Dan's Papers - August 17, 2007 - Chasing the North Fork Chocolate

Follow the money. Not bad advice, I guess. But me? I follow the chocolate. Brownies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cream pie. Even chocolate malteds. And I'll let you in on a little secret. I add a handful of chocolate chips to my Christmas fruitcake. I know they're mixed in with all the healthy stuff like raisins and figs and it gives me great comfort and joy.

That's why a couple of Saturdays ago I ate a light lunch and headed on over to Castello di Borghese Vineyards in Cutchogue. I wasn't after the fruit of the vine this time. I was going for the chocolate. Peconic Baking Company was hosting a dessert tasting and all the desserts on this glorious afternoon were chocolate. Just for entering the place I'd get chocolate!

Let me first tell you about Peconic Baking Company. It started out small as the Peconic Café on Peconic Lane in Peconic. But now a second, much bigger facility has opened on Osborne Avenue in Riverhead (on the site of what was Golding's Hardware). It is both a café and a kitchen for the two locations.

Partners Jennifer Keller and Jack Decker, both of Cutchogue, are the folks in charge and if their chocolate desserts carry any weight, Jennifer and Jack know what they're doing. Jennifer, by the way, was for years a caterer in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

When she sensibly decided to come to the North Fork, she first took a wedding cake course at Culinary Institute of America up the Hudson in Hyde Park. How great is it to be Jennifer's eight-year-old son, Bailey? Imagine having a mom who works in two bakeries.

Now Peconic Baking has everything from cornbread to those wedding cakes. But this day was all chocolate and people came from all over to prove their devotion to the cocoa bean. Won't you try the chocolate pate, the flourless chocolate soufflé cake, the chocolate-dipped strawberries?

Lots of visitors did. From Manhattan came Kevin Hargrove (for the first time to the North Fork and in a rented car) with his friends Sunny, Krishna, Sari and Prakash. When I talked with them they were all sampling the strawberries, happy as can be. Eyes fixed on the chocolate pate. Kevin said they'll be back to the North Fork soon, with bathing suits.

I met up with another group of five that really hadn't been to the North Fork before - unless you want to count a drive to Orient Point to catch the ferry. Alexandra Ferro is from Huntington and Demetri Zgura lives in Selden. They introduced me to two of their friends who were newlyweds of 20 days. And while they were delighted with all the chocolate, they were toasting the couple with some festive wine. A happy afternoon for all of them.

No wine for this next chocolate person. Miranda Lau of Story Brook is only nine years old so she concentrated on the cookies and cake as did her mother Selena. The Lau family came to the North Fork on chocolate day with their Stony Brook friend and neighbor, Jenny Lee. The way Miranda kept on sampling, I suspect there was no room left for dinner. Every once in a while it doesn't matter.

I want you to know that even while I did all this listening, I was doing some serious eating. And I wrapped up a piece of chocolate cake for my husband at home bleaching the deck - a job I said I'd do a couple of years ago before things like chocolate got in the way.

Then there was Rich and Lisa Buniewski from the Garden State. These Jersey chocolate lovers were on the North Fork a second time and with them were Rich's father and mother from Florida. It was Lisa who came up with a pretty good idea. She said the cookies were so beautifully decorated she'd like to shellac a few and hang them in her kitchen. Fine, but how do you hang a chocolate cake, Lisa?

So home we went. Happy with the people we met, grateful to Peconic Baking Company and ready for a Saturday night of sweet, sweet dreams.