Anne Saxelby devoted her profession to celebrating and championing American-made cheese—and her affect was exponentially bigger than the retail store she operated in New York Metropolis’s Chelsea Market. Via her store Saxelby Cheesemongers, which first opened in a tiny area inside Essex Market in 2006 and went on to increase to a warehouse area in Brooklyn, she spotlighted domestically produced varieties from small makers and passionately advocated for the sustainable and regenerative practices behind the farmers’ cheeses. The meals world collectively mourned Saxelby’s loss when she passed away final yr at 40.
At this time, her ardour for the laborious work and creativity of America’s growers lives on by way of the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund. The non-profit group, based by Saxelby’s husband Patrick Martins, gives apprenticeships for younger adults to reside and work on sustainable farms for one month, absolutely paid, and find out about how local weather change, biodiversity, and land conservation are impacting the nation’s family-run farmsteads. Apprentices will see first hand how growers and producers are prioritizing environmental conservation, selling meals sovereignty, and creating extra equitable meals programs. (The 2022 cohort is the group’s inaugural class. By 2024, the Legacy Fund goals to supply no less than 400 apprenticeships a yr.)
On Sept. 14, dozens of high New York Metropolis cooks and artisans who labored with Saxelby are coming collectively to lift funds for the group and keep in mind her. From 6 to 10 p.m., a part of Chelsea Market will shut down as celebrated institutions like Gramercy Tavern, Momofuku, Gage & Tollner, and Carbone carry their signature dishes to be communally shared on the remembrance. (Tickets to the Annual Profit can be found here.)
Within the lead-up to the occasion, we requested a number of the collaborating restaurateurs and cooks to share a favourite reminiscence of Anne and what they’ll be cooking for friends.
“She was the warmest and most enjoyable particular person you could possibly ever meet, somebody who you had been excited to see each time she got here in,” says Melinda Shopsin, who owns the diner Shopsin’s at Essex Market. “She had essentially the most scrumptious cheese, and he or she actually cared about every of them. She spent a lot time with every buyer. Anne was an evangelist for American farmstead cheese and there was no method you could possibly stroll out of that retailer with out having joined her cheese church.”
In an surprising flip of occasions, the 2 later wound up operating their outlets out of neighboring areas at Essex Market. “Working alongside her was one of the best,” says Shopsin of her good pal. “She simply was so freaking type. I’m positive she did loads for American farmstead cheese, however extra importantly, I feel she made individuals nicer.”
The Dish: macaroni-and-cheese pancakes “as a result of Annie used to adore it.”
“She was such a galvanizing drive and so beneficiant,” says Trigg Brown, chef and co-owner of the Taiwanese American institutions Win Son and Win Son Bakery in Brooklyn. He first met Saxelby when he was trying to find a cheese that would soften like American but additionally maintain its form sufficient to hold the sauce of the bakery’s now-signature breakfast sandwiches. “She picked the marginally funky, completely melty Redding Raclette,” remembers Brown. “Texture is commonly equally as necessary as taste, and Anne hit a bull’s-eye for us with this.”
The Dish: pan-griddled pork buns that includes heritage pork shoulder and stomach from Heritage Foods (Martins’ store, which makes a speciality of preserving endangered livestock species.)
When Asian American retail store Pearl River Mart opened its Chelsea Market outpost in 2017, president Joanne Kwong shortly befriended Saxelby, a fellow store proprietor within the area (the place Saxelby opened a location in 2017). The pair, together with a handful of different girls homeowners, fashioned a cocktail membership that they referred to as the Boss Girls, assembly up for completely satisfied hour each couple of months. “We had been each quick talkers, at all times racing towards the clock, which I feel is why we bought alongside,” says Kwong. “Her generosity was notable and her vitality electrical. She was at all times prepared to share worthwhile insights about enterprise, or an enthusiastically type pep discuss of encouragement. Anne was universally beloved and simply the brightest gentle wherever she went.”
The Dish: Pearl River Mart’s meals distributors are contributing 5 dishes which “span the gamut of a few of [Anne’s] favourite Asian bites, however with a twist,” says Kwong—cherry miso lamb baos, tuna kimbap, hoisin mushroom crisps, strawberry hibiscus boba, and Hong Kong muffins.
In 2007, when Ryan Bartlow was a younger cook dinner who had simply moved to Manhattan’s Decrease East Facet, he’d usually “make an effort to cease and gaze on the assortment of cheeses that Anne needed to provide” at her Essex Market store, even when artisanal cheese wasn’t essentially inside his price range, he remembers. “From Old Chatham to Jasper Hill Farm, this was an introduction to the enduring, cult, and home cheese producers,” he explains. When Bartlow was growing the idea for the Basque restaurant Ernesto’s years later, he and his group visited Saxelby’s Brooklyn store to pattern totally different kinds of cheese. “[Patrick] informed me that Ernesto’s was certainly one of her favourite eating places,” provides Bartlow. “That meant loads to me. Anne meant loads to me, too. She meant loads to many.”
The Dish: tortilla de patatas filled with Moses Sleeper cheese from Jasper Hill Farm, completed with truffles.
TJ Steele and Lincoln Clevenson, Claro
At any time when TJ Steele, the chef behind the Oaxacan-inspired Brooklyn restaurant Claro, wanted to supply a French- or Spanish-style cheese, he would search out Saxelby. “She at all times had the proper home equal. It saved issues actually enjoyable and attention-grabbing,” he remembers. “Anne was such a champion of home cheese so I beloved how she at all times had a cheese up her sleeve.”
The Dish: barbacoa de chivo, with goat meat from Heritage Meals.
Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson, Frenchette
“Butter, eggs, and cheese are foundational in our cooking,” says Riad Nasr, co-owner of Frenchette, a French bistro in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. So, naturally, the restaurant discovered a dairy skilled in Saxelby. “Anne’s affect was instrumental in how we supply these components. The [legacy fund] in her honor is a direct expression of her decency and boundless enthusiasm.”
The Dish: brouillade a la coque—soft-scrambled eggs, alongside rye crackers.
Andrew Tarlow, the restaurateur behind the catering group Marlow Occasions, met Saxelby greater than 20 years in the past when the 2 had been arising collectively within the meals world. “She impressed me to assume somewhat deeper about the place our meals is coming from, the place the cheese is coming from, the way it impacts these farmers, how the cows are being taken care of,” he says.
The Dish: chef Greg Loafer will put together Spring Brook Farm Tarentaise and celery root fondue, served with She Wolf bread.
Richard Ho, who owns Taiwanese beef noodle soup restaurant Ho Meals within the East Village, met Saxelby after sourcing meat by way of Martins for years. “The 2 of them collectively simply appeared like such an incredible factor. They only had a lot zest for all times on this all-encompassing method,” he says, including that the couple shared a ardour for championing and uplifting household farms and sustainable practices.
The Dish: Ho’s signature fan tuan, a sticky rice dish that he’ll stuff with meat floss produced from Martins’ heritage pork.
