Local Growers and Producers, One Course at a Time
The Peconic Land Trust’s spring lecture series, Long Island Grown II: Food and Beverage Artisans at Work, will kick off Sunday at 2 p.m. at the trust’s Southampton office at 300 Hampton Road with “The Drink,” a discussion featuring Jennifer Halsey Dupree of Milk Pail Farm, Roman Roth, winemaker and partner at Wolffer Estate Vineyard, and Richard Scoffier, the beverage and food director of Honest Man Restaurants. Laura Donnelly, food writer for The Star, will moderate. Subsequent programs will be held at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton.
According to Kathy Kennedy, the trust’s outreach manager, who organized the series with Rich Bogusch, manager of Bridge Gardens, “This is the sixth year of the series, but last year we decided to focus on local farmers, growers, and producers because there are a lot of lecture series here during the winter, but nobody was focusing on that. All four sold out, so we decided to do it again.”
This year’s program is organized by menu courses. “The Drink” focuses on hard cider. Ms. Dupree, a 12th-generation member of the Halsey family in Bridgehampton, grows some of the apples used by Mr. Roth in Wolffer’s cider. Mr. Roth was a winemaker in his native Germany before moving to the East End. Mr. Scoffier, whose food and beverage career began at the Twisted Pine Brewing Company in Boulder, Colo., creates the syrups in his cocktails with fruit sourced locally.
Participants in “The Appetizer,” which will take place March 15, are Brendan Davison, owner and operator of Good Water Farms, a certified organic microgreen farm in East Hampton; Carissa Waechter, a pastry chef who left a successful career in New York City to launch Carissa’s Breads, which use local wheat from Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett, and Jeri Woodhouse, founder of A Taste of the North Fork, who has worked with pickled items for years.
“The Entree” is scheduled for March 29. “For this course, we are featuring farmers raising livestock on the North Fork for meat production,” said Ms. Kennedy. Doug Corwin is the president of Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue, which was started by his great-grandfather Henry Corwin in 1908. Tom Geppel, a former tax consultant, owns 8 Hands Farm in Cutchogue, which raises Icelandic sheep, pigs, chickens, and produce. Hal Goodale of Goodale Farms in Aquebogue raises beef cows, dairy cows, goats, pigs, and chickens.
The grand finale on April 19 will be dedicated to dessert. Panelists will include Steve Amaral, a chef who lived and worked in Hawaii and Madrid before settling on the East End. He is executive chef and chocolatier of North Fork Chocolate Company and will be bringing — spoiler alert! — chocolate.
Tom Stevenson of Oysterponds Farm in Orient, a source for a variety of fruits, vegetables, and jams, has become well known as a fig grower. “Even though it’s not the season for figs, we wanted to talk about the growing interest in them,” Ms. Kennedy said. “We used to think they couldn’t grow around here, but there are a number of varieties that do really well.” Mary Woltz of Bees Needs, an East End apiary, will bring some of her honey to the table.
The final three talks will take place in the house at Bridge Gardens and start promptly at 2 p.m. Refreshments created by Mr. Bogusch will be served after each lecture. The seating capacity is 40, and prepaid registration is required. Individual tickets are $25, $20 for members. A series subscription costs $90, $70 for members, and includes a one-year subscription to any of the four Edible magazines. Tickets can be purchased by emailing [email protected] or calling 283-3195.
A list of all the trust’s spring programs, including hikes, watercolor classes, talks, and readings, can be found at peconiclandtrust.org.