Holiday traditions are on the most decadent display all over the Loaves & Fishes Food Store—and all throughout their Farm Series Cookbooks. Start your own holiday tradition with this delicious Orange Yogurt Coffee Cake (recipe below). When Sybille van Kempen bakes her famous gingerbread cookies this Christmas—a family tradition that dates back generations—she will have a new sous chef in tow: her beloved first granddaughter, Willow. “My youngest daughter got married last September, and she gave me my granddaughter in July,” says van Kempen. “So now I am an Oma and there is truly nothing ..read more

The best gift this holiday season won’t come from the North Pole, but from local vines like these at McCall Wines. Looking for the perfect gift idea for the food and drink lover in your life this holiday season? Look no further. Our region’s many wineries are home to the best gift money can buy this year: Wine Club memberships! Not only is this the perfect gift for your wine-loving family or friends; it is a gift to our community, as well. Robust Wine Club membership is essential to every winery’s success. So, this year, cover all your festive, altruistic bases: Invest in our local wineries ..read more

Established in 1993, Sydney’s is more than just a gourmet market, full service caterer and cafe. This holiday season, the team behind Sydney’s in Westhampton Beach will be celebrating more than just Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas. They will be celebrating the rarest of milestones in the East End’s notoriously challenging marketplace: their 30th anniversary.  Established in 1993, Sydney’s is more than just a gourmet market, full service caterer and cafe. The brainchild of Erin B. Finley and chef David W. Blydenburgh, a supremely talented husband-and-wife team, Sydney’s is a Westham ..read more

While shucked raw oysters are the choice way to serve oysters—over ice with some lemon wedges and homemade cocktail and mignonette sauces for a special treat—there are plenty of ways to prepare and serve oysters that can elevate any holiday experience.  Sometimes, East Enders don’t know how good they have it. With an abundance of oyster farms off the coastline, all one has to do is pull over to the side of the ride to grab some super-fresh bivalves. As a result, oysters have become their own East End food group, if you will, finding their way to the table for everything from summer soir ..read more

“Something we hear a lot is: ‘I’ve never seen such a flower,’” says Drianne Benner, one of North Fork Flower Farm’s founding partners. “‘I’ve never seen such colors,’ is another popular one.” Step inside the handbuilt cooler at North Fork Flower Farm in Orient, where all flowers are stored for at least 24 hours immediately after harvesting, and you’ll be amazed at what you find. In a world full of supermarket flowers, the overwhelming majority of which are imported from huge agro-industrial plantations in South America, the flowers you’ll see here, on the easternmost edge of the North Fork ..read more

Tapovana Lunch Box founder Corey Derosa has been serving South Indian food based on the Ayurvedic principles of vibrant health and longevity to the community for 16 years. Leaves swirled in the wind outside of the looming Bridgehampton Community House on a recent October evening. Inside, a bartender served sparkling pomegranate elixirs to guests of Tapovana Healing Center of the Hamptons Fall Harvest Celebration.  Corey DeRosa, founder of Tapovana Lunch Box, has been serving South Indian food based on the Ayurvedic principles of vibrant health and longevity to the community for 16 years ..read more

Cover photo by Yvonne Albinowski On Monday, October 30, the owners of Montauk’s Naturally Good Foods and Cafe woke up to the news that, overnight, their business—along with some local food trucks and street signs—had been defaced with antisemitic graffiti. The photos were shocking: a giant swastika had been painted on the cafe’s front door; the German phrase for ‘Jews Die’ was spray painted on their fencing.  This is the atmosphere—even out here, in Montauk—in which we are receiving the holidays this year. How are any of us supposed to celebrate? There’s war in the Middle East; there’s ..read more

This winter, escape to the Hampton Bays for the perfect cold weather staycation—with all the warm weather vibes you could wish for. Think “winter beach getaway,” and you’re likely thinking of The Maldives, Seychelles, Bermuda, or even Santa Monica, California—not a tiny hamlet on the shores of Long Island. The average high temperature, December through February, is only 44 degrees, after all. Yet, winter holds all the ingredients for a dreamy, laid-back East End getaway. “The best part about being in the Hamptons in the winter is enjoying the serenity and lack of crowds,” says Tara Poulakis ..read more

There is a ‘latke’ to love about CAST’s immeasurably important work on the North Fork. Food is never just food. Yes, at its most basic, food is fuel for human endeavor, but each and every little thing we eat tells a story about us: who has it, who grows it, who gathers it, who prepares it, who hoards it, who shares it. It tells the story of who we are and where we’re from as well as where we are right now. Food drives history, drives invention, drives culture. And sometimes, especially at the holidays, it can become the axis of our respective places in time and space, an intersection of hist ..read more

A new feast of fishes on display at Southold Fish Market • Photo by Yvonne Albinowski For Tom Junod, a writer who spends the holidays with his family on Shelter Island, the creation of a Christmas Eve Feast of Fishes tradition is an evolving practice that inches closer to perfection every year.  For years he started the feast with fried smelts, and then local winter delicacies like clams and eels, but didn’t feel compelled to adhere to Italian traditions of branzino and bacalao. “We’d have four or five fishes, and call it a night.”  Over time, baked clams, fried eel and even the sm ..read more