Artisan foods and meaty visuals

Do you like art, food, and supporting local small business? If so, you’re in luck this Thursday, November 10. Twenty of Central Jersey’s top emerging gourmet entrepreneurs are doing show-&-tell-&-taste in a Gourmet Food & Art Show, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Lotus Studios, 431 Raritan Avenue in Highland Park.

A $10 ticket will get you admission and more than your money’s worth of delicious food samples, all the while taking in the local art on display.

This event is just one of many hosted throughout the year by the Intersect Fund. The New Brunswick non-profit, founded in 2008 by Rutgers University students, provides training and mentorship, basic finance services, and marketing support to low-income entrepreneurs in our region.

A recent Intersect Market in New Brunswick. Thursday's event in H.P. will specialize in food and arts vendors.

Clients from throughout central Jersey include the working poor and the unemployed taking the plunge into self-employment. [In fact, your humble publisher is a client of the Intersect Fund - Ed.]

The micro-loan program makes small, short-term loans to Intersect clients — averaging under $2000. In their three years of operation, the Fund has made about 80 micro-loans to support small business owners in buying or repairing equipment.

One of Intersect’s best-known clients is a Highland Parker:  Amatullah Jabriel-Lewis, owner of Sweet Spice & Honey. Her artisan bakery in South Bound Brook produces sweet and savory breads for wholesale and vendor customers.

Jabriel-Lewis discovered the Intersect Fund last year, after she was laid off from her job in a pharmaceuticals company. She highlighted the importance of Intersect’s mission to support local businesses, noting that Thursday’s expo will allow the general public to do their share, too.

“Sure, we could do our holiday shopping at the regular non-local stores and buy things made in other places,” she said. “But this is a great opportunity for all of us to buy right here in Highland Park and support our local economy and our local business people.”

Also showcasing at Thursday’s expo will be Frank Schlesinger of Frank’s Pickled Peppers, an award-winning preserver of relish, salsa and peppers in the Dayton section of South Brunswick.

Schlesinger’s business, sparked by his gardening hobby, started a year and a half ago. When he was laid off from his long-time job last December, he turned to the Intersect Fund for help in turning his part-time hobby into a full-time business.

Schlesinger said the Fund's "Entrepreneur University" class did help him better understand how to run a business. "But these events that they organize, like the one happening in Highland Park this week, is really helping me network and get my name out there in a way that I would not be able to otherwise."

The current list of vendors who will be at Thursday night’s event includes:

• Jam Bejan (Jamaican cuisine)
• Téte Bistronomie (Peruvian fare)
• GoGranola (healthy granola)
• Just Favors by Elaine (succulent chocolates)
• Randi's Gourmet (elegant biscotti)
• Room for Dessert (gourmet cupcakes)
• Grab 'Em Snacks (crispy plantains chips)
• The Well Dressed Nut (spiced pecans)
• Taking Tea in Style (unique teas)
• Jams by Kim (indulgent jam)
• Frank's Pickled Peppers (spicy preserves)
• Sweet Spice & Honey(sweet breads)
• Missouri (inspiring photography)
• Janice (paintings)
• Keepsakes by Faith (greeting cards and prints)

For advance reservations to this week's Food and Art Expo, or information on the training, services and micro-loan programs, visit www.intersectfund.org. Future Intersect Markets are held eight to twelve times a year throughout Middlesex County: see www.intersectfund.org/blog/intersect-market/upcoming-intersect-markets.