Taste of Newark
Delaware culinary community comes together at UD for Taste of Newark
4:49 p.m., Oct. 1, 2015--This weekend hundreds of Delaware community members visited UD campus to sample almost 50 Newark restaurants and the area’s best wine distributors during the 12th annual Taste of Newark food festival.
Tasters enjoyed elegant dishes like the Marriott Courtyard Newark’s crab cakes, which have won “Best of Delaware” for the past five years in a row, and Vita Nova’s classic Greek meatballs with spaghetti squash, as well as Newark casual fare favorites like Grotto Pizza.
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The UDairy Creamery and local shops like Bing’s Bakery, Duck Donuts and Insomnia Cookies offered lots of sweet samples, while Southern Wine and Spirits, United Distributors of Delaware and Deerfield Wines presented a variety of wines.
Live music accompanied the tastings, as did a silent auction featuring art, gift cards to local businesses and more.
Staffing the festival were dozens of UD hotel, restaurant and institutional management (HRIM) students, who learned firsthand about the excitement and challenges of running a first-class food festival.
This year was HRIM junior Jenna Pekofsky’s third time volunteering at Taste of Newark, despite the fact that she’d already completed her required volunteer hours.
Pekofsky is now considering a career in food and wine festivals, which she described as a marriage of her interests in event planning and food and beverage.
“I love the community that festivals bring… and just how joyful an occasion can be when everyone is sharing food, drinks and music,” Pekofsky said. “Newark has a lot of great restaurants, so all of the best of the best come together and shine here.”
HRIM sophomore Brianni Johnson agreed, saying, “Even though Newark is small, you can see it on a bigger scale, everybody coming out together in the community.”
This is Johnson’s first Taste of Newark, and she said that working with large crowds of people at events like this one will help prepare her to achieve her goal of building a career in resorts.
HRIM Chairperson Sheryl Kline added, “The Taste of Newark brings together the community for the best food and wine festival in the area. Proceeds provide much-needed scholarship support for students in the Department of HRIM.”
While Taste of Newark provides hands-on experience and scholarship opportunities for HRIM students like Johnson and Pekofsky, it also benefits the city of Newark.
Maureen Feeney Roser, Newark director of planning and development, said, “Taste of Newark is a wonderful event. Not only does it showcase Newark’s awesome restaurant scene, but it provides an opportunity for the University of Delaware and the city of Newark to work together for mutual benefits.”
Feeney Roser explained that half of Taste of Newark’s proceeds benefit the Downtown Newark Partnership, a public-private organization dedicated to the cultural, social, aesthetic and economic enhancement of downtown Newark. This year the partnership will use Taste of Newark funds to help create a sculpture garden along South Main Street.
Former Newark mayor Vance Funk, who co-chairs the Downtown Newark Partnership, enjoyed the festival with his family, saying that the strong success of this year’s Taste of Newark was bolstered by the day’s beautiful weather.
“The restaurants really outdid themselves this year,” Funk said.
Also crucial to Taste of Newark are local community sponsors like Spicer Mullikin Funeral Home, which provided water bottles, raffles and an information table.
Bill King from Spicer Mullikin called Taste of Newark a great community event where he is glad to provide a service.
“We help people answer questions about funerals when they’re not at a funeral,” said King, who answered questions for a number of community members during his time at the festival.
Celebrity chef demonstration
This year’s Taste of Newark also featured a demonstration from Ronnie Burkle of SoDel Concepts.
Burkle created for his audience an end-of-summer salad with grilled corn and grilled peach followed by seared scallops over bacon-braised cabbage with butternut squash. He also demonstrated a spicy recipe for pickling gold beets.
“We like to focus on local ingredients, focus on the season and focus on the freshness of our ingredients,” Burkle said.
The day’s recipes included local sweet corn, local peaches, local honey, herbs grown at SoDel Concepts restaurants and fresh scallops caught off the coast of Maryland.
Burkle even makes his own salt from the ocean waters at Bethany Beach.
“Hand-harvesting salt is a lengthy process, but it’s worth it in the end,” Burkle said. “Our beaches are the cleanest beaches in the United States, so it’s a great place to get sea salt.”
Burkle offered a number of helpful tips to the audience but urged them to experiment and turn each dish into “your own creation” during this uniquely Delawarean cooking demonstration.
Article by Sunny Rosen
Photos by Lane McLaughlin