These Local Farms Have Everything You Need for a Bountiful Fall Table
Perk up your fall table this year by hitting up your local farm stands. From Cutchogue to Riverhead, Peconic to Southold, you’ll find produce, prepared goods, meats, and cheeses that will make meals for a company just a little bit better. This is the time to reap the benefits of the North Fork’s agrarian community. The harvest season is in full swing. Swing by some of our favorite farm stands and farm stores while the season is at its ripest.
At 8 Hands Farm, in Cutchogue, find pasture-raised pork and chicken, grass-fed lamb, charcuterie, breads, pasta, eggs, produce, and more. The farm’s heritage breed pigs are raised on the pasture with access to organic feed, producing flavorful pork chops, sausage, and bacon. From May through November, the farm raises chickens, and their Icelandic breed of sheep are 100 percent grass-fed, using rotational grazing practices; the farm sells lamb loins, medallions, and legs.
In Southold, Deep Roots Farm offers produce from April through December, which is free from synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides. In addition to their regular rotation of fruits and vegetables, the farm has recently invested in fruit trees, and hopes to be able to provide the community with fresh fruit soon. Their antibiotic-free chickens and fresh eggs are raised in open-floor houses and heritage breed hogs are rotated throughout the property’s vegetable fields and pastures.
Peconic’s Sang Lee Farms grows an astounding number of organic plants, from watermelons (yellow seedless, orange seedless, red seedless) to heirloom tomatoes (white beefsteak, pink Brandywine, Cherokee purple, striped German). The retail space also sells prepared foods, local dairy, and frozen foods, like homemade soups, muffins, and breads. And don’t forget to stock up on that end-of-season corn while the weather is still warm.
Goodale Farms, in Riverhead, is a go-to destination for anyone in need of the freshest farm produce and local meat. The farm carries everything from local oysters to cherrystone clams to homemade pickled eggs — and plenty in between, too. Corn is fresh, and so is the ricotta that is made in-house. The farm even sells their own turkeys, which can be delivered to your home the week of Thanksgiving for all orders over $100.
Established in 2003, Catapano Dairy Farm, in Peconic, offers some of the North Fork’s most delicious and most local cheese and yogurt available, perfect for any fall table. Make your autumn cheese board a stunner with the goat’s milk feta, or the signature soft chevre, which comes in several flavor options: herb, honey, and mango-habanero. Catapano also ages some of their goat cheeses. The Summer Cloud is a Caerphilly-style cheese, a white, crumbly aged cheese that pairs well with sweet condiments. The smooth, Bel Paese-style Peconic Bel — a buttery cheese aged 6 to 8 weeks — marries well with off-dry whites and sparkling wines. And the mild and nutty NoFo Jack, a cow’s milk cheese, is delicious all on its own.
But no matter what you pick, your table will sing, with a little help from your North Fork friends.
