The Stony Brook University Center for Wine, Food, and Culture offered its second annual symposium on sustainability: Sublime Tastes: Southampton 2007 to benefit the Center’s program in conjunction with the new curriculum at the Southampton campus.

Local, Fresh, Authentic: What Makes Food Great?
Is it flamboyant grill skills? Pristinely fresh ingredients, from lettuce to lobster? A profound connection to ethnic traditions? A chef’s intuition for fulfilling the diner’s desires?

Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold, Expert on Ethnic Gardens, author Patricia Klindienst, and the NY Times premier wine, food, and travel journalist, Florence Fabricant, presented a lively discussion of the sublime in food, which was followed by a walkabout upscale tasting at the Harvest Celebration hosted by leading wineries and restaurants.

Photos are available on Google Photos.

Wineries: Bedell Cellars, Castello di Borghese, Channing Daughters, Corey Creek, Lenz Winery, Lieb Family Cellars, Martha Clara, Palmer Vineyards, Paumanok Vineyards, Peconic Bay Winery, Pellegrini Vineyards, Raphael, Scarola Vineyards, Southampton Publick House, Wolffer Estate

Restaurants & other participants: Art of Eating; Black Tie Catering; Blue Duck Bakery Café; Jedediah Hawkins Inn; Hampton Coffee; Laundry, East Hampton; Loaves and Fishes; McAdam Cheese; Michael’s on the Boardwalk; Milk Pail; North Fork Table & Inn; Sang Lee Farms; Satur Farms; Seafood Barge; Taste of the North Fork; Thyme & Again; Wild By Nature; Wild Thyme Restaurant

Moderator: Louisa Thomas Hargrave–The co-founder of Long Island’s wine industry with the planting of Hargrave Vineyard in 1973, Hargrave is currently a wine columnist, judge, international consultant, and author of The Vineyard: A Memoir. Since 2004, she has been the Director of the Center for Wine, Food, and Culture.

Guest Speakers
Jonathan Gold: This April, the first Pulitzer Prize for criticism ever awarded to a restaurant critic was awarded to Jonathan Gold for his Los Angeles Weekly column “Counter Intelligence.” Gold began his writing career as a music critic, but in 1986 he began to explore LA’s undiscovered ethnic cuisines. When he took “Counter Intelligence” to the L.A. Times from 1990 to 1996 (all the while writing “proper” restaurant reviews of high-end places in California and Los Angeles magazines, as well as music stories for Spin, Rolling Stone, and Details), his colleagues joked about the “huge parts of L.A. that only got written about if somebody got shot or if Gold was writing about a restaurant there.” In 1999, he left Los Angeles to become Gourmet magazine’s New York restaurant critic and was the first food writer to be honored as a National Magazine Award finalist in criticism by the American Society of Magazine Editors. In 2001, he moved back to Los Angeles, where he revived “Counter Intelligence” for the Weekly while continuing to write for Gourmet. Gold appreciates his Pulitzer, saying, “Eating is the only biological function that you can write about without censors getting excited. And there’s something very nice about that, almost subversive.”

Patricia Klindienst: A certified master gardener with a doctorate in Modern Thought & Literature from Stanford University, Patricia Klindienst has taught literature and writing at Yale, Connecticut College, Trinity, and Wesleyan. Winner of numerous awards and fellowships, her book, The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, & Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans, is the first book to restore the cultural meaning of gardens created by ethnic Americans, including Native Americans, Gullah descendants of West African slaves, Hispanics whose ancestors came with the conquistadors, and immigrants from across Europe and Asia. Currently, when not traveling to lecture, Klindienst lives and gardens in Guilford, Connecticut.

Florence Fabricant: Recipient of France’s coveted “Chevalier d’Honneur” award, Fabricant covers the food and restaurant scenes in the “Food Stuff” and “Off the Menu” columns for the New York Times weekly Dining Section and regularly contributes features about food, wine and travel to the paper. A resident of both East Hampton and Manhattan for over 40 years, she is the author of New Home Cooking: Feeding Family, Feasting, Friends, named the best general cookbook by the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the best special occasion cookbook by the James Beard Foundation. She has also written Florence Fabricant’s Pleasures of the Table, The New York Times Seafood Cookbook and The New York Times Restaurant Cookbook, and is a co-author of Venetian Taste and Elizabeth Berry’s Great Bean Book.

Schedule
Symposium: 1:00 pm–5:00 pm
1:00 pm: Welcome by President Shirley Strum Kenny
1:15 pm: Louisa Hargrave: Long Island’s deliciousness quotient
1:30 pm: Patricia Klindienst: Reaching back to roots
2:15 pm: Florence Fabricant: Metropolitan markets; local origins
3:00 pm: Break for cider and snacks
3:30 pm: Jonathan Gold: A Critic’s Journey, from battered pushcart to plush banquette and back
4:15 pm: Panel Discussion with Q&A
5:00 pm: Book signing and sale

Harvest Celebration: 5:00 pm–7:00 pm

The Good Life: To enjoy access to the bounty of the earth, sea and skies, and to have the wisdom to appreciate, share, preserve, and protect them for future generations.

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The mission of the Center is to: 

• Foster the economic and cultural sustainability of wine and food producers within the NY metro area
• Expand the reach of the University through dynamic educational and social activities centered on gastronomy
• Provide educational activities focused on issues relating to food, wine, and public health
• Educate students and the public in techniques for sensory evaluation

 

Panelists Director Louisa Hargrave, Moderator. Jonathan Gold, Florence Fabricant, Eberhard Muller, Patricia Klindienst, and Sybille van Kempen.	Guests at the symposiumenjoy a lighter moment in the discussion on “tastes.”	Art of Eating, East Hamptonserve a beautiful harvest celebration buffet.
Frank & Tommy Scarola from Scarola Vineyards pour their signature wines	Representatives from Martha Clara Vineyards	Bedell Cellars.Thanks to all the wineries and restaurants for their generous donations.
The Laundry, East Hampton Executive Chef Andrew Engle and his assistant.	Symposium guests enjoy the bountiful harvest of local East End foods and wines.