A Delicious Hammertown After Hours Event

Meet food & wine author
DEIRDRE HEEKIN
and her husband & chef
CALEB BARBER

Deirdre and Caleb will be discussing and signing copies of their book, In Late Winter We Ate Pears: A Year of Hunger and Love.  This book of recipes and vignettes are a homage to their time living and learning in Italy and the fruits of that Inspiration in their Vermont Restaurant, Osteria Pane e Salute.

Deirdre will also be reading from and signing copies of her new release, Libation: A Bitter Alchemy.  A collection of linked personal essays on wines and spirits.

The reading and book signing will be accompanied by a wine and food tasting with Italian varietals from local wine distributor Rosenthal Wine Merchants and food tastings from Mercato Osteria in Red Hook.  Dierdre, known for her fine-tuned work with scent and taste, will be available to discuss the wines served and unexpected, terroir-driven food pairing possibilities.

At 7:00pm Deirdre will read a selection from Libation: A Bitter Alchemy.

PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU PLAN TO JOIN US!!

MORE ABOUT CALEB & DEIRDRE

As with most of the events at Hammertown, this one comes via a lasting friendship.  We are so lucky to have such talented and successful friends and customers that we often want to celebrate them with the Hammertown community.  In this case, friendship comes via my daughter and son-in-law who were lucky enough to meet Caleb and Deirdre when they moved to Woodstock, Vermont in 1996.   Fresh out of culinary school, Jamey (my son-in-law) was inspired by what he saw in the small bakery just opened by Caleb and Deirdre.   Many a conversation began over morning espresso and cornetto in the small bakery on Main Street and soon Jamey was waking at 2am and baking bread with his new friend.   Dana also started working at the bakery part time and the relationships flourished.   Every time I would visit them, we enjoyed new samplings from Pane e Salute and learned a bit more about authentic Italian cuisine.

It was almost two years later when Jamey and Dana relocated to northwest Connecticut to follow their dream of opening a restaurant (Charlotte, Lakeville, CT, 1999-2002).   Jamey and Dana never lost touch with their dear friends and, over the years, we have all witnessed first hand what inspiration and commitment can accomplish.   The little bakery we once knew has grown into a nationally renown restaurant.   Caleb and Deirdre have presented dinners at the James Beard House in New York and the restaurant has been featured in Bon Appetit, The Boston Globe, Travel and Leisure, and Elle Decor.   They were awarded Restauranteurs of the Year (2007) by the Vermont Hospitality Council.  Food & Wine Magazine named Osteria Pane e Salute one of “America’s 50 Most Amazing Wine Experiences”.

Deirdre and Caleb have lived in Italy, where Caleb apprenticed with an artisanal baker and worked in a small trattoria in Tuscany.   Each year they return to Italy for a month of inspiration. These annual research trips to Italy keep Osteria Pane e Salute brimming with authentic flavors and hard-to-find wines.   Their home is in Barnard, Vermont, where they produce artisanal after-dinner liqueurs and have begun establishing a vineyard.   They also grow a substantial garden to sustain their restaurant’s needs during the warmer months, and they have also established a high tunnel so that they can harvest winter greens and root vegetables through the cold months.

In Libation, a Bitter Alchemy, a series of linked personal essays, Heekin explores the curious development of her nose and palate, her intuitive education and relationship with wine and spirits, and her arduous attempts to make liqueurs and wine from the fruits of her own land in northern New England.  The essays follow her as she unearths ruby-toned wines given up by the ghosts of long-gone wine makers from the red soil of Italy, her adoptive land; as she embarks on a complicated pilgrimage to the home of one of the world’s oldest cocktails, Sazerac, in Katrina-soaked New Orleans; as she attempts a midsummer crafting of a brandy made from inherited roses, the results of an old Sicilian recipe she found in a dusty bookstore in Naples. Musing on spirits from Campari to alkermes, Heekin’s writing is as intoxicating, rich, and carefully crafted as the wines, liquors, and locales she loves.

More than a cookbook, In Late Winter We Ate Pears is a love affair with a culture and a way of life.   In vignettes taken from their year in Italy, husband and wife Caleb Barber and Deirdre Heekin offer glimpses of a young, vibrant Italy: of rolling out pizza dough in an ancient hilltown at midnight while wild dogs bay in the abandoned streets; of the fogged car windows of an ancient lovers’ lane amid the olive groves outside Prato.  The recipes in In Late Winter We Ate Pears are every bit as delicious as the memories. Selections such as red snapper with fennel sauce, fresh figs with balsamic vinegar and mint, and frangipane and plum tart capture the essence of Italy.  Following the tradition of Italian cuisine, the 80 recipes are laid out according to season, to suggest taking advantage of your freshest local ingredients.  Whether you are an experienced cook looking for authentic Italian recipes or a beginner wanting to immerse yourself in the romance of a young couple’s culinary adventure, In Late Winter We Ate Pears provides rich sustenance in the best tradition of travel and food writing.
Cheers to Chef Barber and writer Deirdre Heekin for sharing these marvelous recipes from Osteria Pane e Salute (Pane translates as bread and Salute as health) and for sharing the story of a most inspired year spent in Italy.  In Late Winter We Ate Pears is a testament that bread and health are the things that make a good life.