Pati Jinich, Nicholas Poulmentis, Colin Ambrose, Dr Frank Lipman And More Featured In Fourth Annual Food Lab Conference

The fourth annual Food Lab Conference at Stony Brook Southampton Campus will be held on Friday, September 14 and Saturday, September 15.

Entitled “Eat Global… Cook Local,” this year encourages diversity, emigration, immigration, assimilation and acceptance through our different communities and cultures. One largely effective way to do this is by food, cooking, eating, and producing.

“I’m really excited about this year’s Food Lab Conference, happening this weekend,” Geoffrey Drummond, Associate Provost for Creative Arts Robert Reeves and Food Lab Executive Director, shared. “Our theme ‘Eat Global…Cook Local’ is important and relevant to all of us, especially out here on the East End of Long Island. It takes one of our region’s, as well as our nation’s, most pressing issues — globalism, immigration, diversity, assimilation — and looks at it through the lens of what we eat and drink, and with whom, where it comes from, and who produces it.”

There will be a cooking demonstration of Greek classics before the Festival opening reception on Friday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. led by Chef Nicholas Poulmentis, the chef at Akrotiri in Astoria, New York, and a champion on the Food Network’s Chopped.

“We are also, in this Conference, having some of the nation’s top physicians, nutritionists, medical educators and chefs talking about how all of this plays into our personal, as well as communities’ health and wellness,” Drummond noted. “We are thrilled to be welcoming among our 25 speakers Pati Jinich, James Beard and Emmy Awarded Chef and Host of her PBS TV series, Pati’s Mexican Table, Colin Ambrose, Chef/Owner of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, Dr Frank Lipman MD, author of the best selling book How To Be Well, and Florence Fabricant, of The New York Times.”

There will be an opening reception on Friday at the Literary Landmark Windmill on the Southampton campus from 6:30 to 8 p.m. – complete with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and opening remarks from Drummond.

Cultural Ambassador of the Shinnecock Nation Shane Weeks will offer a blessing and a song before Slow Food East End board member and Out East Foodie blogger Laura Luciano offers a talk on “Eat Global…Cook Local: Nourishing Community and Understanding Through ‘Slow’ Food.'”

On Saturday, the panels and conversations will commence at 9:15 a.m. and continue through 5:30 p.m. Feature topics include Diversity in the Bottle; Local Food — Really??; A Conversation about the “League of Kitchens” and “Emma’s Torch”; Nutrition + Health: Old Ways, New Science; Nourishing Diversity: Our Social, Emotional and Spiritual Relationships with Food; and Colin Ambrose and Biddle Duke: in Conversation. The Conference will culminate on Saturday evening with “One Long Table,” a wine, beer, and spirits tastings, complete with small plates from League of Kitchens and Carolina Santos-Neves.

Tickets for the Food Lab Conference are $75 for students and farmers, and $150 for general admission. Tickets for the cooking class and demonstration are $50.

Stony Brook Southampton Campus is located at 39 Tuckahoe Road in Southampton. For more information, visit www.thefoodlab.org.