Touch of Italy's Andrew Hooven to speak at Savory Sussex program Feb. 11

Andrew Hooven, executive pastry chef and baker for Touch of Italy in Lewes, will be the speaker at the fifth installment of Savory Sussex, a seven-part, monthly series of programs on the unique and delectable local flavors of Sussex County.

The program will take place at 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11,  at the Zwaanendael Museum, 102 Kings Highway, Lewes. Admission is free and open to the public but, due to seating limitations, reservations must be made by calling 302-645-1148 by Monday, Feb. 6.

A graduate of Peter Kumps’ Cooking School in New York City with a concentration in pastry and baking, Hooven has worked for several Delaware culinary establishments, including Nage and Espuma restaurants in Rehoboth Beach, Wilmington’s Fox Point Grill and Newark’s Stone Balloon; he was also the co-owner of the former Sweet Dreams bakery in Rehoboth Beach.

Opened in fall 2010, Touch of Italy was born out of the traditions of the Curzi and Ciprietti families. It showcases two traditional Italian businesses - a pastry shop, known as a pasticceria, and a salumeria, the Italian version of a delicatessen, which translates into English as "cured-meat shop." Touch of Italy now has locations in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach and will soon open the Touch of Italy Bakery in Lewes.

Zwaanendael Museum exhibits and presentations provide a showcase for Lewes-area maritime, military and social history. In addition to the Savory Sussex program, the museum is currently featuring the exhibit Maritime History on the Delaware, which showcases more than 11,000 years of Lewes history and culture supported by an array of artifacts, maps, sketches, lithographs and photographs; and Rediscovery Through Recovery, which displays artifacts from the wreck of a British merchant ship that sank off Lewes’ Roosevelt Inlet in the late 18th century.