Photo by Amanda Marsalis.
By Greg Cerio The revered chef Alice Waters [in photo, left] has much in common, perhaps surprisingly, with Theodore Roosevelt. For example, they enjoy some of the same regional cuisine. On October 8, 1914, the Boston Globe reported: “Col. Roosevelt likes the soup they make in Hudson." The previous day, the former president had a speaking engagement in the upstate New York city. However, he kept his audience at Hudson Opera House waiting while he ate not one but two bowls of vegetable soup brought to him from a nearby lunchroom. “I have to be fed," Roosevelt explained. Almost exactly 100 years later to the day, on Saturday, September 27, Waters, proprietor of the famed Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse and a leading light of the “farm-to-table" food movement, will take the same stage to express her own appreciation for — if not the soup, specifically — the food grown, raised and prepared in the Hudson area. The occasion is the debut event for TEDxHudson, one of the newest of the locally cultivated organizations that arrange public conferences and colloquies under the aegis of TED — an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, Design — the influential, globally oriented “big ideas" summit held annually since 1990.
Waters will be the guest of honor at the daylong symposium, and will introduce the main speaker, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the international environmental advocacy group Waterkeeper Alliance. And while the physical landscape — from the local farmlands to the health of the Hudson River and global watersheds in general — will be the topics of the day, the underlying context of TEDxHudson is the cultural landscape of the host city. A list of all upcoming TEDxHudson speakers will be announced next month, but, with its A-list headliners, the September 27 event is clearly an auspicious start. Along with the establishment of antiques and art galleries, the Basilica Hudson events space and the Marina Abramovic Institute, and the opening of numerous admired and inventive restaurants, the inauguration of TEDxHudson is another step in a noteworthy civic revival. TEDxHudson was the brainchild of Richard D. Katzman, a local business leader and patron of Hudson Opera House. As a longtime attendee of annual TED conferences, Katzman was eligible to secure a license for TEDx events. Tambra Dillon, the visionary co-director of Hudson Opera House, took the idea and ran with it. “Tammy and [HOH co-director] Gary Schiro were so enthusiastic. They knew what this meant," says Martha Holmes, a member of the TEDxHudson operating committee. “They knew this was an anointment of the town. Having a TEDx means you’ve earned a place in the discussion. You’re bringing in people who have something to say to people who want to listen." Like Teddy Roosevelt, those people need to be fed. Lunch for the expected 250 patrons of the TEDxHudson event — included with the $85 ticket, along with après-speeches cocktails — will be provided by Mona Talbott, a friend of Waters and a former cook at Chez Panisse. The founder of the Sustainable Food Project at The American Academy of Rome, Talbott recently moved to the Hudson area — she will open a specialty food store there in October — and is a perfect exemplar of the community-mindful cook. Her menu is far from finalized, but Talbott plans to offer three options, each highlighting the produce and proprietors of a local farm. The boxed lunches will include some kind of short, written narrative about each farm, says Talbott. “Lunch won’t just be something that tastes good; it will also tell a story." Just as the story of Hudson’s rebirth is being written, by people like Talbott and the organizers of TEDxHudson. TEDxHudson at the Hudson Opera House Saturday, September 27, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. $85 (ticket includes lunch and cocktail reception) To purchase tickets, call (518) 822-1438 or order through the website.
