On a sunny Saturday afternoon the Slow Food East End community celebrated Earth Day. Educators, farmers, wine makers, and chefs gathered to feed and educate us about our local food systems and ecosystems. Enjoy these photos from the event – use of the left and right arrows to view them all! Thanks to our board members Jessica Easton and Maria McBride for the photos.
Slow Food East End invites you to celebrate Mother Earth and all she provides for us on Saturday April 23, from 1-4pm (rain date is April 24). Join us for an afternoon of fun education for the whole family, it’s free to attend!
Passionate or curious about local farming practices? Ready to up your gardening game? Concerned about heathy lands and waters? Join Slow Food East End and our community of farmers, food producers, gardeners, educators at Saint Joseph Villa for a day of food and learning. The Villa is located on the scenic Shinnecock Bay waterfront in Hampton Bays and is also home to the Ecological Cultural Initiative and Shinnecock Nation Kelp Farmers.
Come meet local farmers, growers, and business owners to learn directly from them. Talks and demonstrations will cover composting, kelp farming, raised beds, no-till practices, hügelkultur, biodiversity, food production, seed sharing, clean water practices and so much more
There are also activities for the whole family! Join a garden tour by the Ecological Cultural Initiative and an introduction to kelp farming. Hands-on projects and displays from guest farmers and growers will also be set up on the Villa lawns. Enjoy food and drinks from Mattitaco’s On the Road Food Truck and Macari Vineyards. There will be an indoor screening of the documentary Farming Long Island, a film about the challenges that Long Island farmers face today and the importance of land conservation and local farming.
Plus there will be a seed swap – bring some, take some!
Vendors and Participants include:
Butterfly Effect Project
Early Girl Farm
East End Food Institute
Ecological Cultural Initiative
Founders Oyster Farm
Green Door Woodworks
Landcraft Garden Foundation
Living Wild on Long Island
Macari Vineyards
Mattituck Mushrooms
On the Road Mattitaco Food Truck
Relic Design
Shinnecock Kelp Farmers
Slow Food East End
Sweet Woodland Farm
The Granola Plant
Violet Cove Oyster Company
The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was a student protest to raise public awareness about the impact of pollution that presented real and disastrous challenges for the healthy future of our world. The protest sparked a movement that initiated the Environmental Protection Agency and ongoing substantive legislative efforts that have helped clean our lands and waters. Earth Day is now celebrated internationally by folks seeking solutions to combat climate change and to sustain a healthy earth.
Slow Food East End supports healthy farming practices which are essential to a sustainable future, join us on Earth Day to meet folks in our own community who are leading the way, and learn more about what is happening on the East End.
When a chef is married to a chef, their kitchen is always the heart of the home. We invite you to join us in Jack and Lauren’s kitchen. The couple lives on the North Fork and are educators, passionate foodies and members of our Slow Food East End community: Lauren is one of our Flour Power volunteer bread bakers and Jack is an avid home gardener.
Many of you will recognize Jack Bishop as a leading food authority who is a host of the popular PBS show America’s Test Kitchen. Jack is also the Chief Creative Officer at both America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country; this multimedia publishing company is a foodie think tank which has published recipes and tips across many platforms including print, broadcast and digital products. The company also produces Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines as well as America’s Test Kitchen books, three subscription-based websites, and an online cooking school as well as America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country television shows. Whew!
Lauren Chattman, a former pastry chef, is also a well recognized expert in the kitchen. Lauren is a prolific author & co-author with 12 cookbooks published to date including Mom’s Big Book of Baking, The Gingerbread Architect, Cookie Swap! and Dessert University with former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier.
On Sunday March 20 live via zoom, Lauren and Jack will demonstrate the preparation of a delicious slow food style menu. Lauren will take us through the steps of making fresh pasta using local eggs. Jack will share his kale pesto recipe that will be made from freshly-harvested local kale. To finish the meal Lauren & Jack will demonstrate yummy chocolate pots de crème, one of their favorite desert recipes. All demo recipes are from America’s Test Kitchen: The New Cooking School Cook Book (2021). Autographed copies of this book will be available for a few lucky registrants to win.
All ticket proceeds from this Chef Series will be donated and matched by SFEE to benefit, World Central Kitchen who are feeding Ukraine refugees in Europe.
#ChefsForUkraine
Feel free to share the event link with friends and family (near and afar), virtual events allow us all to remain connected and share in the joys of learning together.
Over the past year, as part of our mission to support community-led initiatives, we have had the opportunity to partner with the incredible Butterfly Effect Project (BEP) – a community-oriented non-profit with the mission to create safe spaces for girls to dream and succeed. This partnership began last spring when one of our Master Farmers, Melissa Mapes, joined other BEP volunteers to help build a garden and plant vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The gardens have been a huge success and are used to help teach the kids in their programs about everything from the environment to how to grow their own food.
Whether you’re a seasoned baker or new to bread, we invite you to join our effort to help feed our community delicious and nutritious food through our Flower Power initiative.
Flour Power is a way members of the community can provide home-baked loaves of bread to local food pantries. The goal is to nourish and bring joy to people through a personal touch. Each cycle of Flour Power provides loaves baked by the community to pantries like the North Fork Spanish Apostolate in Riverhead and CAST North Fork in Southold. Baking cycles take place every 2 weeks.
Anyone can register to bake. Simply sign up and we will send you the recipe that is for 4 loaves; each baker keeps one loaf and donates three. There are designated drop-off points on the North and South Forks (when you register you will receive dates and locations for drop-off.) Please keep in mind that our locations are expanding as we grow.