Farmers Kitchen Offers Seasonal Preserves in Riverhead

Riverhead has welcomed a new addition to Main Street with the grand opening of the Farmers Kitchen on Friday, May 20.

Located next to the Blue Duck Bakery and Ralph’s Italian Ices on Main Street, owners Mark and Emilie Zaweski will be selling the preserved bounty of their two North Fork farm operations, Mkz Farms and the Jamesport Harvest farmstand—both in Jamesport.

“We wanted to expand our operations to preserve what we grow,” Emilie Zaweski says. “Farmers need to always be expanding their business, and sometimes it becomes difficult with the crops changing by the season.”

The new Farmers Kitchen space will feature a state-of-the-art processing kitchen where the farm’s yield will be preserved and jarred, maintaining the fresh flavors.

“We take our traditional farming and make it a preserved good,” Zaweski notes. “We use no preservatives.”

The Zaweskis will also allow other farms or parties to jar and preserve their own crops and recipes at Farmers Kitchen, which is a commercial kitchen, so the products can be sold at retail. Anyone interested can collaborate with the Farmers Kitchen team to bring a edible product to life.

“We have farmers bringing in asparagus, spinach for making spinach pesto, arugula for arugula pesto, Browder’s Birds brought in eggs for us to pickle,” Zaweski says, adding, “We picked up a nice client Upstate who we’re making specialty ketchups for.”

As of now, the Farmers Kitchen has more than 50 different products, which will be changing by the season. Some products currently available include pickled asparagus, honey, dressings and lavender-citrus limeade, which are available for tasting.

In the future, the Zaweskis also plan to host cooking classes, where they will show students how various crops can be used in a meal, depending on the time of year.

“As the seasons change, we’ll keep expanding our product line,” Zaweski says. “The point of the Farmers Kitchen is to have the public understand the seasonality of food.”

The Farmers Kitchen, located at 309-1 Main Street in Riverhead, is open Friday–Monday, 11 a.m.– 5 p.m. For additional information, call 631-727-7044 or visit farmerskitchens.com.