Island Dispatch: Edible East End’s New Low Summer Issue (And it’s Fishy)

A rare bayman looks for (even more rare) blue claw crabs in Georgica Pond, East Hampton. Photograph by Lindsay Morris
Photo by Lindsay Morris

Eating and drinking in season, I suppose, is partly about living in the moment. But it’s an uncommon bayman who doesn’t dream about the next tide’s haul, a rare home cook who doesn’t fantasize about her next meal, an unusual winemaker who doesn’t hypothesize about the coming vintage.

So perhaps that’s why in the Low Summer issue of Edible East End — on the cover at left, we show one of the few bayman left looking for even more rare blue claw crabs in Georgica Pond in East Hampton — we’re thinking ahead. We plug the upcoming inaugural Long Island Wine and Food Festival (June 25 to 27), Long Island wine country’s first-ever wine auction (September 24 and 25), and our very own second annual Eat Drink Local week (September 26 to October 6).

(And this just in for everyone in TV land, Jennifer Meadows of the Fishbar in Montauk, whose kitchen chops with anything that swims we profiled last year in Edible East End, will compete on Chopped on June 15, at 10pm on the Food Network. See what Jennifer does to some tilefish in this Food.Curated video, after the jump.)

But don’t let these events distract you from more immediate pleasures. It only takes a few months to grow a tomato (perhaps less if you’ve installed a hoophouse like Marilee Foster), and just a few weeks to rethink your diet as part of a Wellness Foundation challenge.

It takes only a day to make a batch of DIY kefir. Sun tea can be brewed in a few hours. In that time, a diner can enjoy the Stone Creek Inn’s cuisine that’s been luring regulars to East Quogue for 14 years. You can cook a whole bluefish in 15 to 20 minutes. A Georgica blue claw cooks even faster, and a good shucker can open a dozen clams in a few minutes, or less. (Just ask Ken Homan of Braun, the East End’s largest seafood distributor.)

Only a minute, and a corkscrew, separate you from tasting a Long Island rosé (a style of wine our region does particularly well). And it takes just a second to put a seed in the ground.

The Apple of Montauk Fishermen’s Eyes: Chef Jennifer Meadows of Fishbar from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Brian Halweil

Brian is the editor at large of Edible East End, Edible Long Island, Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn. He writes from his home in Sag Harbor, New York, where he and his family tend a home garden and oysters. He is also obsessed with ducks, donuts and dumplings.

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