Endless Ideas for Spicing Up Summer

    Peter Ambrose has been catering everything from clambakes to elegant weddings for the past 25 years.

    “My father is a native bubby,” Mr. Ambrose said of his dad, Joseph Ambrose. His grandparents built and owned the Three Mile Harbor Inn for 40 years. Mr. Ambrose’s mother, Christine, was born and raised in Sag Harbor, where Mr. Ambrose lives with his wife, Clare, and their three children.

    Now Mr. Ambrose has a new business in addition to his Food for Forks catering operation. Pete’s Endless Summer line, featuring sauces and rubs, can be found on shelves around the South Fork.

    He started Pete’s Endless Summer because, Mr. Ambrose said, “I had a desire to find another way to market my culinary abilities.” His people-pleasing sauces, marinades, and rubs seemed to be just the ticket. “Everyone has access to quality meat, produce, and fish,” he said. “I felt that creating a gourmet line of products could allow current clientele and new clientele to experience and recreate the great foods we offer at our events.”

     “When I first started to attempt to bottle and sell products 10 years ago, farmers markets were not in existence on eastern Long Island,” said Mr. Ambrose.

    The name came, he said, from conjuring up “great summer memories” of barbecues and other fun outdoor events he has been to, or catered, over the years.

    The products use local ingredients and are bottled and produced by Jeri Newhouse at A Taste of the North Fork. The line available right now includes a tomato-ey, spicy barbecue sauce, a marinade, a chipotle ketchup, and a lime-agave mojito mix.

    Mr. Ambrose also produces fresh items on a daily basis —  a chimichurri, a grilled tomato salsa, and wasabi aioli. “We will be adding a shelf stable version of our wasabi aioli in the next couple weeks,” Mr. Ambrose said.

    Seasonal products include a rhubarb chutney and a “Hellish Relish” hot dog topping. Soon, he plans to launch a line of rubs, along with more bottled drink mixes, hot sauces, and additional barbecue sauces and marinades.

    Staying true to his original idea of marketing in the outdoors, Pete’s Endless Summer products are available at farmers markets in Amagansett, East Hampton, Montauk, and Shelter Island, where Pete Ambrose and his Food for Forks crew have been making baby-back ribs, slow smoked and on the spot. The bottled sauces can also be found at the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, Cromer’s in Noyac, and the Amagansett Farmers Market.

    It was, and still is, sort of a testing market for him. “We knew our chimichurri was really good,” he said, “but we didn’t know if it was an item people would desire on a day-to-day basis. But we now know this is indeed the case.”