this week in food & drink

COPLAND & TWAIN, COPELAND & COREA, DUNBAR & HUGHES, AND MORE: CELEBRATING AMERICA’S 250th IN CHELSEA

Pianist Min Kwon reimagines “America the Beautiful” at Chelsea Music Festival

CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL: EVERY STORY COUNTS
St. Paul’s German Church and other venues
June 20-27, $65-$150, season pass $500
chelseamusicfestival.org

“This season, our theme, ‘Every Story Counts,’ draws inspiration from the phrase ‘Every Vote Counts,’ where each person’s vote is dignified and counted in a democracy,” 2026 Chelsea Music Festival artistic directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur said in a statement. “This summer, we celebrate the power of music and storytelling to preserve and elevate the voices of people from all walks of life in America. As we contemplate America’s 250th anniversary, we welcome the voices of composers, musicians, artists, chefs, and creators who contribute to the cultural fabric of this country and strive to elevate our shared humanity. Our hope is to continue providing a stage and safe haven for the exchange of ideas and differences, and a fertile ground for artistic collaborations between the performing, visual, and culinary arts.”

The seventeenth annual event, running June 20–27, consists of nine special presentations, with seventeen New York premieres and two world premieres; tickets for some are near capacity or already sold out, so you better hurry if you want to be part of this year’s fest.

Invitation to Love — Opening Night with Clara Osowski
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 20, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianists Dimitri Dover and Melinda Lee Masur lead a six-piece ensemble in an evening of works that explore the American immigrant experience and the poetry of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, comprising Mark Carlson’s Stars — The Dream Keeper, Aaron Copland’s Three Old American Songs, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Three Songs, Libby Larsen’s This Unbearable Stillness: Songs from the Balcony, Reinaldo Moya’s DREAM Songs, Frederick Piket’s The Dream Keeper, Damien Sneed’s All Night, All Day and I Dream A World, and Steven Ward’s Invitation to Love.

Mark Twain–inspired Southern Sunday Brunch
City Winery Bistro
25 Eleventh Ave.
Sunday, June 21, $100, 12:30
chelseamusicfestival.org

Food and drink aren’t the only things on the menu at this City Winery brunch with Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur, joined by director, writer, and producer Bill Barclay for a talk about the making of Copland & Twain (see below), along with music by violinists Yuyu Ikeda and Carlos Rafael Martinez Arroyo. Oh, yes, there is food and drink as well; the menu features buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk fried chicken and waffle, farm egg scramble, Saratoga potatoes, heirloom tomato, and warm apple pie.

America/Beautiful
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Monday, June 22, $65, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

During the pandemic, pianist Min Kwon initiated her America/Beautiful project, in which she asked more than seventy composers around the country, “What is America — is it beautiful, was it ever, or will it ever be?” Some of the results will be heard when she teams up with pianists Timo Andres, Chaihun Kim, and Jorges Tabarés and violinist Claire Bourg to perform America-themed works by Stewart Copeland, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly, and others, accompanied by landscape photography by Park Joon.

Verona Quartet at Poets House
Poets House
10 River Terr.
Tuesday, June 23, pay-what-you-wish, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro on violin, Abigail Rojansky on viola, and Jonathan Dormand on cello — perform Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 “Company,” George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s MoonStrike, and arranger Peter Myers’s Twenties Tunes Jazz Suite, with narration by Byron Singleton and poetry from Wayne Koestenbaum, followed by a wine reception.

American Street Food Stories with Chef Hinnerk von Bargen
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Wednesday, June 24, $75, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

CIA professor and Street Foods author Hinnerk von Bargen hosts an evening of culinary delights from street food stalls, including sloopy bun, curry wurst, cold Sichuan-style sesame noodles, and fruit sandos.

Aaron Copland and Mark Twain join forces in unique theatrical concert

Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert
Open Jar Studios
1601 Broadway, floor 11
Thursday, June 25, $150, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

One of the highlights of the festival is Bill Barclay’s Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert, a genius pairing of Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland and Missouri-born humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Their lives barely overlapped — Copland was nine when Twain died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four — but writer-director Barclay and Concert Theatre Works have produced an evening that brings together Copland’s Music for the Movies and Music for the Theater and Twain’s Diaries of Adam and Eve, performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, and actors Caleb Mayo, Chloe McFarlane, Maurice Emanuel Parent, Robert Walsh, and Carson Elrod, in costumes by Arthur Oliver.

“This program began by imagining how to publicly go about celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. How could this event serve such a polarized time in our history? I have always been moved by some of the traditional American tunes and hymns, but the state of our country called for something else, something I couldn’t quite identify at first,” Barclay explains. “I now realize that for some reason or other, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to release energy, not summon it. I wanted the community of joy, not the burden of politics. And it seemed that avoiding politics entirely was ignoring the elephant in the room. A symphony audience today may be one of the last public spaces of American life that is truly politically heterogeneous. Classical music plays to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. This prompts a follow-up question: Is there a way we can laugh about ourselves without excluding people?”

Shelters in the Desert — An Evening with Vu, León, Susman, Smirnóv, Hernández
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Friday, June 26, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Water, memory, and transformation are the underlying themes of Shelters in the Desert, in which the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, plays Ania Vu’s Water Realms, Tania León’s Esencia — I. Agua de Florida for strings, Grigóry Smirnóv’s Impromptu, J. E. Hernández’s Desert Shelter, and William Susman’s Clouds and Flames, the last piece inspired by Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers; a reception follows.

Family Event: Every Storybook Counts
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, free with RSVP, 10:30 am
chelseamusicfestival.org

American composers are celebrated in this interactive family-friendly morning with Paul Collins, the creator of the Unbannable Library.

Jazz Finale: Warren Wolf plays Chick Corea
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The 2026 Chelsea Music Festival concludes with a jazz finale celebrating the life and career of multi-instrumentalist legend Chick Corea, who died in 2021 at the age of seventy-nine. Vibraphonist Warren Wolf and pianist Alex Brown, joined by the Ivalas Quartet (violinists Tiani Butts and Reuben Kebede, violist Marcus Stevenson, cellist Pedro Sanchez), will perform Brown’s The Old Line and the New York premiere of Corea’s Lyric Suite for Sextet, with a reception to follow.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING THE PEARL OF AFRICA: BAM DANCEAFRICA BRINGS UGANDA TO BROOKLYN

Who: Abdel R. Salaam, Ndere Troupe, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, DJ YB, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2026
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 22-28, many events free, Gilman dances $21-$86, film screenings $17
Why: The coming of the summer season means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-ninth annual iteration focuses on Uganda, with four companies performing “Umoja/Mirembe/Obulungi (Unity/Peace/Beauty)!” in BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, and Ndere Troupe, highlighting movement and music from the Pearl of Africa. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes at the Mark Morris Dance Center, Sanaa Gateja’s “Voices of Peace” art installation, the Council of Elders Roundtable: Legacy & Preservation moderated by Dyane Harvey-Salaam, the Memorial Room, which offers a place to honor festival ancestors, and a late night dance party with DJ YB.

This year’s FilmAfrica screenings and cinema conversations, held in conjunction with the New York African Film Festival, are highlighted by Mohamed Ahmed’s A Tribe Called Love (2025), Maia Lekow and Chris King’s How to Build a Library (2025), Ossie Davis’s Black Girl (1972), Olive Nwosu’s Lady (2026), and Awam Amkpa’s The Man Died (2024) all followed by Q&As with the directors and/or others.

“Thousands of years of African cultural development were interrupted by centuries of colonialism, which gave rise to a sociopolitical movement that led to Uganda’s independence on October 9, 1962, and its formal nationhood in 1963. In the decades since, a powerful artistic movement has emerged to reclaim and celebrate Ugandan identity and intelligence through cultural expression, a force that continues to this day,” Salaam said in his mission statement. “Today, ancient Uganda is considered a cradle of human evolution and early civilization in the East African region of Lake Nalu Baale, the traditional name of what became Lake Victoria. In Luganda, a Bantu language, ‘Nalu Baale,’ translates to ‘Mother of the Ancestral/ Guardian Spirits.’ I am honored to share more of these ancient dances and songs, mixed with shades of contemporary visions of East Africa.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

AN APPETIZING TALK & LUNCH: RUSS & DAUGHTERS AT THE COFFEE HOUSE CLUB

Who: Niki Russ Federman, Josh Russ Tupper, Joshua David Stein, Reggie Nadelson
What: Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing, a Conversation
Where: The Coffee House Club at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Friday, May 8, $85, 11:30 am
Why: In 1904, Polish Jewish immigrant Joel Russ started selling herring from a pushcart on the Lower East Side. Ten years later, he opened an appetizing shop on Orchard St., moved to Houston St. in 1920, and renamed it Russ & Daughters in 1933, after his children Hattie, Ida, and Anne. Today it is a thriving business with multiple locations, run by fourth-generation owners and cousins Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper. In September 2025, they published Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing (Flatiron, $39.99), featuring recipes for such delicacies as smoked whitefish chowder, hot borscht, herring sauces, chopped liver, the Super Heebster bagel sandwich (my favorite), noodle kugel, egg creams, and many more delights.

On May 8, Federman and Tupper will be joined by Brooklyn-based author and journalist Joshua David Stein and author and filmmaker Reggie Nadelson for “Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing, a Conversation,” a book talk, signing, Q&A, and three-course prix-fixe lunch hosted by the Coffee House Club at the National Arts Club. Tickets are $85; the intimate event for a limited number of guests is scheduled to conclude at 2:00.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

KILLING AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE: JOHN KEVIN JONES RETURNS TO MERCHANT’S HOUSE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

(photo by Joey Stocks)

John Kevin Jones pays tribute to Edgar Allan Poe at historic Merchant’s House Museum (photo by Joey Stocks)

KILLING AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE
Merchant’s House Museum
29 East Fourth St. between Lafayette St. and the Bowery
March 25 – April 5, $65-$75
merchantshouse.org
summonersensemble.org

John Kevin Jones is back for his annual residency at the historic Merchant’s House Museum on East Fourth St. with Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe: Murder at the Merchant’s House. Jones has gained a kind of cult fan club for his unique one-man shows, which also include his unique version of A Christmas Carol at the historic museum, a home built in 1831-32 that was occupied continuously by the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933. The nineteenth century feels very present in the house, which was one of the first twenty buildings to gain landmark status under the city’s 1965 law and functions as a museum, preserving the Tredwell family’s furnishings as they would have appeared when Poe, coincidentally, lived nearby for a time at 85 West Third St. and later in a cottage in the Bronx. Dressed in nineteenth-century-style jacket, vest, top hat, and ascot, Jones celebrates Edgar Allan Poe with three of his most popular writings, preceded by short introductions about each work and Poe’s career.

Forty people are squeezed into the Tredwells’ candlelit double parlor — with a coffin at one end and a dining table at the other — and Jones walks up and down the narrow space between, where the audience is seated on three sides, boldly delivering several classic Poe tales of treachery and murder, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Angel of the Odd,” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” from memory. His deep, theatrical voice resonates through the room as he catches the eye of audience members, adding yet more chills and thrills to the mystery in the air. He then sits down with a book for the long poem “The Raven,” evoking the great Poe actor Vincent Price. Jones, director Dr. Rhonda Dodd, and stage manager Dan Renkin, the leaders of Summoners Ensemble Theatre, keep the focus on Poe’s remarkable narrative technique; you might be watching one man, but you’ll feel like you’re seeing each of Poe’s characters in vivid detail.

Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe runs March 25 through April 5, and for select performances there will be a “Raise a Glass to Edgar” preshow reception option ($30) in which Jones will recite “Annabel Lee” and “Alone,” Natalia “Saw Lady” Paruz will perform, and the kitchen, family room, and garden will be open. In addition, medium Heather Carlucci will give psychic readings after both Sunday shows.

There is also a concerted public effort to save the Merchant’s House from construction next door that could negatively impact its structural future; find out how you can help here.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

INAUGURAL COFFEE HOUSE FRIDAY LUNCH AT THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB WITH RODD CYRUS AND CARL RAYMOND

Who: Rodd Cyrus, Carl Raymond
What: Inaugural Friday lunch conversation
Where: The Coffee House at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Friday, March 20, $85, 11:30 am
Why: Back in November, I wrote in a Substack post about meeting actor Rodd Cyrus after seeing Ragtime at Lincoln Center; I was there with a group of women from Wellesley organized by Rodd’s mother. Cyrus plays Harry Houdini, who enters by dangling on a wire and declaring, “He made his mother proud.”

Now you can meet Cyrus as well when he is the special guest at the inaugural Coffee House Club lunch at the National Arts Club. He will be interviewed by writer, lecturer, tour guide, and social and culinary historian Carl Raymond, host of the Gilded Gentleman podcast.

Cyrus was born in Boston and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and is of Iranian-English-Irish-Welsh-Italian-American heritage. In addition to starring in Ragtime, he is a regular on Elsbeth, has appeared in such plays as James Joyce’s Exiles and Maija García’s Valor and such films as Doctor, Doctor and 72 Hours, and portrayed Giuseppe Naccarelli in The Light in the Piazza at Encores!

“Rodd’s story is not only a great theatrical story; it’s a uniquely American story,” Raymond told twi-ny. “To be playing the role of immigrant superstar Harry Houdini in this revival along with his own personal story makes his portrayal unique and deeply important.”

The prix fixe lunch includes beet and mixed green salads, a choice of a turkey club sandwich, mushroom power bowl, rigatoni alla Bolognese, or chicken Marsala, and nostalgic sweets for dessert.

Only a few tickets remain to be part of this exciting event.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SEXUAL ASSAULT ON THE MENU: OH, HONEY AT LITTLE EGG

Carmen Berkeley is a much better actor than her character is a waitress in immersive Oh, Honey (photo by Krystal Pagan)

OH, HONEY
Little Egg
657 Washington Ave., Brooklyn
October 16 – November 7, $28.52 – $87.21
uglyfacetheatre.com
www.eggrestaurant.com

I’m an immersive theater junkie. Just say those two words — immersive theater — and I’m in, no matter the place or the subject; add in site-specific and I start palpitating with excitement. Several of my colleagues would rather be tortured by a Bad Cinderella marathon than see site-specific immersive theater; they don’t know what they’re missing. (Or maybe they do.)

So I jumped at the chance to see Jeana Scotti’s Oh, Honey at the happening Little Egg community restaurant in Brooklyn.

When I arrived at the eatery, on Washington Ave. on the border of Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, I was led to a chair in a row that had been squeezed in between a table and the beginning of the L-shaped counter. Most of the audience is seated at tables or at the counter, as if they were regular diners, but a handful of chairs and stools fill in empty spaces, a reminder that we’re here to watch a play and not have dinner, marring the site-specific illusion.

I initially declined a (free) mug of homemade tomato soup and the menu; already squished in the cramped row, I had nowhere to put the soup or the slice of pie I wanted to order. I understand that they need to get as many paying customers in to see the play as possible, but I already had a bad taste in my mouth. I looked around and I seemed to be the only one dissatisfied, but still.

I asked a waitress if there was anywhere else I could sit; I usually don’t complain about these kinds of things, but my level of discomfort was so off the charts I was considering just leaving. Fortunately, they were able to move me to the end of a long table, where I enjoyed the tomato soup, a glass of water, and a fine piece of lemon meringue pie. My site line was less than desirable, but I settled in for the show.

Four mothers (Maia Karo, Dee Pelletier, Mara Stephens, and Jamie Ragusa) meet the first Monday of every month at diner (photo by Krystal Pagan)

The action takes place at a table by the window, where four women meet for lunch the first Monday of every month. Vicki (Maia Karo), Lu (Dee Pelletier), Bianca (Jamie Ragusa), and Sarah (Mara Stephens) all have sons who have been accused of sexual assault on college campuses. (The story was inspired by a 2017 New York Times article about four such mothers in a Minneapolis suburb.) The women come together as a kind of group therapy to discuss their lives and their legal situations. They are served by Mari, a waitress portrayed by Carmen Berkeley, the woman I’d spoken to earlier about my seat; it turns out that she’s one of the actors.

Berkeley also stands out in the show. When it’s just the four mothers talking, arguing, commiserating, and supporting one another (or not), the play, directed by Carsen Joenk, feels fussy; their conversations are not something other diners would necessarily want to eavesdrop on. But when Mari is involved, the energy bumps up and various narratives become more intriguing.

Berkeley is terrific as Mari, who takes center stage a few times, from a confrontation with a man (Brian McCarthy, Lucas Papaelias, Jesse Pennington, or Ean Sheehy) to a surprising and poignant monologue about herself.

I’m glad I stuck it out, even if the seating arrangement continued to befuddle me. Not every meal is a delight from appetizer to main course to dessert, and the same can be said for immersive, site-specific plays, including Oh, Honey. But in the end, it is satisfying fare.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

AN APPETIZING TRADITION: NEW RUSS & DAUGHTERS COOKBOOK

Russ & Daughters cookbook is starting a tasty New York City tour

Who: Niki Russ Federman, Josh Russ Tupper, Gabriella Gershenson
What: Book launch and tasting
Where: Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center, 1 East 65th St. between Madison & Fifth Aves., and online
When: Thursday, September 11, $43 (includes copy of book), 6:00
Why: Latkes, matzo ball soup, smoked whitefish chowder, babka, rugelach, black-and-white cookies, bagels — those are only some of the recipes collected in Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing (Flatiron, September 9, $39.99). In 1907, Polish immigrant Joel Russ sold Jewish food in a pushcart on the Lower East Side; seven years later he opened J Russ International Appetizers in an Orchard St. storefront before moving in 1920 to 179 East Houston St., changing the name to Russ & Daughters. The business, currently run by cousins Josh Russ Tupper and Niki Russ Federman, the fourth-generation co-owners, expanded to a popular café at 127 Orchard St. in 2014 and has more recently added an outpost near Hudson Yards. The book, a follow-up to 2013’s Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House That Herring Built, by Mark Russ Federman and featuring a foreword by Calvin Trillin, also includes anecdotes and personal reminiscences from the smoked-fish institution’s storied history.

On September 11, Tupper, Niki Russ Federman, and coauthor Joshua David Stein (Notes from a Young Black Chef, The Nom Wah Cookbook) will be at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center for “A Century of Schmears,” a book launch and tasting with James Beard Award–winning food writer and editor Gabriella Gershenson that kicks off the fall Festival of Jewish Ideas & Culture. You don’t have to grab a number when you enter, as tickets are available in advance and come with a copy of the book. You can also livestream the event at home. The book tour then stops at Platform by JBF at Pier 57 on September 14 with Rozanne Gold, the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn on September 18 with Daniel Squadron, P&T Knitwear on September 20 with a scavenger hunt, walking tours, and more, and the New York City Wine & Food Festival, where Tupper will host a Smoked Fish Master Class on October 19 at the Institute of Culinary Education.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]