Let Us Eat Local brings together our community to celebrate the season’s bounty in a joyous fashion. We are thrilled to kick off our first locally-sourced Pie Contest this year to help make the night even more sweet and delicious. Our pie participants will provide inpidual tastings to celebrity judges and guests. Organic Valley will be providing shots of milk to be served with the pie tastings. There will be a Judges’ Favorite and Fan Favorite announced at the end of the evening. Come join us for some delicious pie!

Pie Contest Participants:

Celebrity Judges: 

Melissa Clark, New York Times Food Columnist

Chef Johnny Iuzzini, Head Judge of Bravo’s “Top Chef: Just Desserts”

Ed Levine, Founder of Serious Eats

Josh Ozersky, TIME Food Columnist

Bios:

Melissa Clark, New York Times Food Columnist
Melissa Clark writes about cuisine and other products of appetite. After brief forays working as a cook in a restaurant kitchen, and as a caterer out of her fifth floor walk-up, Clark decided upon a more sedentary path. She earned an M.F.A. in writing from Columbia University, and began a freelance food writing career. Currently, she is a food columnist for the New York Times, and has written for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Every Day with Rachel Ray, and Martha Stewart, amongst others. Her acclaimed cookbook,In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite, came out in the fall of 2010 with essays and recipes based on her popular New York Times Dining section column, A Good Appetite. Clark's most recent book, Cook This Now, a personal collection of seasonally driven, inventive comfort food, came out in October 2011, published by Hyperion. All told, Clark has written 32 other cookbooks, many of them in collaboration with some of New York’s most celebrated chefs including Daniel Boulud (Braise), David Bouley (East of Paris), Claudia Fleming (The Last Course), and Bruce and Eric Bromberg (The Blue Ribbon). A book of dessert recipes, The Perfect Finish, written with White House pastry chef Bill Yosses, came out in June 2010. Her collaboration with chef Peter Berley, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, received both a James Beard award and Julia Child Cookbook award in 2000.

Clark was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she now lives with her husband, Daniel Gercke and their daughter Dahlia.

Chef Johnny Iuzzini, Head Judge of Bravo’s “Top Chef: Just Desserts”
Chef Johnny Iuzzini, award winning pastry chef, hails from the Catskills region in upstate New York. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America with over twenty years of kitchen experience, Chef Iuzzini honed his craft at highly lauded dining locations such as The River Café in Brooklyn, NY along with, Daniel, Payard, Café Boulud and Jean Georges in New York City. In 1998 he traveled around the world and studied pastry at some of the finest patisseries in France including LaDuree under Pierre Hermès.

In 2006, the James Beard Foundation awarded Chef Iuzzini "Pastry Chef of the Year." In addition he has been recognized as one of the "10 Most Influential Pastry Chefs in America" by Forbes, "Best New Pastry Chef" by New York Magazine, and named one of the “Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America” two years in a row by Pastry Arts and Design. He has appeared on national television shows including the "Today Show," "Good Morning America," "Martha Stewart," "Paula Dean," and "Live with Regis and Kelly" and is the head judge of Bravo’s culinary competition series “Top Chef: Just Desserts.”

During his near decade as the Executive Pastry Chef at Restaurant Jean Georges, the restaurant received four stars from the New York Times, three Michelin stars, and was considered one of the world’s fifty greatest restaurants. Since leaving Restaurant Jean Georges, Chef Iuzzini has started his own pastry and culinary arts consulting company, aptly named Sugar Fueled, Inc. He is the author of DESSERT FOURPLAY: Sweet Quartets From A Four-Star Pastry Chef (Clarkson Potter) and is currently working on his second book, due out in 2013. In addition, Chef Iuzzini has been traveling around the globe researching new trends and techniques in the industry and devoting time to his other passion, motorcycle racing.

Ed Levine, Founder of Serious Eats

Josh Ozersky, TIME Food Columnist