Slow Food East End Hosts Two Dinners by Two Chefs on Two Forks

Slow Food East End is an organization that has had a presence here for nearly two decades. But as a global initiative, the Slow Food movement began in Italy way back in the late 1980s in reaction to the arrival of fast food chains in cities like Rome. Lamenting the loss of local food traditions and the increase in manufactured and processed food items, Slow Food’s primary mission is to secure good, clean and fair food through relationships with local producers, purveyors and chefs. The Slow Food movement is about preserving local food traditions that have increasingly been outsourced to large producers, resulting in more highly processed products.

“We are an international organization of 160 countries, and still making a name for ourselves on the East End,” explained Maria McBride, the current chair of Slow Food East End, which was formed in the early 2000s. “Most of our founders were rooted in the South Fork, but most of our leadership happens to live on the North Fork now. It all began on the East End over a couple dinners at The American Hotel, where a group of like-minded people wanted to connect on the ground, thinking of food and agriculture, the farmers, the CSAs and the environment.

“We’ve seen tremendous changes on the East End,” she continued. “Originally, it was farmers who settled here. Even though preservation is happening and people are focused on keeping farming and diversifying to make sure it’s not a monoculture, there is a lot of development. We have an incredible opportunity here in that we’ve seen aquaculture and kelp farmers, but still it’s a troubled, fragile system. We’re focused on creating awareness and partnerships.

McBride believes the easiest and most convivial way to form community partnerships is around the dining table.

“When you break bread and know where it came from, you support our local agriculture,” McBride said. “It takes many man hours, a lot of grit, it takes money and a marketplace. For the people invested in industrial agriculture, it’s a different model. We have a global opportunity to feed people and it’s hard to do with small farms, but we chisel away where we can. It’s easier on the East End and agriculture is what makes it click.

“We’re all volunteers and life has brought us together because of adjacencies and interests. It does take time. It is about planting seeds — some pun intended — and making healthy soil and the land itself to get things growing.”

Though Slow Food East End was initially founded on the South Fork, it’s been some time since there has been a Slow Food event here. But that all changes with Taste the Forks Mini Dinner Series, which, on Thursday and Friday, November 14 and 15, will feature two separate events, the first at Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton with chef Jason Weiner, and the second the following night at Noah’s in Greenport with chef Noah Schwartz. Both multi-course dinners will feature wine pairings by local vineyards —Channing Daughters wines at Almond and Macari and Bedell wines at Noah’s.

“It’s two restaurants leveraging a lot of the same flavors out there, all coming together at a time that makes sense,” McBride noted. “You can only do this in the shoulder season for chefs. We realized it was a lightbulb moment. We can kick-off our fundraising auction, bring people together in a dining groom, one on the North Fork, one on the South Fork. We hope to get people engaged in our small organization, making noise and presenting two chefs making very different menus with seasonal produce, filling the room with local bounty.”

For Jason Weiner, the owner and chef at Almond Restaurant in Bridgehampton, this event with Slow Food East End was a natural fit.

“We got a Snail of Approval, their stamp for being a good person,” joked Weiner. “It’s obvious that their mission overlaps with ours in so many ways. Our restaurant is dedicated to the pursuit of localism — local, seasonal and artisanal — that’s the space they live in as well.

“We’ve been out here for 24 years and are so blessed to have made relationships with farmers fishers, beekeepers, ranchers and hunters,” he added. “For us, it’s getting out of the way of the ingredients and let that be the story. Slow Food has this same vibe, and the people we’ve connected with have become amazing friends.”

As a chef, Weiner finds that the great thing about this time of year is the fact that a lot of local producers are slowing down with retail farm markets, yet they still have a decent amount of the growing season left.

“I just canned maybe 500 pounds of tomatoes,” Weiner said. “We do some fun exchange things with Quail Hill and Feathertop Farm. They send us peppers or tomatoes, and we make siracha or canned tomatoes. They get half and we keep half. We’re good at cooking. They’re good at growing stuff.”

This cooperative spirit between chef and farmer is the kind of energy that embodies Slow Food East End. In the two decades since the organization was formed locally and Weiner opened Almond, he has found the area has attracted many young farmers representing the next generation in agricultural production.

“In 2001, there was no Amber Waves. I had to seek out Quail Hill, but I hadn’t been introduced to them. There was Balsam Farms. At Pike’s [in Sagaponack] I was their first wholesale customer. I had to say, ‘Do you have enough to wholesale? Whatever you’re going to compost, give it to me and charge me.’”

One of the newest farmers working in the area is Isabel Milligan, a Water Mill native who, with her growing partner Nick Collins, farms land leased from the Town of East Hampton which was purchased with Community Preservation Funds. Just this year, Feather Top Farm got up and running by selling a diverse range of vegetables, herbs, eggs and flowers from its roadside stand on Cedar Street, at farmer’s markets and for its CSA members.

“Isabel is my main source for potatoes, not for French fries, those are from Marilee Foster, but the little new potatoes — the red bliss and Yukon golds,” said Weiner. “I also get jalapenos and eggplant from them, and I do a thing with bamboo now — they’re offloading a lot of their bamboo — I cut it into little circles, it can’t be totally woody, there has to be some light green in it, I put it in olive juice and use it for a martini or salad. It’s the best.”

There once was a time on the East End when potatoes were king and often the only crop grown in East End fields. But with the new generation has come a diversity of crops that serve chefs like Weiner well.

“In addition to the normal things like cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potatoes and hard squash, tomatoes and potatoes, what also grows here is a Mediterranean kind of vibe — peppers, garlic, fennel and eggplant — ratatouille ingredients,” he said. “We also have bok choi and tatsoi. We make 60 pounds of kimchi a week.

“When we first opened, we had a Balthazar and Pastis vibe,” Weiner added. “That was part of our DNA. But as I made more friends here and became more tuned in to the fact that the East End was settled as a farming and fishing settlement, we changed our focus from steak frites, that kind of bistro vibe, which is still a piece of our DNA. But the other piece is localism and working in local ingredients that tell a story. The third leg of that stool is a street food aesthetic and vibe and the peasant French food. How do Korean short ribs figure in with roast chicken and haricot vert? It’s soul satisfying food.”

In terms of the Slow Food East End menu at Almond on November 14, there may still be some tweaks, but at this point, Weiner’s locally-sourced menu will include an appetizer lineup of home spun feta, nduja crostini, pork pate with green tomato marmalade, green cherry olives and deviled eggs. A first course will feature Crescent Farm duck bratwurst with Balsam Farms kraut, warm Quail Hill Farm papas and pumpernickel, mustard. The next course will feature Pete Haskell’s mahi mahi which will be smoked, roasted, then glazed with a 24 month corn/almond miso, a fioretto which is a ragout of many roots from many friends, cauliflower/oyster mayo and hot sauce. For dessert, expect Art Ludlow’s raw milk yogurt and Amber Waves’ whole wheat streusel served with gooseberries, figs and black apples, all served with Channing Daughters wines.

“I’m trying to get as many people involved as possible as producers, that’s the other component,” said Weiner. “Duck is my favorite, and Crescent Farm in Aquebogue is the only duck farm left out here. Art Ludlow sends us raw milk and I don’t often get a chance to make feta because it’s time consuming. Pete Haskell is a fish monger up by the canal, Quail Hill has gooseberries, which are the best, and the whole wheat streusel is from Amber Waves.”

While the Almond dinner will be served family style, McBride notes that the Slow Food event at Noah’s will be a multi-course plated dinner.

“It’s the chefs’ prerogative,” she said. “And they have established relationships. They are both passionate and have a tremendous following. This is about celebrating the relationships and many who come to these dinners are already big fans of the chef.

“I’m excited to see what they do and how they put fall on the table for all us to enjoy,” she added.

Slow Food East End’s Taste the Forks Mini Dinner Series, begins on Thursday, November 14, at 6:30 p.m. with a cocktail reception followed by a three-course family style meal at Almond, 1 Ocean Road, Bridgehampton. Tickets are $95 ($90 for SFEE members). On Friday, November 15, at 6:30 p.m., the evening at Noah’s, 136 Front Street, Greenport, begins with a cocktail reception followed by a four-course plated dinner. Tickets are $105 ($100 for SFEE members). A portion of each ticket supports Slow Food East End. For tickets and information, visit slowfoodeastend.org.