Apple. And I'll just tell this last story even if you edit it out. This is the type of stuff that happens. She said, "Could I come and hang out with Josie?" because she was her pre-K teacher. I was like, "Sure, you can come hang out with her one Monday."
Kerry Diamond:
Josie's your daughter.
Patrick Martins:
Yeah, Josie's my seven-year-old daughter and Pam Apple came and said, "I had a great one hour with her. And just so you know, and you can't stop me, I'm going to be coming every Monday from now on for free. I'll never accept a dollar." And then when she learned about the Ann Saxelby Legacy Fund, she's like, "I'm volunteering for this because I'm going to do this." That's the kind of energy Anne had around her, people giving us large sums of money saying, "Anne never cared that I ... Never even asked. Never even knew that I was very wealthy, but I'm here to repay my debt to Anne." That's the kind of energy that we're trying to embrace to the best of our abilities. Anne's legacy makes people work hard.
Kerry Diamond:
What is next for Saxelby Cheese?
Patrick Martins:
Hopefully continuing. I still think that same concept. They're very lucky to have Anne's photo and face everywhere because people are going to want to do right by that business and do right by those dairies. Anne was the face of that business. She did the wholesale sales, the marketing, the thoughts, the emails, she wrote everything, so it was a big blow for them too, but I think chefs are very loyal. Pirates are very loyal. And I think they're going to continue to see buying from Saxelby cheese and from those dairies who she was important to as a responsibility.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's not just the Chelsea Market shop. It's also a wholesale business and people can order from the website as well. So if you live outside New York ...
Patrick Martins:
You can get a delicious delivery. They have monthly subscriptions. You can get all their cheeses available. Even the soft smelly ones, they know how to ship. And then yes, any restaurant or bar ... I always thought cheese should be served as an appetizer, not competing with dessert. I mean, I think every restaurant in New York should do it in the Italian way, where cheese just sits in the middle of the table, like bread and butter.
Kerry Diamond:
I agree with you.
Patrick Martins:
And she has great butters, by the way, one of whom's also hosting, Ploughgate butter, so they're going to host an apprentice this year.
Kerry Diamond:
I agree with you on the cheese plate thing. Did Anne think that?
Patrick Martins:
Oh, well, I tried to tell her that, but that wasn't her style to get all the restaurants to change their way, but there were many pioneering restaurants that did do that. Colony, was always a big square in the middle of the menu, set from Saxelby Cheese. That was another beautiful letter I got from somebody after Anne passed that said that seeing Saxelby Cheese on the menu was an immediate confirmation that that restaurant was legit.
Kerry Diamond:
Patrick. We're so sorry for your loss. I mean, we loved Anne and been a big part of Cherry Bombe. She was in our cookbook. I hadn't cracked open our cookbook in a while and I was looking at the other day and I was like, "Oh my gosh, Anne's ricotta recipe."
Patrick Martins:
She made the best mac and cheeses. She would use all the old rinds and nothing ever got thrown away at our house. And it's a thing I'm trying to do. I was never a fan of leftovers, but now I am and we have a worm pile that we're carrying on, part of her legacy as well. It's a three story compost pile in our kitchen.
Kerry Diamond:
Well thank you so much. The event's clearly going to be a huge success and whatever we can do to help, we're here to support and spread the word. Thank you for all the hard work. And again, Patrick, I'm, I'm sorry for what you and your family have been through.
Patrick Martins:
Thank you.
Anna Harrington:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Patrick Martin's and Anna Harrington for joining me today. If you want to support the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund, head to annesaxelbylegacyfund.org to learn more or to make a donation. You can also follow the organization on Instagram and I hope to see some of you at the fundraiser in September so we can raise a glass to Anne. Also, check out Saxelby Cheese at Chelsea Market or online and pick up a copy of Anne's book at your favorite local bookstore. Thank you to Käserei Champignon and Grand Noir for supporting today's show. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tra-La-La. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center, and thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu, and thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.