Edible East End Proudly Presents the Local Flavor at the Hamptons Wine & Food Festival.

BRIDGEHAMPTON, N.Y. -- Hamptons Wine & Food Festival:

WHO:      First Annual Hamptons Wine & Food Festival
WHAT:     Local Flavor at the Hamptons Wine & Food Festival
WHERE:    Hayground School, Montauk Highway at Mitchell's Lane,
          Bridgehampton, NY
WHEN:     Friday, August 26th - Saturday, August 27th, 2005
CONTACT:  Stuart Racey 516-944-0026 [e-mail] or
          Jerry Romano 516-676-5658 [e-mail]

Edible East End, the quarterly magazine the celebrates the harvest of the Hamptons and North Fork, will present a series of tasting seminars that feature local farmers, fishers, and food makers during the first annual Hamptons Wine & Food Festival on August 26 and 27 in Bridgehampton. (The just-released summer issue of Edible can be found at www.edibleeastend.com. More information on the Festival is at www.hamptonsfoodandwinefestival.com.)

"You can't have a food and wine festival in the middle of one of the nation's oldest and richest agricultural regions without featuring seasonal foods and the people who raise them," said Stephen Munshin, publisher of Edible East End. "We were honored that the Festival organizers would ask us to assemble this local flavor."

Edible East End will be hosting a series of tastings of the best of the North and South Forks. Savor a rainbow of tomatoes, raw-milk cheeses, kettle-cooked potato chips, and Peconic Bay oysters, while hearing the stories of the farmers, fishers, winemakers, and food artisans who are fueling the East End's culinary revolution.

Among the ten, one-hour tasting seminars that Edible East End will present are:

--Fruit tasting with Prudence Wickham of Wickham's Fruit Farms

--Potato chip tasting with Marilee Foster (Foster Farms/Tiger Spuds Potato Chips) and Carol Sidor (North Fork Chip Company)

--Jam, jelly, mustard and preserves tasting with Joan Bernstein (Paumanok Preserves)

--A tasting of clams, oysters, and scallops with Kim Tetrault of SPAT and Karen Rivara (shellfish farmer)

--Tasting of cow- and goat-milk cheeses with Art Ludlow (Mecox Dairy) and Karen Catapano (Catapano Dairy)

--Tomato Tasting with Jennifer Pike (Pike Farms)

--The history and future of Long Island wine country with Roman Roth (Wolffer Estate), Erik Fry (Lenz), and Kareem Massoud (Paumanok)

--Local honey tasting and bee keeping seminar with Frederic Rambaud (Hamptons Honey Company)

--Artisinal breadmaking with Keith Kouris (Blue Duck Bakery)

--Gourmet mushroom culture with David and Kathy Falkowski (Open Minded Organics)

In addition to these programs, the Festival will feature local chefs who will dish up local produce and seafood in a homegrown version of Iron Chef--"Hamptons Platinum Chef."

"We'd love to see the entire Festival revolve around local ingredients and local talent," said Brian Halweil, editor of Edible East End. "This is a good start, and we hope attendees will demand more local flavor for next year's event."

Events run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and tickets are $150 per person per day. A full schedule is available at www.hamptonsfoodandwinefestival.com. Grand wine tastings from 5 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, are also $150 for each evening. A Platinum Pass for all day and evening events, as well as a VIP after-party on Saturday night, are $650 per person. Call 537-5937 or log on to www.ticketweb.com.