East Hampton, New York CNN -- When you think of The Hamptons, you don't usually think of food pantries or feeding the hungry. Retired Wall Street executive John Malafronte does. Malafronte, 77, retired to East Hampton with his wife two years ago into a home they had bought 30 years prior when the east end was practically all farmland. There were no Ralph Lauren stores, or Porsches, or champagne-fueled polo matches.

To keep busy, Malafronte volunteered at local organizations in the area, starting with an organization called Meals on Wheels. Volunteers deliver food to the elderly, shut-ins or people who just can't afford to eat.
Malafronte also was a part of East End Community Organic Farm in East Hampton where he and his wife leased a 20-by-20 foot plot of farmland to grow vegetables. John started to see other families at EECO Farm doing the same thing. The difference was they were doing it out of necessity. He would see families growing their own crops, just to provide enough food for their family, he said.

Malafronte asked two other men from the farm to partner with him in what they call Food Pantry Farm Inc. The nonprofit corporation leases roughly two acres of land from EECO Farm.

"The purpose of our corporation is to grow as much vegetables to feed the food pantries in and around East Hampton," Malafronte said.

He plants everything from arugula to zucchini, working on the farm with volunteers seven days a week, a few hours each day.

"I enjoy planting, I enjoy weeding, I enjoy harvesting -- but the most thrilling part of it comes when we deliver the food to the different pantries," he said.

Last year they harvested 19,000 pounds of vegetables and this season hope to harvest 25,000 pounds.  Malafronte delivers his organic produce to four different food pantries around the Hamptons where the demand is surprisingly high.

He recently delivered 35 boxes to the East Hampton Food Pantry, which fed more than 27,000 people last year. There are many seasonal workers in the area and single parents who have fallen on hard times.   

"It's just a tremendous help to us. We are seeing 200 families a week, where in the past we'd see 40 or 50. The need is so great in the area," said Gabrielle Scarpaci of the East Hampton Food Pantry. "I think we are feeding about 800 children a month. Once people hear that, they want to give back, a simple necessity. You know, food is not a luxury, it's a necessity."

Malafonte said he'll farm to help his community as long as he can.  "This is very satisfying. I'm going to do this till the day I fall," he said.

Big thanks to all those who so generously donated terrific items for the farm’s annual Spring Brunch:
Almond Restaurant
Amagansett Hardware
Amagansett Wines & Spirits
Atlantic Wines & Liquors
Balsam Farms
Bayberry Nursery
Buckleys Nursery
Channing Daughters Winery
Charlie Whitmore Landscapes
Country Gardens at Bridgehampton
(Agway)
Domaine Franey Wines & Spirits
Duck Walk Vineyards
East Hampton Veterinary Group
Gloria Jewel
Hildreth's Home Goods
Hren’s Nursery
Kama Deva Yoga
Adam Kelinson
Marders Garden Shop
Mark Perry Wines
One Stop Pet Shop
Park Place Wine & Liquors
Peconic Beverage East
Pindar Vineyards
Spielberg Nursery & Garden Shop
Wolffer Estate Vineyards
 

AOC Fine Wines has put together an innovative fund-raising program designed to help non-profit organizations. It is a quite simple. When anyone purchases any wine through AOC, it contributes 15% of the total net sales to EECO Farm.   Any wine from anywhere in the world.

by Andrew Hudgins

This Letter to the Editor appeared in July 24th edition of the East Hampton Star.

I have been on the board of East End Community Organic Farm for one year.  Along with composting and finances and community  
outreach, arsenic has been the major topic of concern.   How much is there and what to do about it and how to respond to the press and public?

EECO Farm has been accused of being aloof and arrogant, of being a prissy garden club, and even worse in some circles.  The truth is that the board members, eleven in all, have been reluctant to speak to the arsenic controversy because the issues are complex and easily misread; most comments would sound either self-serving or self-incriminating.  So EECO has let others do the speechifying, most of which are well-intended but based on inaccuracies.

As it happens, I am scientifically unsophisticated enough and politically incorrect enough to speak up.  Like you, I have been concerned about EECO's arsenic and quiescence for some time.  Rather than drinking any Kool Aid, I have spent many months researching arsenic on Long Lane.

Here are some complicated truths.

• By practicing organic farming techniques for the past seven years, EECO Farm has reduced the levels of arsenic in our community gardens from 45 parts per million (ppm) to a median of 11 ppm.  This was validated by EcoTest Labs of Babylon, Long Island in May, 2008.The levels are considered safe by any measure and by all government agencies.  New York State Health Department says anything under 16 ppm is safe.  New York DEC states 3-11 ppm is perfectly normal "background" level in soil.   Federal EPA considers anything less than 43 ppm to be acceptable.
• By comparison, recent soil samples taken from the campus of East Hampton High School had levels of 10, 17, and 20 ppm.  (For practical purposes, one part per million can be understood as one drop of water in 18 gallons or one second of time in 11 days.)
• EECO sent the results of our soil tests to Dr. Steven H. Lamm, MD, DTPH, head of Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health Inc. in Washington, D.C.  He is a leading expert on arsenic and other elements found in soil, air and water.Dr. Lamm wrote: "These are not levels to worry about, but are in the natural, non-toxic background range...The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry considers levels below 20 ppm to pose no threat to humans."
• In fact, Americans typically consume between 25 and 50 micrograms of arsenic every day with no ill effect. (One microgram is comparable to one ppm.)  Shellfish is the biggest source of arsenic, followed by poultry, meat, rice cereals, baked goods, fats and oils.  Fruits and vegetables barely register at all.
• As for working on the farm, Rufus Chaney, the USDA heavy metals expert, says only chronic doses of arsenic can lead to disease; that is, exposure to extremely high levels every day for a lifetime.  According to the Agency for Toxic Substances, the average American woman, weighing 132 pounds, would have to eat more than 18 micrograms every day for her entire life to see any ill effects.

How much arsenic actually seaps into the food grown at EECO Farm?

Earlier this summer, we had EECO lettuces, asparagus, and herbs tested at EcoTest Labs in Babylon.  The results were
encouraging: less than 1 ppm.  That's a scientific designation: "less than 1 ppm."  It means barely detectable.  It is hard to imagine any comparable farm producing cleaner produce.  To continue our vigilance, we will, at summer's end, test other plants, fully grown and always the parts that are consumed.

Organic farming reduces toxins and amplifies nutritious elements.  That's the purpose of organic farming.  If it were not true, no one would bother.  EECO Farm would not exist.  That fruits and vegetables are generally more delicious is a felicitious by- product of using no pesticides, no fungicides, no herbicides, and no synthetic fertilizers.  Health benefits are accrued to farmers, consumers, and Mother Earth. Whatever arsenic that may still exist at EECO Farm is either naturally occuring or left over from a half century of pesticide usage that contaminated much farmland on Long Island and beyond.

Arsenic does not vanish.  It is not biodegradable.   It is buried by smart farmers and clever gardeners who till the soil six to nine inches deep, who then use mulch high in phospherous to bind with arsenic and render it less accessible to plant life, who use homemade compost, and then, come the autumn, plant dense cover crops to hold the soil in place and prevent ill winds from blowing anything across the road -- no arsenic found its way to East Hampton High from EECO Farm.

Arsenic is frightening.  The word and the substance.  There is no denying its history.  And while any traces of arsenic is cause for attention, and active remediation, organic farming is one of the most efficient and least expensive ways to reduce levels of any hazardous metals in any soil. There are, of course, a few common sensical safety tips worth keeping in mind, especially if there are small children around.

• Don't let your kids eat the dirt.   Kids like to eat dirt.  No one knows exactly why, but it's not a good idea under any circumstances.
• Leave all dirt and dust outside when you return home. That is, clean your shoes, your tools, and your self.
• Wash all food.  Any danger is in the dirt.
• Peel root vegetables when possible.
• If there a wind storm when you are at the farm, it is best not to breathe the dust particles.  Random exposure has never proved damaging, but it's unpleasant.

These tips are posted at the farm headquarters, as well as on the EECO Farm website.  (www.eecofarm.com)

Everyone involved with EECO Farm cares about health -- their own and yours and the South Fork's.  Families do not plant and seed and till and weed and water and care for their gardens purely for the good exercise and fresh air -- not one of the hundred gardeners (or Mary the beekeeper) would toil at EECO Farm if this were not a community organic farm.  There is no profit motive.  There is nothing to deter us from salutary agriculture.  It is a place to work with the soil and swap stories of husbandry and compare green thumbs and pick a few extra weeds when a neighbor is away.

EECO Farm is organic on many levels.  That's why people gravitate to it and why it is flourishing. Without tooting any horns too loudly, EECO Farm is remediating 42 acres of town land without government financing, without corporate backing, without inordinate expense to the taxpayers.   Everyone involved is a volunteer -- no one at the farm  
is paid, including board members.  An annual stipend from the Town of East Hampton is used to repair equipment and mend fences and install wells and reach out to the community with educational programs.  EECO exists to spread the word and deeds of organic farming, to acquaint students with the joys of growing your own food, to host nature walks and environmental talks and picnics at the farm, to help feed neighbors in need, to get healthy produce distributed at farmstands and farmers' markets and restaurants from Water Mill to Sag Harbor to Montauk.

How ironic that such a place is associated with arsenic, that a letter of this nature is required.  After seven years of strictly organic agriculture, common sense might lead one to conclude that EECO is hale and hearty, and we are.  We are also look forward to seeing you at the farm -- and the farm stand -- both more vibrant and luscious than you remember.

Bruce Buschel,
Member, EECO Farm Board of Directors

For those in search of timely cooking ideas as the harvest peaks, consider the menu prepared last Sunday by Jason Weiner at the latest East End performance of Outstanding in the Field, the movable feast launched several years ago by chef and sand artist, Jim Denevan.

The family-style dinner for 150 guests, which sold out in a matter of hours, wasn’t just a display of some particularly delicious and sometimes underappreciated fish, fowl, and fare; it was also a coming-out party of sorts for the East End Community Organic Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton. Whole grilled jumbo flukes, pickled bluefish, duckfat-roasted potatoes, gazpacho, oysters, and pregnant peaches.

This unique farm, on land owned by East Hampton town, is under new management. Inspired by the vision of supportive neighbors, they've cultivated a revamped farm stand, more land under the plow, and a new attitude. “We are speaking out and stepping up,” said Bruce Buschel, a Bridgehampton resident on the farm’s board. “We assume there are tons of good folks who would love a small organic garden but do not have the space. For a modest fee, we can help out.”

At this time of year, the community plots were heavy with tomatoes, string beans, and pendant sunflowers. But Chef Weiner, co-owner of the bistro Almond in Bridgehampton and the farmstead Italian Almoncello in East Hampton, had a bigger palatte to work with.

“It took me a while to visualize how to do this thing,” said Weiner, who was recommended to Outstanding in the Field by Allison Dubin and Christopher Tracy of Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton. Channing Daughters provided the wine at EECO Farm, as it has for the five other Outstanding in the Field dinners held on the East End.

“It’s going to be on a grill? In the middle of nowhere?,” Weiner asked. He was ultimately inspired by the flexibility of family style cooking. “It’s a great way to eat. And not just from the execution point of view. It’s 19 plates as opposed to 150. It’s a more generous way of eating and serving.”

Weiner, on a first name basis with his farmer-fisher suppliers, had some other guiding light: “Whatever is in the field, whatever is swimming.” “I’m a kid from Brooklyn,” he told a reporter from the London Telegraph, who was taking notes alongside someone from Forbes Life. “I’m not used to this. There’s no middleman out here.”

Putting such a meal together requires connections, of course, but also know how—like how to harness the depth of lipstick peppers, to take advantage of jumbo fluke, and to harness the flavor-packing oiliness of bluefish, an inexpensive and abundant fish that rarely shows up on menus because it has such a short shelflife. Weiner flash fried bluefish filets and then pickled them for two days, yielding an escabeche topped with Green Zebra and Sungold tomato served with crusty bread.

As the diners started to take their seats at the endless table, Felice Benvenuto, chef de cuisine at Almoncello, began to grill whole, 8-pound fluke—a perfect size for the family-style meal— served with a warm vinaigrette made with oyster and shitake mushrooms from Open Minded Organics in Bridgehampton. When he cleaned the fish, he found whitebait and baby lobsters in the gut. “The buttery bottom feeder shellfishy thing is set against the meatiness and woodsiness of the mushrooms,” said Weiner.

Following the fluke was Long Island duck breast from Crescent Farm in Aquebogue served with corn succotash. Weiner rendered out the duck fat (“That’s gold, that stuff.”) and roasted potatoes in it. “If there’s anything on Earth meant to go together it’s potatoes and duck fat.”

Before dinner, guests took turns sipping Channing Daughters field-blend wine, Sylvanus, and sipping a gazpacho-like soup concocted from cucumber and lipstick peppers, topped with fried Hogs Neck oysters, “only available when the oyster farmer says they’re ready,” according to Weiner.

Desert was peaches, ripened in Weiner’s car for a couple days, topped with Catapano goat yogurt and honey harvested from hives at the farm just a couple days before. “It’s started to crystallize,” Weiner said, dipping a finger in the jar he had just received from beekeeper Mary Woltz. “And it’s got this amazing flavor I can’t describe.” The beekeeper suggested sunflower

From SeriousEats.com  
Posted by Brian Halweil, September 12, 2008 at 11:50 AM

"About the Author: Brian Halweil is the publisher of Edible East End, the magazine that celebrates the harvest of the Hamptons and the North Fork. He is also publisher of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan."