"Little Gerrys" raise money for ALS

Fresh Chickens, or “Little Gerrys” on Sale at North Fork Table and Browder’s Birds

July 15, 2014 | By Gianna Volpe | Photographs by Gianna Volpe

Holly Browder gives the Little Gerrys scraps for North Fork Table. 

You’ve heard about farm-to-table, but what about farm-to-table-to-farm-to-table? That’s right, the North Fork’s Browder’s Birds have begun a locavore poultry project that is sure to have you singing, “It’s the circle of life,” in no time. Mattituck’s organic free-range chicken farmers are currently feeding two of their flocks scraps from the highly touted North Fork Table and Inn and the chickens will ultimately appear on the restaurant’s menu on the weekend of July 25. The well-fed fowl are dubbed “Little Gerrys” in a playful synthesis of Seinfeld fame with the name of the North Fork Table’s executive chef, Gerard Hayden. “We’ve been working with North Fork Table for five years,” says Holly Browder. “They were the first restaurant we sold eggs to, and we’ve always talked about doing a local chicken for them, but it’s taken us five years to get to the point where we could do it, so we’re really excited.”

Lucky birds, for now. 

Through October, flocks of 100 Little Gerrys will be processed every two weeks with 40 chickens per flock to appear at Hayden’s table. The chickens will also be available at the Browders’ farm stand at 4050 Soundview Avenue in Mattituck, which is open every Friday through Sunday, this weekend. They will be sold fresh. Though these chickens will also appear on the menus of other East End hot spots, such as Greenport’s First and South and Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, Browder says she is hoping to be able to retail some Little Gerrys to the public. A portion of the proceeds, including the difference in the wholesale and retail price of Little Gerrys will be donated to aLove Shared. A Love Shared is a collaborative fundraising effort formed by the region’s brightest culinary stars to promote research for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and provide care for Hayden, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2011. More than 15 A-list chefs will be featured at a Love Shared’s River Cafe reunion tomorrow night, including Nick & Toni’s Joe Realmuto.

About Gianna Volpe

Gianna Volpe is a freelance multimedia reporter on the East End of Long Island and 2013's New York Press Association Rookie Reporters of the Year. She received her bachelor degree in journalism with an emphasis in photojournalism at the University of Missouri in 2010 and grew up at the foot of the Palisades in New Jersey, which overlook New York City. She now lives in Riverhead.

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Long-time LI Farm Bureau executive director announces retirement

As seen on: Libn.com

Gergela retiring from Long Island Farm Bureau

By Gianna Volpe

When Joseph Gergela III retires in December from the Long Island Farm Bureau, local farmers will lose one of their own.

The lifelong Island farmer and longtime executive director of the Calverton-based nonprofit informed its Board of Directors of his retirement plans in March. When he steps down at the end of the year, it will be after 26 years with the LIFB – and over 50 years with type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis he received at age 7.

Gergela, now 58, has weathered numerous diabetes-related complications through the years, including multiple heart attacks and a 2012 kidney transplant from his brother. He cited health concerns as the main reason for his pending departure.

“That’s why I have to retire,” Gergela said. “The physical work of walking the halls of the New York Legislature is a challenge now. I have heart problems and circulation problems, and that wears you out.

“And trying to make time all the time, and to have your best, most charming personality day in and day out, plus the stress of what the farmers are going through … I just know it’s time,” he added.

At times during his LIFB career, you might not have known Gergela was ill. The executive director has garnered a national reputation for his political and PR chops, including management training from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, service on the National Farm Bureau and what he described as a “personal friendship and working relationship” with former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

Locally, he’s known as the farmer’s best friend. A tireless point man and booster for the regional agricultural community, Gergela called the 2002 negotiations for the East End’s former KeySpan property, now known as Hallockville, one of the best victories of his LIFB tenure.

With many environmentalists clamoring for public park space – a plan that would have cost 300 acres of prime farmland – Gergela brokered a farm-saving deal between KeySpan and then-Gov. George Pataki.

“That was my baby,” he said. “The beauty of this, which is how I sold it to the governor, was that the farmers would buy the land with the development rights sold to the state, and the money would go into a pot to a build a state park on [Long Island] Sound.”

That $3 million is still sitting in a fund in Albany, waiting to build that park, Gergela noted.

Long Island Farm Bureau President Karen Rivera said the organization will miss Gergela’s wisdom and energy.

“Joe has been a fearless and effective advocate for Long Island agriculture,” Rivera said. “He is greatly respected not only here on Long Island, but also in Albany and Washington.”

Rivera did not mention a specific successor, but noted the LIFB Board of Directors “has formed a committee to formulate a plan for the organization moving forward.”

Whatever direction the bureau takes after he leaves his post, Gergela – who plans to retire to Boca Raton, Fla. with his wife, Donna – said the LIFB’s greatest strength will always be the Long Island agricultural community itself.

“We’re proud of our farms, our land, our crops,” he said. “It takes a lot of personal pride. You have to be really into it, or you’re not going to make it in farming.”

Read more: http://libn.com/2014/04/16/gergela-retiring-from-long-island-farm-bureau/#ixzz2zAynKxW8

Passion of the Blimp

Blimpie to celebrate 50 years with 50 cent sub; chain’s founder sits down for interview with Rockland County Times

BY GIANNA VOLPE

The original Blimpie Base

The tri-state’s own submarine sandwich chain, Blimpie, turns 50 years old on Friday, April 4 when the first 200 customers of any Blimpie location can celebrate the half-century anniversary with a 50-cent Blimpie’s Best— and that’s cheaper than the 95 cents it once cost for the same sandwich during the chain’s 1964 inception, according to founder, Tony Conza.

“It was the most expensive sandwich at 95 cents and at the time we called it a ‘Super,’” Conza told The Rockland County Times of Blimpie’s very beginning, which saw he and two high school friends slap a sandwich shop together with $2,500 and the dream of bringing the cold subs of South Jersey to their hometown of Hoboken.

“The concept of a salad on a sandwich wasn’t really being done at the time,” Conza said. “It was just hero sandwiches—meatballs, ham and cheese on Italian bread—not shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes or onions.”

Blimpie forever altered that culinary landscape. From the moment the doors opened, Conza said folks were lining up to buy a ‘Blimp,’ a marketing descriptor he said was chosen to teach North Jersey folk the concept of the sandwich, inspired by Point Pleasant-based Mike’s Submarines, while associating it to the Blimpie brand.

“Back then the sandwiches weren’t known as ‘submarines’ and though we knew people in Philadelphia called them ‘hoagies,’ we wanted to teach everyone a word that was our own. We went through the As and Bs and got to blimp and said, ‘Okay, the sandwich kind of resembles an airship’ and then we just added an –ie to the end of it— that was our big market research,” he said with a laugh. “These days you spend a million dollars to come up with a name.”

Conza–author of “Success, It’s a Beautiful Thing: Lessons on Life and Business From the Founder of Blimpie International”– is no stranger when it comes to learning what it takes to build a successful business. What began as a lone sandwich shop on Seventh and Washington in Hoboken ultimately ascended to more than 2,000 locations by the new millennium, but in the beginning, Conza said there was darkness. “We were selling a lot of sandwiches but we really weren’t making money because we didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “My partner [Peter DeCarlo] and I … went through some very difficult times. I remember one time we pulled up to the tollbooth at the Lincoln Tunnel and when I reached into my pocket, I didn’t have the 50 cents it cost at the time. I said to [DeCarlo], ‘Give me 50 cents to pay the toll,’ and he said, ‘I don’t have any money.’ Neither one of us did.”

After briefly considering getting out of the business in 1989, the year after the small public company had lost money and was selling for only 15 cents a share, Conza said he realized he had “lost the passion for Blimpie” and swiftly set a five-year/ 1,000 location goal for the company.

“Once I made that mental decision to get the passion back for Blimpie – everything changed,” Conza said of the start of an eight-year stretch of record company earnings. “In the beginning it was like being behind a Mack truck and trying to push it up a hill by myself, but eventually more and more people got on board—and the rest is history.” Sadly for local Blimpie fans, the few Blimpie locations in Rockland County have all been put to pasture in recent years. If you want to get your 50 cent Blimpie fix on Friday, you’ll have to hop over the border to Mahwah, Allendale or Westwood in nearby Jersey. For those working in New York City or Westchester, there are also several Blimpie locations to choose from, which you can find at www.blimpie.com/locator.

This story sourced from The Rockland County Times website: http://www.rocklandtimes.com/2014/04/03/passion-of-the-blimpie/