Larry Kaiser isn’t a chef who shops; he’s a farmer who cooks what’s left.
The owner and steward of 1760 Homestead Farm in Riverhead doesn’t necessarily identify as a traditional chef, even though he’s worked practically every kitchen job there is, from dishwasher to head cook and caterer. Instead, he refers to himself as a “farm chef.”
“There’s a chef that walks into a restaurant … and wants to plan a meal. He goes to the market and he buys all the ingredients,” Kaiser explains. “As a farm chef … the staff out in the farm stand says, ‘OK, Larry, we’ve got 55 pounds of tomatoes that are blemished.’ My job is, ‘what am I going to do with those 55 pounds of tomatoes?’
“The whole farming model here is the homesteading model,” Kaiser continues. “You grow for your own sustenance and barter, sell or trade the surplus.”
Zero waste & farm to plate
On the Monday before Christmas, the farm stand at 1760 Homestead is chilly and quiet as the team gets ready to close up shop for the season. But one step inside the farmhouse kitchen is met immediately with a rush of warm air that smells of garlic and caramelized squash, with Nirvana blasting from the speakers.
Kaiser and his assistant, Wendy, are prepping and roasting excess squash from the season to use as ravioli filling for a winter cooking class. In the oven, delicata squash rings roast on sheet pans for individual cheesecakes, a recipe he proudly developed using extra produce.
“I swear to God, my superpower is making something out of nothing,” Kaiser says.
It is this zero-waste approach that earned the farm a 2025 Farm of the Year title from Authentic World Taste, an international organization that honored them as “tradition keepers” for their preservation methods. Kaiser’s current pride and joy is the farm’s black garlic, which he ferments in-house and uses in sauces like black garlic Caesar and black garlic tzatziki.
A stroll through the farm market offers a variety of these products made on the farm from excess produce, as well as other farmhouse gifts and decor curated by his wife, Maggie. They also sell honey harvested from the farm’s hives. Kaiser calls it “farm to plate,” a phrase printed on the label of their federally-trademarked brand. Customer favorites include the 1760 Marinara, eggplant caponata and “Tractor Fuel” hot sauce born from a surplus of jalapeños and habaneros.
A giant green binder in the kitchen holds nearly 200 recipes used for products and classes.
The winter classroom
While the retail side closes to the public for the winter, work on the farm is never-ending. Aside from a few weeks off in the new year for appointments and errands, Kaiser uses the winter months to do one of the things he loves almost as much as using up vegetable scraps: education.
“I was incredibly surprised to find out most chefs don’t understand how many days it takes to grow a head of lettuce,” Kaiser says.
Throughout the winter, the large farmhouse kitchen hosts ticketed classes and by-appointment lessons such as date night or team-building, with a table on the enclosed porch where up to eight students can enjoy their creations.
The goal isn’t just to demonstrate recipes, but to pass down what Kaiser calls “forgotten methodology,” like the old-world logic of roasting peppers to freeze for leaner months. The vibe of these events is intentionally rustic, similar to the farm’s “Meat Carnival” events held in warmer months.
Kaiser describes the Meat Carnival as a sensory experience where guests move between stations, sampling dishes like smoked chicken wings or duck gyros without plates, knives or forks.
“It slows everybody down to taste the food,” Kaiser says of the hands-on approach.
It is a philosophy that works. When the farm participated in the annual North Fork Foodie Tour, Kaiser made sure it wasn’t just a lecture.
“People like snacks,” he says, “especially when you’re talking about snacks.”
From dishwasher to Netflix
Kaiser’s path to the kitchen was nonlinear. Instead of culinary school, he describes his training as graduating from the “school of hard knocks,” moving from a dishwasher at Danford’s in Port Jefferson to running landscaping crews, and eventually owning the landscaping business that led to the purchase of 1760 Homestead Farm.
But it was his scrappy, throw-nothing-away philosophy that caught the eye of a casting director. Kaiser posted a “meal reel” on Instagram featuring a Concord grape pie made from the pressed skins that juice companies usually send to landfills. Soon after, he got the call to compete on Netflix’s “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship.”
He entered as the underdog, pitting his farm recipes against trained pastry chefs. In one challenge, he presented “potato candy,” a Depression-era confection made of leftover mashed potatoes, confectioners’ sugar and coconut dipped in dark chocolate, reminiscent of a Mounds candy bar. The humble treat beat out high-end desserts, validating Kaiser’s instincts.
“I like flipping people out a bit,” he says, “and I learned that my gut is usually pretty well right.”
Customers can now purchase the challenge-winning treat at the farm stand, along with the Concord grape pie that landed him the gig.
When asked if he would do TV again, Kaiser doesn’t hesitate: “100 percent.” He envisions a show he describes as “’Chopped’, but on a farm,” referring to the long-running Food Network competition series.
Steward of history
Despite the reality TV fame and international awards, Kaiser’s focus remains on the soil. When he and Margaret purchased the property in 2013, the previous owner had offers from developers looking to bulldoze and subdivide. They bought it specifically to preserve the land.
Kaiser is proud that the farm is “toxin-free,” opting to ditch even the organic-approved pesticides to ensure the 250-year-old property heals. For Kaiser, the work is about honoring the effort that came before him — even something as simple as the “cat holes” cut into all of the barn doors to allow their vermin hunters free rein.
“I wouldn’t want to be the guy on the shovel to dig a hole 16 feet deep, 12 feet wide, lay it all with brick in hopes that it’s going to hold rainwater so I can feed and water my family,” he says. “That’s a lot of effort, and I think that’s really lost a lot on today’s modern society.”
Stepping back out of the warm kitchen, the farm is silent under the crisp winter sky, except for the faint sound of the chickens huddling in their coop. It is the farm, he insists, that dictates its own future.
“We don’t know the direction it takes,” Kaiser says. “It finds its own way, we follow.”
Jaymee Sire – the North Fork Sun’s new Food writer – is an Emmy-award winning TV personality and content creator who hosts the “Food Network Obsessed” podcast and has worked in television for two decades, including a 4-year stint at ESPN. She recently traded the chaos of NYC for the serenity of the Long Island’s North Fork with her partner Justin. Welcome to the Sun, Jaymee!