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Out east foodie is about celebrating the bounty and richness of all things food throughout the east end of Long Island. I am a trained Graphic Designer for over 20 years, bringing people’s brands and stories to life in a holistic way through beautifully designed graphics with combined photography and text. My hope is to bring that same level of expertise, passion and sensitivity to this blog, which will captivate the out east communities stories in a unique way. I will be visiting local farms, fisheries and artisanal food makers that span the palate of the Hamptons and North Fork region, sharing with you the foods and philosophies of these local artisans. There is a revival of history on the east end. It revisits the old tradition of farm-to-table and brings neighbors to one another by supporting what makes us thrive and what makes the east end so special. Building bountiful relationships with local bakers, beekeepers, cheesemakers, chefs, farmers, fishers, gardeners and winemakers, we can create an eco-friendly food system that is undeniably sustainable, local and delicious.

I am relieved to say that my sinus infection is almost gone and my sense of taste and smell have finally come back. To celebrate, I fulfilled my month long fantasy of walking into The Blue Duck Bakery Café in Riverhead to smell pastry and taste warm loaves of bread coming out of the oven.

This family-owned bakery is operated by the Kouris Family, who first opened its doors in Southampton, New York in 1999. The bakery quickly gained popularity and recognition for its artisan breads, which are created by hand in the centuries-old tradition of European bakers. Their breads can be found at farmers markets throughout the East End of Long Island and select retailers and restaurants. In 2008, the Kouris family opened a second location in Southold, New York and in December of 2012 opened its third location in Riverhead, New York.

My eyes feasted on the variety of artisan breads. To name a few; New York Sour Rye, Pain Provence, Pane Pugliese, Ciabatta, Pane All' Olive, Landbrot Mit Sauerkraut and a beautiful chocolate bread that I had to have. This bread was a welcome back party for my taste buds and I had grand plans for what I was to make out of this chocolate loaf.

I noticed they had dinner rolls and thought the whole grain and olive roll would be a perfect snack for my car ride home — forget dinner.

As I munched gleefully all by my lonesome with my dinner rolls, (you might as well call them "car rolls" as I do not see how anyone can get home without eating a few of these along the way) I was thinking about the chocolate bread sitting on the passenger seat and whether or not I should chomp on that too.

Thankfully, I restrained myself because I made a chocolate bread bruschetta dessert that is insanely delicious. The Blue Duck Bakery Café satisfied my month long fantasy and I am so happy they are now in Riverhead as they are only 10 minutes from our upcoming home Sheridan Green which is about 2 "car rolls" away.

Chocolate Bread Bruschetta

ingredients

8 ounces Mascarpone

2 tablespoons of local honey

Bunch of raspberries

3 ounces of good Dark chocolate, shaved

The Blue Duck Bakery Café chocolate bread

note: Check here to see if you can get The Blue Duck Bakery Café chocolate bread. If you cannot get this exact bread, your local baker may have something similar.

directions

Mix one container, 8 ounces of the Mascarpone cheese with the honey until smooth.
Cut the chocolate bread to your desired shape, about 1/4 thick. I cut 2 x 2 squares.
Place the cut bread onto a baking sheet and lightly toast in the oven at 350° or place in a small toaster over for 3 minutes. Be sure the bread does not burn. Bread should be lightly toasted and warm.
Once bread slices are lightly toasted place a dollop of the Mascarpone cheese on top of the bread and then the Raspberries. With a microplane shave dark chocolate on top.

note: One loaf of chocolate bread should yield 24 - 30, 2 x 2 x 1/4 inch pieces.

I have to admit, I had no idea there were that many varieties of Garlic beyond the Elephant and Italian White. At this festival I came across, Turkish Red, Italian White, German White, French Red, Rocambole, Music, Pskem, Elephant Garlic, Purple Stripe. Who knew?

People are fanatics about garlic, like my father is about his fig tree, so I investigated further to see how many varieties of garlic there are. If you are interested to learn more about the varieties of garlic and its benefits, you can read all about it at the Garlic Blog.

Garden of Eve Farm edible snacks at the festival

Garlic Ice Cream

The vanilla and chocolate garlic ice cream peeked my curiosity. I chose the vanilla thinking this might possibly be the best combination. I thought the garlic flavor combined with the vanilla was palatable enough, however the "garlic buzz" at the festival was, "It needed more garlic!" I thought to myself, "What would happen if the garlic was roasted with some turbinado sugar, then mixed into the ice cream?" I don't know, maybe not. You will not see me experimenting with that here. Let's leave it to the garlic fanatics to figure it out.

Roasted Rocambole Soup alla Garden of Eve Farm

Many people asked me with caution, "How is the garlic soup?" People seemed more cautious about the garlic soup than the garlic ice cream, go figure! "So, how was the soup?" Not bad, I thought it could be creamier but the flavor was nice and not too overpowering. My new friend Will who is shown below thinks the Garden of Eve should not hang their hat on making soup, but he is a competitor of course so I am sure that bantering goes back and forth between them. I should have asked Garden of Eve what they thought of Will's soup.

Garlic Castilian Soup alla Will

This is Will and he is a garlic fanatic and passionate about his soup. He was the 2009 winner of the Garlic Cookoff for his Garlic Castilian Soup made with Music Garlic which has a sweet flavor. I enjoyed his soup very much but was more interested in his garlic donut idea. I will not share with you our discussion considering it was "top secret", so I am hoping he goes for it next year so I can taste it. He asked me what I thought of the garlic ice cream and you know what he said? "I hear it needs more garlic!" Maybe he can figure out my garlic ice cream idea!

Horman's Best Pickles

I picked up some of Horman's Best Pickles, Garlic of course and my favorite the Horseradish which had a spicy bite and a nice crunch.

Arlotta Food Studio

Arlotta Food Studio, makes specialty olive oils which are made in unfiltered small batches and cold-pressed from late-harvested, organic California olives. They also make exclusive balsamic vinegar, aged for over 25 years, as well as artisan made air dried pasta and specialty tapenades. I am typically not a fan of infused oils but these flavors were stunning, bright and buttery and the balsamic was sweet and smooth. I went home with their Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Traditional Balsamic to eventually pair these products with something delicious in the near future.

My father came with me to this festival and he saw they had a Fig Balsamic Vinegar. That is all he needed to see which stirred up a fig conversation trumping anything garlic. I think Mario to the left was showing my father a photo of his family's fig tree.

Overview about Garden of Eve Organic Farm and Market

Chris and Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht are owners of the Garden of Eve Farm. The farm began as just a garden in 2001. Today, the farm is on 100 acres and boasts to 70 varieties of vegetables, 20 herbs and 30 flowers which are all certified organic. They also have Nigerian Dwarf Goats, 1,500 Rhodie Island Red laying hens, Bourbon Red Heritage Turkeys, Border Leicester Sheep, and Maremma Livestock Guard dogs.