Reservations are being taken for an April 30 wine dinner at Michael’s restaurant at Maidstone Park in Springs, which recently remodeled to create a wine bar featuring a wide selection of vintages.

The dinner will feature six courses created by Luis DeLoera, the restaurant’s owner and chef, each paired with a different wine from the Ferrari Carano Wineries of California. Among the menu items will be a fried lobster spring roll, grilled duck breast with homemade fettuccine, New York strip steak, and five-spice crusted Chilean sea bass. The cost is $75 per person.

Thursday for Prime Rib

Thursday is prime rib night at the Bell and Anchor in Noyac, with eight-ounce or 12-ounce portions of meat au jus served with a vegetable and potatoes for $34 or $39. Dessert can be added for $5.

Food and Detox

Fresh Hamptons restaurant in Bridgehampton will host classes designed to help participants detoxify while learning how to eat in a healthy manner. Lillian Grajeda, a yoga and Pilates instructor and detox specialist, will lead three, three-class sessions in upcoming weeks. While a Tuesday class began this week, a Thursday session begins today from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m., continuing next Thursday and April 30. The third option is a Saturday class, which will meet on April 25, May 2, and May 9 from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m.

A $299 fee per session includes a cleansing lunch at each class, a personalized detox program, and ongoing support.

Montauk Beer Dinner

A dinner featuring Montauk Brewing Company beers will take place on Friday, April 24, at the Harvest on Fort Pond in Montauk. The restaurant will serve seven courses paired with five different beers. Live music will accompany the meal. Among the menu items will be a seafood trio starter, spring salad, bucattini pasta with Montauk lobster, littleneck clams, and scallops, and Colorado lamb. Reservations may be made by calling the restaurant. The cost is $65.

Montauk Coffee Spot

Left Hand Coffee has opened in the South Elmwood Avenue spot that formerly housed Coffee ’Tauk,

The espresso bar’s menu features a variety of artisanal coffees and teas; cold brews will be added for the summer season. Besides beverages prepared on site, coffee and tea are available for retail purchase, along with brewing accessories. The shop also sells pastries and other baked goods and bites, and will have a selection of books, magazines, and newspapers for customers to peruse. Shop hours until Memorial Day weekend will be Wednesdays through Fridays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Winston’s Opens

Winston’s Bar and Grill in East Hampton, housed where Nichol’s restaurant used to be, is open and is serving lunch and dinner from noon to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Breakfast service will be added in mid-May.

The restaurant is a new venture by Winston Lyons, a chef whose local resume includes Bostwick’s, East Hampton Grill, and Turtle Crossing. The menu features a number of dishes with a Caribbean flavor, including seafood and steak.

At Smokin’ Wolf

Also in East Hampton, though at the eastern edge of Pantigo Road heading toward Amagansett, Smokin’ Wolf, the takeout barbecue place, has opened its ice cream bar, and is serving lunch specials for $7.75 on Wednesdays through Fridays.

Another Restaurant Week

Prix fixes will be $27.95 at numerous restaurants across Long Island from Sunday through May 3, during Long Island Restaurant Week. The special will be offered all night each night except Saturday, when it will be available until 7 p.m. A list of participating eateries may be found at longislandrestaurantweek. com.

Poetry, Dinner

Julie Sheehan, a poet who directs the M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature at Stony Brook Southampton, where she is an assistant professor, will be the speaker at the next Artists and Writers Night at Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton.

It begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and features a family-style, three-course meal for $45, which includes a glass of wine or craft beer as well as tax and a gratuity. Ms. Sheehan, the author of several poetry collections, is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellowship. Reservations are required.

Bar Bites

Bar bites at the Harbor Grill in East Hampton are $6 and $8, depending on one’s choice, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Mondays through Saturdays, and on Sundays starting at noon. Menu choices include corn fritters, cheese quesadillas, zucchini sticks, gravy cheese fries, chicken wings, baked clams, and grilled cheese.

Opening on Fort Pond Bay

Navy Beach restaurant in Montauk reopens for the season tomorrow at 5 p.m. and will serve dinner through Sunday and lunch on the weekend days.

This year the restaurant is offering a launch service for guests who come to the waterfront spot by boat. Using a 13-foot, vintage 1967 Boston Whaler, it will pick up those who anchor offshore. The service begins Memorial Day weekend. Also new this year will be a number of menu items, and an expanded rosé wine list.

Montauk Beer Dinner

A dinner featuring dishes paired with brews by the Montauk Brewing Company will take place tomorrow night at the Harvest on Fort Pond.

For $65, diners will get seven courses paired with five different beers, and a live musical performance. Reservations have been suggested.

Brooklyn Brewery Beer

Edible East End magazine is co-sponsoring a launch of the Brooklyn Brewery’s latest concoction, a beer called I Wanna Rye-it, at the Bell and Anchor in Sag Harbor next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. The event will also include pickles by Divine Brine, bites by Le Fusion, and tastes of Joe and Liza’s Ice Cream, a Sag Harbor brand. Advance reservations are required. They may be made, and $5 tickets reserved, at edibleeastend.com. The event, called the Quarterly Carousal, is free for magazine subscribers.

Taste of Tuckahoe

A fund-raiser for the Tuckahoe School in Southampton tomorrow night will be held at 230 Elm restaurant, also in Southampton, from 7 to 10 p.m. and include food from a number of East End restaurants, food and beverage producers, and chefs. Among them are the Blue Duck Bakery Cafe, Edgewater, Old School Favorites, Palmer Vineyards, Townline BBQ, and Tully’s Seafood Market. There will also be a D.J. spinning music, and a silent auction. Tickets are $35 in advance and may be purchased at Southrifty Drug in Southampton, or online at TasteofTuckahoe.com. They will cost $40 at the door.

New this year is a 6 p.m. V.I.P. hour featuring a cooking demonstration by Maurizio Marfoglia, the executive chef and a partner at Tutto Il Giorno in Sag Harbor and by Alexander Apparu, a Southampton chef de cuisine.

Derby Day

Derby Day is also upon us, and venues such as East by Northeast in Montauk will celebrate on Saturday beginning at 5 p.m. with Woodford Reserve, a small-batch bourbon likely to be mixed in a mint julep to mark the occasion.

Mother’s Day

A number of restaurants are already posting their Mother’s Day menus. Cafe Max in East Hampton will have a three-course dinner beginning at noon with appetizers such as shrimp cocktail and spring rolls, and sliced filet mignon and Dijon salmon as entrees. The $30 menu includes a variety of dessert options.

Gosman’s Dock restaurant will feature a number of entree specials in the $30-to-$35 range, including prime rib, seafood-stuffed jumbo shrimp, pan-roasted halibut, and a steamed 11/2-pound lobster. Each entree comes with sides, and the price also covers appetizers and dessert.

The Montauk Yacht Club’s Mother’s Day brunch buffet will feature carving stations of leg of lamb and turkey, omelets, a raw bar with oysters, peel-and-eat shrimp, king crab claws, lobster mac-and-cheese, Montauk tilefish, and more. The cost is $34.95 per person, $12.95 for children, with no charge for kids under 8.

At c/o the Maidstone

The Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone in East Hampton is heralding summer early with a new menu designed with beachgoers in mind. Their “grab-and-go” options will include baguette sandwiches with such choices as roasted brisket, local vegetables, and braised pork. Gluten-free baguettes or lettuce wraps are also available for those forgoing wheat. Toast Skagen, a Swedish classic combination of shrimp and other ingredients on a piece of sautéed bread and gravlax, will also be featured.

Spring Awakening

Gosman’s Dock restaurant in Montauk will be open on Saturday for the season, with regular dining hours from noon to 10 p.m. The restaurant will close on Tuesdays until Memorial Day. Its clam bar is also open, but is dependent on the weather.  Gosman’s Topside and Inlet Cafe will open on Mother’s Day weekend, beginning May 9.

The Lobster Roll on Napeague, an institution made even more popular by its prominent exposure in the Showtime drama “The Affair,” will reopen tomorrow for lunch and dinner.

The long-established farmstand Vicky’s Veggies, in Amagansett, will be open for seven days a week beginning tomorrow.

Help Wanted

Amagansett Food Institute members have a variety of jobs available for those interested in food preparation and related positions. Jobs available through its business members and currently listed on the resources page at its website, amagansettfoodinstitute.org, include an outreach and communications coordinator, drivers, farmers market staff, buyers and merchandisers, kitchen prep, cooks and chefs, communications assistant, baker, retail and kitchen assistants, and more.

1770’s Prix Fixe

The 1770 House in East Hampton  is offering a three-course $35 prix fixe special from Sunday to Thursday nights through June 11, excluding holidays. A sample menu lists such entrees as salmon with French beans and parsnips; roast chicken with fricassee of artichoke, pancetta, fresh garbanzos and mushrooms; or Maine diver scallops ($5 supplement). Appetizers might include asparagus and hot smoked salmon, a Balsam Farms beet salad, or Montauk fluke tartare ($10 supplement). Dessert is also included.

The Peconic Land Trust’s spring lecture series, Long Island Grown II: Food and Beverage Artisans at Work, will kick off Sunday at 2 p.m. at the trust’s Southampton office at 300 Hampton Road with “The Drink,” a discussion featuring Jennifer Halsey Dupree of Milk Pail Farm, Roman Roth, winemaker and partner at Wolffer Estate Vineyard, and Richard Scoffier, the beverage and food director of Honest Man Restaurants. Laura Donnelly, food writer for The Star, will moderate. Subsequent programs will be held at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton.

According to Kathy Kennedy, the trust’s outreach manager, who organized the series with Rich Bogusch, manager of Bridge Gardens, “This is the sixth year of the series, but last year we decided to focus on local farmers, growers, and producers because there are a lot of lecture series here during the winter, but nobody was focusing on that. All four sold out, so we decided to do it again.”

This year’s program is organized by menu courses. “The Drink” focuses on hard cider. Ms. Dupree, a 12th-generation member of the Halsey family in Bridgehampton, grows some of the apples used by Mr. Roth in Wolffer’s cider. Mr. Roth was a winemaker in his native Germany before moving to the East End. Mr. Scoffier, whose food and beverage career began at the Twisted Pine Brewing Company in Boulder, Colo., creates the syrups in his cocktails with fruit sourced locally.

Participants in “The Appetizer,” which will take place March 15, are Brendan Davison, owner and operator of Good Water Farms, a certified organic microgreen farm in East Hampton; Carissa Waechter, a pastry chef who left a successful career in New York City to launch Carissa’s Breads, which use local wheat from Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett, and Jeri Woodhouse, found­er of A Taste of the North Fork, who has worked with pickled items for years.

“The Entree” is scheduled for March 29. “For this course, we are featuring farmers raising livestock on the North Fork for meat production,” said Ms. Kennedy. Doug Corwin is the president of Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue, which was started by his great-grandfather Henry Corwin in 1908. Tom Geppel, a former tax consultant, owns 8 Hands Farm in Cutchogue, which raises Icelandic sheep, pigs, chickens, and produce. Hal Goodale of Goodale Farms in Aquebogue raises beef cows, dairy cows, goats, pigs, and chickens.

The grand finale on April 19 will be dedicated to dessert. Panelists will include Steve Amaral, a chef who lived and worked in Hawaii and Madrid before settling on the East End. He is executive chef and chocolatier of North Fork Chocolate Company and will be bringing — spoiler alert! — chocolate.

Tom Stevenson of Oysterponds Farm in Orient, a source for a variety of fruits, vegetables, and jams, has become well known as a fig grower. “Even though it’s not the season for figs, we wanted to talk about the growing interest in them,” Ms. Kennedy said. “We used to think they couldn’t grow around here, but there are a number of varieties that do really well.” Mary Woltz of Bees Needs, an East End apiary, will bring some of her honey to the table.

The final three talks will take place in the house at Bridge Gardens and start promptly at 2 p.m. Refreshments created by Mr. Bogusch will be served after each lecture. The seating capacity is 40, and prepaid registration is required. Individual tickets are $25, $20 for members. A series subscription costs $90, $70 for members, and includes a one-year subscription to any of the four Edible magazines. Tickets can be purchased by emailing [email protected] or calling 283-3195.

A list of all the trust’s spring programs, including hikes, watercolor classes, talks, and readings, can be found at peconiclandtrust.org.

Wine Classes

Wainscott Main Wines and Spirits has launched its newest series of Wednesday night wine-tasting classes, held at the Montauk Highway shop in Wainscott each week at 5:30 p.m. “Noble Grapes: A Comparative Look at Riesling and Pinot Noir” is the topic for Wednesday’s session, with Kevin Tunney of David Bowler Wines and Mike Mraz of the North Fork Table and Inn. The cost is $10. Those interested have been asked to sign up by calling the store or sending an email to WainscottMain@ gmail.com.

Upcoming sessions will focus on wines from the Loire Valley, the Rhone Valley, California, and the Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites, and Etna, and on shopping for wine and making wine, with Christopher Tracy of Channing Daughters Winery.

Lobster Night

Wednesday is lobster night at the Bell and Anchor in Noyac. Dinner, beginning at 5:30 p.m., will feature a three-course menu with lobster dishes at varying a la carte prices.

Cooking at Fresh

Todd Jacobs, the chef and owner of Fresh Hamptons in Bridgehampton, will lead a six-session cooking class beginning next Thursday from 6:30 to 9 p.m. At each class, a meal of several courses made with local, organic ingredients will be prepared, and students will get to taste each dish, along with a sweet at the end. The cost is $125 per class, or $650 for all six, though the first 20 people to sign up will receive a discounted rate of $95 per class or $495 for the series. Those interested may call the restaurant or send an email to [email protected].

Slow Food Dinner

A Slow Food East End dinner will be held at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton next Thursday night, featuring four courses created from local ingredients. The evening will begin with hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar cocktail reception, followed by dinner served with two glasses of wine. The cost is $95 for Slow Food members, $105 for nonmembers. Reservations have been recommended.

Cooking at Wolffer

The Wolffer Estate Vineyard’s winter chef series of cooking demonstrations continues on Sunday afternoons at the private Wolffer residence. Christian Mir of the Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue will be the presenter on March 8, followed by Ryunosuke Jesse Matsuoka of Sen in Sag Harbor on March 15. The cost is $75 per person plus tax and processing fees.

Also at Wolffer, Friday, March 6, will bring the official release date of the winery’s 2014 vintage rosé.

Roman Roth, the Wolffer winemaker, will join Geoffrey Zakarian of TV’s “Iron Chef,” Alain Sailhac, and Eric Haugen for a discussion following a meal at the Lambs Club in Manhattan on Monday. The five-course French meal will be paired with Wolffer wines.

New Manhattan Almond

The folks behind Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton, Eric Lemonides and Jason Weiner, the chef, have opened a new Almond location in Manhattan, on Franklin Street in Tribeca. It joins an East 22nd Street location.

Crow’s Nest Chef

John Yashinowsky will assume the executive chef position at the Crow’s Nest restaurant in Montauk, where he once worked, in his first job in the restaurant business, as a dishwasher. Mr. Yashinowsky, who formerly owned and ran Caswell’s restaurant in Montauk, has been working as a private chef for the past seven years.

I used to keep a menu book. No one seems to know what those are anymore. If you Google them, all you get are restaurant supply stores offering you big leather-bound menu covers, or books like “7-Day Menu Planner for Dummies” and “Dinner: The Playbook — a 30 Day Plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal.” In other words, all you find are books for people who hate to cook, or don’t have time, and probably don’t even want to sit down to dinner with their family and friends. One friend asked, “Isn’t that something socialites used to do?” Probably. But for the 10-year span I kept a menu book, I was a hippie-dippy type working at National Public Radio and then NBC News as Roger Mudd’s researcher. I just loved to cook for friends.

I found this menu book recently and discovered as I read through it that there is a definite narrative arc. It spans 10 years and all 160 pages are filled. My husband and I lived together for five years, before we got married. The book begins one year after we got married (1985) and ends in 1995, when we were separated and on the verge of divorce. The last entry of May 14, 1995, was three weeks before I was to have surgery and discover that I had ovarian cancer. But here I am now, 20 years later, alive and well. (I served glazed chicken Germaine, by the way, with pickled carrots and steamed rice.)

It’s too bad my handwriting is so atrocious. If I’d been paying attention in penmanship class, this book would be quite lovely. Alas, my scribbles look like rat tracks, there are more exclamation points than a teenage girl’s diary, and my “wine notes” show a complete lack of understanding of how to read a label, a problem I have to this day. I was definitely enamored of Patricia Wells’s “Bistro Cookbook” and Lee Bailey’s “Country Weekends.”

I repeated some recipes so many times that two friends visiting from California, eight years apart, remarked “Haven’t we had this dish before?” Mortified, I consulted my menu book and there it was: “Drew and Barbara here from California — butternut squash with ginger and rosemary.” Isn’t that one of the points of menu books, so you don’t repeat the same foods? By the way, that dish is so good, I’ve already published it twice in this column.

There are plenty of historic tidbits in the menu book. Such as the dinner party of Dec. 7, 1991, the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. Menu: anchoiade, lamb shanks with black beans, roast Provencal tomatoes, butter lettuce with dill and toasted almonds, plum torte with vanilla ice cream, Saintsbury pinot noir. Or more significantly, Jan. 11, 1992: My brother, John, in town to attend a Washington Redskins playoff game against the Detroit Lions and the ’Skins won! Like I said, lots of exclamation points. Menu: homemade chicken liver paté, chicken with mustard and capers, gratin of zucchini, peppers, and potatoes, salad Bressane, and cinnamon vanilla souffle. I repeated that souffle many times and it never came out correctly. It was always a flat, very cinnamony, chewy thing with a bit of crunch from granulated sugar. I didn’t even know then that souffles are meant to be airy and light.

Looking back at the guest lists, I gotta say, I’m impressed. One dinner had the actor Bruce McGill (“Animal House,” “Silkwood,” “Family Guy,” “Miami Vice,” “Lincoln”) and Bob Mondello, then a brand-new arts and film critic at NPR. When we lived in Dallas, a little pipsqueak named Scott Pelley was a frequent guest and look at him now, anchor of “CBS Evening News.” Nathan Lane came once. He was part of a comedy team with our friend Pat Stack. I think we all know who he is. There are also quite a few guests who are no longer with us: Jack Kehoe, my cousin Kathleen, E.J. Mudd, Laurie Stack, Mary Martin, and, saddest of all, my ex-husband, who died last March.

A frequent entry was what I called the Friday Night Bachelor Club. Every Friday night it seemed to be yours truly with a bunch of men. Boo hoo! The charter member was my college classmate from Kenyon, Matthew Smith. He was working for George H.W. Bush and had a secret source for authentic key limes, which he delivered every time he came. I am positive they were from some big cheese in the White House, but he never fessed up. We ate a lot of key lime pies! As you can see, I have learned to tame my enthusiasm for the exclamation point.

I felt I really had to step up my game for some guests, such as Daniel Zwerdling, then and now a fine reporter for NPR, and his wife, Barbara Rothschild. They are superb cooks themselves and wrote the second-tier restaurant reviews for The Washington Post. Phyllis Richman would get the Citron (Michel Richard) and Jean Louis (Palladin) reviews, and Danny and Barbara would get the obscure Vietnamese pho shops in Arlington. Sample menus showing off for my foodie friends: salmon with garlic confit in parchment, beet and radish salad, raspberry tart. Alsatian onion tart, lobster salad with basil, that damned butternut squash again, brandysnap cups with Grand Marnier mousse. Trout with vermouth and orange zest, leg of lamb, potato with celery root and Gruyere pancake, creme brulee with berries.

There are many birthdays and goodbye dinners and my son’s christening party. Some dinners were at a friend’s farm in LaPlata, Md., some in East Hampton, a few in Dallas, and most in Virginia. On Oct. 8, 1994, our Catahoula dog, Gumbo, ate all the brownies. On Sept. 4, 1985, the police came knocking on the door because a neighbor had reported that “a bad smell was coming from next door, we think it could be a decomposing body.” I was barbecuing bluefish on the back porch. One entry says “March 1, 1992, what the heck happened here?” Apparently, I marked the date but forgot the menus and who came.

My father died just before Christmas in 1988. In an effort to cheer up our mother on New Year’s Eve I prepared an all-French menu. (She had spent most of her youth in France.) Menu: la soupe a la farigoulette, roti de file de veau, mousse de chaux sur. It was just the three of us — my husband, Clem, mother, Honoria, and myself, a really bereft trio. She adored my father, and I wanted so badly to take her out of her grief, if only for a three-course meal.

They say that taste is our strongest sense memory. I can still remember the first lettuce from our community garden, May 7, 1992. Dec. 4, 1991, homemade peach pie lovingly and laboriously made the previous summer. Craig Claiborne’s veal meatballs with tarragon, March 19, 1994. And so many more. It’s a bittersweet 10-year record of a wonderful period of our lives, ending when life suddenly wasn’t so wonderful.

I am grateful and glad I still have this menu book, this culinary diary. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point!

Click for recipes

March Weekends

The Montauk Yacht Club will be open on weekends this month, before opening daily for the season on April 1. Breakfast and lunch are served on Saturday and Sunday, and dinner is served on Friday and Saturday nights, when there is live music. The dinner menu is a la carte, with a $29 prix fixe.

Michaels’ Wine Bar

Michaels’ restaurant at Maidstone Park in Springs has closed for a few weeks in order to make some interior renovations. The changes are designed to accommodate a new wine bar concept, where homemade gelato or sorbet for dessert will be available as well as wine.

Restaurant Week Soon

Foodies are marking their calendars for the 13th annual Hamptons Restaurant Week, which takes place from March 22 to 29 this year. During the week, participating eateries will offer three-course prix fixe menus for $27.95. The special will be available during limited hours on Saturday, March 28.  

Restaurateurs who would like to participate can sign up online at hamptonsrestaurantweek.com, where diners will also find a list of places to go for the deal.

At Fresh

Fresh Hamptons in Bridgehampton serves brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., featuring an a la carte menu. Thursday is pizza night at Fresh, starting at 5, with a three-course, build-your-own-pie dinner offered for $18 plus tax and gratuity. It starts with a Caesar salad, followed by a chance to choose toppings — some at an additional $1 or $2 premium — for a 12-inch organic whole-wheat pizza with mozzarella and tomato sauce.

A six-session cooking class with Todd Jacobs, the owner and chef at Fresh, begins tonight and will continue on Thursdays from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Those interested may attend individual sessions for $125, or the series for $650. The first 20 students to sign up will receive a discount.

Wolffer Classes

Chef-led cooking classes at the Wolffer residence at the Sagaponack winery continue throughout March. On Sunday, Christian Mir of the Stone Creek Inn will lead the session, and on March 22, it will be Colette Connor of the Inn Spot on the Bay.

Classes feature a demonstration and lunch, which will include complementary wine. The sessions begin at 12:30 p.m. and cost $75.

Wine Bar at Michael’s

Michael’s restaurant at Maidstone Park in Springs has reopened after a short hiatus during which some interior renovations took place. Michael’s now features an expanded wine bar, with over 40 wines by the glass. An interior wall has been removed, affording more space for the bar area. Michael’s is now open seven days a week.

Monthly Pig Roast

The monthly pig roast dinner at Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton will take place on Friday, March 20, at 6 p.m., with a menu that includes head cheese crostini, local micro greens, homemade bratwurst, and a spit-roasted whole pig. Courses will be paired with Paumanok Vineyards wines. Reservations are required, as space is limited. The cost is $95 per person plus tax and gratuity.

The next Topping Rose cooking class will take place on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. with the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, Kyle Koenig, and pastry chef, Cassandra Shupp. After learning how to prepare each dish in a three-course menu while sipping a Topping Rose House cocktail, students will partake of the meal, paired with wine. Special room rates are available for those who wish to stay overnight at the hotel after the class. The cost of the class is $175 plus tax and gratuity. Advance reservations are required

Dining Coupons

A book of discount coupons for dining at East End restaurants, issued annually as a fund-raiser for East End Hospice, is now available. The cost is $100. The booklet contains 31 coupons for a buy-one-get-one-free entree deal at different restaurants. Among them are Almond, the American Hotel, Babette’s, Fresh Hamptons, Townline BBQ, Rowdy Hall, the Lobster Roll, and Topping Rose House. Other participating restaurants are farther afield, including on the North Fork. Booklets can be purchased through East End Hospice.

Local Spirits

“Distill Life: An Ode to Spirits,” a panel discussion about the resurgence of locally produced spirits, will take place tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. Moderated by Brian Halweil, the editor of Edible East End, participants will include Jason Laan of Sag Harbor Rum, Richard Scoffier, the food and beverage director of Honest Man Restaurants, and Leslie Merinoff of Owney’s NYC Rum in Brooklyn. They will bring samples to taste. Admission is $20 or $10 for museum members.

Prime Rib Night

Thursdays are prime rib nights at the Bell and Anchor in Noyac. Prices vary for a menu including a choice of appetizer and an entree of prime rib with vegetable, potatoes, and jus, depending on how much meat is ordered. Dessert will be an additional $5.

Pasta Night

Pasta lovers might choose Tuesdays to go to the Harbor Grill, when a $17 special includes a choice of pasta with clam sauce, meatballs, Bolognese sauce, or sausage, broccoli, garlic, and olive oil. It comes with a cup of soup or small house salad, and garlic bread. Tax and gratuity are extra.

For St. Paddy’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day will bring not only luck for the Irish, but Irish food and drink specials at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, both on Tuesday, the holiday, and on March 21 and 22, the weekend of the Montauk St. Patrick’s Day parade. A lunch and dinner prix fixe on Tuesday will include an appetizer and entree, or entree and dessert, for $25. Menu choices include potato leek soup, corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, and Irish whiskey chocolate cake.  A la carte specials will be offered at lunch and dinner on the March 21 weekend.

Beer Tap Takeover

Townline BBQ in Sagaponack has given over its beer taps to Long Island brews for the entire month of March. One beer per day will be featured during happy hour for $4 per pint and $15 per pitcher. Beers will include Spider Bite Funder Session I.P.A., Montauk Red Ale, Great South Bay Lager, Long Island Pale Ale, and Greenport Harbor Otherside I.P.A.

Sen Chef at Wolffer

The Sunday cooking class series at the Wolffer residence at Sagaponack’s Wolffer Estate will feature Ryunosuke Jesse Matsuoka of Sen this week. On the menu are usuzukuri, a dish of thinly sliced raw white fish, double pork ramen, and mochi, along with Wolffer wine. The cost is $75.

Time for Farm Products

Balsam Farms has announced the availability of this year’s community-supported agriculture memberships, through which produce will be distributed between May 29 and Nov. 20.

Four levels of membership are available, as are add-ons that would entitle members to fruit, flowers, fresh mozzarella, or bread, in addition to their weekly share of produce. 

Membership fees cover the farm’s costs for planting and harvesting. Those who join by April 1 will receive a free Balsam Farms T-shirt or trucker cap. Information is available at balsamfarms. com.

Specials Match the Name

At the downstairs tavern at the 1770 House in East Hampton, entree specials are offered for $17.70 on Thursday nights.

You know how when you order food in a restaurant and you wait and wait and wait and it’s been like 45 minutes, so then you get up to use the loo and lo and behold, your food arrives at the table? That’s what this column is about. Eastern European food. The hearty, heavy, frigid-weather cuisine that keeps the Georgians and Hungarians and their neighbors fortified during long miserable winters. Because if I write about this, it is a guarantee that the icicles will be melting, perhaps some mountain snowdrops will pop out of the ground, and at least the potholes will begin blooming all over the East End.

Most of us think of Eastern European food as a lot of beets and potatoes and vodka, and that would be accurate. But there is also the lighter and brighter traditional dishes of coastal Croatia influenced by Italy, such as squid ink risotto, grilled fish with chard, garlic, parsley, and olive oil, and brudet, a tomatoey fish stew served over polenta. Even truffles grow in Istria!

One of my grandparents’ dearest friends was a Russian fellow named Vladimir Orloff. He taught them how to make tefteli, a rich meatball dish smothered in sour cream sauce. Our mother made it frequently, and we called it Vladimir’s meatballs. It gave all three of us kids indigestion every time. So some Eastern European dishes are indeed heavy and dense.

The diet of root vegetables, cheap meats, and dairy products was born out of necessity, climate, and poverty. Presumably the vodka is used to cut through the saturated fat and drown misery. If any vegetarians or gluten-intolerant people live in Poland or the other Slavic countries they may be hard pressed to find adequate food. Noodles and breads are prominent, as are pork, chicken, and beef.

Lithuanian cuisine shares similarities with that of Poland, Scandinavian countries, Hungary, and Romania. Potatoes, mushrooms, beets, cabbage, radishes, and cucumbers are grown and are popular, as are apples, plums, pears, cranberries, and lingonberries. And in spite of the richness of the diet — with such dishes as blynai (similar to blinis), kibinai (pastry with mutton), didzkukuliai (potato dumplings), desra (pork sausage), and spurgos (doughnuts) — obesity is very low in Lithuania.

Many Russian dishes may sound more familiar to us. There is the cabbage soup called shchi, meat kebabs called shashlyk, pirozhki, similar to pirogies, pastries stuffed with meat and onions, or rice, eggs, and dill, or mashed potatoes with green onions. Blinis, the thin little pancakes often made with buckwheat flour, are a treat topped with melted butter, sour cream, and caviar, or fruit jam. Olivier, or Russian salad, is delicious when made with fresh ingredients and homemade mayonnaise. It is a combination of finely diced boiled potatoes, hardboiled eggs, peas, and carrots bound with mayonnaise. Vodka is the best known beverage out of Russia, made with grains or most often with potatoes.

The foods of Croatia sound like the healthiest and most diverse to me, combining the influences of Greece, Italy, Turkey, and France. One traditional dish is called ispod peke, actually more of the method of cooking than the dish itself. Lamb, octopus, or veal are paired with seasoned potatoes and cooked in a stone oven under a heavy cover. Hot coals are piled on top and food cooks slowly. According to Travel Adriatics website, “you are awarded with a tender rhapsody of flavors.” Crni rizot, literally “black risotto,” is a Dalmatian dish similar to Italy’s cuttlefish risotto, however the Croatians top theirs with grated cheese, a no-no in Italy. Homemade pastas and polenta are topped with truffles grown in Istria and foraged by trained dogs.

As we eagerly wait for the snow to melt and spring to arrive, we could indulge in some Eastern European-inspired cooking. How about some Long Island potatoes with Long Island’s own LIV vodka? And as things turn green and promising, break out the grill and cook some fish with herbs and chard on the side, a la Croatia.

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With the snow mounds melting and the days now longer, the restaurant roulette wheel is spinning as new ventures rev for the coming summer season and others who already have a foothold in the local eating scene try something new.

Matthew Guiffrida, the chef and owner of Muse in Sag Harbor, will reportedly expand this year to Montauk and open a second restaurant in the space most recently occupied by Coast.

Winston Lyons, a chef who has worked at a number of East Hampton spots, including Bostwick’s, East Hampton Grill, and Turtle Crossing, has been sprucing up the former Nichol’s restaurant building here and will open Winston’s, a seafood and steak grill with a Caribbean flavor, in mid-April. He plans to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner year round, and will offer weekly specials. Tuesday nights will be Montauk night, with dishes centered on Montauk-sourced ingredients; Sundays will bring Caribbean-style suppers, and on Thursday nights there will be specials on Red Stripe beer and a variety of types of wings, including Asian and Caribbean style.

Prix Fixes

Winter specials continue at Le Charlot in Southampton, the East End version of an Upper East Side, Manhattan, bistro. A $25 prix fixe is available at lunch or brunch, and a dinner prix fixe for $35 is offered from 5 to 6 p.m. Both include three courses.

The restaurant has recently expanded its hours and is open Thursdays for dinner, and Fridays through Mondays for lunch (or brunch) and dinner.

In Montauk

Sammy’s restaurant at the Montauk docks has opened for the season and has designated Thursday as pasta night and Sunday as the night for prime rib. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, corned beef and cabbage is being served this week.

The Montauk Yacht Club will offer a free shuttle to and from downtown Montauk and the Montauk train station after the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday for those who would like to dine or imbibe. The restaurant at the club is open on weekends, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturdays and Sundays, and dinner on Friday nights. A $29 prix fixe menu is available on Fridays and Saturdays. Those who march in the parade this weekend will be offered a free buffet.

Restaurant Week

Hamptons Restaurant Week begins on Sunday and runs through March 29. At participating restaurants — a list of which can be found at hamptonsrestaurantweek.com — diners can order a three-course prix fixe for $27.95. The special will be offered only until 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 28.