"Shellabration": A Slow Food Celebration of Shellfish

 

The celebration of all things shellfish was held on a rolling lawn along the shores of Lake Montauk as the sun took its time to sink into the west on one of the longest days of the year. It was a child-friendly event. The chefs, Bryan Futterman of Nick & Toni's, Joe Realmuto of Nick & Toni's, Jeff Schwartz, Randy Santos of Navy Beach, Jason Weiner of Almond and Kevin Penner of the North Fork Table & Inn, were assisted by middle-school age children, and the younger ones played on the beach looking out at the marina. Alfredo Merat provided an upbeat musical accompaniment to the celebration with his unique mix of Latin Jazz and World Fusion ballads.  

“Slow Food,” explained Victoria Smith of Dock to Dish, “is the opposite of fast food. It means putting time into your food.” Dock to Dish, founded by Sean Barrett, supplied the shellfish for the event. Dock to Dish is the equivalent of a CSA vegetable farm only it delivers fresh fish to its members on a weekly basis. Each week participating families receive two to four pounds of fresh fish and participating restaurants, such as Almond in Bridgehampton and Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, receive deliveries of 50 pounds of fish.
 
The fish, or shellfish in this case, is delivered by Dock to Dish to participating members no more than 24 hours after having been caught in the waters off Montauk. The chefs participating in the program learn what kinds of fish will be in their weekly delivery only a day or two before its arrival.
 
The shellfish at Shellabration was all harvested by Montauk fisherman, many of whom attended Shellabration. Most notably P.J. Beckwith, who is the 15th generation of his family to live in the Town of East Hampton and whose family has a proud legacy of making its living from fishing the waters off Montauk, harvested all the littleneck clams. He came with his mother, Susan, his father Bruce, sister Amanda and wife, Marita.

The money raised at the dinner will benefit the Chefs to Schools initiative founded by Slow Food East End and launched in partnership with the Edible School Garden network. This initiative pairs chefs with schools to create unique and healthful menus from the produce of their school gardens.
 
The mission of the Edible School Gardens Group is to reconnect children and their families with real food and to empower and inspire local communities to eat well said Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz one of Shellabration’s organizers and a teacher of environmental design, agricultural production and culinary arts at the Bridgehampton school. Children are taught how to grow and tend to gardens so they can experience first hand what real food is, where it comes from and how to grow it. There are 27 schools across the East End of Long Island that participate in the program growing vegetables that are then prepared and eaten by the students.