If you've ever been to East Hampton, New York, you've likely seen the sheer wealth that exists in this town. During the summer months, the place is packed with locals and visitors crowding Route 27. Getting a parking spot on the two main streets is a challenge, and avoiding a summons from the two-hour parking restriction is an even greater one.
If you need to check a price on a garment or a menu, you probably don't belong there. The stores rival Midtown Manhattan or Rodeo Drive: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel, Celine, Gucci, Zegna, Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli, Zimmermann, and Loewe—all lined up for the moneied elite. I bought a pair of sunglasses from Warby Parker and felt as though I should be driving away in an Aston Martin. My sunglasses didn't help much.
It wasn't always like this. In the 1960s and 1970s, Main Street was filled with family-owned hardware stores, pharmacies, dress shops, shoe stores, and local merchants serving year-round residents. Today, many storefronts lease for hundreds of thousands of dollars a summer.
My kind of place in East Hampton is Iacono—not a new chic Italian brand competing with Versace or Stefano Ricci, but Iacono's Farm, tucked away on Long Lane. It's easy to miss; you'd likely have to turn back after passing it. The Iaconos lived in a modest clapboard house with a small white store just to its right—a dark structure that looks like it was built 80 or 90 years ago. Their dog, who looks like a proper farm dog should, sits in the shade beside the wooden screen door. I think he's an Australian Shepherd. He doesn't acknowledge visitors and I've never seen him wag his tail.
Salvatore and Eileen Iacono started this chicken and duck farm in 1948, when potato farms dominated the area. I've spoken with both of them many times over the years I've been vacationing out east. Sal was a tall, friendly man with piercing blue eyes, stooped from decades of raising and butchering birds for his loyal customers. Originally from Sicily by way of New Jersey, he and I always had plenty to talk about.
The Iaconos have passed away, and the farm is now run by their son and two lovely granddaughters. Sal's son reminds me so much of his father—stooped over and all. The chickens are the best I've ever had. I can't count how many Iacono chickens my family and I have consumed over the years—grilled, baked, fried, or in chicken cacciatore. It doesn't matter how they're cooked. The breasts are enormous, and the skin is a bright yellow from their specialized feed.
The eggs are incredible. Free-range, of course. I bought two dozen to feed my grandkids breakfast, then returned a week later for another two dozen. At $12 a dozen, they're a bargain. We were amazed to discover they were double-yolk eggs with deep yellow yolks and crystal-clear whites.
I also took five chickens in one week. "These were killed this morning, so don't cook them today," the granddaughter said—the same thing Sal told me every time I visited.
My wife goes into the stores on Main Street. I stand outside, rapt in self-pity. Iacono's is the place for me. I just hope some developer doesn't knock on that old screen door and offer them sixty-eight million dollars to build houses or some other nonsense that would make East Hampton even more unaffordable than it already is for a poor old writer like me.
