We have a barbecue party every year in early June to celebrate my husband’s birthday. It is such a beautiful time of year out here. The weather is usually great, but I do remember one year when it was in the 50s, and another year when it was in the 90s. This year they were predicting thunderstorms and there was even a tornado warning, but they spared us and the spectacular weather we have been having this season held out all afternoon.
One of the many great pleasures of my life is driving out Sound Avenue (the northerly of the North Fork’s two main arteries) with party planning in my head. It takes me past Briermere, past horse farms, vineyards and innumerable planted fields with avenues of sight down their crop rows opening up for a split-second as I drive by.
I love to cook for parties but I’m careful not to overdo it. It’s no fun to be so exhausted and stressed from cooking and preparations that you can’t enjoy talking with your guests. Believe me, I’ve been “in the weeds” (as they say in the restaurant biz) at many of my own parties. This time I managed to stay out of the weeds by planning a menu that combined a few homemade items with some prepared foods from local institutions.
My first stop was Sang Lee. We’ve been devouring every bit of our CSA items (mainly in the form of salads, salads, salads), but for a party I needed extra provisions.
I picked up some exquisite little baby squash to grill along with several bunches of asparagus. Perfect multicolor carrots, sugar-snap peas and cucumbers to serve as crudites with dips. Two bunches of beets to steam-roast and marinate, and local Catapano Farm goat cheese to top them. Also three 8-ounce bags of their pre-washed baby spinach with a bottle of Sang Lee’s own Asian Dressing to make a quick, easy salad. (Pretty much the only time I allow myself to use a bottled dressing is Sang Lee’s Asian Dressing, which everybody loves, for a party when I don’t want to take the time to dress it my usual way.)
My next stop was for vino.
There are so many wonderful vineyards on the North Fork, we are literally spoiled for choice. I swung into Lieb on my way back west and picked up a mixed case of Bridge Lane chardonnay (unoaked), Pinot Blanc (a Lieb specialty and a personal favorite grape) and Cabernet Franc (my favorite of the local red wine varietals).
In the old days, before I had my son, I was deeply into wine and bought all kinds of local vintages to age in my basement. I don’t do that any more. But for a party featuring local foods, it only makes sense to serve local wines.
For hors d’oeuvres, I made beets with goat cheese (marinated beets with a dollop of goat cheese and a sprinkling of fleur de sel. This was the opening spread.
The beet hors d’oeuvres were a big hit, as always.
Here are the veggies before they went onto the grill:
The rest of the menu included barbecued spare ribs (homemade, yummy), Sang Lee spinach salad with their Asian Dressing, and, from another North Fork institution — the Modern Snack Bar, in Aquebogue — delicious potato salad, cole slaw and fried chicken.
As my cousin once remarked: “any place with ‘modern’ in the title is certain not to be.” So it is with the Modern Snack Bar: it has not changed since 1960 at the latest, thank god. It still has the same businesslike waitresses in uniform dresses and a classic, limited, home-cooked menu that is totally unaffected by any food trend of the last fifty years. In fact, while a large part of its clientele comes from the retirement home across the street, I could imagine the place becoming trendy these days simply by virtue of its immunity to trends.
Dessert was two fresh strawberry-cream pies from Briermere. They were devoured before I could snap any pictures, but I can describe this pie for you: a sweet, flaky crust, piled with not-too-sweet mixture of whipped cream cheese and whipped heavy cream, and on top, a huge pile of fresh strawberries and a light glaze. Some of our repeat guests at this barbecue dream about this pie all year (myself included). It’s only available for a few weeks, when strawberries are in season, and it’s a perfect way to celebrate a birthday at the beginning of summer.
farmhopper 