If you merely retell stories about kelp characters whose stories are already lived — if you neglect to tell the photoless, characterless stories of possibility — you are shaping the ideas of the kelp industry down narrow roads. This approach is causing serious stagnation.

Lazy Point Farms has created two new products—the first of their kind—for New York State: a hot sauce and a sprinkle. Think garlicky, salty, spicy “Wow, what IS that?” extra special something for your pasta, pizza, seafood, and toasted sandwiches on a gorgeous summer evening. Through a very powerful collab with East End Food and Sue Wicks, we’ve pulled together the opportunity for Sue to sell her first commercial season of kelp in shelf-stable food products.

As a process-art person, I do not see my work on this curriculum as a finished product. It will only really begin to take shape once it’s utilized by educators. I want this material to live, breathe and evolve, and I will continue to serve as a consultant, connecting teachers with experts and other teachers, allowing students to showcase their work publicly. Even if they have more questions than answers.

Kelp is decidedly not the new kale- and thank goodness for that. Kale can keep its seat on whatever throne it’s claiming. Kelp is running an entirely different race. It’s fundamentally different and is qualitatively better suited to claim more corners in more pantries across the United States.

Each grower we work with has unique challenges and strengths in their kelp program. Some enjoy a direct working relationship with a township that can construct a greenhouse, which we’ve been grateful to support. Others do fine with a smaller greenhouse. Others will land massive amounts of kelp soon, and a greenhouse won’t do- but we aren’t yet to the point of needing a large-scale machine.

Mother nature is an absolute mastermind of balancing intricate ecosystems with kelp as her ride-or-die since the beginning, and you are going to try to tell me that Kathy Hochul, behind her veneered wooden desk, is here to decide at this particular moment for all of us whether or not kelp has a positive, meaningfully urgent, place on this planet? Please.

Lazy Point Farms is excited to announce the end of the third harvest season focused on supporting the fledgling sugar kelp industry in New York through direct grants and supporting operations.

Not only is kelp directly beneficial to the ecosystem, but it also shows promise as an eco-conscious alternative to plastic consumer goods.

The expertise is already here. There is a growing kelp community that will build this emerging sector.

Growing up on Long Island is an experience unlike any other.

We are doubling down on the uncomfortable and the unknown. We think it’s exactly the kind of overhaul that this world needs to see more of right now.

We rang in 2020 with two very dear friends, joking and dreaming around the brunch table about one day starting our own kelp farm.

In our experience of processing the first two batches, I discovered the residue that dried sugar kelp leaves behind - a soft, delicate, sweet, umami, salty powder - that would collect in the smallest piles under the crates as they'd shift from stacking and re-stacking.