By Eileen M. Duffy

BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND NORTH FORK WINE

It’s hard to avoid the sports metaphors: It’s a home run. They really knocked the cover off the ball. He aimed for the cheap seats.

John Morales, vice president of sales for Lieb Family Cellars in Cutchogue, has put Long Island wine under stadium lights. The winery’s pinot blanc is on the list at Citi Field, the Mets’ new $800 million stadium that debuted in April.

Morales saw an opening in the lineup when he learned that Danny Meyer, the New York City restaurateur known for Shake Shack, Blue Smoke and the Zagat favorite Union Square Café, would be in charge of the menu for the Delta Sky360 Club, a 22,500-square-foot concourse with 1,600 premium seats behind home plate. The concourse has a restaurant, a café, a bar and a lounge and serves fans who can afford $175 to $495 for a ticket.

Lieb has been doing business with Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group since 2005 and the Lieb Pinot Blanc is considered a no-brainer pairing with Blue Smoke’s pulled pork sandwich.

That was the opener. Next was an introduction to Aramark, the corporate food service colossus responsible for concessions for the entire stadium.

It will be sweet for Morales when he attends his first game at the new field with owner Mark Lieb. A Queens native and a “huge” Mets fan, Morales used to attend games underwritten by $20 from his mother and still come home with change, after buying a $6 bleacher seat and “stuffing his face.”

He hopes the game will continue and the winery expands its relationship with Aramark, which services Fenway Park. “That’s a jab at Yankee fans,” he says, in case you didn’t know.

WHEN CHEFS GET TOGETHER

The Great Chefs Dinner is going back to the garden. For the second time the annual fundraiser for the Hayground School, Jeff’s Kitchen and the Jeff Salaway Scholarship Fund, which used to decamp to the big city, will be hosted on the East End. But this year, the event will be held on site at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton in the state-of-the-art kitchen built with the receipts of past fundraisers and in honor of Jeff Salaway, Manhattan restaurateur and a founder of Nick & Toni’s, the popular East
Hampton restaurant.

After Salaway’s tragic death in 2001, friends and family wanted a way to honor his commitment to local food and the culinary arts. The kitchen was born to serve as a learning tool for the school’s students. Soon followed the scholarship fund, which provides money for tuition for students wanting a career in the food business.

"This is special for us,” says Miche Bacher, owner of Sacred Sweets and the chef coordinator for the event. “The school and camp have a garden, and the chefs will be able to use the herbs and produce. The kids and campers are growing produce that will be used for the dinner. It really brings it all home.” In addition, items
grown in a greenhouse that was donated by the East End chapter of Slow Food, will also be on the menu.

The event, on August 9, will include a cocktail hour from 5 to 7 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres prepared by East End chefs Cheryl Stair (Art of Eating), Jesse and Reed Boone (Mark It With G), Michael Dometrovitch (Montauk Yacht Club), Michael Osinski (Widow’s Hole Oysters), Michael Cavaniola (Cavaniola’s Gourmet), Matt Connors (the Lake House), Sam Talbot (Surf Lodge, Top Chef), Kevin Penner (1770 House), Bryan Futerman (Foodies) and Bacher and a silent auction. Tickets for cocktails only are $125.

Following will be a three-course dinner—only 100 tickets available—with dishes prepared by Eric Ripert (Le Bernardin), Joseph Realmuto (Nick & Toni’s), Christian Mir (Stone Creek Inn) and pastry chef Claudia Fleming (North Fork Table & Inn).

Children are welcome for $35 with caregivers on hand. A special musical guest will also perform. For more information go to greatchefsdinner.com.

"We’re so proud to be contributing to Jeff’s dream,” says Bacher. “We know he’d be happy to sit at the table and raise his glass and say, ‘Yeah, I’m glad I’m here.’”

IN THE NAME OF RESEARCH

Among the behind-the-scenes characters that bolster the Long Island wine community are industrious vineyard crews, pavementpounding wine reps, wine delivery trucks
and a little-known viticulture program at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County.

On the CCE campus in Riverhead, Alice Wise and Libby Tarleton tend a two-acre vineyard where they experiment with new varieties, vineyard maintenance and work
closely with vineyard owners on the challenges of cultivating grapes. The duo also writes a weekly newsletter and sponsors educational seminars.

But more research is always needed and more research calls for more money. So the creators of Wine Camp have arranged for a fundraising raffle that was kicked off in
March at a party at Jamesport Vineyards in Jamesport.

Tickets for the raffle are available at winery tasting rooms on the East End through July 10 and cost $10 or five for $40. The winning ticket will earn the purchaser
a weekend at Wine Camp, a four-day, three-night package that includes learning sessions, private wine tastings and a food and wine pairing at Castello di Borghese.
Breakfasts are included as well as a dinner at the North Fork Table and Inn in Southold. Lunches are served in participating vineyards. The prize also includes accommodations at one of three local bed-and-breakfasts as well as transportation to and from the North Fork.

In its fifth year, Wine Camp has three sessions per year, and the activities are designed to coordinate with the growing season. For more information visit harvestinnbandb.com/winecamp.ihtml .

WHERE TO BUY WINE

Since Gov. David Paterson presented his version of the New York State budget in December, the state’s wine industry and owners of some of its 2,400 liquor stores were locked in a battle. Paterson had finally put on paper what had been urged by supermarket chains and denounced by mom-and-pop store owners for years: selling wine in grocery stores. The benefit to the state would be a windfall of fees for new licenses and added tax revenue from increased sales.

On the face of it, for the average consumer, the change is not that radical. Thirty-five other states allow such sales and one-stop shopping sounds good, at least for those wine drinkers who find it convenient to pick up their wine alongside their groceries. Most New York oenophiles already have their favorite wine shops and these shops should be able to stand out on knowledge and customer service.

But New York State law has, since Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, kept the sale of spirits and wine in the hands of private store owners, who are proscribed from holding more than one license and selling anything other than wine and spirits—no cheese, no snacks, no beer.

The ensuing battle pitted the store owners—who envisioned the loss of 1,000 stores and many jobs and formed a coalition, the Last Store on Main Street, to combat the plan—against supermarket titans who were more than happy to put displays of jug wine at the end of the aisle. In fact, mom-and-pop liquor stores have been disappearing for the last two decades, the victim of industry consolidation and the changing tastes of New York wine drinkers.

Unfortunately the state’s wineries were caught in the middle. Many were forced by store owners to oppose the measure, on pain of being blacklisted and losing an outlet for their goods. And the law, as written, held little nuance—there was no incentive for grocers to favor local wineries or smaller vintners (as some states require) and no grace period given to the wine shops to reinvent themselves as wine bars or gourmet stores in order to compete with their new food-and-drink toting neighbors.

But fierce negotiations on the eve of the budget vote eliminated this hot potato from the docket and everything returned to the status quo. Those who support the idea intend to introduce it as a stand-alone law, and those who oppose it remain vigilant. The wine sale wars continue.

FARMERS MARKET ECOLOGY

Seven years ago, when some intrepid food enthusiasts launched a diminutive Sag Harbor farmers market, there was some talk about whether it would persist.

But with up to six farmers markets debuting from Montauk to Southampton, there is no longer a doubt that the South Fork’s farm-stand-loving shoppers—facilitated by the Island’s trafficblessed main thoroughfare—would also flock to a central gathering of farmers at an appointed time.

Memorial Day weekend saw the opening of a bustling new market at the Hayground School on Mitchells Lane in Bridgehampton (Fridays, 3–7 p.m.), as well as the Sag Harbor market (corner of Burke and Bay Streets, Saturdays, 9 a.m.–1 p.m.) and East Hampton market now in its third season (136 Main Street, Fridays, 9 a.m.–1 p.m.). The Westhampton Beach Farmers Market (85 Mill Road, Saturdays, 9 a.m.–1 p.m.), will start its third season on June 13, and the veteran Riverhead market opens in July
(next to the Aquarium, Thursdays, 11 a.m.– 4 p.m.). In addition, there is talk of a Southampton Village market to start in June, two Montauk markets opening in July—one tentatively set for Fridays at Inlet Seafood/Gin Beach Market on West Lake Drive, and another perhaps on Saturdays at Sole East—a Sunday farmers market on Highway 27 in Sagaponack, and another Sunday market at the Amagansett Farmers Market (not a farmers market despite the name). We will keep you posted.

As markets have multiplied, the offerings have matured. Grapes of Roth and Wölffer Estate Vineyards are pouring at the Sag Harbor and East Hampton Markets, just as New York City Greenmarkets have recently added wine stands. Hayground’s market will offer cooking demos in its classroom-kitchen.

Newcomer Fat Ass Fudge, made with Catapano Dairy goat milk, is one of many food start-ups building its brand around East End farmers markets. A Taste of the North Fork preserves, sauces, pickled cauliflower and corn relish can be found at nearly all the markets. At the Sag Harbor market, which has taken over an enlarged swath of waterfront lawn on Bay Street, Horman’s offers pickle on a stick, Bees Needs has rolled out hand and lip salves.

“People are craving seeing their neighbors,” says Kate Plumb, who manages the East Hampton market and previously managed the Sag Harbor market. “There’s an unquenchable thirst for the human community and how it makes you feel to come to a market. Then the food is like the icing on the cake.” Alex Matthiessen, the Hudson Riverkeeper, who has a home around the corner from the Sag Harbor market and has been visiting it since the inaugural season, agrees: “I love the ritual of going every Saturday morning. One inevitably runs into friends, and we don’t have to get into our cars to get there.”