Broiled Ricotta with Olives and Sun-Dried-Tomato Relish.

Eli recalls when the buildout for Samesa began and he was bringing up supplies from the loading dock."I'm unloading the Robot Coupe, sheet pans, the Vitamix, and all this stuff to take into the restaurant and there's a bunch of fake foliage with a sign on it that says, 'For SNL, do not touch.'

And it just hit me, the energy of being in Manhattan, in Midtown, in Rockefeller Center.And being able to do this with my brother?I love my brother, we're incredibly close.

It makes it so much sweeter.I mean, I feel incredibly grateful that I made that career change.

I couldn't ask for anything more."Grilling over wood engages all the senses: the sweet aroma of woodsmoke wisping through the backyard, the sight of pixie-dust embers dancing above licking flames, the tinkling sound of large hunks of coals falling apart, the hand-warming glow of a fire on a cool summer night, and the complex flavors of caramelized vegetables, smoked fish, and charred meat.

That primal, happy feeling you get when food sizzles over hardwood coals?And it lead to that Great Migration that lead to a lot of the food that we cook today.

I think this dinner is an opportunity to be authentic to ourselves, to show who we are and what we’ve done.We’re proud of our heritage, but we’re also evolving..

As a kid we never celebrated.I didn’t have that kind of relationship with my parents, with my father dying when I was extremely young and with my mother being incarcerated.