Published Writing

Lilee Fell: ‘Painting With Flowers’ in Sag Harbor and Beyond

Floral arranging and gardening have been Lilee Fell’s synergistic passions since childhood. As the owner of Lilee Fell Flowers in Sag Harbor, she grew up watching her mother create floral arrangements for garden club flower shows and her grandmother making arrangements for their church’s altar guild. “I’ve always been drawn to the arts: drawing, painting, color, texture,” Ms. Fell said.

Photo credit: Pamela Dalton

Don't Fear the Fungi

From a health perspective, eating mushrooms makes nutritional sense: They’re lower in cholesterol and fat when compared with meat, while offering protein and fiber. The high mineral content and broad spectrum of amino acids appeal, as well. Studies referenced by the National Institutes of Health highlight the “bioactive proteins” that offer antioxidant, antiviral, antifungal (how meta!), and cancer-fighting properties. This benefits the immune system, brain health, and gut balance.

Foraging: Eat the Beach

“Chefs are crazy for roses now,” says Tama Matsuoka Wong. Not fancy roses, but the wild rosa rugosa that grows along our scruffy shorelines. Matsuoka Wong speaks from experience, as she sells foraged ingredients to some of the top restaurants in New York City, including Daniel and Noma, plus Shou Sugi Ban in Water Mill. Her latest book, "Into the Weeds: How to Garden Like a Forager," offers insight into what to pick and what to plant, so you don’t have to venture too far off the beaten path for those coveted foraged ingredients.

Delia Kenza: The Interior Story Matters

It takes understated talent and a keen eye for a designer to balance her personal aesthetic with those of a client. "I consider it high praise when a client's family or friends walk into the space and say it's a reflection of the client and doesn't feel designed," said Delia Kenza, an interior designer based in Sag Harbor and Brooklyn. She takes a layered approach, enabling the personality and performance of a space to echo the people who will live in it. "I'm not a thematic designer," she said, but there is a through line to her aesthetic. "It's warm, modern, and minimal," she said.

Photo credit: Luena Leitao

Biodynamic Gardening: Grounded in the Soil and Celestial

If you have explored natural approaches to gardening, you may have heard of biodynamics. Depending on how it’s described, it can sound either mystical or based on ancient farming wisdom. To oversimplify, biodynamics is a century-old approach incorporating ecological practices that improve the vitality of the soil, as well as lunar cycle timetables that guide plant care.

Holiday Cooking: Pass the Gravy, Please

Gravy makes a rare appearance this time of year, but for a sauce with such broad appeal, why isn’t it made more often? The ultimate complement to comfort food, its savory warmth can turn a routine meal into one that people remember. Cheryl Stair, co-owner of the Art of Eating, an event planning and catering company in Bridgehampton, was thinking about Thanksgiving before everyone else on the South Fork had put away their beach chairs.

Treescapes: Native Species Find Favor With Horticulturists

For gardeners and landscapers seeking four-season interest, low maintenance, and environmental impact, trees check off all the boxes. Plus, they offer shade for sitting areas, a backdrop for a garden, and nesting places for birds, among ecological benefits. Just as there’s no irrigation watering trees in a forest, it is not needed for the established trees in your yard. The time and money saved on irrigation and maintenance might feel liberating. "Plant trees well and they'll need nothing long-term. They evolved here," says Tony Piazza of Piazza Horticultural in Southampton.

Photo credit: Alejandro Saralegui

CSA Winter Bounty

If you say “winter vegetables” and think of bland and pallid winter squash, think again. Late fall and winter vegetables are full of flavor, color, and culinary possibility. Layton Guenther is the director of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, overseeing 500 different types of plants every year — and enjoying cooking with them, too. Quail Hill offers community-supported agriculture shares, in addition to growing produce for a few South Fork restaurants and food pantries. Its fields along Town Lane and Deep Lane are still filled in November and December with cold-tolerant plants for C.S.A. boxes. Given the spectrum of produce, it is an idyllic place to ask, “What’s to eat?” In short, a lot.

The Bird Is the Word

“Did you notice the turkeys when you pulled in the driveway?” asks Richie King, who owns the farm with his wife, Robin. North Sea Farms has been family-run since 1945 and currently occupies 12 acres not far from the Causeway over Wooley Pond. At one time, it was also a dairy farm. It’s the very same spot where Richie’s sister, Kathleen King, launched the homemade cookie business that eventually became Tate’s Bake Shop. Raising turkeys for Thanksgiving has been a tradition there for nearly 25 years. A thousand white turkeys spent the summer and fall a few hundred feet straight back from the driveway.

Sailing Into Local Sailing History

It’s a rare thing to be part of an all-female crew on a sailboat, and yet that’s where I found myself in the middle of Noyac Bay on Saturday. The Breakwater Yacht Club hosted its annual Sag Harbor Cup Regatta, and the five of us had never raced together as a team. In fact, we typically compete against one another on various boats with coed crews. We sailed a J70, a 23-foot boat on which there is no “rail meat” for balance: Every crew member plays an active part in sailing the boat. In one sense gender shouldn’t be a factor; we came together as a crew to compete and revel in a day on the water. We believe it’s the first all-female crew in the regatta’s 42-year history.

Photo credit: Cordelia Boise

Doug Tallamy: The World Wild Web

Doug Tallamy, an entomologist, author, and professor at the University of Delaware, encourages homeowners to think about the role our yards play in the food chain that sustains birds and wildlife. The immense decline of the bird population by one-third over the past 50 years has opened eyes to its urgency. With that in mind, Mr. Tallamy started an effort called Homegrown National Park, described on its website as “a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, extending national parks to our yards and communities.” The East End is a perfect place to start.

Photo credit: Rob Cardillo

The Main Street Elms: Who Speaks for the Trees?

There’s a calming nostalgia as you approach East Hampton Main Street, with its familiar canopy of elm trees framing the street and casting dappled shade on the sidewalks. The hush of shady green greets you as a cool breeze blows in from the ocean. The Norman Rockwell painted-shingle buildings wouldn’t feel the same without the arching trees, whose branches extend like arms offering a welcoming embrace. But East Hampton didn’t always look this way.

Rain Gardens: Let the Rain Fall

You’ve likely noticed more water puddling, or maybe a new rivulet running through your yard after rainstorms, or miniature lakes increasingly pooling along roadsides. With more severe storms bringing torrents of water in short bursts these days, the earth struggles to keep up. The loss of old-growth trees without replacement, along with significantly more roofs and asphalt driveways that are impermeable to water, all compound the issue. All those drops add up: half an inch of rainfall over a 30-by-10-foot driveway or road can total more than 90 gallons, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, if it comes down quickly enough. But what’s there to do about it?

Scott Bluedorn: Q and A on Vermiculture

Q: How much food waste do you think you’ve composted instead of adding to a landfill?

A: That’s the other great part about it — you can avoid food waste at the same time. It’s probably about 100 pounds per year, and so half a ton of food waste diverted from a landfill, so far, in 10 years. All my vegetable scraps go into the worm bin. Food waste in a landfill creates methane, because that’s how rotting food breaks down if it’s not eaten by worms. So this sequestration is a great way to reduce both methane released into the atmosphere as well as space in a landfill.

Photo Courtesy of Peconic Land Trust