And we’re up! A big thank you to everyone who held their breaths while we took our time to get this right. This ambitious (if at times
unwieldy) project called Astor Center has been over three years in the making, and, with January now right around the corner, you can –
quite literally – taste the excitement.
It's been a hectic few months. Completely unable to sit on our hands whilst putting the final touches on the three spaces, we decided to
invite some of our favorite food and wine folks over to host a series of "preview" events, prior to our official opening. (We figured they
wouldn’t mind if we were still screwing in a light bulb here and there.) Our dear friend and legendary chef from across the pond
Fergus Henderson was among the very first to christen the Study, followed
shortly thereafter by owner and founder of D'Artagnan Ariane Daguin, legendary food
scientist and writer Harold McGee, and British baker
extraordinaire Richard Bertinet. Our
fearless owner and president himself Andrew Fisher offered up his
Elements of Wine class a handful of
times – once as a fundraising effort to benefit the Food Bank for New York. We also
tested out the facilities of our lovely Gallery: we put together a Slow Food benefit dinner
with New Orleans convivium leader Poppy Tooker; we held a few walk-around
wine tastings; and we hosted some truly brilliant lectures by food scholars such as Oxford University Press editor
Andy Smith and the father of molecular gastronomy
Hervé This. (And okay, we may have had
a cocktail party or two along the way…)
So anyway, it’s been a hectic and wonderful fall season. We've picked up some really lovely mentions in the blog world along the way
(one more here …not that we spend our free time trolling the
internet looking for these things). The din of the holiday season is growing steadily in pitch and intensity at the store downstairs, and by
our watch that means less than one month until we officially open our doors to the public. Excited? You betcha!
To conclude this first news update with a truly heart-warming story for the holidays, let us turn our attention to subject of cookies.
Yes, cookies. Eight thousand dozen of them, to be precise, of the Snickerdoodle, citrus shortbread, and chocolate chip varieties, that a
volunteer crew of over a hundred parents, firefighters, friends, and members of the food community have been baking in our Kitchen this
past week. This story of a mother's determination to raise money to fund a new cancer treatment (for neuroblastoma, with which her three
year old son, Liam, was diagnosed nine months ago) is so genuinely moving that I can’t even attempt to do it justice in the space of this
text. But please – take a moment to read about it, or
watch the videos here or
here.
I'd urge you to purchase some cookies to help support this cause – but they've actually been so wildly successful in their campaign that
they've already completely sold out! Still, to make a donation, or to learn more about the Band of Parents,
click here.
Happy Holidays, from Astor Center.
LT, 12/15/07