Chili Alert

Cooks who make a mean chili — or even a nice but tasty one — may wish to fire up their cauldrons, as the Great Bonac Chili Cook-Off is on the horizon. 

The event, which will raise money for the Clamshell Foundation’s scholarship fund and food donations, will take place at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett from 1 to 4 p.m. on Jan. 31. Home cooks and fire departments can enter for $25, while professionals must pay a $100 fee. Preregistration is required and can be done online at ClamshellFoundation.org. 

Contestants will be judged by anyone who pays $15 to sample all the different chili recipes; the cost for kids from 6 to 16 is $10. Kids under 6 can sample for free. 

For Football Watching

Super Bowl fans who wish to order takeout barbecue for noshing on during the Feb. 7 game have been advised to order early from Smokin’ Wolf Barbecue in East Hampton. A special game-day menu is posted at smokinwolfbbq.com. Those who order at least $85 worth of food will receive a free 12-pack of beer.

Looking ahead to an upcoming holiday, Slow Food East End has announced plans for a “Shuck Em” Valentine Oyster Brunch on Feb. 14 at the Art of Eating catering company’s headquarters in Amagansett. Oysters will be served in various ways, raw and cooked, along with other brunch items and local wine and beer. A complete menu is to be posted on the group’s website at slowfoodeastend.org. Reservations must be made by Feb. 8. The brunch will cost $125 per person, or $110 for Slow Food members. 

Wine Tasting

Fresh restaurant in Bridgehampton is collaborating with the folks at Park Place Wines in East Hampton for a dinner tonight from 6 to 8 that will feature a complimentary tasting of six different wines. 

The meal will start with leek and potato soup, followed by a choice of braised beef short ribs, fish Provencale au pistou, or gluten-free macaroni and cheese as an entree. Apple crisp with homemade cinnamon ice cream will be served as dessert. The cost is $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations have been requested.

Visits to Wolffer Kitchen

The Wolffer Kitchen restaurant in Sag Harbor is developing a fan base, if comments by diners on social media are any indication. The restaurant is offering brunch on weekends as well as a prix fixe menu and has a happy hour from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, as well as Sunday, with specials on beer and wine and complimentary bar snacks.

At Southampton Campus

The South Fork Kitchens cafe at the Stony Brook Southampton campus has reopened after a break during the school holiday and is serving a seasonal winter menu, with weekly specials, Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The cafe also serves coffee and snacks made by local producers. 

Espresso Reopens

The Espresso Italian Market reopened last week in a new location in Sag Harbor at 2 Main Street, in a space at the top of Main Street near the water where the Cigar Bar once was. The market is open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and is serving its popular sandwiches on homemade focaccia bread with signature house dressing, classic Italian entrees, salads — some available premade, to grab and go — and more. 

Winter Specials

The 1770 House in East Hampton is offering some specials to entice diners on winter nights. In the downstairs tavern at the inn on Thursday nights, the 1770 House signature burger, meatloaf, chicken Parmesan, or pizza entrees are $17.70. House wine is $9 a glass, and house beers are $5. 

From Sunday through Thursday, excluding holidays, the inn is offering a $35 three-course prix fixe in the main dining room. Menu options include a number of the popular a la carte dishes prepared by Michael Rozzi, the chef. The menu selections offered this winter season include roasted Icelandic codfish with winter vegetable curry; Montauk sea scallops a la plancha with cured duck, shredded Brussels sprouts, roasted pumpkin, and hoisin; marinated Berkshire pork tenderloin with truffle risotto and honeyed root vegetables, and rosemary and red-wine-braised lamb shank with sweet corn polenta and broccoli rabe. 

Montauk Fishburger

East End chefs and supporters of the local, sustainable, and healthy food movement have initiated the Montauk Fishburger Project, a new focus in the effort to restore and support the area’s farming and fishing culture.

Working with the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Bridgehampton School’s Edible School Garden program — and using a recipe adapted from one created by Eric Ripert of Manhattan’s Le Bernardin, a chef with ties to Sag Harbor — a fishburger was created using only species of finfish whose stocks are deemed sustainable by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and are part of the local catch.

The burgers are easy to make, according to Joseph Realmuto, a chef and owner at the Honest Man Restaurant Group, which includes Rowdy Hall and Nick and Toni’s. They will be served on buns made with flour from wheat grown and harvested at Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett.

Beginning this month, they will become part of the lunch menu at the Bridgehampton School, where Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, Jason Weiner, the chef and owner of Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton, and Sam McClelland of the Bell and Anchor in Sag Harbor, have created special signature sauces for the students to add on.

Detox and Enjoy

Those seeking to tone down the stress on the body from the holiday eating season may wish to note that at c/o the Maidstone inn on East Hampton’s Main Street this month, the chef, Michael Massetti, is serving up gluten free and vegan food, along with healthy, cold-pressed juices.  

Beauty is life’s E-ZPass. Wish I could take credit for that witty bon mot, but I believe it was a New Yorker cartoon. I think we would all agree that if you are an exceptionally attractive young girl and you hang out in the right places, like fancy hotels and bars, chances are an older, wealthy gent will whisk you off your feet and possibly marry you. Such was the case with sweet, young Katie Lee from West Virginia when she met Billy Joel, 33 years her senior, at the Peninsula Hotel. At the age of 21 she moved in with him, and they were married for five years. 

And bless her little heart, she succeeded in parlaying this into a food career on television and has published three cookbooks. I am laying out this background as a way of saying it is very unlikely these cookbooks would have been published if it weren’t for the aforementioned attributes and circumstances. I chose her first book, “The Comfort Table,” and her most recent, “Endless Summer Cookbook,” to write about, but then realized, “Hey! Another one of Billy Joel’s exes has written a book with recipes, so let’s include that!” That book would be “Timeless Beauty” by the bangin’, rockin’ 61-year-old Christie Brinkley.

“The Comfort Table” is a simple book, definitely not containing any original recipes or anything you haven’t seen or tasted before. Paula Deen wrote the foreword, which is predictably full of “y’alls.” 

The most riveting advice Katie Lee shares in the “Tips for Entertaining” section is: “A discreetly placed plunger will help avoid any embarrassing situations.” Whoa, Nellie! It has never occurred to me to consider this a necessity when I entertain. But then again, I seldom serve mayonnaise-laden, yellow-mustard-seasoned, garlic-powdered fare.

Both books are filled with photos of Ms. Lee; I lost count at 43 in “The Comfort Table,” and there are at least 30 in “Endless Summer.” Some are glam city shots, some are casual, some are taken at local landmarks. She wears Daisy Duke shorts and is often shown with a mouthful of food, looking away from the camera as if saying, “Oooooh, I’m so naughty. I have a mouthful of sausage . . . and peppers sandwich!” No wonder Bobby Flay says he wants to “hit” that slaw!

Neither of the books’ covers show homemade food. One has Katie with a pedestrian cheese platter, the other with a basket of tomatoes. The food photography is far better in “Endless Summer,” and I wish the grammar had been corrected in a few places: “Don’t be intimidated of the dough!” she exclaims in a pizza recipe.

“The Comfort Table” has recipes for such basics as cornbread, meatloaf, deviled eggs, and cobbler. The cobbler must be good because it is repeated in “Endless Summer.” I am not a fan of yellow mustard or garlic and onion powders in lieu of fresh, or canned biscuit dough, but these are oft-recommended ingredients. The remoulade sauce for fried green tomatoes would have Paul Prudhomme rolling over in his grave.

“Endless Summer Cookbook” contains similarly simple recipes. There are tacos and ribs, potato salad, cinnamon doughnut paninis with Nutella as “Morning Fuel” (good God!), and radishes served with butter. As I said when reviewing Gwyneth Paltrow’s recipe for avocado toast: That’s not a recipe, that’s a sentence.

I tried hard to find a unique recipe or two to test and settled on Ms. Lee’s version of Nick and Toni’s iconic chicken with garlic and pancetta. I also made the bourbon bacon slaw, which is oddly listed in the index under “bacon,” not under “vegetables” or “cabbage.” Uh-uh. The chicken recipe is so flawed that if you were to follow it to the letter, you would serve up a heapin’ helpin’ of salmonella to your guests. The chicken is seared skin side down in one inch of oil then finished in a 400-degree oven for seven minutes, without turning. This resulted in soggy, oily, waaaaaaay undercooked chicken, and it made me sad. The bacon bourbon slaw was very good, but set my New Year’s diet back about four days.

Christie Brinkley’s book “Timeless Beauty” is more of a health, makeup, exercise, and fashion book, but it has recipes, so I thought, “Why not include it here? These gals have a lot more in common than being married to the Piano Man. They both love to surf, and they both love the American Hotel!” 

Ms. Brinkley’s book is full of CAPITAL letters and exclamation points!!!!! It is also full of self-promotional bits, extolling the virtues of her line of Christie Brinkley beauty products, her line of hair extensions, Total Gym, and more. 

Ms. Brinkley is a lacto-ovo-pescatarian-vegetarian and has been for a long time, so her recipes and advice are a bit more palatable. I’m not sure avocados prevent muffin tops or dried cherries reduce belly fat, but her recipes for vegetarian tacos with chipotle sauce and quinoa pico de gallo salad sound virtuous and delicious. 

Her politics and positivity shine through on every page. She is known to be an active environmentalist and animal rights advocate. I just wanna know who does her hair, and she shares that info, too!!!!!

Do I feel bad slamming the Katie Lee (Joel) books? Well, kinda, yeah. We all have to live in this community, and I did see her recently at a local restaurant. She is stunningly beautiful, exceptionally polite, and she works hard at her career. But would I recommend these books? Maybe your son or your dad would like them for the pictures. As for Ms. Brinkley’s, it’s a keeper, cuz I’m 61 years old, too, and a girl can DREAM, can’t she?!

Click for recipes

Thai, Pasta, Pot Pie

Craving Thai cuisine? The Highway Restaurant and Bar in East Hampton offers a $35 prix fixe on Thursday nights featuring Thai food. Monday at the Highway is pot pie night, with freshly made pot pies served for dinner, and on Wednesday, a variety of pasta dishes, along with a nightly special, is offered for $20. During a happy hour from 4 to 6 at the Highway bar, there are drink specials, and bites can be ordered from a bar menu.

The restaurant is now open six days a week (sans Tuesday) for dinner, for lunch on Saturday, and for Sunday brunch. It will remain open throughout the winter, except for a two-week break beginning in mid-February.

At Sen

The Sag Harbor restaurant is celebrating its 20-year anniversary with the sale of some commemorative items. A beanie with the Sen logo is $12, and stress balls — for squeezing, in the shape of a Sumo wrestler — are available for $5. 

Looking ahead, Sen is restarting Sake Social Sundays, beginning on Jan. 17 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. For $28, guests can partake of sake, wine, and cocktails, along with passed hors d’oeuvres, and mingle with other attendees. No reservations are needed. In addition, Jesse Matsuoka of the restaurant will discuss “Sake 101.”

Sea Bean at Wolfie’s

Shawn Christman, the Montauk chef behind Sea Bean Natural Foods, is taking over the kitchen at Wolfie’s Tavern in Springs and will be serving there after a tasting party for family and friends this week. Details on the menu, and a report that food delivery will be offered within a certain radius of the place, are forthcoming.

Slow Food Snail Social

The Slow Food East End group will have its first “snail social” of the year on Jan. 17 in Southold. Members and friends who attend a snail social, a casual cocktail party-style get-together, bring a dish based on seasonal or local foods to share, along with a beverage and hors d’oeuvres. There is also a “Know Your Farmer” feature; at the coming event, Melissa and Edward Henrey from the Farm Beyond in Southold will be the guest speakers. 

The cost is $15 for Slow Food members and $20 for nonmembers. Reservations can be made online at slowfoodeastend.org. 

Today is New Year’s Eve and perhaps some of you are starting off the year with a firm commitment to lose weight, exercise more, stop drinking diet sodas, or quit smoking. The list goes on and on of all the things we should be doing more, or less, of.

Here are the facts about New Year’s resolutions: You are most likely going to fall off of the paleo/Atkins/Dukan diet-fad-of-the-month club wagon within six weeks. If you try to go it alone, you are also likely to cheat, because no one is watching. You have nothing but your nagging conscience to beat you up for your miserable failure and weakness of willpower as you scarf down that cheap Chinese food or 7-Eleven doughnut side-carred with a Big Gulp. Gosh, this is starting to sound autobiographical, but I swear to you, I’ve never had a Big Gulp. The rest is true. . . .

If you do fail momentarily at your diet, don’t be discouraged and give up; forgive yourself and just start over the next day. This really works. And if you commit to an exercise plan, do it with a friend. You are less likely to quit when you have a buddy to say, “C’mon, we gotta do this together. That rerun of ‘Beverly Hills Housewives’ can wait.”

Here is the most boring and true sentence you will read in this column, courtesy of Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University: “The basic principles of healthful eating are simple and easy to follow: Vary unprocessed foods. Don’t overeat.” It’s boring because everybody knows this already, but they don’t want to hear it. Kind of like you don’t want to hear “You shouldn’t go out with that sexy, motorcycle-riding, unemployed hellion,’ ” but you do because he is exciting and different. You know you’d be better off with the grounded fella who’s nice to you, but that’s boring. This is the reason why new and clever diets are so “successful” and sell a lot of books.

Take the paleo diet, ranked in last place out of 35 by U.S. News and World Report, by the way. The premise is that the paleolithic era’s hunter-gatherers of 10,000 years ago ate wild game, nuts, and berries, not processed salt and sugar-laden foods. Well, duh, McDonald’s didn’t exist until 1955! But a diet that nixes all dairy, legumes (low fat protein-packed, fiber-full), beans, lentils, and peanuts, grains, including wheat, corn, oats, and rice, quinoa, and starchy tubers, as in phytochemical-rich potatoes and beta-carotine-packed sweet potatoes, is just nonsense.

Those cavemen and cave ladies lived to about 30 and had different digestive systems than ours. So if you want to just lose weight, then incorporate the paleo diet’s best aspects, like the emphasis on whole foods. I’m not even going to address the Atkins diet, because any diet that recommends coating your meat with crumbled pork rinds instead of breadcrumbs is, well, just another motorcycle-riding hellion trying to show you a good time. This diet was also ranked at the bottom of U.S. News and World Report’s survey.

The number-one diet continues to be the DASH diet. (DASH stands for dietary approaches to stop hypertension.) It’s not a fad. It’s not exciting. It’s simply a common-sense approach, nutritionally complete, safe, and helps control or prevent diabetes and supports heart health. The Mediterranean diet is not far behind with its emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and healthy fats like olive oil.

Another helpful trick is to set positive goals, not negative ones. In other words, it’s easier and you’re more likely to succeed if you plan on a positive activity rather than attempt to stop a bad one. A positive goal is something you want to do, and this is easier than saying, “I gotta stop this or that.”

I have a very forgiving mirror in my bathroom. It seems to tell me, “You look great, you look fine,” when in fact the scale tells another story entirely. When I stayed at a hotel in New York City recently, that mirror said, “Good God! Where did that flabalanche come from?! You are a fright!” So as soon as I got home, I started exercising more and eating a more balanced diet. I lost five pounds and I tell myself I only need to lose five more, although in all honesty it could be more. Baby steps. Positive little goals.

As our rounds of boozy, fat-laden parties throughout the holidays progressed, I prudently picked through the stew that had an oil slick as big as the Exxon Valdez spill, had just a few bites of the sour cherry pie from Harbor Market, ignored the cheese platter, and made a vegetable soup to carry us lightly through the rest of the weekend. But I also made and enjoyed eggs Benedict on Christmas morning. Teeny, tiny baby steps.

I corralled some friends into joining me for a swim at Gurney’s this week as I have had a book of tickets languishing in my drawer for a year. Positive, fun goal! I’m pretty sure I have kick-started my New Year’s resolution, but time will tell.

If you love to cook, as I do, treat yourself to some new cookbooks that will inspire you to try new things. I have found that all of the books produced by Sami Tamini and Yotam Ottolenghi (“Plenty,” “Jerusalem,” “Ottolenghi,” and more) have the kind of recipes I love. Full of vegetables, whole grains, intense spices, yogurt, and garlic, they are savory and original. My son gave me “Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes” and within 10 minutes we had spicy celery salad and Japanese restaurant-style carrot ginger dressing.

There is also a groovy new kitchen gadget that is all the rage called a spiralizer. You can get one for around $20 or as much as $150, depending on how much you care about keeping your fingertips. This contraptions shreds vegetables and fruits into curly strands, so you can substitute zucchini or other squash for pasta in many dishes, and make pretty curlicue salads out of pumpkin and many more ingredients. Whatever “in-spiralizes” you.

So treat yourself; don’t deprive or deny yourself. Buy some cookbooks, take a long walk, and you’ll be on your way to a better, new you year. Good luck, and I apologize for that last sentence being all Oprah-y, but it’s true.

Click here for recipes.

Those without New Year’s Eve plans who are still looking to have an evening out could consider a visit to the new restaurant that has taken over the Mirko’s space in Water Mill. Marco Barrila, a chef, has opened Manna, and the fireplace will be roaring for a winter holiday night tonight to ring in 2016. Mr. Barrila focuses on rustic, traditional-style farm-to-table seasonal dishes.

To Head Wine Council

Roman Roth, the winemaker and a partner at Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, has been named the new president of the Long Island Wine Council, which works to spotlight North and South Fork wineries.

Mr. Roth, who has served as president for the Long Island Merlot Alliance, is also a winemaker for Roanoke Vineyards in Riverhead. His wines have received numerous accolades. He started at Wolffer in 1992, and last summer two Wolffer wines received high scores of 94 from Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate, the highest score a Long Island wine has ever been awarded by a wine critic. Last month, Mr. Roth’s Grapes of Roth merlot was named one of the top 100 wines in the world by Wine Spectator

New Year’s Brunch

At Serafina, on East Hampton’s North Main Street, a New Year’s Day brunch will be served. In addition, both lunch and dinner will be served tomorrow through Sunday.

Momi Ramen

Momi Ramen in East Hampton will be open on New Year’s Day and will offer an extended happy “hour,” with drink specials from 5 to 11 p.m.

Once upon a time in medieval England, a Christmas dinner “pie” was created consisting of two bushels of flour, 20 pounds of butter, four geese, two rabbits, four wild ducks, two woodcocks, six snipes, four partridges, two neats’ tongues, two curlews, six pigeons, and seven blackbirds. Now I’m sure you’re wondering, first of all, what is a snipe, a neat’s tongue, and a curlew? They are shorebird, beef tongue, and shorebird again. I imagine that those two breeds of shorebird, existing on a diet of fish, added a dash of mystery and umami to that monstrous pie. And what the heck did they do with the leftovers?!

According to numerous sources, we consume over 7,000 calories on Christmas Day, three times what we should. In England, no surprise, folks are known to consume over 8,000 calories. With a full English breakfast, pints of ale, mincemeat pie, eggnog, and all the other rich dishes that are a part of that day, I suppose this is possible — and appalling.

Americans eat 22 million turkeys on Christmas Day and 318 million pounds of ham. During the 17th and 18th centuries venison was considered a good option for this holiday meal, but you had to hunt for it. There was always plenty of pork, so that wasn’t special occasion-y enough. Turkeys hatched in spring would be nice and fat and ready for slaughter by Christmas. Before turkey was introduced to England around 1540, swans, geese, and peacock were popular. But swans tasted fishy and, for the life of me, I have not been able to find reliable source on what peacock tastes like. I’ll go with tough, stringy, gamey, dark meat chicken.

Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” cemented turkey as the centerpiece of a holiday meal, available to rich and poor alike. Around the 20th century, according to “America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking,” turkey remained popular for Thanksgiving, but the wealthy turned to more exciting and expensive fare like game meats and beef.

How did ham become the star of some people’s Christmas meal? Apparently, its roots are in ancient pagan ritual. A wild boar was the chosen sacrifice to Norse god Freyr, associated with harvest and um, ahem, phallic fertility. When pagans were converted to Christianity, the meal became linked to St. Stephen, whose feast day is Dec. 26. This may be a bunch of hooey, but it makes for a good story.

Dorothy Parker defined eternity as “two people and a ham.” What are you going to do with all those leftovers if ham is your chosen Christmas meat? Fortunately, you can cut off chunks and freeze them, use the bone for split pea soup, and, my favorite, make deviled ham or ham salad. Leftover turkey meat is a bore, especially if you just had it a month ago for Thanksgiving. Again, you can cut the meat off the carcass and freeze it, or make soup, enchiladas, mole, tetrazzini, basically anything you would do with leftover chicken.

What if you had leg of lamb or a beautiful prime rib? The lamb can be repurposed into a Moroccan tagine served over couscous, or simply made into a stew. Assuming your prime rib was deliciously rare, simply manicure it, slice thinly, and incorporate into a fast beef stroganoff with chanterelle mushrooms. For a lighter meal, make a Thai beef salad with chilis, red onion, and lime juice.

I recently attended a holiday party for 70 people. I spent a good deal of time playing a mental game of “What would I do with these leftovers?” The crudite platter leftovers could easily be turned into a vegetable soup, made French style with a dollop of garlicky pistou on top. The random cheese scraps could go into a fondue. What if someone bestows a panettone upon you for Christmas? Make French toast, or better yet, Ina Garten’s panettone bread pudding. I also save the leftover candy canes from my tree. I crush them into bits and fold them into slightly melted premium vanilla ice cream to make the best peppermint ice cream to go with homemade shortbread.

Try not to consume those 7,000 to 8,000 calories this Christmas, because if you do, you’ll have to pay extra special attention to my upcoming New Year’s Eve resolutions column. Snore. And, you will have extra leftovers to play with in new and creative ways.

Click for recipes

News for Foodies

With one holiday upon us, it’s time to think ahead to the next, in case a night out at a local restaurant for New Year’s Eve is on your agenda.

In Sag Harbor, the Wolffer Kitchen will host a New Year’s Eve dinner with seatings to begin at 5:30 p.m. The last seating will be at 10:30. For $85 per person, dinner will include four courses along with a glass of Wolffer sparkling rosé for toasting.

Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton will serve dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, with holiday specials on the menu. They include seared Hudson Valley foie gras with house-made peach jam and toasted brioche as a starter, wood-oven roasted lobster with spaghetti squash as an entrée, and a caramelized puff pastry, served with chocolate mousse and chocolate-chestnut ganache, for dessert. 

At Rowdy Hall, also in East Hampton, a New Year’s Eve lunch menu available next Thursday will feature truffled cauliflower soup, country paté served with a fried egg, and an omelette with smoked trout and crème fraiche. On the dinner menu will be braised short ribs and chocolate meringue cake. On New Year’s Day, the restaurant will serve “Hair of the Dog” soup — a soup with cheddar cheese and beer — along with omelettes with poached salmon, caviar, and chives, and a special of sweet potato and duck confit hash to accompany poached eggs with hollandaise sauce.

Osteria Salina in Wainscott will be open tomorrow, Christmas Day, from 2 to 8 p.m. On New Year’s Eve, a $125-per person party from 5:30 p.m. till 1 a.m. will include a four-course meal, a D.J., dancing, and a champagne toast. For the first time, the Italian eatery will remain open year round.

The folks at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett will ring in 2016 with some holiday specials, available through Jan. 2. They include, as appetizers, pan-seared sea scallops, grilled artichoke, roasted butternut squash and apple salad, and roasted beef bruschetta. Entrée specials will include prime rib, braised beef gnocchi, coq au vin, fresh local fish, and roasted Long Island duck.

Also in East Hampton, Cafe Max will have a New Year’s Eve prix fixe dinner for $40 per person.

Artists Night

Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton will start 2016 with another of its Artists and Writers Night events on Jan. 5. Beginning at 7 p.m., it will feature a three-course dinner, served family style, for $45, which includes a glass of local wine or craft beer. 

Zachary Lazar will be the guest speaker. A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient who has written for The Sunday Times magazine, NPR, and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications, he is the author of four books, including “Sway,” a novel named Best Book of 2008 by The L.A. Times, and the memoir “Evening’s Empire: The Story of My Father’s Murder,” a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2009. His latest novel is “I Pity the Poor Immigrant.” Mr. Lazar has a house in North Sea and lives in New Orleans, where he is on the faculty at Tulane University. Reservations are required for the event.

Now comes the decision of what to drink with your holiday dinner. Have you decided what you are serving? Roast goose? Prime rib? Another turkey, or heaven forbid . . . tofurkey? How many guests will you have? Do you want to splurge on champagne and wines or have you already blown your budget on Christmas shopping? So many decisions, and then New Year’s Eve is upon us, with more debate over what to serve.

For a holiday open house or a long day of family and friends waiting for the big feast, it’s a good idea to have a cheese board. Start with a good Stilton, the quintessential British Christmas cheese. Granted, this is often the one that has the most left over when the rest of the platter has been decimated, but you can find a lot of uses for it later, such as an escarole salad with beets and toasted walnuts. You should also have a great cheddar, like a Montgomery, a semi-soft white rind cheese like Camembert, a young goat, and a sheep’s milk cheese like an aged manchego. Sweet sherry or port goes beautifully with Stilton, and riesling goes well with most of the other cheeses. 

You could serve all young cheeses with wines that are juicy, fruity, and fresh: sparkling wines, crisp whites, dry roses, or reds with good acidity. For older cheeses, try wines with more body. And don’t forget to garnish the plate with plenty of dried apricots, figs, dates, and a bowl full of nuts for cracking.

If you are starting off the meal with a glam first course such as cheese souffle or blinis with caviar, then of course a sparkler like champagne, cava, or prosecco is in order. But a good pinot grigio would be great with cheese souffle as well.

If you are going in a smoked ham or roast pork direction, try an Oregon pinot noir for ham and Chateauneuf du Pape for roast pork. Even chardonnay works with pork if its seasonings are light and herbal. Splurging on prime rib? Enjoy a peppery one with cabernet sauvignon. If you’re putting a mustard rub on it, try syrah.

My Aunt Tink always served a roast goose for Christmas dinner. This is gamier and fattier than turkey, which means it calls for an acidic wine. What are you serving/stuffing it with? If red cabbage and chestnuts, then pinot noir is a good choice. If you’re thinking apples and onions and potatoes then riesling or gewurtztraminer are good matches. For a splurge, try Barolo (sans cabbage) or Barbaresco. For variety (and the young hipsters at your table) try a Belgian beer like Chimay.

Remember Beaujolais nouveau? That thin, watery wine that always came out in time for the holidays? The release date, the third Thursday in November, was a savvy marketing ploy that worked for a while, but the fun frenzy for this gamay grape juice has died down significantly. Half of the production is still consumed in France, the rest is popular in Japan, Germany, and the United States, but sales are a tenth of what they used to be. Thinking this would be an entertaining, retrowine to serve (like brie and Chablis!), I tried a bottle recently and just couldn’t remember what all the fuss was about. Then I remembered that we served it chilled. Well, that didn’t help much. I have decided to give it another chance, try another winery, and risk serving this cheap and cheery wine through the holidays.

As much as I enjoy champagne, it is too expensive. So I like to create original cocktails with cheap champagne, cava, or prosecco. Just as the French put a drop of cassis (black currant liqueur) in champagne to create a Kir Royale, or Framboise (raspberry liqueur) for a Framboise Royale, this year I am going to make use of the beach plum cordial that has been waiting in a dark cabinet since September. It has turned a beautiful hot pink color, which should be quite pretty in a drink. I have also become enamored of an odd drink I learned about from Chimene Macnaughton at Wainscott Main Wine and Spirits. During a recent flurry of sake purchases, she turned me on to a spicy plum sake-based liqueur that is amazing when added judiciously to a glass of sparkling wine. Needless to say, I have no idea what foods to pair with this, but it will be fun trying.

Another beverage possibility is hard cider. It can go with the obvious, like pork and chicken, but is also good with certain cheeses, cream sauces, some risottos, quiche, ham, and crepes.

Now that I have given an oversimplified primer on wine pairing with holiday foods, allow me to confuse you. You don’t necessarily have to choose a wine that complements a food; you can choose one that contrasts with that food. In other words, sometimes you want to play nice and sometimes it’s fun to play rough. For instance, a sauvignon blanc pairs complementarily with a broiled fish with lemon and dill. Try the same wine with a tomato-cream-caper sauce on fish and you have a delightful surprise.

So plan your holiday meal, and then have fun pairing it with a variety of wines or other spirits. There are no right or wrong ways, just different directions.

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Luis Deloera of Michaels’ at Maidstone bar and restaurant prepared a holiday dinner for senior citizens that was served at the Springs Fire Department last weekend. Community volunteers served the meal.

Michaels’ has holiday plans for a Christmas Eve a la carte menu as well as a special Feast of the Seven Fishes traditional dinner that night. The fish dinner will cost $85 per person, or $145 paired with wine, and begin with grilled shrimp, followed by courses of house-smoked salmon, marinated anchovies, grilled calamari and octopus, Montauk bigeye tuna, and baked branzino. Toasted pannetone will be served for dessert with a Chianti, poached pear, chocolate ganache, and red wine syrup. 

The Christmas Eve a la carte menu at Michaels’ will be available from 3 to 9 and will include starters such as a crispy fried lobster roll, duck two ways, bouillabaisse, and a “bouquet of pearls from the sea,” featuring a seafood medley for four or eight people to share. Entrée choices will include rack of lamb, surf and turf, veal with crab meat, lobster ravioli, and five-spice-crusted Chilean sea bass.

Certificates for Barbecue

The Smokin’ Wolf barbecue shop in East Hampton is offering $20 certificates for holiday gifting, and will give a bonus to those who buy them for several people on their gift lists. Those who purchase five certificates for $100 will receive a sixth one free.

Holiday Market

The Amagansett Food Institute’s holiday market at the Amagansett Farmers Market on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. will provide an opportunity to buy local food and other holiday gifts. Many East End and New York State-produced items will be sold at half price, and items will available to create custom gift baskets. Free hot cider and doughnuts will be served. 

A wintertime indoor farmers market takes place on Saturdays in Riverhead, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 117 East Main Street.