greenport

With our anniversary looming, we thought it would be the perfect time to take a quick daytrip to celebrate. Enter the North Fork of Long Island, famed for its food, farms, wine, beaches, and scenery. Just a short drive from our digs in Queens, we chose a hot but sunny and breezy day to make our trek and we’ve got the photos to prove it! (I’ll space the photos out over the next few posts so as not to overload anyone haha).

Our first stop on our trip was Greenport, NY, a bustling hamlet (especially in the peak of Summer) situated on one of the bays that sits between the two forks of Long Island. And our real first stop was for this:

A lunch of freshly fried chicken and homemade lemonade from Salamander’s General Store. Good grief, it was delicious – piping hot (because it’s cooked to order), salty, crunchy, and messy! We tried not to wolf it down, but we failed.

After we inhaled our lunch and then gave our stomachs time to recover, we wandered the town a bit. There’s lots of shopping available on Main Street and Front Street, and we had to laugh when we wandered into one shop that had yarn in it! Even when I’m not looking for it, yarn seems to find me 🙂

This yarn is from Nuna Knits, the brainchild of Peggie Ehlers, who embraces a farm to fashion approach in nearby Riverhead, NY.

Not to be ignored or forgotten, of course we stopped into the local pet store to pick up a toy for You.Know.Who. 😉

After that, it was out to the town’s docks to take in a southerly view and to get an eyeful at some of the impressive boats. There’s even a carousel housed in a modern metal structure on the waterfront.

And check out this beauty – she towered over the rest of the boats bobbing at their slips.

“Madsummer,” indeed.

Lest you think we only ate fried chicken, fear not. As I said, the North Fork is famed for its food, especially its farming and local produce. So we didn’t leave hungry at the end of our trip; we also managed to fit in some banana chocolate chunk bread from Hallock’s Cider Mill for our breakfast the next morning,

some English Butter Toffee and Honey Cinnamon ice cream from the Magic Fountain in Mattituck,

(excuse the bad photo above; i was way more interested in eating their ice cream than i was in capturing their sign)

and last, but definitely not least, some Black Cherry and Gold Medal heirloom tomatoes from a wonderful farmstand run by Long Season Farms. The proprietress was so nice and informative – make their stand a must-see-stop if you’re on Route 25! Their tomatoes were so good that they were all we ate for dinner when we got home. (Then again, after what you’ve seen us just eat in one day, it’s no wonder.)

In a few future posts, I’ll share our photos from the rugged beach at Orient Point and our incredible experience at The Old Field Vineyard.

In the meantime, we’re off to a lobster bake at the beach, for which I’ve made some peach jam hand pies for dessert! (I know, you’re thinking “how on earth are you eating like this day after day?” Believe me, it’s hard work but I’m up to the challenge haha.) Happy Saturday!