Melissa Dunstatter, whose stand "Sweet Melissa Dips," has been a fixture since the start of the , gets her supplies from near and far. Her figs travel from Brooklyn to Port Jefferson, to be packaged with goat cheese. Melissa produces the cheese with goat’s milk, from a farm in Sharon Springs, NY. She also farms at her home in Rocky Point.
"The tree, taller then 20 feet, is located in Canarsie, Brooklyn," said Dunstatter. "Over 50-years-old, it was rooted from a fig tree next door. The owner of tree is my grandmother Ann Imperial.
The figs are called Mission Figs and her grandfather, Pat Imperial, planted the tree.
"It has been in our family for many generations," she said.
Melissa’s figs also are harvested from her mother’s tree in Seaford, NY.
The figs, like many who came out to Long Island are transplanted from one of the five boros, have roots in Brooklyn and provide a nice connection to our collective past.
Her goat cheese and figs along with a loaf of bread from the Rocky Point Bakery, another vendor at the Port Jefferson Farmers Market, are a good start towards a picnic lunch by the harbor.
