Larry Kaiser is proof that the power of social media shouldn’t be underestimated.
“I get myself in trouble on social media sometimes, meaning I’ll put things out there through social media, because that’s the only avenue that the farm advertises on,” says Larry Kaiser, owner of 1760 Homestead Farm in Riverhead.
When the farmer and baker started posting “meal reels” on Instagram to teach his audience about his foods, such as his Riverhead Country Fair blue ribbon-winning Concord grape pie, he didn’t imagine that would lead him to be one of 10 contestants on Netflix’s newest baking competition show, “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship.”
A few days after he posted his grape pie meal reel in 2023, Kaiser received a call from a talent scout that kicked off the arduous casting process for the competition.
In the competition — which drops in its eight-episode entirety on Aug. 9 — “Blue Ribbon” bakers from state fairs across the country embark on an epic baking competition to take home $100,000 and the coveted “Best in Fair” blue ribbon.
The competition was created by multi-award winning culinary star Sandra Lee.
“I created it, and it took me 12 years to get it to air. I’m so grateful,” Lee wrote in a July 10 Facebook post announcing the show. “The Food Network said no when I originally presented it, as did Netflix, but Netflix came back around after covid and said yes, yes, yes.”
Lee judges and co-hosts the show, along with “American Pie” actor Jason Biggs. Other judges include former White House pastry chef Bill Yosses and award-winning artist and baker Brian Ford.
Kaiser bought the farm with his wife in 2013. While Kaiser never attended culinary school, he did vocational training in high school and worked in restaurants to learn to make all the delicious treats the historic farm — which is on Riverhead Town’s Historic registry, as the property is over 250 years old — is known for.
“I started baking some pies and cookies and breads and stuff like that,” Kaiser says. “And as the farm’s grown, so has the offering of baked goods, and I’ve gone back to my roots. Now I make our own hot sauce, marinara sauce spreads, all using ingredients off of the farm.”
After going through a long casting process, Kaiser immediately got to work to sharpen his skills. To prepare for the competition, Kaiser leaned on local friends and talent to help.
He thanks Jessica Shearman of North Fork Baker, Ursula XVII of Disset Chocolate and Christina Padrazo of The Treatery for their support.
“I’ve got a nice core group of people on the north fork,” he says. “It was really nice to call on that core group, and they were really cool because they knew I couldn’t tell them. I said, ‘Listen, I’m prepping for something. I can tell you I’m competing, but I can’t tell you for what, but I just need you to explain to me, you know, [help me] hone my skills,’ and they were great.”
Folks will have to watch the show to find out how Kaiser did in the competition and see the delicious cakes, pies and more that he crafted.
“It’s totally different,” he said. “You’ve got all day to bake in here. Competition baking is entirely different.”
He describes the show it as “baking boot camp,” adding that filming could take anywhere from six to 23 hours in a day.
“They brought in an instructor,” he says. “She taught us how to competitively bake, because you have to understand you can bake something and it might take three hours, but your time constraint is only, say, maybe two hours, so you have to learn how to get the same end result by using different methodologies…It was just an amazing experience. I come away blessed because I got to meet nine of the best bakers in the country, and everyone was talented.”
There were two goals on Kaiser’s mind when he agreed to participate in the competition.
“One is to draw attention to the farm here and what we do,” Kaiser says. “Because the goal here is to preserve some of the North Fork history. Tying into that, I wanted to represent the farming community of the eastern end of Long Island. I think I accomplished those two things good and for that simple reason, when you watch the show and you see what I make, you will totally understand where my creativity came from.”
He encourages others to not be afraid to chase similar experiences.
“I would recommend to anyone who thinks they have enough heart, go for it,” he says. “I’m almost 60 years old and I [just] started doing this, so this is all a second life for me.”
Kaiser hopes to have a watch party on the day the show is released but is still working out the details. He plans to show off some of the treats he made on the show in exchange for a small donation to help fund a scholarship for the Long Island Farm Bureau.
For those interested in attending, follow @1760_homestead_farm on Instagram where he will announce the details once they are finalized.
