Using Chef Steve’s culinary magic and artistry, he and his chocolatiers handcraft beautiful small batch artisanal chocolates and gourmet desserts using local ingredients (some grown in their own backyard). Believing in the importance of supporting the local agricultural community and the idea of farm to table, this award winning chocolatier incorporates local beer, sea salt, honey, berries, cider, wine and spirits within their proprietary blend of pure Belgian chocolate. Steve and Ann’s passion for all things local also extends to their retail store and art gallery where Steve’s paintings adorn the walls along with other featured local artists, and they also offer shelf space to local food artisans and crafters to sell their products. The chocolate vision Steve saw years ago was uniquely his own, but North Fork Chocolate has given us all a taste.
A first grade teacher by day, Jess didn't always trade in memes. Six years ago her Etsy shop exclusively sold standard (non-humorous) greeting cards/save the dates. "It was a hobby." Then, in 2013, she had her first child and for Christmas she gifted custom mugs to family and one to her husband reading, 'Daddy Est. 2013.' With a shop already up and running, her family convinced her to add some mug options as well, and then.... she went viral.
"There was nothing at the time out there like that." So when she came up with a tiered mug saying "Shhh... Almost... Now you may speak," sites like Buzzfeed and Huff Post picked her up, and "Does this ring make me look engaged?" got her a print spot in The Knot. After Reese Witherspoon and George Takei reposted pics of her mugs, the path was clear "Cards were out, mugs were in."
Now in 30 retail stores across the country, Jess is still expanding although she now has three kids, still teaches and inks every mug herself. Despite nightly hand massages from her very witty and supportive husband, it's not all glamour for Jess. "I live in a madhouse, run by a tiny army made by myself... that's probably my favorite mug because it's true."
https://www.etsy.com/shop/simplymadegreetings
]]>Despite a giant handmade sign (reading: "Merry and Bright") hanging across her front porch, Cathlin hasn't always been this freely expressive. With a medical field background, she stayed at home when she had kids - her creativity confined to elaborate birthdays. There was an indoor camping party where she cleared out furniture transforming the den into a campsite of fake fires and tents, a Paris party of easels and handmade crafts, a Mad Scientist bash, etc. "That was my opportunity to express creativity while still being with my kids."
When her kids got older she returned to the medical biz to handle billing in a Doctor's office. The monotony of endless phone time with insurance companies was broken up with doodling and sketching her coworkers. "The people there were amazing, but it just wasn't where I wanted to be."
Then, in search for an anniversary gift a couple year's ago, something clicked. Walking through AC Moore, Cathlin saw a wood board and that spontaneous inspiration hit; A DIY gift to her husband, with maps of the places that meant something to them with a heart next to each all linked together. After posting the finished product to Facebook, requests soon followed. "It just kind of snowballed."
The shed on the property of her Sayville home now overflows with pallets with her husband in charge of breaking down the wood. "Sometimes I'll come up with an idea and my husband will look at me crazy, but then he sees the finished product and he loves it. So I'm happy I've found a job that allows me to be creative, while still being connected with my family."
When not enjoying the water or local fare, Alicia and Kevin love to travel and to bring back the terroir of their journeys. Trips through Japan meant bowls of ramen, skewers of yakitori and the introduction to Shichimi Togarashi, a savory and peppery blend they knew they had to have more of—which of course meant creating their very own version. Travels to Spain and warmer climates brought foods with flashes of heat and acidity, the direct inspiration for their Lime Habanero Sea Salt—a perfect companion for a seaside cocktail or the ultimate accent to local sweet corn.
Everything is truly a collaborative effort and labor of love--Kevin designs all the labels and will come up with a name or blend concept while Alicia gets to work on crafting a recipe and turning the idea into a flavor reality. He still won't let her live down the fact that he had the idea for Vampire Salt, which was later featured on the Food Networks Guys Grocery Games. However, Alicia’s blend of black Hawaiian Salt and the perfect balance of Aleppo pepper and garlic is what truly gives this sensational salt it’s bite!
Their love of local beer and food turned Alicia and Kevin into loyal farmers market patrons, so it was only natural to introduce Long Islanders to Crimson & Clove at several markets. Those early weekend mornings led to camaraderie and collaborations with other vendors, including a spicy bacon bourbon jam with Crimson & Clove Harissa, their take on the Tunisian blend, and even a Bloody Mary Gose, brewed by Blind Bat Brewery with their cocktail inspired Bloody Mary Sea Salt.
Alicia and Kevin take pride in Crimson & Clove. Each blend is just spice, without the use of any fillers, sugar, salt, chemicals or flow agents while their flavored salts are a combination of the finest salt, herbs and spices. All of their spice blends, flavored salts or expertly sourced herbs or spices are hand packed in small batches in a local shared commercial kitchen. Give the familiar or exotic sides of Crimson & Clove a taste for yourself and flavor everything, locaLI of course!
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For Nanci and Jennifer, the story of Steiner's Coffee Cake is deeply personal. It is the fabric that weaves together the generations of the Steiner family. A tie that was woven by an old school tin box that once belonged to Jennifer's Grandfather (Malcolm Steiner) and was passed down to her upon his passing. Inside is nestled over 30 years of accumulated recipes and notes detailing the life of her Grandfather's baking passion. "Some of the recipes he hand wrote and are completely illegible," says Jennifer. "But he's so cute - on the recipe cards he would put 'excellent' '2 checkmarks' '4 checkmarks,' he'd grade his own recipes, it was adorable."
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Malcolm's coffee cake recipe in particular was a staple of the Steiner household. Four delicious layers of cake and cinnamon that was enjoyed for decades by all members of the Steiner household... except Nanci. "She was diagnosed celiac in the 80's which was very very early in the curve of people understanding about all this stuff. Someone telling you they're Celiac 35 years ago - they wouldn't even know what you're talking about. So she was always tinkering with his recipes because she couldn't eat anything he was making."
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So for the next 30 years Nanci approached finding a gluten free flour she could bake with like the science teacher she was. "Her standards are pretty tough and she didn't want to bake anything that a person who wasn't celiac wouldn't eat." Then in 2010, after retiring from teaching, Nanci focused harder on bringing her stepfather's recipes back to life in a way that she could fully enjoy. "A lot of cakes died in our kitchen," jokes Jennifer. "But we had this sense that she was on to something." And then 6 years later in 2016, Nanci served Jennifer and her brother a coffee cake. "It was like Mom, you did it! You cracked the code!"
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With a perfected gluten free coffee cake in hand, Jennifer responded like any good daughter would and.... quit her job. "My mother was furious; I think she still is. But I thought this was awesome and we have to take it to market. And she was 69 at the time and she wasn't going to start a company at 69 by herself. But I thought 'you have to go for it, you don't want to regret this,' and off we went." "It was perfect because we didn't want to launch with something that everybody else had like gluten free chocolate chip cookies or brownies. I can't think of another national coffee cake brand besides Entenmann's and Drake's and they don't even have real ingredients. And because coffee is so hot, it's been a great place to us to start and an easy way to talk to consumers."
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With Jennifer's background working small business turnarounds and a personal understanding of the market (Jennifer herself is a self-diagnosed celiac after a trip to the ER in 1997), Steiner's was launched in 2016 with Malcolm's tin box and Nanci working R&D in the kitchen. The company hasn't looked back since. Scones and Ginger Snaps have already been added to the product line with many more of Grandpa Malcolm's modernized recipes on the way. There's a Pumpkin Spice Cake about to enter production, a mocha espresso biscotti and "Betty's Birthday Cake" - the quintessential Steiner birthday cake composed of mocha and espresso chocolate layer cake and named after Malcom's wife. "That birthday cake is religion for us. We've all had that birthday cake and even our kids now have it. My mother could never have it and now she has it almost ready to go in R&D."
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"My Grandfather's spirit is being kept alive in a really fun way. Not in a million years would he guess that we would have done this. He was a tough, tall silent German Jew with not a smile to be had. But he would love to have seen this happening."
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