The sisters behind Brooklyn’s favorite pie shop, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, have baking in their genes.   While growing up in South Dakota, Melissa and Emily Elsen learned the craft from their Grandma Liz, who baked all the pies for their family’s restaurant in South Dakota.  She taught the Elsen sisters the importance of using seasonal, fresh fruit and the secrets to a phenomenal crust.  Our favorites are the caramel apple pie with a thick, sea-salt studded crust and pear ginger pie. 

Brooklyn may be thousands of miles from South Dakota, but the Elsen sisters kept their grandmother’s lessons close when they began running a pie business out of their Crown Heights apartment. They opened their shop this past year and got immediate praise from the New York Times for their take on this classic American dessert.  Melissa and Emily’s pies feature the freshest fruits of each season and cleverly combine sweet and savory flavors to create pies like strawberry with balsamic vinegar and salted caramel apple.  “To us pie isn’t just a dessert, it’s a hearty treat, an afternoon snack, a sustenance food,” the sisters explain.

Melissa and Emily have been pretty busy lately thanks to Four and Twenty Blackbirds’ rapidly growing popularity, but they still find time to experiment with new pies. And when they aren’t taste testing their own desserts, they’re enjoying artisanal ice cream from Van Leeuwen, another Brooklyn sweets spot.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Melissa - All kinds of things . . . making pie suits me for now.
Emily - In elementary school, an astronaut. In high school, either a musician or an artist.

You both grew up in South Dakota, what compelled you to move to New York?
Melissa - I spent two years abroad post-college, but didn’t have a plan for when I returned. There was a room opening up in Emily’s apartment, so I thought I’d give New York a shot.
Emily- I came to Brooklyn in 1999 to study Sculpture at Pratt, where I eventually got my BFA. I visited schools in Manhattan too, but I immediately fell in love with Brooklyn. I felt it was the place I had to be. I went to London for a little while, but have always felt like Brooklyn was home.

Did you always get along as kids?
We did get along. We were pretty independent, and maybe we weren’t "best friends" even though we are close in age, but we definitely respected and cared for each other.

You learned to make pies from your grandmother. What are some of the most important baking techniques she taught the two of you?
Use seasonal, fresh fruit.  Enjoy what you are doing and take your time (when you can!). The pie will be better with love and attention. Don’t overwork your crust.

Do you stick mostly to her recipes, or have you changed and adapted them at all. If so, how?
We have adapted, but kept the same basic concept of fresh, in-season fruits in the Spring, Summer and early Fall, and creams, custards and chocolates in the Winter. Grandma Liz used lard in her crusts, and we use just butter – for us, it’s a flavor and texture thing. Lard is great for savory pies though!

Your family owned a restaurant.  What was the menu like there and is still serving food?  
Our mother and her sisters owned and operated the Calico Kitchen in Hecla, South Dakota from 1985 to 2001. The menu was classic Midwestern family style - full breakfast, lunch and dinner, and very unpretentious. For most of their business years they were the only place in town (the population was around 400 people), but they were well known around the county as a place to get a great meal. There were always big pots on the stove and roaster pans in the oven filled with something delicious. They were all self taught, or learned from Grandma. And they really knew how to cook everything well and with fresh ingredients like meatloaf, beef roasts and mashed potatoes, fried chicken, steak, hamburgers, potato salad, cole slaw, fresh soups, amazing cinnamon rolls, cookies, and of course, Grandma Liz made all the pies.

Tell us a little about how you started baking pies in Brooklyn.   Did you ever think pies weren’t “trendy” enough to be a successful business?
We started baking together when Melissa moved to Brooklyn in 2009.  Emily had been living here for almost 10 years. We had fantasized for a long time about going into business together but always said “no food!” because we knew how much hard physical work it can be.  Despite that, Melissa had done a number of wedding cakes for her friends and Emily had been baking pies, tarts and cakes for friends as gifts. We started out focusing on pies and tarts because we were both interested in the creative potential of them – and we wanted to make a really good crust – because, that’s the real challenge of good pie! We created a menu of things we wanted to make and tried it from home, selling to friends and friends of friends. The positive response to our products, and the genuine encouragement from close friends gave us the confidence to say, hey, maybe we should really do this.  We never thought about pie being “trendy”. It was gratifying to us to create a good product that people liked, trendy or not. For our shop, we really just wanted to create an awesome neighborhood spot where people would want to hang out and eat good pie and coffee, meet friends, have a business meeting, meet new people, what have you . The area we opened our place in needed that, and it makes us incredibly happy to see that developing in the shop.

Before you even opened up an actual shop, you were baking from your apartment.  We heard you even made a “wedding pie.”  
We made tarts for a close friend’s wedding recently (but that was after the shop was open). They requested Chili Chocolate Tarts. We asked our talented friend Ben Cohen to make custom tiers out of traditional tart pans so that we could create a tiered tart “wedding cake”. You can see it on our website here: www.birdsblack.com.  We also catered a friend's wedding this month in Western Massachusetts.  We made a variety of seasonal fruit pies and tarts with blackberries, plums, pears, peaches, rhubarb, blueberries and nectarines, and we are excited to make pies for some new customers who are getting married in the Fall as well.

Were you overwhelmed by all the publicity following the article in The New York Times?
We feel so blessed and lucky for all the positive press we have received. We were certainly not expecting it, and yes, we have been scrambling to keep up and we couldn’t be happier about it. We are doing our best to increase our production and grow our business in a positive way.

There seems to be a distinct balance between sweet & savory among all your pies, such as strawberry and balsamic vinegar or the salted caramel apple pie.  Was that always important to you in baking?
We do aim to strike a balance with savory ingredients that add subtle aromatic notes that enhance the fruits we use. Neither of us are big into sugary foods or overly sweetened things – though some of our pies are pretty sweet!  But, to us pie isn’t just a dessert, it’s a hearty treat, an afternoon snack, a sustenance food. It’s great for a breakfast treat too. We are working on savory pies now and hope to have a menu soon of lunch and dinner-worthy pies.

Your pie menu changes with each season, so what’s your favorite time of year for pie?  And what’s your favorite pie from that season?
Summer! Because of all the wonderful fruits, but we don’t really play favorites. The best pie is pie that is made with in season, fresh fruit. Though some of our custards are pretty tasty too: Buttermilk Chess, Grapefruit Custard, Lemon Chess, Salty Honey.

Any new types pies in the works that aren’t already on your seasonal menus?
We are often experimenting with new things and offering them in the shop if we feel they are up to par.  We’ll add them to the menu once we’ve had a good response. 

Other than your bakery, do you sell pies to any restaurants or specialty shops?
No, not yet, but we’d like to one day.

New Yorkers finally seem to be embracing regional, American comfort foods foods, like fried chicken, barbecue and, of course, pies. 
We believe that food that brings to mind the best meals one ate at home and growing up leaves a very powerful impression. Having been raised in a family restaurant, and with a father that is a farmer who grows corn, wheat, soybeans and more, food was a very important part of our family’s livelihood. We learned that simple, humble, yet delicious and fresh food is what we crave for sustenance. We think it’s natural, and exciting to see chefs and bakers making new twists on traditional American recipes…we use a lot of old cookbooks when making our pies, and update the recipes just slightly…it leads to some great recipes we can sort of call our own, with homage to the humble bakers of, really, not so long ago.

Other than your own, what are your favorite dessert spots in New York City?
Anybody that makes fresh ice cream!  We recently met the Van Leeuwen folks and tried their ice cream – delicious.

Who thought of the ingenious egg sandwich with the egg baked into the bread?
That was a collaborative effort all the way, but it took a few rounds of perfecting and testing before we got it.  We’ve got more ideas to spin on it, like adding cured meats and other types of cheese and herbs.

Any plans for additional locations, perhaps a Manhattan outpost?
Not yet, but if we do expand it will probably be in Brooklyn, and in Gowanus preferably.

Photo Credit: Toby Bannister

Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Address: 439 Third Ave., nr. 8th Street
Phone: (212)741-6699

Opening your own restaurant is a daunting task in and of itself, but Anita Lo had to open Annisa twice.  Last year, a fire destroyed her thriving West Village eatery.  And just a few months earlier, she closed Bar-Q, another one of her restaurants.  Instead of calling it a day, she started over again and rebuilt Annisa from the ground up.  She and her partner even hired a feng shui consultant to clear the "bad energy" in the space.  Second time around, Annisa's just as successful and beloved by New Yorkers.  She's revived her now-classic, foie gras soup dumplings and miso-marinated sable in a bonito broth and added seasonal newcomers, like softshell crabs with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin.  Following her appearance on Top Chef Masters, she says she's still suffering from "Post-Traumatic Top Chef disorder" and next time around, she'd rather be a judge.    

Single/Married/Divorced?  
Single

Where were you born?
Detroit, Michigan

What are fondest food memories from childhood?
There are so many: eating rambutans off the tree at my aunt’s house in Malaysia, eating steamer clams and lobster on Cape Cod, my nanny’s chicken paprikash…my mother’s noodles…

What was your first job in food and what did you learn?
Canapes at Bouley.  I developed basic knife skills in that station and learned about ingredients, especially produce.  We were using a lot of local vegetables and David liked to highlight their purity.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A concert pianist, but I lacked the drive and the talent.

Who are your culinary influences?
David Waltuck, David Bouley, my mother…

How would you describe your cooking style?    
Contemporary American—upscale and adventurous

Your dishes reflect so many vastly different cultures and cuisines.  What’s your unique approach to integrating them and getting inspiration from them?  Are they any cuisines that don’t inspire you or don’t pair well on a plate?
I grew up with so many different cuisines and cultures, so on some level this is just my identity; integrating cultural influences comes naturally.  If you think about it long enough, you should be able to mix any cuisine.  Mongolian cooking, or what I saw of it, wasn’t that inspirational for me, but some of the raw ingredients from that country were amazing.

What’s your favorite cuisine?
Don’t have one, and couldn’t live without diversity.

Prior to Top Chef Masters, you were one of the more low profile chefs.  What was that tv and celebrity chef experience like for you?
It was incredible to cook with all those chefs, and especially to hear the stories from the older generation.  And competing for charity made it a much more positive experience.  But some of the challenges were intense, and I think we all have post-traumatic Top Chef disorder as a result ;)

Is that something you want to do more of?  
I’d rather be a judge, but I’d certainly go to bat for charity again.

You must’ve been devastated when there was a fire in Annisa last year.  Did not reopening ever cross your mind?    
There were three occasions when we thought we had lost the restaurant for good.  Our lease was expiring, so we couldn’t rebuild without resigning, and that was a hellish rollercoaster.  

What inspired you to hire a feng shui consultant for Annisa and what did she suggest? Which of her ideas did you implement and were there any that you decided not to use?
Feng shui wasn’t my idea.  We had had such bad luck in the past year, that my partner Jennifer thought we should have the space cleared.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.  I’m pretty sure we did everything the consultant suggested.  And now everyone comments about how great it feels in here.

What’s the most difficult part about opening a restaurant?   And re-opening the same one?
Its difficult all around, so its hard to choose.  Money?  Staffing?  We were lucky that almost all of our staff came back after we were closed for 9 months.

How is the recently opened Annisa different from the original outpost? And how are the two restaurants similar?
Its in the same spot, and at the core the same restaurant.  The layout is the same, but we got nicer chairs, and we warmed the space up a bit by introducing some darker, walnut tones.  We have a paneled wall to absorb sound, and more floral decoration.  

What’s your favorite dish on the menu right now? Least favorite?
I stand behind everything on the menu, or I wouldn’t put it on.  I really like the Spanish Mackerel right now—I’m getting gorgeous heirloom tomatoes from Early Girl Farm right now.  I also love the softshell crab with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin; it won’t be around much longer as the season is ending but I love those flavors and the summer squashes are beautiful—I get them from Bodhitree Farm.

You’ve been involved in both fine dining and casual ventures.  Do you have a preference for one style?
I prefer fine dining for its complexity and detail, but I equally love working on new concepts-- casual as well.

What obstacles have you faced, as a woman, in the kitchen?
It wasn’t easy working in France.  There were some chefs there that were outwardly  opposed to having women in the kitchen.  And there’s still a lot of subtle gender bias everywhere; we all have to keep questioning how we add to it.

Which female chefs do you admire the most?
Anne Sophie Pic for her 3 michelin stars.  Martha Stewart for building an incredible empire.  My friend, April Bloomfield for consistently craveable dishes in such high volume.

What’s the one cooking tool you can’t do without?
I love my tasting spoon.

Any plans to open additional restaurants?
For now I’m focusing on annisa, but I would love to open other restaurants in the future with the staff that has stuck by me at annisa.

We heard you’re working on a cookbook.    Tell us a little about it.
It is a classic collection of recipes celebrating multiculturalism and contemporary American cuisine.  Charlotte Druckman is helping me write it and Stewart, Tabori and Chang is the publisher.  If all goes well, it should come out in the fall of 2011.

Annisa
Address: 13 Barrow St., nr 4th St.
Phone: (212)741-6699

How often do you stumble upon a local store in the middle of midtown Manhattan?   This just might be the first.  Chef-owner Richele Benway has brought a quaint sensibility to midtown east with The Local Store, a new restaurant & wine bar, that serves creative sandwiches and small plates made from locally sourced, farm-fresh ingredients.  The menu changes three times a day, and features simple, but elegant dishes, like roasted tomatoes with garlic scape and goat cheese, corn chowder and gazpacho.  

Benway earned her culinary chops working for some of New York’s best chefs, including Gotham Bar & Grill’s Alfred Portale, whom she credits as one of her mentors.  So why open a local store in New York City?  “I knew there would be no other place like it,” she says.  You can’t argue with that, and the neighborhood seems to be taking to it, especially her ham and manchego cheese sandwich and her fresh-baked desserts, including a French Toast muffin. 

Single/Married/Divorced?  Single.

What did you want to be when you grew up?   In order: pirate, farmer, teacher, comedian.

What was your first job in food and what did you learn?   My first job in food was at Adel’s restaurant on Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg as a waitress. It was basically a glorified burger joint.  All of my co-workers were hardworking, lovely people with strong work ethics.  I was able to work with people who had such a great sense of timing, there was never any such thing as a guest having to wait for anything.

How do you manage to come up with your menu, considering it changes several times a day?   I’m always surprised that the menu happens in spite of me.  I tend to buy too much on impulse of whatever looks good at the market, or what I know I can get locally from a vendor. The staff and I then collaborate to make some pretty tasty stuff based on what’s in the pantry and coming in fresh. We use mostly local here, but don’t have a problem sourcing from small to medium farmers from all over that use good growing practices, like through Basis Foods.

What are some of your favorite ingredients to work with?   Anything that is so perfect and delicious on its own that it doesn’t need much fooling around with.

You’re a northern California native, who has worked at some great New York restaurants, including Alto, Picholine, Convivio and Gotham Bar and Grill.   How has your hometown influenced your cooking here?  Looking back, I realize how lucky I was to grow up in Sonoma County. Eating seasonally came easily since everyone had fruit trees and gardens in their yards. One could stop at the roadside in Bodega Bay for barbequed oysters and mussels. The whole county smelled like apples in fall. We got plenty of cheap produce that was mass produced in the valley from water they stole from Northern California, but even as little kids, my sister and I knew that lemons and apples from trees from the neighborhood were better than the bland, pithy stuff from the grocery store.

Who have been some of your favorite chefs to work with?   Betsy Reilly, Scott Conant, Michael White, Craig Wallen, and Alfred Portale, because he keeps it classy.

With its farm-to-table café concept, The Local Store seems like a more natural fit for downtown Manhattan or Brooklyn than for its Midtown location. Why did you decide to open up shop in that neighborhood?   I had worked in midtown for Chris Cannon for a few years and knew from being here that there was nothing like it, but that people wanted it.

The Local Store opened out as a bakery.  Do you like cooking or baking better?   I don’t think I’m a great baker. It takes a lot of discipline and focus, which I don’t have. Cooking is great because there’s a lot of room to play.

The restaurant also has a great beer selection. What’s your favorite beer for summer?   Anything by Southampton Brewery.  I love the Double White and Keller Pils.

You have some pretty creative sandwiches on the menu, like ham with manchego cheese and raisin mostarda on a ciabatta roll.   Where are some of your favorite places to get sandwiches in the city?  The best place for sandwiches is Vito's in Hoboken on Washington Street.  They make their own mozzarella everyday and it's the best thing you've ever put in your mouth. 

What are your goals for the future?  Lord of the Underkingdom, master of all I survey.  But I’d really just settle for 2 days off.

The Local Store
Address:  East 49th Street, btwn First & Second Aves.
Phone: (212)935-4266

Alex Rein has always secretly loved slushies, but the former lawyer thought the 7-11-style drink wasn't quite sophisticated enough to bring back to the office.  "It's hard to be taken seriously as an adult if you are walking down the street and drinking a bright blue slushie," he explains.  So Rein left law and started Kelvin Natural Slush Co., a Manhattan-based truck that sells gourmet versions of his favorite frozen snack.  His slushies incorporate real fruit purees and let customers mix-and-match to create unique concoctions, like blood orange with ginger and white peach with tea.

Rein didn’t have much experience in the food business, but that didn't stop him from experimenting with new flavors and a one-of-a-kind business.  Not only is selling real fruit slushees, but he's also taken to the roads to do it.  When he’s not working or slurping a Spicy Ginger slush with raspberry puree, he’s grabbing ice cream from his other favorite food truck – Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream.

Single/Married/Divorced?
Single, but seeing someone.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was younger, I wanted to work for the New York Giants.  I still think that would be pretty cool. This actually wasn’t the direction I saw my career going in.  I started out as a lawyer and did that for a few years.

What was your first job in food and what did you learn?

I lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for a year after college and I worked in Nick Wilson’s Cowboy Café bussing and prepping tables. I learned the restaurant business involves a lot of time on your feet.

From where did you buy your slushies growing up?
I grew up drinking slushies, primarily from gas station convenience stores. In college there was a 7-11 right behind the house I lived in where we would go to on a fairly regular basis for Slurpies.  

What gave you the idea to turn slushies into a gourmet dessert by using real fruit?
It seems like a lot of food and dining projects are going in this direction.  I really liked the idea of a more grown-up version of a slushie because at 30 years old, although I can still enjoy a 7-11 Slurpie, it’s just a bit too sweet, and the flavors are limited.  Also, it's hard to be taken seriously as an adult if you are walking down the street and drinking a bright blue slushie.

Why did you decide to operate your slushie business out of a truck, rather than out of a storefront?
Initially, I thought about it as a storefront. I didn’t have a tremendous amount of experience in the business and I wasn’t sure if everyone would share my enthusiasm for a grown-up version, so a truck was a good way to test out my business idea.  Plus, trucks are fun and they give the business more flexibility.  We can test out different areas of the city to see how we sell in different places

You let patrons customize their own Kelvin slushie, but what’s your personal favorite slushie combination?

I like to combine the Spicy Ginger slush with raspberry puree.

Other than your own, what’s your favorite food truck in New York City?
You know, I’m partial to ice cream, so I like the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck.

Why do you think food trucks have become such a city-wide phenomenon?

I think that they offer a great variety of meals or desserts, and a lot of the trucks have very good quality food, and people are starting to realize that. They’re also very convenient, making it quick and easy to get something to eat which is good for people in Manhattan who are always running around.

What’s a typical day like at Kelvin Natural Slush?

We get out to the commissary early in order to start prepping the truck for the day which takes about an hour.  We then head into Manhattan, update the Facebook and Twitter pages and our “Slush Phone” hotline with our location and open for business.  We are still trying to figure out the good spots to sell, so we usually move once during the day.  After we close up for the day, we drive back out to the commissary, clean the truck, head home and get ready to do it all again the next day.

Can you describe the importance of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook for your business?

They’re both very important. We’re trying to build a good following with these sites and we use them to notify customers and fans where we’re going to be and special promotions we are offering. We want to engage our audience and get immediate feedback on what we are doing. Twitter and Facebook are great from a business point of view.

What’s the best part about owning a food truck? Do you have a least favorite aspect of the operation?

The best part about owning a food truck is the freedom to try out different things, whether it is a new mix-in item or a special promotion, and be able to see how customers respond. Not having much prior experience in this area I’m doing a lot of learning on the fly, and am enjoying figuring out what works and what doesn’t as we go along.  I would have to say that the worst part is navigating the truck through Manhattan traffic.

Other than slushies, what’s your favorite type of frozen treats and where in New York City do you go to get it?

I live down on 13^th Street, so I go to Sundaes and Cones. All their ice cream is really great, but my favorite kind is their mint chocolate chip.

Any plans for new menu items or a second truck yet?

Ideally, we’d like to expand, either with more trucks, a storefront or any combination. It depends on the demand, but we’d definitely look into expanding. 

www.kelvinslush.com

 

James Oseland took an unconventional route to becoming the editor-in-chief of Saveur Magazine.   A high school dropout, he eventually enrolled in art school and went on to act in movies and write in Hollywood for several years.   But a job as a proofreader at L.A. Weekly sparked his interest in magazine writing and led him to his current career at one of the premier food magazines.

James Oseland, who also judges on Top Chef Masters, has a taste for the exotic. He lived in Asia for years and even released some Malaysian cookbooks.  Home in New York, he gets his Malaysian fix at Taste Good in Queens and shops for Malaysian ingredients at McCarren Park Farmer’s Market.

Single/Married/Divorced?
Married--unofficially yet spiritually--to my partner, Daniel.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an oceanographer; in elementary school, a movie director; after that, I had no idea. And I still really don’t.

We hear you used to be a bit of a punk rocker, even dropped out of high school. Do you still have a rebellious streak in you?
Sometimes I go into supermarkets and squeeze loaves of Wonder Bread until they burst. My friend Thor taught me that trick years ago. Is that rebellious? A little, I guess. But it’s a great stress-reliever.

How do you go from high school drop out to editor-in-chief of Saveur?
After going walkabout for a few years, I went to art school, then worked in L.A., in the movie business for about a decade, mostly in screenplay development. At the end of my time in L.A., I got a job as a proofreader at the L.A. Weekly, loved it, then moved to New York to work in magazines.

Rumor has it you acted in films. Any we might’ve seen? Do you still dabble in acting on occasion?
I guess I dabble in a little bit of acting every day at work. I have to wear a lot of hats on the job. As for the films you might have seen, well, I hope you haven’t.

You’ve been on plenty of television shows, including Top Chef Masters. What was that like for you and is that something you want to do more of?
It’s a blast. I’d really like to do more.

What changes have you made since becoming editor-in-chief of Saveur in 2006?  What changes would you like to make in the imminent future?
I haven’t really made that many changes to the magazine. The magazine sort of has a soul all its own beyond what a mere editor-in-chief inflict on it.

What do you think is the future of print journalism and how have you used the Internet to increase exposure? Are you readers mostly print, online or both?
Our readers are mostly print.  And I think print magazines are here to stay for awhile. There’s something really magical about picking up a flesh-and-blood physical magazine.

You’ve lived in Southeast Asia and authored books about the cuisine, so where do you go for great Southeast Asian cuisines in New York City?
I like Taste Good, in Elmhurst, Queens, for Malaysian food.

As a Williamsburg resident, what do you think of what people are calling “New Brooklyn Cuisine?” Any validity? What are some of your favorite spots in your neighborhood?
I do think there’s validity to that notion.  I’ve lived in the neighborhood for 16 years and am continually amazed by the evolution of food here.  My favorite place—for a number of years—has been Marlow and Sons.

The current Saveur issue features the best food markets around the world.  Which New York City markets do you frequent and who are some of your favorite vendors?
The Union Square farmers’ market (of course), and the tiny, postage-stamp farmers’ market near my home in McCarren Park.  There’s a family there (sorry, I don’t know their name) from Jersey that, in deep summer, has the most wonderful tomatoes and peppers on Earth.

What’s next on the horizon for you? Any more books, television gigs, travel?
All of the above, I hope. I may be traveling to Australia in October, the idea of which excites me to no end. I’ve never been.