Riverside Patch News Feature for Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook!

'Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook' Author Shares Vision

"Love is the best ingredient, after all," said author Leeann Lavin, whose book celebrates stories and recipes celebrating the bounty of the East End and Long Island and the intrinsic ties between chef and grower.

• By Lisa Finn
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• October 6, 2012

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A new cookbook, "Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown" celebrates the flavors and bounty of the East End and Long Island. Author Leeann Lavin shares her vision.

Q: What inspired you to write a cookbook about the East End?

A: When I first started work on this book concept in 2002, I had the idea that gardens are peerless; that because gardens are so utterly beautiful – so inspiring -- it could be said that Mother Nature is responsible for no less than giving birth to the magic of artistic endeavor. It was more than the notion that gardens are just pretty to look at or sit in, but indeed, I believe their very essence captivates us and elevates us to create.  

Especially artists. I knew that gardens had been igniting passions and fueling artists from painters to sculpturers to writers and musicians throughout the ages. 

And none more so than the culinary artist, because they utilize the garden’s bounty in making their transporting, artisanal signature recipes. I wanted to further explore the nexus where garden art meets and fuels other art, beginning with the culinary artist because they use the bounty of the garden directly in their creations.  

I wanted to discover how locavore chefs discover inspiration from their growers, farmers, fisherman, dairymen, vintners and artisanal food producers to create seasonal, sustainable, and delicious menus.  

Long Island and particularly the East End have a long and proud agricultural history – and today it is still the most productive farming and food production region in New York. The book demonstrates the special relationship and respect between the chef and their inspired grower and their relationship to the land and the waters. I wanted to tell those challenging and triumphant stories.  

I live in New York and the Garden State, and have spent so much time on the East End in producing the book: bicycling to interviews across the two Forks, photo shoots, tastings – it is safe to say it is my home, too. Everyone welcomed me – opening up their gardens, their duck farm, oyster beds, wineries, and kitchens.  It’s an intimate experience and I am proud and honored to share the food history and stories that are Long Island.  As I note in the book, the original Paumanok name for Long Island is “Land of Tribute,” and the "Homegrown" book is my tribute to Long Island. 

 Q: What does your book focus on?  

 A: Told in a rare collection of loving profiles and beautiful color photographs, "The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook" captures the authentic and delicious homegrown ingredients produced by the artisanal food growers and the majestic land and seascapes that are the romantic hallmarks of the Island’s food culture. Inspired by the terroir and the growers, the book celebrates that distinctive, inspired cuisine and lifestyle -- bursting with flavorful recipes from the area’s best locavore chefs.  

Q: How do you define Hamptons and Long Island "homegrown?"

In the book, I define Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown as a chef who creates their menu based on the seasons and what is available locally.  It can be argued this is more difficult to manage or to do. However, that’s what helps make them great chefs, not just good cooks. They will get up extra early to visit with the fishermen to pick out the just-caught seafood, or get to the farm or greenmarket as it opens. The menus are market-driven. They learn horticulture and agriculture; they can butcher. They seek out the best, local ingredients. They can practice the “Rule of Claudia,” and seasonal, sustainable is what inspires them. They have respect for their growers and nature.  

Q) How does this focus on homegrown produce reflect a shift in the American consciousness?

A) People want to know where their food comes from. People have also developed a curiosity to learn to grow native edibles. And to make much of what they eat – to become empowered to explore and prepare good food, not tainted or adulterated ingredients. The focus on homegrown has ignited a passion to create: whether it’s to make a homegrown crafted beer or cupcakes, or pickles, people love making and sharing their food.  Love is the best ingredient, after all.

Q) What are some of your favorite recipes in the book?

Like children, I truly love them all. I make different recipes for different seasons or occasions – for a bridal shower for example, we made many of the recipes – pre-publication - and labeled the trays and dishes so guests could reference the food memory when they got their book. 

Q) Why is your book a must have for anyone who lives on the East End or loves the area?

Readers will relish the food stories and part of the joy in a regional book is to identify with the chefs and restaurants and growers. Though the book is being marketed nationally, because you may not realize it but many people aspire to a "Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown" lifestyle. People display the book with pride. They use the book to create memorable meals. And they can gift a truly unique and special tribute to Long Island.  

Q) What other factors inspired you to write the book?  

A) I also wanted to celebrate local and regional food. In the not-too-distant past, people would travel to different places or far-away regions to not only enjoy the beauty of the landscape, but also to taste and experience the local cuisine. Today, more people eat the same shopping mall-one-size-fits-all-menu. That’s bland and uninteresting. I want to recapture a food tourism. Local terroir and salinity of waters and the seasons, for example, make fruits and vegetables and dairy taste different and unique. Food tourism will again suggest people will visit Long Island to dine and drink. Long Island is blessed with a climate and landscape and waterways that afford it fresh, delicious food sources in just about every season.  

Q) Where can it be purchased?

A) To order my book "The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook" at Barnes & Noble, Amazon & local independent book stores, go to:  http://tiny.cc/4zjhbw, http://tiny.cc/pijhbw, http://www.indiebound.org/indie-bookstore-finder.

Q) What is the message you hope to convey in your book?

A) There are several messages that I hope readers will take away from the book, including a sense of pride in the region’s longstanding agricultural history and contribution to an American cuisine (duck, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, fish, wine, to name a few landmark ingredients). Also, that they celebrate and embrace the locavore chefs and their growers who work really, really hard to produce and serve this food.

And that readers will see that the best food starts with the best ingredients. The best chefs advocate starting with the best ingredients and then to do as little as possible to them.

In turn, I hope readers will support their local farmers, CSA, and growers – and perhaps grow some things themselves. It is very empowering and healthy. Sustainable food is good for the economy, too. And, finally, I am overjoyed when fans tell me the book is so special for a few reasons: they love the food stories – learning about what drives the chefs and growers – and I hope that inspires the readers in whatever life endeavor they have.

Further, the recipes are simple to make and simply delicious – recipes that you can return to over and over. As a guideline, I asked each chef to offer recipes within these guidelines: a family heritage recipe, a signature recipe, a seasonal recipe, and a brand-new recipe.  The collection of recipes in the book is bursting with culinary creativity.

What distinguishes the book is that it is both food stories and recipes. Readers can learn about the locavore chefs and what makes them go the extra mile to the farmer’s markets or to the honey growers or the duck farmers or the dairies – when it would be so much easier to just pick up the phone and call a purveyor. See, it wasn’t good enough for “my” chefs to be good cooks – that had to be a gimme – no, my chefs had to be a cut above – a master chef – a culinary artist who reveres their craft in such a way that no less than the very best homegrown ingredients compel them to create simple, delicious recipes. I hope the reader can follow the food adventure and see the respect for the chefs, their growers, and the food and their relationship to the land and waters of Long Island.

Q: What singular moment on the East End prompted you to embark on this journey?

A) Long Island is a place of extremes, extending nearly 120 miles east of New York City. But it is also a place that exists in the dreams and imaginations of our collective consciousness. As I wrote in the book: F. Scott Fitzgerald captured its aura-as-character in the 'Great Gatsby' while living on the Island’s famed Gold Coast, where he wrote of “that slender riotous island.” In fact, Long Island is the longest and largest island in the contiguous United States.  From the New York Harbor to Montauk Point, the Island’s contrasts and diversity are an anthology of American culture.This place has told us many stories and has many yet to tell.  I wanted to tell those stories.As I look back at how I started my journey with the map of Long Island, the restaurants where I planned the follow up chef and grower interviews looked like a necklace.  I think it was exploring a history, a dream and today’s good news food story that fueled this journey.

Food is a lens by which we can view so much of the world.  Food can also create and trigger a remembrance – a recalled moment of joy: a first date, Grandmother’s house, holiday traditions, or dinners with Dad. I hope The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook prompts readers to embark on their own homegrown journey.

The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook Ships from warehouse!

In the world of first-come, first-served, today is the day the smart foodies and those who romance local food and drink are rewarded for their assiduousness. 

Everyone who pre-ordered the Homegrown & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Voyageur, Will receive their book by next week!

This is a milestone joyous, break-out-the-champagne -- or better yet, the North Fork (NoFo) wine-- moment!

Cheers!    

The book’s in-store, street date’s book release is June 5^th.     

For more information, visit my Author’s page:

^{Author's Page}

How Did Your Kitchen Design Get That Way? Psst - Find Out at MoMa

You’d think with all the kitchen photography for the Homegrown book, not to mention my own obsession with cooking, that I’d be less than eager to visit the New York Museum of Modern Art - MoMa’s “Frankfurt Kitchen.”

But nothing could be further than the truth.

The description in the Arts’ section of The New York Times noted the exhibit is “a point of reference,” and explained the show “explores the 20^th –century kitchen and its relationship to food, labor, consumerism and female identify.”

I couldn’t wait to see what was cookin' at the museum about this unique topic.  

So right after it opened in September, I eagerly made it an afternoon at MoMa and a respite in the musuem's unparalleled sculpture garden.

By today’s McMansion uber designs, the kitchen dynamic curated in this exhibit might seem puny.

Long before the kitchen became the center of many homes with “aspirational” kitchen technology that rivals industrial kitchens, there was the kitchen that was buried down below for the kitchen staff to maneuver, or tucked away where women toiled. 

(I say aspirational for today’s kitchens because so many homes are outfitted with amazing culinary gadgets only to sit idle.  People too often eat out or order in or use processed food.)

That phenomena is changing, right?!

I learned that standardization after World War II was a defining feature of modern kitchens. 

There was a hopefulness about the promise of technology.

Adjustable stools allowed women to sit and peel vegetables without standing. 

Progress is glacial J 

The kitchen was also moved closer to the living quarters to Mom could keep her eye on the children while working in the kitchen.

Architects aimed to show the admiration for scientific reason and the desire for a more utopian society as well as transform daily life.

Generally, government and society looked to improve the collective social well-being.

I observed so many of the exhibit-goers pointing out kitchen items and images on the scrims that reminded them of their childhoods spent in the kitchen.

Squealing, some were elbowing others in their group, saying, “I should’ve saved Mom’s ___, fill in the blank; whether it was the blender, Tupperware or Melmac.

I got a mixed message reading the goal at that time was that “every available piece of land must be cultivated.”   That's good. (And I loved the show's posters.)

But I couldn't help think this also led to the Levitt-towning of America with all those cookie-cutter tract houses along with ripping the heart out of our small, local farms...

I recommend visiting the exhibit. It explores food culture – it helps explain a lot of what one of my book’s Homegrown chefs described as a food generation lost to Betty Crocker!

In many ways, the mid century kitchen did indeed become the heart of the home.

It did accomplish the goal of transforming society. 

With the benefit of hindsight, not all that change made life better though.

I could see the timeline of processed foods, diabetes, and fast food, just, well, fast-forward before my eyes. 

But for the time it takes to view the exhibit, you can’t help feel the happy promise that the new kitchen and “liberated” Moms and food technology would not only fuel prosperity but also imbue the “Kitchen Debates” of Nixon and Khrushchev and the entire culture.

MoMa curator Juliet Kinchin and Davin Stowell, founder and CEO of the design consultancy Smart Design were both on the Leonard Lopate, WNYC radio show discussing the exhibit.

Kinchin’s curated a show that produced a combination of a heretofore-unexplored issue fusing history, feminism, architecture, and food.

MoMa’s description of the exhibit is as follows:

Counter Space explores the twentieth-century transformation of the kitchen and highlights MoMA’s recent acquisition of an unusually complete example of the iconic “Frankfurt Kitchen,” designed in 1926–27 by the architect Grete Schütte-Lihotzky. In the aftermath of World War I, thousands of these kitchens were manufactured for public-housing estates being built around the city of Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany. Schütte-Lihotzky’s compact and ergonomic design, with its integrated approach to storage, appliances, and work surfaces, reflected a commitment to transforming the lives of ordinary people on an ambitious scale. Previously hidden from view in a basement or annex, the kitchen became a bridgehead of modern thinking in the domestic sphere—a testing ground for new materials, technologies, and power sources, and a spring board for the rational reorganization of space and domestic labor within the home. Since the innovations of Schütte-Lihotzky and her contemporaries in the 1920s, kitchens have continued to articulate, and at times actively challenge, our relationship to the food we eat, popular attitudes toward the domestic role of women, family life, consumerism, and even political ideology in the case of the celebrated 1959 “Kitchen Debate” that took place between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow at the height of the Cold War. 

Featured alongside the Frankfurt Kitchen is a 1968 mobile fold-out unit manufactured by the Italian company Snaidero. These two complete kitchens are complemented by a wide variety of design objects, architectural plans, posters, archival photographs, and selected artworks, all drawn from MoMA’s collection. Prominence is given to the contribution of women throughout the exhibition, not only as the primary consumers and users of the domestic kitchen, but also as reformers, architects, designers, and as artists who have critically addressed kitchen culture and myths.

The MoMa kitchen exhibit runs through March14th.  212-708-9400

http://moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/counter_space/credits

After touring the exhibit, I visited the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller sculpture garden, naturally. 

It is a quintessential urban garden, punctuated by all those sensual Picasso and Giacometti.

Designed by Philip Johnson in 1953 on the same site as Ms. Rockefeller’s town house, it is an outdoor room. 

(As an aside, recently I read, "Angeology," a thriller of a story where Abby Rockefeller's guiding help and the garden at MoMa play a critical role.  A great read.)

In 2004   architect, Yoshio Tanaguchi redesigned the garden, expanding it yet again.

The garden area is sunken with water reflecting pool or ‘canals” as Johnson called them, weeping birch and beech trees.

It is a peaceful place.  A contemplative garden where one can think about and reflect upon the fine art exhibit one has just experienced.

On this day, I saw that Yoko Ono had placed her Wish Tree where visitors could write their wish and place it on a tree branch; with the “promise” the wish would come true.

That was too irresistible and I made a wish for my father…

 

Next up “must see” at the MoMa is Paula Hayes, Nocturne of the Limax maximus now through February 28, 2011.  It features incredible work of landscape designer artist Hayes.  Curious and gorgeous living gardens in glass!

According to MoMa:

Since the 1990s, New York–based artist and landscape designer Paula Hayes (b. 1958) has produced botanical sculptures—organically shaped vessels made from blown glass, silicone, or acrylic and filled with a rich variety of plant life—that expand upon the classic terrarium, both through their imaginative containers and the microcosmic universes within. Hayes has conceived an installation for the Museum lobby that includes a fifteen-foot-long, wall-mounted horizontal sculpture for the west wall, and a free-standing, egg-shaped, floor-to-ceiling structure nearby. Organic in form and containing a variety of living plants, the vessels will add a joyful vitality to the lobby, enlivening the space during the winter season.

And Garden Design magazine just wrote about the exhibit too.  Kudos for spreading the good word about beautiful gardens.

http://www.gardendesign.com

Greenmarket's Nevia No, Bodhitree Farm, Returns From Terra Madre Slow Food Conference

Bodhitree Farm’s Nevia No is back from the Slow Food international organization’s bi annual Terra Madre conference, held in Turin Italy, October 21 through 25^th.

As previously reported here, Nevia is one of two Greenmarket farmers from New York City nominated to represent the Union Square Greenmarket.  The other nominee is a Vermont maple syrup farmer.

I adore Nevia’s farm fresh vegetables.  They are exquisitely pristine.

She takes extraordinary care with the growing – and the presentation. 

The produce is clean, clean, clean.  It is arranged with the care of a Saks Fifth Avenue fashion window, beckoning to the keen passerby and seasoned restaurant staff alike.

Every greenmarket and food book signing or culinary benefit I attend where the top chefs provide food tastings invariably note Bodhitree Farm as the preferred farmer.

The chefs’ reverence for her produce is not a surprise. 

The care and love she invests in farming, growing the tastiest, most flavorful veggies results in the best produce.  www.bodhitreefarm.com

Did you know the word Bodhi-Tree is a wisdom or world tree and is a symbol of enlightenment?  How perfect.

She – and her associate, Debbie – are unfailingly helpful and nice. Always smiling.

There is usually a cooking demo going on too. 

This way, once you’ve been seduced by the day’s neat-as-a-pin, colorful display, you can test drive the sweet potato curiosity you’ve never heard of. 

Or the purple cauliflower you didn’t think was real.

The variety of vegetables and herb is the tatsoi, red mizuna, Tuscan kale,

Delicious, tempting treats are made by Nevia or most often, Alissa Dicker Schrieber from The Kitchenista (www.thekitchenista.com). 

It’s always a food adventure at the Bodhitree farm stand at the Greenmarket.

I asked Nevia how the trip to Turin, Italy for the Terra Madre international network of food was for her. 

She described an extraordinary experience. 

I could see it in her eyes.  She looked like she’d been to the “other side.”  Transformed.

Just being in a place where everyone has the same passionate devotion to food must be a religious experience of sorts.

Nevia attended the lectures and panel discussions to learn more about the next generation of sustainable food producers of which she is one.

She also learned that while most small farm laborers are women; very, very few women actually own the land they work…

She said she was most impressed by a group of Asian women who risked prison and death over many years in order to claim their farm land.

Coincidentally and timely, I was just introduced to the “Women Wearing the Pants” (WWTP) organization that is dedicated to supporting the work of the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women and the commitment to Free Trade Zones and Fair Trade. The Asian women who fought for the farm could have used this support.

I was particularly intrigued with Experimental Gardens.  According to their website. http://tiny.cc/ibpf “In December 2010, WWTP will help research and finance 15 experimental subsistence gardens for impoverished women headed households in Nicaragua through affiliations with ww.IDEORG.org.  The International Development Enterprise.

Following a discussion about fair trade, gender issues in food production and indigenous food, I asked Nevia what was the most interesting food she experienced at the conference. 

She said she was so busy attending all the scheduled events that the food item that really captivated her was the bread she discovered the local Italians use.

Nevia brought out a shrink-wrapped bread from her truck cab to show me.

Soon, others were marveling at the unique, stylish bread design.  Leave it to those fashionable Italians! 

Slow Food International was founded 30 years ago as a non-profit organization that promotes the preservation and growth of environmentally sustainable and socially responsible food worldwide.  www.slowfood.com

It’s crazy that we have to even have such an organization as a watchdog and promoter – or reminder – of what “real” food is. Sigh. But we must.

And I for one, am most sincerely grateful for their amazing work, given the topsy-turvy world of industrialized, corporate food production that purports to provide “food” while delivering no less than laboratory-created “nutrients” rather than safe, pure, food. 

Don’t get me started.

As noted in the Introduction to my book, “Long Island Homegrown” to be published next year (working hard to complete the last details now J)

Much of the effort was launched as a reaction, nay – a rebellion against the industrialization of food production and food offerings as presented by restaurant chains and supermarkets.  The Slow Food movement was started in Italy – not surprisingly – by Carlo Petrini --to combat fast food. In 1986, Petrini was resisting a McDonald’s planned near the Spanish Steps in Rome.  His Slow Food movement claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an eco region. It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement. The movement has since expanded globally to hundreds of thousands of members all over the world, and the biannual food conference is a coveted invitation

Coveted indeed is an invitation to the Slow Food conference.

So raise your glass and let’s toast Nevia No, Bodhitree Farm, for representing Greenmarket. For making us so proud. 

For all the crazy hard work that she does with such integrity – and making it all look so elegant.

To continue to provide us outstanding leadership, sustainable “veggies with spirit” as she notes on her business card. – And unmatched, flavorful food.

We love you, Nevia.  The USPS needs to start issuing a series of stamps that celebrate Farmers as heroes and leaders. 

And I vote for you to be the first cover girl stamp!


You can learn more here about Slow Food Movement: