Doesn’t July always feel like it comes too fast? One minute you’re layering up and the next thing you know it’s the middle of summer and you’re hungry for every ounce of sunshine, every dip in the bay or ocean, every night you get to clink glasses with friends and family and every delicious morsel that grows on or swims in our lands and waters.
Since we launched in 2023, July has always been our Food & Drink Issue — which isn’t to say the other 11 months of the year aren’t interesting for inspired meals, but there’s just something about the vibrancy of this month that has me thinking about what I’m eating or cooking or growing or procuring from the time I wake up until I’m counting sheep’s milk cheese before I drift off.
Last September, chef Douglas Gulija — he of decades of Plaza Café accolades — quietly opened the doors of his excellent, higher-plane restaurant Feniks, at the end of Jobs Lane in Southampton. With this, his first full-blown summer, we expect that the quiet will soon be over (it was nice while it lasted!). Staff writer and restaurant maven Emily Toy spent the day with Gulija, getting to know him, his food and his place, which we’d bet good money you’ll be clamoring for a seat in once you see Doug Young’s gorgeous shots of this chef’s solo vision.
How does food get to the plate? That’s the concern of Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow, founders of Amagansett’s Amber Waves Farm, a place that not only grows dozens and dozens of crops annually but is training the next generation of farmers here — and helping them to find ways to make the pursuit a true career option.
We went in pursuit of the lobster roll, learned the secret to the best ‘cue marinade, dove into pounds of paella at R.Aire, sipped on a rummy, Francophile version of the Paper Plane cocktail at sexy Southampton spot La Goulue Sur Mer, scouted out all the cool new resto openings this season and stopped into cute Spring Close Farm to stock up on sundries. We even got the story behind popular Greenport Brewing’s artful label — and Scott Bluedorn, the Hamptons artist behind it.
Give us your hunger, give us your thirst — we’ll respond with a menu’s worth of delicious ideas to fill your summer market tote to the brim. And while we’re celebrating all this abundance, let’s raise a glass to 250 years of trying to make this democracy work for everyone. I know sometimes it can seem like it’s favoring the few as opposed to the many, but liberty and justice for all? Yeah, that’s still worth fighting the good proverbial fight for. Happy birthday, America, and keep on keepin’ on, South Forkers. Cheers to you!
Amy Zavatto
Editor-in-Chief
