The New York Times
December 20, 2006
On the Soup Line, Endive and Octopus
By KIM SEVERSON
EVEN at the soup kitchen, everyone's a critic.
The multicourse lunch that Michael Ennes cooked in the basement of
Broadway Presbyterian Church last week started with a light soup of
savoy and napa cabbages. The endive salad was dressed with basil
vinaigrette. For the main course, Mr. Ennes simmered New Jersey bison
in wine and stock flavored with fennel and thickened with olive oil
roux.
But some diners thought the bison was a little tough, and the menu
discordant.
"He's good, but sometimes I think the experimentation gets in the way
of good taste," said Jose Terrero, 54. Last year, Mr. Terrero made a
series of what he called inappropriate financial decisions, including
not paying his rent. He now sleeps at a shelter. He has eaten at
several New York City soup kitchens, and highly recommends Mr. Ennes's
food.
Mr. Ennes, a former English major who reads Thomas Paine and wears a
black and white neckerchief with a turquoise clasp, might be the best
soup kitchen chef in New York City. On Thanksgiving, when most of the
cooks at the city's other 470-some soup kitchens simply roasted
turkey, he prepared "turkey four ways," including one with mango-
ginger glaze and tropical fruit stuffing.
There will be no canned green beans or bologna sandwiches. Mr. Ennes
insists on homemade stocks, oils without trans fats, organic peanut
butter and local produce when he can get it. (That's not to say he
won't stretch a meal with some frozen turkey patties or use a little
powdered soup base in a pinch.)
Despite the care he puts into his cooking, he doesn't mind a little
criticism.
"They're still customers, whether they're paying $100 a plate or
nothing," Mr. Ennes said. "One thing we do here is listen to people
and let them complain. Where else can a homeless person get someone to
listen to them?"
Mr. Ennes, 55, cooks about 500 meals a week for people who come to the
church on the corner of Broadway and 114th Street in search of a free
breakfast or lunch. At night, a handful of women in need of shelter
sleep upstairs. He feeds them, too.
The people who eat at Broadway Community Inc., the social service
organization that employs Mr. Ennes and rents space in the church, are
only a small slice of the 260,000 New Yorkers who every week visit
some emergency feeding program. About 40 percent of the people who eat
at Mr. Ennes's table live in a shelter or take cover in the parks or
the subways. The rest have a temporary home of some sort, on a
friend's couch or the roof of a building where they know the super.
Some don't earn enough to cover rent.
Mr. Ennes relies on the Food Bank for New York City, donations and
grants, but he also employs the creativity of a desperate cook. When
he's out of wine, he uses fruit juice or borrows communion wine from
the understanding pastor at the church upstairs. (He has to make sure
all the alcohol is cooked off; many of his clients are trying to
recover from alcoholism.)
The bread basket that sits on each table is filled with rolls that
were baked at Le Bernardin the day before but never served. Le
Bernardin is among nearly 150 high-end restaurants that regularly
donate through City Harvest, a nonprofit that for 25 years has been
"rescuing" extra food. The list of donors, which includes
corporations, farms and grocery stores, totals more than 2,000.
Without City Harvest, Mr. Ennes would be hard-pressed to present the
menus he does.
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