At the end of the line, the very last stop on the Long Island Rail Road, there is a huge rusted anchor. Beyond it, there is water and there are boats. The ferry to Shelter Island chugs back and forth, a purposeful ship among the flighty sailboats.
We had arrived in Greenport, N.Y., on a late-summer afternoon not by rail, ferry or yacht, but by tiny hatchback. So when we found ourselves stepping over train tracks near the waterfront later that night, my husband, Tim, did not believe at first that they belonged to the L.I.R.R. Though we had driven only two hours from our apartment in New York City, Greenport, at the far end of the North Fork on the island's East End, felt as far away as Maine, as distant as the Oregon coast.
Indeed, the North Fork feels more culturally akin to the fishing villages of New England or the Pacific Northwest than to the haughty cosmopolitanism of the Hamptons or the sophisticated art and food scenes of the Hudson Valley. To relatively recent New York transplants like Tim and me, the idea that a $19.75 train ticket and a straight shot from Penn Station could deposit us among fish shacks and farm stands, upstart breweries and biodynamic vineyards, seemed somehow unreal.
With its deepwater bay and sheltered channel, Greenport has been home to one sea-centric industry after another: from whaling to shipbuilding, menhaden fishing to oyster processing. In Greenport's 175-year existence as an incorporated village, the surrounding area has changed relatively little. The railroad, which was completed in 1844, helped establish the local economy by giving East End farmers access to city markets.
The most notable change over the last several decades is the number of vineyards — ones with ever-growing reputations — that have begun to encroach on Long Island's established crops. But the fields of potatoes, white corn and berries are still there, being cultivated alongside the North Fork's 40 or so wineries. Most of the farm stands are open well into fall, when the weather cools, the pumpkin patches open and the wineries celebrate their harvests.
To get to Greenport, we had driven past the suburbs and the pine barrens to where the highway turns from eight lanes to two and the roadsides open into farmland. At the end of driveways, there were hand-scrawled advertisements for fresh eggs and raw milk. One modest stand brought us to an abrupt stop with a sign for Holy Schmitt's fresh horseradish mustard, a bracing condiment that has become a household favorite.
These brake-screeching moments happened again and again during our three days on the North Fork. It was a pattern of enthusiastic bad behavior that, I can only imagine, contributes to the local perception of people like us — urbanites in town for the weekend or an overnight. We're referred to as "cidiots," I was told: city idiots.
It's a nickname I learned from Peter Pace. Mr. Pace grew up in working-class Hell's Kitchen, went on to success on Madison Avenue and, two years ago, started one of Greenport's better restaurants, First and South, with his business partner, Sarah Phillips. A frenetic, comically gregarious 48-year-old with a shaved head and a fondness for sherbet-toned sweaters, he seems to savor his own cidiot status. I met Mr. Pace when, coincidentally, we sat a couple of tables over from him at Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck, about 20 minutes west of Greenport, the morning after having happy-hour drinks at First and South. Recognizing us from the night before, he struck up a conversation and, before long, insisted on showing us around.
A half-hour later, Mr. Pace was driving us down narrow farm lanes and apologizing again and again for the weather, as if the threatening clouds were a personal failing. He took us past "Private Road" signs and through a dense wall of vine-choked trees until we came upon an elegant home, large yet unobtrusive, with stunning views of the pacific blue of Long Island Sound.
His point: the most sublime places on the North Fork are ones like this — hidden spots, side roads, even graveyards. As we drove on, Mr. Pace practically yelped at the sight of aging potato trucks on Oregon Road, lined up side by side. ("A photographer's dream come true," he said.)
But I was more interested in what those tractors helped produce, what the boats pulled in, what the farm stands sold and what the wineries poured. With so much to eat and drink, and only three days to do it, the North Fork had thrown me into a gluttonous frenzy.
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