Michael Ginor & Izzy Yanay: The Odd Couple
These two veterans of the IDF are an unlikely, but highly successful team.

By Danielle Siers

Do you wrinkle your nose when you think of liver? Or does schmaltzy chopped chicken liver with onions and eggs come to mind?

Michael Ginor and Izzy Yanay are changing that image, and doing it with class. Their company, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, is thrilling great chefs with the duck livers they produce-coming soon to an oven near you. These men intend to make foie gras a household word.

Michael and Izzy gave me a freshly harvested foie gras-a $37 per lb. delicacy that drives connoisseurs crazy. I thought Julia Child could direct me, but the only foie gras referred to in her cookbooks came from cans

The foie gras I had was the same quality and brand as the foie gras prepared by "star" chefs: Jean-Louis Palladin (at the Watergate in Washington, D. C.); Wolfgang Puck (Spago in L.A.); Paul Prudhomme (the Cajun chef from New Orleans); Mark Straussman (Campagna, N.Y.C.); and others. It's also served at the White House. It is, after all, American foie gras.

It came from a moulard raised in the heart of the Borscht Belt in the Catskill Mountains of New York State-from Ferndale, where I spent the summers of my youth in bungalow colonies and all-girls camps. In those days, Ferndale consisted of a post office and general store-and you read about foie gras in books about fancy folks.

Who could imagine that two chicken farms in the area (one of them deserted for years) would become Hudson Valley Foie Gras, one of the largest breeders and processors of moulard (a hybrid of Pekin and Muscovy duck developed in Israel and France) in the world?

Ah! I find a recipe in an old tome. Uh-oh! I can't indulge in instant gratification. While reading, I munch on perfectly smoked Hudson Valley duck breast. I spread some D'Artagnan paté, prepared from Michael and Izzy's product, on crusty French bread. It's like butter.

My gift sits, covered in kosher salt, for 24 hours. Then it marinates for another 48 hours in cognac, paprika and quatres épices. My husband grouses that the liver is treated better than he is.

I didn't know what I had in mind when I took a ride with Michael, food enthusiast, chef, former Wall St. broker, and ex-spokesman for the IDF in the Gaza Strip. We talk as we speed northward.

Michael was born in 1963 in Seattle to Sabra parents. His father, Amos, worked at Israeli Aircraft Industries, came to the States in 1961 to work for Boeing and played a major role in the development of the 727. Michael's mother went to the University of Washington and is now a professor of literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.

In 1966, Michael's father was transferred to Bell Laboratories in Buffalo, NY, where he helped develop the Hovercraft and Minuteman missiles. When Michael was 5, they returned to Israel. By the time he was 7, Michael forgot he had ever been in America. But he already was picking restaurants for his parents and choosing items from the menus. ("In a previous life," he says, "I must have been a chef or something.") When they'd offered him a bicycle for his fifth birthday, he said he preferred filet mignon.

When he was 13, the family moved back to New York. Michael went to Brandeis University and, on the first day of school, met Laurie, his wife. They both majored in economics, stayed at Brandeis for two years and then attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They finished their senior year at Brandeis and married a year later. Michael studied for an MBA at New York University.

Laurie worked for Alan Greenspan (now of the Federal Reserve) at Townsend and Greenspan, a consulting firm. In the mid-80's, Michael at 24 became the youngest vice president at David Lerner Associates, a brokerage house. Because he was in bonds, the crash of '87 didn't affect him. Instead, he had a crisis of conscience.

"I reached a point where I was dissatisfied with what I was doing; I know it sounds corny, but that's how I felt." His 18-year old brother finished an American high school, then enlisted in the Israeli Army. Says Michael, "I felt like I had betrayed the friends of my Israeli youth by not serving in the IDF. I didn't want to be a yuppie anymore."

Michael's grandfather was Asher Ben Joseph, deputy director general of Israeli Aircraft Industries. His great-uncle, Avraham Ben Joseph, was Director General of the Defense Ministry. Later that year, when Michael went to Israel for his youngest brother's bar mitzvah, he talked to Avraham and decided he wanted to join the IDF.

After the Israeli Army promised Michael a "real" job, in early 1988 Michael and Laurie put their life in New York on hold, and Michael went running and lifted weights to prepare for basic training. They went to Israel, and in May, Michael started two grueling months of basic training in the Jordan Valley. By October, he was the IDF spokesman in the Gaza Strip with the rank of captain. "It was a very interesting year," he says. Laurie is less enthusiastic: "Bullets, rocks, Molotov cocktails, a bayonet through the roof once. I was not amused."

When off-duty, Michael and Laurie enjoyed some of the finest restaurants in Israel, where he was able to indulge his appetite for fine foie gras. In Israel, it's kosher and relatively cheap. When his army stint was up and he and Laurie returned to New York, he ordered foie gras at one of New York's trendy eateries, and freaked at the prices. "Surely," he thought, "this can be produced for less in the States?" and started looking for a way to do it. The first person to help him was Ariane Daguin of D'Artagnan Foods in Jersey City.

She introduced him to Izzy Yanay, an Israeli chalutznik in Sullivan County, New York.

Izzy Yanay was born in Haifa in 1949 and raised on Kibbutz Degania Aleph, the first kibbutz in Israel. His grandfather, now 106 years old, still sharp and on the ball, is the last living pioneer from the 20's. His daughter, Izzy's mother, was born on the kibbutz in 1923. His father arrived from Poland in 1934, joined the Palmach, worked for Aliyah Bet (the illegal Aliyah) as commander of Plugah Yud (sea-going company), and later founded the Israeli Navy. He retired as a Brigadier General in 1964 and became a wealthy land developer.

Izzy's parents were divorced when he was 14, and he was sent to the Green Village, an agricultural high school near Tel Aviv. In 1968, he joined the IDF and served for three years. In the '73 War, he was an artillery sergeant, put in an extra year, and then studied at Tel Aviv University, earning a BA in philosophy. He also holds a BA from the Hebrew University branch for agriculture in Rechovot. He met his wife, Margalit, when they were both working at the Safari Zoo in Ramat Gan, and they were married in 1977.

After graduation, Izzy landed a job as a field and breeding instructor at a foie gras processing plant in Benjamina, learning a great deal from watching what was being done wrong. He soon figured out that the processing plant should control production instead of the farmers. (The plant was never able to plan production because the farmers were independent.)

In the meantime, a friend from his days in Rechovot had discovered a way to produce moulards by crossbreeding. Muscovy and Pekin ducks. Izzy was asked to test this new duck with the growers, and that's how he discovered "the duck of the future."

Izzy gave his moulards to his worst growers and waited to see what happened. A 10% mortality rate was common among goose growers. Less than 1% of the moulards were lost, their livers were sellable and the meat was magnificent. Once Izzy saw the results, he was hooked, wanted to start his own farm, and began looking for backers. Most people couldn't grasp the notion of a state-of-the art moulard/foie gras farm where all the production takes place at one location. Izzy couldn't get funding, even from his own father.

Then, through a friend, he met Reuben Josephs, a well-known philanthropist from Monsey, New York. Izzy figured they could start a small scale farm in the Galilee, but Josephs was interested in producing in the U.S.-when he'd gone to look up figures for foie gras production in the U.S., there weren't any. So he jumped up and down, figuring he was buying himself a gold mine. He signed a partnership agreement with Izzy and his friend, brought Izzy from Israel and flew him by helicopter over White Lake. Below them was a chicken farm that belonged to Sidney Ziegler, a Catskill eggman-and they bought it.

In August, 1982, Izzy started growing moulards. In one year they managed a harvest of 2,000 livers a week. Their ducks were completely free of hormones, antibiotics and growth chemicals. But there were no customers.

Izzy began calling fancy restaurants listed in New York Magazine and running samples into the city. By chance, he met Ariane Daguin, daughter of André, the famous chef. At the time, she was working at Trois Petits Cochons, a famous gourmet butcher ship in Greenwich Village. The two made a deal, and Ariane became the distributor for Josephs and Yanay's products.

From 1982 until 1988, Izzy tirelessly worked the farm from 18-20 hours a day. Then his partners drove his friend from Israel out of the business, and Izzy was left to carry the burden alone. In 1988, he returned from his first vacation in seven years, a 10-day trip to visit family in Israel, and found he, too, had been forced out.

For almost a year, Izzy supported his family by driving a tractor-trailer. Then Ariane (she had, by 1984, opened her own gourmet foods processing company, D'Artagnan), who gave him moral support but had no money to help him start a farm, told him about Michael Ginor.

And that's how Michael and Izzy, an odd couple if ever there was one, met.

The following Saturday afternoon, Izzy drove out to a house in Great Neck, Long Island, and met Amos Ginor, Michael's father. "I looked into his eyes," says Izzy, "and saw pure integrity. Here was a man I could work with, a real mensch, someone I could rely on."

In 1989, they decided to form a partnership and founded Hudson Valley Foie Gras, a company that would breed, raise and process ducks. About two and a half years later, at the height of the season, one of the coops collapsed and killed every duck in it.

But not to worry. Later that afternoon, Michael went to see Izzy's former partners and offered them a fair price for their business. A few days later, Hudson Valley was back in business-with no competition.

Last year, when Amos died of cancer at age 60, the Yanays, who had been taken in by the Ginors, were as devastated as the family. Now Michael and Izzy soldier on, determined to run the best foie gras farm in the world.

The farm I visited wasn't what I had expected. It's located on 200 picturesque acres of rolling hills, streams and woods. The processing plant is spotlessly clean. The ducks are kept in clean, uncrowded pens. The corn feed they eat contains no hormones or additives, and all salvageable parts of the duck are used or recycled.

Izzy is dedicated to the farms. Michael spends lots of time promoting his foie gras and other fine foods. As an event coordinator, guest chef and partner in Culinary Brainwaves, a company which markets chefs' creations, and as a food consultant, Michael creates benefit dinners. His contributions have been recognized and he is being honored as Man of the Year at a Jewish National Fund dinner at Windows on the World at the World Trade Center in May. He brings guest chefs to cities everywhere to taste, experiment and learn. He counts among his friends and colleagues those chefs mentioned above and Anne Rosenzweig, Daniel Boulud, Michel Richard, and others-names that make your mouth water.

Michael is also a member of the National Advisory Board of the James Beard House, a non-profit foundation that promotes culinary knowledge and excellence. Hudson Valley Foie Gras is also socially responsible. It assists in feeding the less fortunate through Meals on Wheels, the Make a Wish Foundation, Share our Strength, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and other organizations.

The raisins have been plumping in port. The duck fat is bubbling just so. The sweet onions, garlic, beef stock and spices have simmered for hours. I toss the raisins into the saucepan, remove the foie gras from the marinade and place it in the baking pan. I pour the hot fat over the liver and pop it into the oven at 375°F for six minutes on each side. I strain the raisin sauce, heat some plates and slice the liver into one inch slices, placing it just so on the sauce.

Six people lift their silver forks in anticipation.

They aren't disappointed.

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