Amber Waves Farm is hosting their first Copper Oven Dinner tonight, Friday July 31.
Farmers Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow have been talking about a mobile pizza oven since the day they started Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett in 2009. I’ll never forget the day they opened the farm to the public and their friends from Montauk Brewing Company poured beer made with their strawberries.
The two young women told the crowd about the wheat they had just planted and their dreams which included a mobile pizza oven. I never imagined, however, that I would fall in love with the copper beauty that arrived at the farm last month from Maine Wood Heat. Read more about how the ovens are constructed of all organic materials here.
After a curing process and some fun experimentation, Merrow and Baldwin are ready to break bread and have hired a farm chef in residence, Megan Huylo.
“I met Katie and Amanda the old fashioned way,” Huylo says. “They posted a job opening and I applied.”
Huylo hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to the East End from New York City in April.
“I was really interested in working on a farm and getting my hands dirty,” she says. ” In my humble opinion, every chef should work on a farm at some point in order to truly understand where food comes from.”
“How is it grown and cared for, how do you select and harvest it at it’s peak?” she adds. “When we know these things, we’re better able to create food that truly nourishes and satisfies. It’s been an incredible, inspiring experience.”
Amber Waves will host one copper oven dinner per month through October, each with a different menu prepared by Huylo, served on long farm tables decorated with flowers grown on the farm, of course.
Tonight’s dinner features “a very traditional, hyper-local clam bake” with seafood from Anthony Sosinski of the Anna Mary lobster boat in Montauk and the best vegetables Amber Waves has to offer.
The adult-only festivities start at 5 p.m. with a tour of the farm, a glass of wine from Channing Daughters Winery or beer from Montauk Brewing Company. Dinner starts at 6 p.m.
The first course is a salad of massaged greens and tender herbs from the field with a shallot Dijon vinaigrette, and lobster pizza with crust from Carissa’s breads using Amber Waves wheat, vodka sauce, shaved Parmesan, herbed breadcrumb.
The second course is steamed local clams and mussels with white wine and butter broth, fingerling potato salad, caprese salad, fresh baked sourdough from Carissa’s Breads, Balsam Farms corn on the cob with herb compound butter.
Last but not least, dessert is a stone fruit shortcake with macerated, ginger-infused peaches, sugar plums, and apricots from the North Fork, with fresh maple whipped cream.
Tickets are $150 and can be purchased here.
Next month’s dinner will be an all vegetarian menu, Huylo’s area of expertise. “I’m really excited about it,” she said.
That makes two of us.
