Mark Brand Cooks Up A Great Night At Collab

We recently donated our space to The Future Food Institute and hosted their Summer School For Climate Change.

Future Food is an inclusive network and inspirational platform that is sparking exponential positive change in the global food system, in an entrepreneurial way.

One of the highlights of the summer school program was the amazing dinner prepared for the students, policymakers, government representatives and members at Collab and our community.

They designed a totally inclusive event tailored around the topic of reducing food waste.

We loved every bite and enjoyed getting to be a part of the amazing vision of Mark Brand. His personal recap of the evening left all of us inspired and hungry for more.

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The evening after the @unitednations talk I created a meal with my new partners and forever family, @ffoodinstitute & @collabnyc, to SHOW the work around the words. The meal was entirely comprised of food seconds from @badappleproduce and my right hand for the evening was the exceptionally talented and equally passionate @josedlrm director of The Fermentation Lab in Bologna. He brought a dehydrator, we had an induction burner (kind of) and a BBQ to make dinner for 100. It's the type of challenge that lights me up for real. I wanted to focus on the impact of seasoning and mixed textures to create as many "what the fuck?" moments as we could. Approachable and transparent were the subtext. Smoked dehydrated Chili's and salts on overripe pineapples and charred carrots basted in raw agave got sugar levels and hangry faces quickly in check. Roasted oxidized potatoes layered with sauteed recovered onions and quickly blanched spinach to bring the POP back in the color were served in my misshapen capsicum bowls and dressed with a citrus viniagrette. People were encouraged to eat their plates and I grinned big watching people munch down peppers like apples. I wanted to nod' to the melting pot of culture that is Bushwick and did a Veggie "Chicken & Waffles" to wrap the savory courses with recovered bread and crushed corn cobs pressed into waffle shapes and dehydrated as a base. We topped them with roasted cauliflower, local honey, dehydrated corn husk and discarded cob "batter" and then finished it with overripe watermelon mixed with sauteed onions and some wild mint. Dessert was a mixture of Jose's banana bark experiments he smuggled in from Italy and a fennel sesame crunch, mixed with golden berries, beat up canteloupes and a mixture of summer berries with fresh citrus. It was one of the most enjoyable nights I've had professionally, a dinner of what retailers/consumers would deem "Waste" served to game changers on a sweaty Brooklyn night. The words that resonated in the AM moved to action, late into the night Deeply grateful for the opportunities that continue to present themselves and the people who help make it so. Photos @yungkeegwan @streetdreamsmag ♥️

A post shared by Mark Brand (@mark.brand) on Jul 16, 2019 at 6:44am PDT