The Art of Scalloping

I'm was recently asked for a copy of my Sag Harbor Express scalloping story from last year so I took a bunch of iPhone snaps of it and figured I'd toss it up on the good ol' writer's blog while I continue to not have a website like a total dope.

Enjoy!

Local bayman Joshua Clauss of Harvest Moon Oysters said, "Well done, I think you captured our romantic view of it all and I like the analogy of the good presence at party."

Itty Bitty Busy Bones

Hi there!

Thug Child Gangsta here checkin' in with an inadequately prepared update on what's been going down in my little world of freelance journalism. 

I covered the Katy's Courage 5K on Ssturday, April 5, for both the Sag Harbor Express and Dan's Papers, which was my first time covering an event for multiple publications. 

One of my photos graced the front cover of the Express and the story I wrote about the event may or may not represent my very first for a newspaper's sports section (Can't imagine that's true)

I think I also made the front cover of the Rockland County Times that Thursday, April 10, after covering the formation of the group, "Rockland Clergy for Social Justice" and writing that here represents the first time I realized I made two different front covers in two different counties on one day.

Check it out:

GIANNA VOLPE    Bronx-based Rabbi Ari Hart of Uri L’Tzedek—Orthodox for Social Justice—voiced his support of newly formed “Rockland Clergy for Social Justice” in the packed basement of Spring Valley’s First Baptist Church on Tuesday afternoon, when the group announced its intent to petition Governor Andrew Cuomo for immediate fiscal and administrative oversight over the East Ramapo Central School District.

Other things:

I photographed the first annual Horseradish party on Saturday, April 12, for Dan's Papers and even competed in the Bloody Mary contest,  placing third of 10 despite forgetting the Worcestershire sauce and both lemon and lime. 

It was there I learned Moustache Brewery was holding its soft opening the next day and I'm pretty sure I was the only member of the Press there.

I wrote that up as a story for last week's issue of Dan's Papers, in addition to photographing the grand opening of the brewery for this week's issue.

I am really excited about the fact that I just handed in two stories to the Southampton Press - the first two I've written in a long while and will not discuss as I believe they're both being held for next week's paper. 

Also wrote two pieces for the Sag Harbor Express - one on weed-eating goats and another about well-known local chef, George Hirsch. 

Just handed in my first of two upcoming magazine features for the Express, one of which I am incredibly excited about because it's a first-person feature and I love those. 

I write the other one tonight, but now I have to go shower and get ready for work at the bar.

Such is life for this busy little Gia!

My 27th birthday is coming up in June, so if you don't know what to get me, an acountant/personal assistant/both would be incredibly helpful!

Revvin' up

                                       

I am incredibly excited to announce that I will be trimming down my daytime hours tending bar at Tweed's to focus exclusively on my freelance work.

Inserted above are my photos from Stephen Talkhouse's mid-winter beach party, taken on assignment for this week's issue of Dan's Papers.

I'm currently in New Orleans, but about to sit down and write a piece for them that will include a fairly big (IMO) local story scoop (my specialty!) - hopefully it will still be a scoop when it's published!

I will also be writing a feature for the Sag Harbor Express, which will be published in their upcoming 'Home & Garden' magazine. The newspaper takes a break from special pubs. in January and February, so I am way excited to be back at it for them. 

My editor, Kathryn Menu, always gives me incredibly interesting assignments, edits carefully without stomping out my voice or adding errors into my copy and is very thorough about her expectations for pieces, whether they be about deadlines, sources, style, etc.

I am blessed to have a number of truly excellent editors, but I have to give Ms. Menu credit for her kindness, patience and consistent diligence. 

Okay, that's enough yapping from this rookie for one afternoon.

I'm going to get writing over here in the French Quarter (which is ironic, as I am exactly one quarter Cajun) and continue revvin' myself up for the inevitability of national publication and super stardom!

And I will never forget those calculating few of you who have unjustly attempted to hold me back, knock me down or entirely destroy me.  

You are tiny people and I feel sorry for you. 

Bringing Sexy Back to Riverhead

                                  

Gianna Volpe Photo: James Hall Jr. (Left) and Calvin Kerr (Right) said Feb. 23 they signed a contract with Steve Siegalwaks of Green Earth Grocers to open JC's Cafe and Lounge in the back portion of the 50 E. Main St. building.

By Gianna Volpe

A new business in downtown Riverhead, JC's Cafe and Lounge, will have a soft opening at 8 p.m. next Saturday, March 15,according to co-owner and executive chef, Calvin Kerr. 

"We'll have signage by the rear entrance, which will be open between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. next Saturday night," Kerr, a Bellport Village resident, said of The soft opening. "We're also building a wall to separate us from the market with French doors in it so there will also be access to the lounge from the front."

No formal permit applications for the business had been filed with Riverhead Town as of March 7.

"We want to bring the sexy back to Riverhead," Kerr said Feb. 23 of the ultimate goal he and co-owner James Hall Jr. have for JC's Cafe and Lounge. "We've got a 52-inch television coming in, couches, ottomans, candles, lanterns and dim lighting. We want our customers to be comfortable."

Hall Jr., a Shirley resident who will serve as the business's floor manager, said he wants to ensure customers not only feel comfortable, but safe.

"I want this to be something where you can kick it and relax and don't have to worry about nothing," he said. "Our couches are going to be so comfortable that you may find yourself falling asleep in them and the guys I've got lined up [for security] are bigger than me."

Kerr and Hall Jr. do not yet have a liquor license for JC's Cafe & Lounge, but said customers are welcome to bring their own alcohol.

The establishment's menu of "eclectic food with a hippie gourmet style" was created by Kerr, a Jamaican native who said his 14 years in the restaurant industry began with a six-year stint at Gurney's Resort and Spa in Montauk.

"I'm really excited," he said of the imminent opening planned for JC's Cafe & Lounge. "This is the culmination of my career.

E-mail the author:

agentjanefox@gmail.com

Scoopin' the East End

Scooped nearly every publication for the story on Long Island's first mobile slaughterhouse except one 

(which taught me a very valuable lesson about how pitching a story may mean having it stolen from you)

I ultimately gave the story to Dan's Papers, which has been giving me steady work as both a writer and photographer. 

Print version comes out on Friday, but check out the story on the Dan's Papers website:

http://danspapers.com/2014/02/browders-birds/

(Story inserted below for the truly lazy)

Gianna Volpe photo

Holly Browder sets up the Browder's Birds booth on Saturday, Feb. 22 at the Riverhead Farmer's Market.

If you’ve ever bought one of Browder’s Birds to serve certified organic local free-range chicken at home or had one tantalizingly prepared for you at well-loved locavore paradise The North Fork Table & Inn, chances are you’ve been jonesing all winter long for another taste of the lean, local meat.

And you’re in luck, because not only are farmers Holly and Chris Browder the proud new owners of Long Island’s very first mobile slaughterhouse—thanks in part to a $61,375 grant awarded by the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council—but the farmers are also seeking a license that will mean they will no longer be subject to a 1,000-bird annual cap.

New York State’s small farm exemption currently allows the Browders to sell 1,000 chickens every year from their 16-acre farm in Mattituck.  They are looking into becoming licensed with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets as operators of an MPU, or mobile processing unit, which will increase that limit to 20,000 birds annually.

“Every small state exemption is different, so in Virginia that’s enough to make into a small business at 20,000 birds, but at 1,000 birds we sell out in October and then we’re done,” Holly Browder said of the difficulties in operating under New York’s small farm exemption, adding that she and husband will “never” reach 20,000 birds in hopes of maintaining their reputation as responsible, caring poultry farmers, who raise their local chicks free range.

“We’re not trying to be a huge chicken producer because the whole thing with pasture-raised animals is that you don’t want too many animals,” she said. “We just want to grow our business enough to be sustainable.”

Though Long Island’s first MPU is a 28-foot aluminum trailer filled with stainless steel equipment capable of processing upward of 500 poultry animals per day, Chris Browder, a former managing director at Bank of America and two-decade Manhattanite, said he isn’t looking to produce that kind of volume.

“Right now I’m just interested in learning how to use this thing properly,” said Browder, who has historically manually processed his chickens. “We’ll probably do 100 chickens at a time until we get super comfortable with it. Once we feel like we have everything under control, then maybe we’ll increase that number.” He said the facility “absolutely” has the capability to be moved around to other farms that have access to 100 amps of electricity, propane and potable water, but added he is not at a point where he has seriously considered doing so.

“Until I know the ins and outs of this thing, we’re just going to use it ourselves,” he said.

Browder plans to begin using the MPU come Memorial Day weekend, but added he will remain limited to 1,000 chickens until the licensing process is through.

“First order of business is getting the 5-A [license] so we can ramp up past 1,000,” he said. “Who knows if that will take two days or two years.”

Though Browder said the mobile processing concept is relatively new, he hopes the fact that the unit’s design has already been approved by New York State will help streamline the bureaucratic process.

“This particular unit was designed and built by a friend of mine named Ed Leonardi from WildCraft Farm upstate in Swan Lake,” Browder said of the facility, which he purchased last month. “I learned about him because of his MPU and called him shortly after he’d finished it in 2009 or 2010 and said that I would love to come up and take a look … It took him a long, long time to get that thing licensed, but he was finally able to get Ag and Markets to sign off on the design, so that unit is approved for [poultry] slaughter in New York State.”

Browder said though discussions of a mobile red meat slaughterhouse on Long Island are ongoing, he doesn’t believe it’s likely one will be rolling to the East End any time soon.

“Those things are expensive and they need a lot of throughput so the question is, ‘Is there enough volume out here to justify something that expensive?’” explained Browder. “The jury’s still out on that.”

Holly Browder said she is hopeful, adding that a recently-formed committee is looking at logistics on the subject looking forward. ”Everybody new is doing livestock,” she said of the East End animal raising trend.

Browder is a member on the Long Island Farm Bureau’s board of directors and was instrumental is the founding of Riverhead’s weekly indoor farmers market, Saturdays at 117 East Main Street, across from Suffolk Theater.

Gianna Volpe

Agentjanefox@gmail.com

Bylines Abound!

Hey there reporter's blog!

Just checkin' in with ya to let you know that I got my first hard copy bylines with Edible East End and Dan's Papers!

Unfortunately the Dan's Papers byline is coupled with an article that I did not write and (winemaker of Osprey's Dominion and Coffee Pot Cellars) Adam Suprenant's name was spelled wrong in it, but that's okay- my article about local wine for the holidays can be found in the Dan's Papers special holiday preview that came out about a week ago!

It's got a Christmas tree on it and my article is called "Wine Down," if you happen to see it on your travels around the East End/Manhattan.

I work my little squirrel tail off, so I haven't yet gotten the chance to post clips here for y'all, but I'll get there! (All in good time)

Super psyched to see the review I wrote about Leann Lavin's "Hampton and Long Island Homegrown Cookbook" when it gets posted on Edible's website 😊

In the meantime - check out this portrait of me from First and South in Greenport's "prohibition night," which was well attended by what seemed to be the entire population of the East End's 20-something hipsters--dressed to the nines in historic garb  (including yours truly)

Cheers, friends (and enemies too!)

Filling in the gap

Now that I've downloaded the blogger app for my iPhone, I'm sure I will begin using this more frequently (rather than next to never.)

Let me update you: I am currently one of the four New York Press Association "Rookie Reporters of the Year," an award I won the Suffolk Times for my reporting throughout 2012.

This is something I'm incredibly proud of - especially because two of the four rookie reporters are from the Queens Courier, where crime actually occurs now and again.

Obviously I'm being a bit facetious and truth be told, I am incredibly proud I received this honorable award.

So don't worry, I have made sure to tell every living creature that has crossed my path in the past few months that, "I'm one of the four New York Press Association 'Rookie Reporters of the Year.'"

I celebrated the win by consistently scooping a former colleague with crime stories, which was fun!

Now I've turned to freelancing stories, mostly for magazines and newspaper supplements.

This is something I've been avoiding (along with living in New York City.....until I have enough money to actually LIVE there..... because if I'm going to just scrape by I would rather do it with some leg room), but at this point in the game I'm beginning to wonder why.

Something I finally said out loud today while pondering why it felt like Denise Civiletti had just stabbed me in the abdomen when she suggested I turn my sights toward magazines is that my training as a newspaper writer and photographer may have led me to look down on magazines.

The gloss, the flash, the color, the broader brush employed through their diction induced a recoiling reaction from me.

I was so busy learning to kill my voice that I couldn't even think about marrying it to my facts, which is why features were actually more difficult for me when I was starting out!

Now I write features like it ain't no thang and during my tenure at Times/Review, I certainly wrote a lion's share of those bad boys.

Nowadays I get steady work with the Sag Harbor Express, will hopefully continue writing/photographing for Edible East End and the other gorgeous Edible magazines, and have just begun my relationships with the Southampton Press, Long Island Business News and Dan's Papers.

Barbaraellen Koch, a local veteran photojournalist for whom I have the utmost respect, thinks it's time for me to somehow get into The New York Times, maybe by writing a column about the two weeks I just spent being homeless on the East End or by breaking a big story............ So yeah, if you are the Long Island serial killer, hit me up at agentjanefox@gmail.com and offer me an exclusive because I'm not sure if The Grey Lady prints columns written by veritable nobodies!

I will start updating this ol' boy with my work - I swear! So people can um. You know. Read my stuff. And things.

That's all I got, so signing off, this is special agent Jane Fox aka Gianna Volpe.

Over and out