Down On The Farm

One interesting twist in local/slow food is the concept of Community Supported Agriculture. There are several CSA farms on the East End, and one that was of interest to me was the Golden Earthworm in Jamesport. So I loaded up the Jeep for an Outing and went on a little ramble last weekend.

Now, I'd love to be writing right now about the wonders of CSA and how I went to the Golden Earthworm and was so impressed that I bought a share and all my produce next summer would be coming from the East End, and how proud I am to be able to reduce my carbon footprint by eating local produce, and how great it is to get more connected with your food sources. Alas, it was not to be. Because despite what it said on their Web site - and even on the roadside sign - the farm stand was closed on Sunday. Naturally, finding this out required me to get pretty seriously lost on the back roads of the East End, as I discovered too late that my poor little GPS didn't have maps of Jamesport. It would admit that the town existed - barely - but that was all. Score one for Big Oil.

Nonetheless, I rarely if ever drive all the way to Riverhead with only one goal, so we were off to my next stop at Adam and Eve Organic Farmstand. This one was kind of cute - lots of pumpkins out in the fields, and some Nigerian Dwarf goats penned outside. Apparently I arrived one weekend too early for the Garlic Festival, which might well be worth going back for. Unfortunately, lateish on a Sunday afternoon, the selection was fairly limited and I was about to return to the Jeep emptyhanded when I noticed a "Roasted Corn" stand across the parking lot. I was getting pretty hungry by then.

Well, the corn wasn't roasted, it was boiled and soggy and gummy. I'm not convinced that the corn was local to start with, and it clearly had been cooked yesterday if I was lucky. Thoroughly disgusted with the whole local produce plan by then, I headed off to locate Briermere Farm. I had learned about these guys from the Golden Earthworm site. At this point in my travels, that was not much of a recommendation, but I figured it was still worth checking out.

Briermere is a fruit farm and while not certified organic, bill themselves as committed to responsible and sustainable farming. They have strict guidelines about the amount of pesticides used - just enough to deal with the somewhat unfavorable conditions for certain of their crops. Limited pesticides and really fresh nectarines... now, this seemed like something I could get on board with.

I was simultaneously encouraged and dismayed by the state of the parking lot. It was jammed with BMWs and SUVs and the like. The popularity looked good - and at least it was open - but it wasn't necessarily frequented by locals, which can be cause for some trepidation. Also a lot of these vehicles weren't exactly parked straight, which led me to reflect on the idea of the beginning being at the end. In this case, that means that Riverhead is on the NYC-facing side of the Long Island North Fork Wine Trail - and at 4pm on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, a bottleneck of westbound (and, on average, slightly tipsy) traffic.

There is a long counter on the porch in the front of the building that is heaped with vegetables at one end, and fruit at the other. Inside the building, there is an impressive array of freshly baked pies for sale - this is where many of the shoppers were headed. On the veggie side, there were Brussels sprouts on the stalk, local spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, and other farm stand staples, and I stocked up. Then I found the fruit. Glorious fresh-picked apples, nectarines, pears and teensy little plums were available by the quart ($5). I liked the quart-bucket system that speeded up the selection, but unfortunately that's usually a little more fruit than I buy at one time. I got nectarines and honeycrisp apples and shared them with my landlords.

All I can say is that shopping for produce at an outside farm stand with a bunch of fairly affluent New Yorkers who have been drinking wine all day is a unique experience. I had to pull out some long-neglected NYC survival skills to deal with the woman who kept thwacking me in the back with her plastic shopping basket as she turned to speak to her companion. Suffice it to say that I suspect she'll be more aware of her surroundings in the future.

I'll definitely go back - ideally, in the morning. There are perks to being a Local.