Marty Yaffee of Shelburne Falls is a Renaissance man. He studied music composition at Harvard. He takes striking photographs of the village in which he lives. Most local residents know him best as a chef, however.
I first met Marty and his wife Deborah when they ran the Riverside Restaurant in Shelburne Falls decades ago. The Riverside was right next door to my late mother’s antique shop, the Merry Lion. She and I savored Marty’s meals.
Marty went on to develop the baking department at Green Fields Market in Greenfield and to teach culinary arts, both at his own Little Cooking School and at Holyoke Community College.
Right now, he is employed to teach cooking to eighth graders and high school students at Greenfield High School. Like many educators, he has had to cope with a great deal of change over the past couple of years.
He and his students are finally back in class after months and months of remote connection and a particularly difficult period of hybrid learning. He told me last week that he had only seen some of his pupils’ faces for the first time when masks came off in early March.
“We build up an image of what a person’s face looks like,” he said with a laugh, “and sometimes it’s so different from what you expect!”
Marty’s job at the school is to equip his students for a future in which they will leave home and have to cook for themselves. He gives them basic lessons in nutrition and food safety and he finds ways in which he can make cooking fun for them.
“We have had some wonderful projects,” he told me. “We had a great success with the kids’ making things for the film festival at school, finger foods. Everybody loved the food. They gobbled it up.”
His students have also engaged in baking competitions, including a “best burger battle” and a cupcake war.
I asked him what he was planning to make with his students for Saint Patrick’s Day this week. He was still mulling over his choices when he talked to me but he shared the recipe for his Lucky Leprechaun Dip with Shamrock Chips.
I love this recipe. It’s suitably green, it includes lots of vegetables, and it tastes pretty darn good.
It does require the cook to own a shamrock cookie cutter or two, but as far as I’m concerned a shamrock cookie cutter is a necessity at this time of year. (Technically, Marty’s cookie cutter is a four-leaf clover, not a shamrock, but I’m not quibbling. It’s close enough.)
During the shutdown, when school was entirely remote, Marty demonstrated the process of preparing dishes for his students online. He did this at home, with his wife Deb serving as his videographer.
He explained that students had two options for each online cooking assignment. They could make the dish at home and send him a digital photograph of the final product, or they could take an online test about the lesson.
The Yaffees enjoyed making these videos and have hatched a plan to offer Zoom lessons to the general public via their website, http://hypnochef.com/. (Deborah is a hypnotist and a nutritionist.)
Their initial spring cooking class will be offered on Sunday, April 10. “We thought, with everything going on in Ukraine, let’s start our virtual school off with some traditional Ukrainian recipes,” said Deborah Yaffee.
They weren’t certain when we spoke exactly what Ukrainian food would be made in the class, but they mentioned several yummy-sounding possibilities.
Like many creative people in the hilltowns, Marty Yaffee cobbles together a living from several different sources.
In addition to teaching at Greenfield High School and planning Zoom offerings, he is working on his photography. His exhibit, “Hidden Glories of Shelburne Falls,” is on display at Mocha Maya’s in Shelburne Falls and should be up for a few more weeks. He also continues to take on freelance baking projects.
His hybrid career gives him some busy days, but Marty Yaffee is doing what he loves and living in a place he loves. That’s a recipe for a delicious life.
Ingredients:
for the dip:
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
1/4 cup finely chopped carrot
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced scallions
2 garlic cloves, minced
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2/3 cup sour cream
for the chips:
spinach tortillas to taste
cooking spray or olive oil as needed
garlic salt as needed
for serving:
assorted sliced veggies to augment the chips as dippers: bell pepper, blanched asparagus, cucumber, broccoli, snap peas, celery, etc.
Instructions:
Start by making the dip. In a large bowl, stir together the chopped spinach, carrot, mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, scallions, garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne until completely combined. Fold in the sour cream and blend well.
Cover and refrigerate the dip until it is well chilled. Serve with shamrock chips and fresh vegetables.
For the chips, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Lay the tortillas flat and cut out as many shapes as desired with a shamrock cookie cutter. Place the shamrocks on a parchment-lined baking sheet and lightly spray them with cooking spray or spread a small amount of olive oil on both sides. Season with garlic salt.
Bake for 7 minutes; then flip the shamrocks with tongs. Bake for another 7 minutes or until the chips are until crispy.
Serves a green-clad crowd.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.