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Photos from our Sour Power Fermentation Festival at Jamesport Farmstead

Thank you to everyone who came to our inaugural Sour Power Harvest Festival at Jamesport Farmstead! We were so glad to see you and spend a beautiful fall day making sauerkraut, listening to music, eating BBQ, and soaking up the new harvest.

Thank you to our friends at the Jamesport Farmstead for hosting us and for an informative farm tour! A big thank you to Maple Tree BBQ for catering the event with a hearty lunch, Macari Vineyards for pouring a selection of their wines, North Fork Brewing Company for serving their homegrown hops beer, Gluten Free Groove filling our sweet tooth with baked goods, Sweet Woodland Farm with farm herb goodies! Also, to our wonderful musicians Maria Fairchild and Adam Becherer for playing live music from bygone times.

A very special shout out to Chef Peter Burley, for teaching us his DELICIOUS sauerkraut recipe with traditional tools, truly a fermentation expert!

We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! We are grateful to everyone who comes out to learn more about Slow Food East End. Your support allows us to help local farmers & food producers who support a healthy environment, good soils, and clean waters for all. We hope you’ll join us for our next event, in the meantime, enjoy these photos from Sour Power!

Jamesport Farmstead Awarded Snail of Approval

Slow Food East End is pleased to announce that Jamesport Farmstead has been awarded the chapter’s prestigious Snail of Approval. Last month members of our SFEE team visited the farm in Jamesport, NY to present and raise a celebratory glass to mark the achievement.
 
Snail of Approval (SoA) is awarded to businesses that incorporate the Slow Food ideals of Good, Clean & Fair food. This powerful award helps bring attention to amazing food businesses that are excelling in two or more of these areas: sourcing, environmental impact, cultural connection, community involvement, staff support, and/or business values.
 
The mission cited on the website of Jamesport Farmstead speaks eloquently for the passion and vision which drives their business and operations. Taken from Carl Sagan “There are no useless threads in the fabric of the ecosystem and if we cut any one of them it will unravel many others”. Started in 2019, they are a NOFA-certified organic farm located in Jamesport made up of 50 acres with 10 acres under cultivation. They are a no-till farm intensively managed without the use of any “cides” or fertilizers. 100% of everything they sell (produce, flowers, berries, and herbs) is grown by them.
 
They operate a farm stand on Saturdays and 2 CSAs. One is traditional, the other is a choice CSA which operates like a bank account where people deposit the CSA fee in an account and use it to pay for items they select. A novel approach that now is chosen by half of their CSA participants.
 
Visit our Snail of Approval page for more information on local restaurants, farms, and food producers who meet these standards and have previously been awarded our coveted Snail of Approval. 

Recipe: Warm Lentil Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This recipe was shared during a Chef Series on beans and pulses with Chef Peter Berley, and comes from his book “The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen.”

Ingredients

6 to 8 sun-dried tomatoes (dry packed)
1 cup green lentils, sorted and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon sea salt plus additional to taste
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
1/2 stalk celery, finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon, or red wine vinegar to taste
Freshly milled black pepper to taste
Chopped fresh parsley or cilantro for garnish

Instructions

1. Place the dried tomatoes in a bowl and cover with hit water.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Add the salt and the lentils and simmer, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes until the lentils are tender but still hold their shape. Drain, transfer the lentils to a mixing bowl, and toss them with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.
3. While the lentils simmer, in a heavy skillet over medium heat, warm the remaining oil. Add the onion, carrot, and celery, and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes longer. Stir the vegetables into the lentils.
4. Drain the reconstituted tomatoes, slice them into quarters, and add them to the lentil mixture. Season the salad with lemon juice or vinegar, add salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with chopped parsley or cilantro.

Chef Series: Cooking with Peter Berley, Beans and Pulses

Slow Food East End cooking demo with Chef Peter Berley, showcasing Beans and Pulses.

Beans truly are the staff of life, from the old world to the new world beans have fed and nourished our bellies and soils.

Slow Food East end would like to invite you to a demonstration with Chef Peter Berley in his beautiful South Jamesport kitchen to learn more about the fascinating history of beans and a cooking lesson showcasing how to prepare these delicious dried beans and pulses.

  • Getting started: How to soak and properly prepare the bean.
  • The right techniques to cook beans using a stove top, oven and pressure cooker.
  • Three basic bean recipes: A soup, a salad and a spread. Peter will share his favorite recipes that are endlessly adaptable.

Chef Berley’s foremost concern is the development of local, sustainable food systems and the fate of home cooking in America. A former executive chef of the world-renowned Angelica Kitchen restaurant in New York City, Berley now owns The North Fork Kitchen and Garden, a culinary studio where he teaches intensive workshops on modern food craft and wood-fired bread baking and cooking.

His ground-breaking “The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen” received a James Beard and IACP awards. Peter’s second book “Fresh Food Fast” was chosen as one of the 25 Best of 2005 by Food and Wine Magazine. Peter’s most recent book is “The Flexitarian Table; Inspired Flexible Meals for Vegetarians, Meat lovers and Everyone In Between,”

Reserve your ticket now, the program fees are $25 or $20 for Slow Food East End members. Join Slow Food East End now and enjoy member benefits all year long.

All ticket proceeds support Slow Food East End Feed the Forks initiatives including Flour Power, The Edible School Garden Project and more.

Recipe: Nourishing Winter Soup from Chef Noah

 

As winter weather has truly settled in here on the East End, we wanted to share a recipe from Snail of Approval awardee, Chef Noah. This nourishing winter squash soup is made extra warming with the help of ginger (and a jalapeño if you want to up the spice!) Use whatever squash you can get your hands on, and we invite you to spend an evening cooking up this delicious bisque.

Recipe

Variety of winter squash (Butternut, Acorn, Delicata, Pumpkin)
3 medium yellow onions, sliced
2 medium carrots, chopped
2-3 celery, sliced
1/4 cup peeled sliced ginger
2 Tbl diced garlic
1 jalapeno (optional)
1 Tbl curry powder
2 -3 Tbl Olive Oil
1 can coconut milk
1-2 Tbl maple syrup
Juice of one fresh lemon
Cilantro for garnish

Instructions

Heat your oven to 400°F.

Cut the winter squash in half and place on sheet tray drizzled with oil, and roast cut side down until fork tender. Allow it to cool.
Add your olive oil to a large pot, and sautée the onions with carrots and celery until tender.
Add curry powder and allow to toast until fragrant. Add ginger and garlic and jalapeño if using. Sautée it all in the pan for several more minutes.
Scoop out the seeds from the roasted squash and reserve.
Scoop out the tender flesh of the squash discarding the skins. Add scooped squash to the sautéed vegetables, and add coconut milk and water, or vegetable stock to cover and season with salt and pepper.
Simmer soup for 30 minutes stirring often so it doesn’t stick and burn on the bottom of the pot.
When it has cooked down slightly, allow the soup to cool and then puree in a blender in small batches, and return it to the pot.

Bring the soup back to a simmer before serving.
Add maple syrup and lemon juice and taste for seasoning, and garnish with cilanto sprigs and toasted reserved squash seeds to serve.

Enjoy!

Cheers to Our First Chef Series of 2022!

Our first virtual event of 2022 brought together over 80 people from across the Slow Food East End community to learn tips and tricks from two of our favorite East Ends bread bakers. David Chaffin, our very own board member and the creator of the Flour Power bread recipe, baked bread from his home while speaking with sourdough-expert Ana Burcroff. The two of them baked bread using David’s recipe and answered questions from the audience, sharing a peak into their technique and their kitchens.

Thank you to everyone who attended the event and a special thank you to David and Ana for helping us start the year strong! And thank you to our sponsor for this event, Truly Grass Fed, an Irish dairy brand that produces delicious butter and cheese with integrity and care for people, animals, and the planet. We are grateful for their generous support in making this event possible!

We hope that this live event may have sparked an interest in becoming involved in our Flour Power programming, and we invite you to sign up today to join in the fun and give back to your community. Anyone can join – no matter your baking expertise. Check out our winter baking dates, and sign up today on our website!