Spotlight on Alumni
Max and Eli Sussman
Max and Eli went to Camp Tavor throughout their childhoods and then returned later to run the kitchen during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Both started in Amelim and went on to MBI. They grew up in Huntington Woods, MI and attended Berkley High. Max went off to the University of Michigan and Eli went to Michigan State University. Cooking together at Tavor greatly contributed to their love of food and original cooking style, which focused on easy recipes with the goal of enticing young Tavorniks to expand their palates. After phasing out all frozen ingredients and focusing on fresh and local produce, they devised an outlet for their creative cooking endeavors and began to write down recipes and conceptualize a cookbook featuring this “cooking from scratch” mantra.
In 2007, they began writing and testing recipes for what would become “Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef” a novice cookbook. Huron River Press, a Michigan publisher based out of Ann Arbor, published the book in August of 2008. Since then, Max and Eli have been featured on The Today Show cooking with Hoda and Kathie Lee, WGN-TV and ABC-TV Chicago as well as in The Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago and Huffington Post. They have held demos at Whole Foods in Chicago and Detroit, The Chopping Block in Chicago as well as Surfas in L.A. Additionally they were featured chefs at the 2010 National Association of Television Producers Expo in Las Vegas.
Max worked at Eve the restaurant in Ann Arbor rising to executive sous chef. In 2009, he moved to New York City and began working under Chef April Bloomfield at The Breslin inside the Ace Hotel. He has since moved to Roberta’s a farm-based restaurant in Brooklyn. Max is currently working on his own restaurant concept that he hopes to open in the next few years. Eli lives in Los Angeles and works for a music marketing agency. He remains involved in food by writing a chef interview series for LAist.com and is the Marketing Director for Taste of the Nation: LA which is the largest food related charity event in Los Angeles. Eli is currently meeting with investors to open a modified Coney Island concept in Los Angeles.
Both Max and Eli are featured guests of the 2011 Pacific Wine and Food Festival three-city tour. They will be holding cooking demos in L.A in January, San Francisco in March and Seattle in May. They talk nearly every day and often dream of a return stint to cook at Tavor; the place that reinforced their passion and launched their cooking careers together.
For more information on Max and Eli and their cookbook check out: http://www.freshmaninthekitchen.com/
