Underground Training owner Katie Peters enjoys a hot drink at the Orient Country Store. (Credit: David Benthal)
Our readers’ enthusiastic response to the March women’s issue of Northforker magazine has been overwhelming. The eight women featured are all community builders — even if that’s not exactly what they set out to be or what we aimed to capture in their profiles. (more…)
Katie Peters photographed at The Orient Country Store by David Benthal.
Katie Peters has always led an active lifestyle. Growing up in Orient, she said, it sometimes felt like being outside was the only thing to do.
“We felt like we were locked at the end of the world, but looking back it was pretty good,” she recalled.
She loved to run, jump and climb with her two brothers and two sisters — she’s the middle child — and she fell in love with soccer at an early age. (more…)
Cover subject Claudia Fleming of The North Fork Table & Inn at Magic Fountain in Mattituck. (Credit: David Benthal)
North Fork Table and Inn culinary power couple Claudia Fleming and Gerry Hayden’s story was one of true love, in the kitchen and out. But when her husband lost his battle with ALS at just 50 years old in 2016, Fleming found herself having to go it alone — in the kitchen and in life. As she grows into her new role, the award-winning chef, cookbook author and North Fork culinary icon is tweaking her recipe for success. (more…)
Photographer David Benthal captures artist Kara Hoblin at the beach.
For someone who works in a medium as ephemeral as chalk, Kara Hoblin definitely leaves a permanent impression. Not only is she one of the North Fork’s most visible artists (you can spot her standing on a restaurant bar creating one of her signature public chalk installations), but she’s also known as a major connector — creating a tight-knit community of artists and the public. (more…)
Ami Opisso on the East Wind carousel with her children. (Credit: David Benthal)
A lot was happening at Lieb Cellars in 2013.
The Cutchogue winery, which was founded 21 years earlier as Lieb Family Cellars, had just been sold to an investment firm, making it Long Island’s first publicly traded winery. Less than a decade earlier, the company had also launched a sister label, Bridge Lane Wine, which was still in need of its own identity. (more…)
Hadley Wiggins-Marin has a two-pronged North Fork business featuring interior design services and a vintage general store. Photographer David Benthal chose to photograph her at the historic Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in downtown Riverhead. (Credit: David Benthal)
North Found & Co. deals in found objects and, in a sense, Hadley Wiggins-Marin is one of them.
Before the North Fork “found her,” she had no history with the area and, despite growing up in New York City, had always summered on (gasp!) Martha’s Vineyard. But 10 years ago, while casually house-hunting in Sag Harbor with her Italian then-boyfriend, now her husband, an astute realtor redirected them to the North Fork. The couple toured five homes in one day, closed on one three weeks later, then showed up at their 1920s New Suffolk farmhouse on a motorcycle with no furniture. (more…)
Lauri Spitz defines her own definition of strong. (Credit: David Benthal)
It was one of the biggest days of her life and Lauri Spitz was masking a familiar feeling.
As dozens of people poured into the newly expanded tasting room at Moustache Brewing Co. in Riverhead, which Spitz owns with her husband, Matt, she greeted them with the usual smile and a hug. (more…)