Food

Mussels, readily available now that the weather and water are beginning to warm, are yet to find as popular a place on menus here as clams. Perhaps if the Indians had started the colonists off with a mussels bake, the history of seafood consumption would have been totally different.

Although at least 100 chocolate cake recipes have passed through my ovens in 18 years of marriage to a chocoholic, I know I have scarcely scratched the surface of possibilities in this enchanting subject. While many of these have become favorites, I’m just as ready to try something new.

Whole wheat has finally become upper crust. Dark, earthy loaves of bread formerly shunned by everyone except peasants, nutritionists, and other dangerous types, have been welcomed at the tables of quality. The about-face is made complete by the fact that whole grain breads now cost more than once fancy white.

Is there a better East End summer dish than chilled fish or seafood? And think of the possibilities! With a big advance from your publisher or the profit from that lot you sold in Sagaponack you could buy a few shrimp.

The time of year for lighter food is rapidly approaching. Quick sautés because you don't want to spend hours in the kitchen, lemony flavors to entice warm weather appetites, and bright green garnishes for visual allure are what dinner need most. Food like this offers an attractive alternative to the inevitable barbecue grill or platter of cold poached fish.

There is no better fish to exemplify maritime territoriality than the cod, sought after and fought over by fleets of many nations. Sacred cod.

I believe my earliest contact with sesame seeds was in the crunchy honey and sesame seed candy that I am still partial to. Or halvah.

Although every self-respecting supermarket stocks zucchini at this time of year, now is really root vegetable season, coming to the "six weeks' want" of bygone eras when the root cellar was empty and the first wild greens of springtime had not yet pushed through the thawing soil. Potatoes, onions, parsnips, turnips, carrots. Carrots!

Homemade pasta is both a challenge and a glory. There are machines to help you cut it but mixing the dough requires a “feel,” that sense of knowing when it is right. Otherwise your result may be permanently al dente to an unpleasant degree.

As has been my habit in the Thanksgiving issue of the Star, I am again offering a suggestion for the remains of the big bird. Chances are, by the time you read this, much of the white meat, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin, mince, or apple pies will have been consumed and you will be contemplating some sort of tetrazzini or a la king.

This is still pumpkin time, so it’s not too late to call your attention to a recipe recommended by Howard and Isot Weissberg of East Hampton.

What does pumpkin taste like? The flavor commonly associated with the flesh of autumn’s orange globe is actually that of the spices traditionally used with it. Ginger is the most noticeable, with heavy helpings of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. Pumpkin alone is quite bland. Moreover, it can be cast in various other directions.