Peconic Dish | East End Beacon

Peconic Dish: The Warmth of Delicata

October 13, 2025October 14, 2025 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage I am so happy to see the return of Delicata squash at the local farmstands. These little beauties are at their best early in the season, with tender skin and sweet juicy flesh. They need little enhancement beyond a quick roast in the oven with sea salt and olive oil. Dress them up with some aromatic spices and a tangy maple-thyme drizzle, and you will have the

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Local Summer Calls For The Tomato

September 25, 2025September 24, 2025 East End Beacon

By Alison Boyd-Savage Tomato season will soon be a fleeting memory. With the deadline looming, I headed to Hodun Farms in Calverton where luscious U-pick tomatoes at bargain prices attract hordes of diehard canners from as far afield as Brooklyn and Queens. One couple, who were making their second trip, loaded up their truck with five bushels of fruit. They would be making enough sauce to see three generations of

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Photos: North Fork Foodie Tour Persists, Despite the Rain

September 8, 2025September 17, 2025 Beth Young

In the 18 years the North Fork Reform Synagogue had been holding its annual North Fork Foodie Tour of 20 farms and food purveyors here, it had never rained all day — until this Sunday. But that didn't stop crowds from turning out to hear from local farmers about their growing practices and the trials of raising livestock, to hear how to make delicious recipes out of fresh local ingredients from

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Peconic Dish: A No-Cook Delight

August 28, 2025August 27, 2025 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage If you are reluctant to turn on your stove in the summer months, then this salad is perfect for you. Chilled rice noodles are tossed with fresh raw vegetables, purchased cooked shrimp or rotisserie chicken, and finished with a creamy peanut, sesame sauce and fresh herbs. With the main prep done ahead, you can stay cool at the beach or poolside, assemble the dish on your

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Peconic Dish: A Buttery Fresh Onion Galette

July 31, 2025August 17, 2025 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage Uncured onions arrive in the farmers market in late June and early July, and their reign is short. Within a few weeks most of the harvest will be dried to create a stronger flavored allium with its distinctive papery skin. Get them while they are still sweet and melting. Char them on the grill in a metal basket, serve sliced raw in a salad, or bake them

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Peconic Dish: A Spicy, Happy Accident

July 7, 2025August 17, 2025 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage We had received an invitation for homemade Indian food. My contribution was a refreshing mango salad adapted from the wonderful Dishoom restaurant’s, “From Bombay with Love.” All recipes in the book were developed and tested by my talented friend Nicola Swift, who fried more onions over the course of a year than she ever thought humanly possible. Mangoes were purchased a week in advance to ensure peak

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Peconic Dish: An Extra-Special Strawberry Delight

June 11, 2025August 17, 2025 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage A strawberry cake to serve at a June celebration. Not my standard yet delicious shortcake, but something frosted and with a few special flourishes. It was time to up my game! I knew I wanted to make a fresh tasting buttercream, free from artificial flavoring and dyes. Some freeze-dried strawberries, an impulse buy from an upscale market in the city, would be ground to a powder and used

Peconic Dish

Peconic Dish: A Perfect Bread for a Sandwich Bursting with Flavor

August 29, 2024September 7, 2024 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd Savage Local tomato season is here! We can say goodbye to pallid supermarket varieties, shiny and red of flesh, but devoid of flavor and sweetness. The farm stands are loaded with beefsteaks and heirlooms, all ready to slice and serve in the perfect summer sandwich. The simpler the better. Perfect white sandwich bread, a slick of Hellman’s mayonnaise and a sprinkle of sea salt is all that

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Peconic Dish: Striped Bass is All A Summer Night Needs

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024 East End Beacon

by Alison Boyd-Savage An impromptu meal, on a perfect summer night, with a menu that came together on the fly. My 5 p.m. stop at Southold Fish Market was just two hours before guests were due. A filet of freshly caught local striped bass would roast up quickly in a hot oven and be ready by 7 p.m. Candice picked out a gleaming specimen weighing close to 2 lbs., which

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Let’s Cook: The “Little Ears” of Italy’s Boot

June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 Beth Young

Very early on in the pandemic, when the news from Italy was still so grim, my partner insisted we stop at the Handy Pantry in Mattituck and buy six sleeves of active dry yeast to mail to his bread-starved friends in Umbria. I felt a pang of selfish “what will happen when we need yeast?” as he headed off to the post office to mail his strange gift, but I

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When February Gives You Meyer Lemons, Celebrate!

February 14, 2020February 27, 2020 Beth Young

By Alison Boyd-Savage What do you get when you cross a citron with a mandarin orange? The answer is a Meyer lemon. Native to China, theses gorgeous fruits were transplanted over a century ago to Central and Northern California, where they have thrived. Most of the Meyer lemons consumed in the United States come from this region. Once difficult to source, they are now readily available in markets around the