The traditional foods of Umbria will be the focus of the next in a series of Italian cooking classes offered at the Loaves and Fishes cooking school in Bridgehampton. On the menu for the class, which takes place Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m., is homemade fettuccine with shaved truffles, stuffed pork tenderloin with a wine sauce, asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and Perugia nut cake with chocolate gelato. The cost is $165.

Lobster Roll Rumble

    The Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague will be a contender at a “lobster roll rumble” contest sponsored by the Tasting Table, a foodies’ Web site. It will be held on June 6 in New York City. The winner will be deemed “America’s best lobster roll.”

For Easter

    The Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton will serve brunch on Easter Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will be followed by an Easter roast dinner to be served between 5:30 and 10 for $52 per person. The dinner menu will include herring served three ways, roasted lamb with bean salad and rosemary roasted potatoes, and desserts.

    A family-style Easter dinner will be served at Almond in Bridgehampton on Sunday from 5 to 9. Three courses, for $42 per person, will include a choice of appetizers such as antipasti, spring salad, or shrimp cocktail, and entrees including roast leg of lamb with three sauces, or spinach and ricotta gnocchi with grilled asparagus and caramelized baby carrots. Dessert will be strawberry-rhubarb cobbler a la mode.

    At Manucci’s in Montauk, an Easter dinner served from 3 to 8 p.m. will include three courses for $31.95, with a choice of filet mignon, rack of lamb, broiled fluke, a roasted half duck, or frutti di mare as an entree. It includes a choice of soup or salad, and a dessert. A children’s menu, and limited selections from the regular menu, will also be offered. Reservations have been suggested. 

Prix Fixes

    Diners at three different restaurants may choose either a two-course or three-course prix fixe. At Fresno in East Hampton, an appetizer and entree is $30 per person and three courses are $35 per person, plus tax and gratuity, on Sunday through Thursday nights as well as on Friday and Saturday between 5:30 and 6:32 p.m. Appetizer choices include soup, salad, white bean and roasted garlic hummus with pita and olives, and chicken liver pate with pickled beets and rye toast points. For entrees, the choices are fettuccini with shrimp and  vegetables, orecchiette with hot and sweet sausage, broccoli rabe, and white beans, chicken Milanese, moules frites, pan-seared Scottish salmon, or a burger.

    At the Bell and Anchor in Sag Harbor, the same options are available, with a menu including fish and clam chowder, salt cod brandade, and salads for starters, and, as entrees, fish of the day, and flat iron steak frites.

    In Southampton, the prix fixe at red/bar brasserie is $29 for two courses and $34 for three courses, and is offered all night on Sundays through Thursdays, excluding holidays. Among the appetizer choices are steamed mussels and crispy calamari salad. Entree choices include mustard-crusted Scottish salmon, truffled chicken breast with wild mushroom risotto, and braised pork shoulder with littleneck clams, potatoes, tomatoes, and Linguica sausage.

Coming Soon

    New to Sag Harbor’s Main Street this spring will be Madison and Main, an eatery housed in the space that was formerly the Paradise Cafe. The restaurant is the newest venture by Michael Gluckman, the restaurateur behind three former East Hampton spots, the Lodge, the Boathouse, and the Beach House, and is being billed as a “seafood tavern” with “quintessentially American cuisine with a gourmet twist.” Eric Miller, the co-owner of Food & Co., an East Hampton catering concern, will be the head chef. The interior of the space has been renovated, with its historical touches preserved, and the restaurant is expected to serve lunch, brunch, and dinner year round.

    A sampling from the dinner menu includes both raw bar and sashimi tasting platters and items that can be ordered for the table, such as crabmeat-stuffed deviled eggs, crispy stuffed meatballs, and grilled calamari with charred chili peppers. Starters include whole-belly Ipswich clams, organic chicken osso buco, and shrimp with creamy grits and braised duck. The restaurant will offer steaks made on a wood-fired grill as well as fish, pasta, and poultry dishes, and a list of side dishes.

   As the earth awakens from a long, cold slumber, Frank Trentacoste is awakening to a new path, exchanging a 15-telephone turret and bank of Bloomberg terminals for a tractor and pickup truck.

    Mr. Trentacoste, who was an equities strategist and director at Macro Risk Advisors and worked before that at two New York hedge funds, has established Bhumi Farm, an organic vegetable farm, on the Amagansett land he leased from the Peconic Land Trust.

    He plans to grow a range of produce on his two-acre plot, including beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes, which will be sold at farmers markets at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton and at Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton. Mr. Trentacoste has also applied to sell at farmers markets from Montauk to Westhampton Beach.

    Like the nearby Quail Hill Farm, Bhumi will be a cooperative farm in the community supported agriculture format. Families and individuals can purchase a membership for the 22-week season between Memorial Day and Oct. 20, or for smaller periods within that span. Mr. Trentacoste hopes to realize 60 percent of the farm’s revenue through these memberships, with farmers markets accounting for the balance.

    With a five-year lease in hand, the new farmer’s plans are the manifestation of an inner transformation that he hopes will extend to the community. Though he maintains a positive view of his work and the financial industry, a life under the open skies in the fields off Town Lane reflects the changed priorities to which many a transplanted urbanite can relate.

    In New York, he said, “you have pace and noise and masses, and culturally it’s more robust. But it gets exhausting. As time went on I wanted something more tangible, a feeling that I was contributing more to society at large. It’s a huge lifestyle change. I’ll make a lot less money, clearly. My life, hopefully, will be more rewarding in other ways.”

    Mr. Trentacoste, who grew up in Lynbrook, exuded passion and excitement for his new career as he walked the length of his plot on a cold and windy afternoon earlier this month, measuring the parcel he will soon till. “One of the driving forces of the farm is for people to get grounded and back into earth,” he said. “We just wanted a place where people could slow down.”

    That slowing, he said, should extend to diet, as illustrated in the recent emphasis on consuming locally grown food. “Life has gotten so crazy,” he said. “You’re texting, you don’t have conversations anymore. That pace has manifested itself into really poor diets, and those poor diets have led to really, really bad health in children. It makes me sad. I’m not saying people are bad parents, but this is where society is heading. Society has really moved away from farming — growing your own food, preparing your own food — to its own detriment.”

    The statistics are well known and irrefutable: obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are epidemic in the United States, and some types of food — fast, junk, processed — are leading culprits. “The goal of the farm is to connect people to the land,” said Mr. Trentacoste, a vegetarian since 2009. (Bhumi, the Hindu goddess of the earth, taught that living in harmony with sea, soil, mountains, plants, and animals is necessary for mankind’s survival, according to the farm’s Web site.)

    “I look at my nieces and nephews, see them glued to the television, computers, not understanding where food comes from, not having any sense of what is healthy and non-healthy,” he said. “I think a farm is a great place, because it’s an interactive classroom.”

    To that end, Mr. Trentacoste will offer free, educational children’s crafts at the farmers markets and offers himself as an educational speaker to classes, scouting groups, and other organizations. Last month, he visited a Girl Scout troop in Greenlawn, which is recounted on the Bhumi Farm Web site, bhumifarm.com.

    His change of course may seem radical, but there is precedent for Mr. Trentacoste’s career U-turn. “My grandpa used to have a vegetable garden,” he said. “I spent a lot of time with him. That’s where the love came from.”

    Mr. Trentacoste’s brother is a member of Quail Hill Farm, he said, and the act of picking produce with him proved an additional catalyst for a career change. “I liked the feel of it,” he said. “It was a different sensation. I would leave there feeling very relaxed, very alive, just having different feelings about working the land.” Last summer, he spent time with Jon Wagner and Karin Bellemare, the owners of Sunset Beach Farms, who have since vacated the plot on which Bhumi Farm now sits and relocated to Vermont. “I worked with them and learned more. I just felt it was time to do something for others, and everything aligned,” he said.

    Last week, Mr. Trentacoste learned that he has been selected as a member of the chef Jamie Oliver’s Ambassador Program, an outgrowth of Mr. Oliver’s Food Revolution movement to combat obesity and poor diets. “That basically means doing what I’m doing now,” he said. “It was something I wanted to do anyway, but now I’m basically co-branding. I’m hoping people will listen a little harder.”

    Mr. Trentacoste’s altruism is clear, but goes hand in hand with an equally unmistakable humility. He is learning the fundamentals of his new career, but acknowledges the likelihood of missteps. He hopes to blog about his experiences as farming begins in earnest, hiccups and all. “I’ve been studying a ton, but that only gets you so far,” he said. “It could be really funny to see all the blunders I make. I’m not the first person, but there will probably be more behind me that do this.”

    Hamptons Restaurant Week begins on Sunday and brings an opportunity to sample the fare at restaurants from Eastport to Montauk, including the North Fork, at a discounted price.

    From Sunday through April 14, all participating restaurants will offer a three-course prix fixe, most for $27.95, although a couple of eateries will offer a $19.95 option. The special will be available all night every night except Saturday, when it will be offered only until 7 p.m.

    Among the local restaurants involved in the event are the Harvest in Montauk, the Bell and Anchor in Sag Harbor, the 1770 House, Fresno, and the Living Room in East Hampton, Almond in Bridgehampton, and the Coast Grill in North Sea. A full list can be found at hamptonsrestaurantweek. com.

Mozzarella-Making Classes

    Jeanine Alfano Burge of Silver Spoon Specialties is offering classes in making homemade mozzarella, which include not only instruction in the surprisingly easy process, but information about menus incorporating the cheese and a tasting of all the menu items, with a glass of wine. The cost is $40 per person.

    The next session will be held on Monday night in Montauk, in the kitchen at Sausages Pizza, and future classes will take place in both Montauk and East Hampton. Groups of five to eight people may schedule their own private class. Reservations can be made by e-mailing [email protected], or calling Ms. Burge at 875-4400.

Plaza Cafe

    The Plaza Cafe in Southampton has a $32, three-course prix fixe menu available between 5:30 and 6:45 p.m. Sunday through Friday. Tax and gratuity are extra. The menu choices include prosciutto-wrapped shrimp, Long Island seafood chowder, or organic field greens to start, and, as main courses, horseradish-crusted Chatham Bay cod, sliced flatiron steak, and lemon-herb marinated chicken.

Giant Charitable Bunny

    George Hirsch, a chef, cookbook author, and host of a new TV series, “George Hirsch Lifestyle,” which will be shown in the fall on PBS, was the winner of a giant chocolate Easter bunny at the 1770 House on Sunday.

    Mr. Hirsch had purchased a number of raffle tickets sold by the inn to benefit the Flying Point Foundation for Autism, and won the prize.

   The familiar sights and sounds of children and families talking and laughing as they munch on pizza and sip soda returned to Fierro’s Pizza last Thursday. Al Fierro, a co-founder of the pizzeria, which opened at 104 Park Place in East Hampton in 1983, was back behind the counter, along with Stephen Hickey, his new business partner. A portrait of Mr. Fierro’s father, Albert Fierro Jr., looked down from a wall by the counter and a Yankees preseason game played out on the television overhead. All was right in this little slice of the universe.

    “They haven’t had the pizza in about two weeks, so they’re kind of jonesing a little bit,” said Mr. Fierro, gesturing to the children who filled nearly every table. “But this is the after-school hit that we get every day.”

    Mr. Fierro and Mr. Hickey had just completed a renovation of the restaurant: new ovens and furniture, a new ceiling, newly painted walls. This, after Mr. Fierro, his brother, John, and their mother, Barbara, sold the business in 2007.

    It was only about six months ago, said Mr. Hickey, that he and Mr. Fierro bought the business from Claude Cardin, to whom the Fierros had sold it. “It was really exciting for both of us, because we’d looked at other opportunities over the years,” he said. “Al and I wanted to go into partnership together in some type of restaurant, but we never dreamed that this opportunity would arise. It was a blessing that we waited.”

    The partners had met and worked together at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, where Mr. Fierro was a bartender and Mr. Hickey a member of the waitstaff. “I had no other restaurant experience,” said Mr. Hickey, who moved to the South Fork from Connecticut in 2008 to care for his ailing father. The job at the tavern, he said, provided essential on-the-job training. “I figured I’d do whatever they told me to do. It really helped, learning the business from the ground up. But if there was anybody I would have done this with, it was only going to be Al. I was leaning on his expertise.”

    Mr. Fierro has plenty of it. With his family, he’s operated pizzerias UpIsland, in Farmingville and Shirley. Being back in the restaurant that bears his name, he said, “feels like I came back home — I kind of grew up in this building.”

    After the summer, Mr. Fierro said, he may make some adjustments to the menu, but the offerings will remain consistent with what patrons have come to know and expect. “Our chicken rolls are great,” he said. “We make some great crispy chicken salads, chicken tenders, and the wings are great. We’ll have some great gelato in the summertime. But we’re here for pizza. And of course, the lottery — I don’t have to tell anybody about that.”

    Mr. Hickey is thrilled to be part of the once-and-present ownership. “Al has people who have come here since they were 10 years old, and now they’re coming in with their own 10-year-olds,” he said. “He’s a staple of the community, so it was really special for him to get back into the business. I feel blessed to be part of it. We’re excited.”

    It is said that John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, “invented” the sandwich while locked in a 24-hour card game. Nowadays, Gamblers Anonymous would have a field day with this. What, he couldn’t stop gambling long enough to fortify himself? All he did was ask his valet to put meat between two slices of bread so his cards wouldn’t get all greasy. His cronies started ordering “the same as Sandwich,” and hence the name was born. But it could be said that the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder created an earlier version when he wrapped some Paschal lamb with bitter herbs between two pieces of soft matzoh during Passover.

    There are so many versions of sandwiches around the world — paninis from Italy, smorrebrod from Scandinavia, croque monsieur from France, banh mi from Vietnam. There are regional versions of submarines, hoagies, heros, and grinders. There is the Philly cheesesteak and muffalettas from New Orleans. If you want to stretch the meaning of any bread with fillings you could include pita wraps, gyros, burritos, and bagels.

    One of my favorite sandwiches is the Reuben. Its origins are up for debate. One story, also involving a bunch of gambling men, credits Reuben Kulakofsky of Omaha, Neb. In the 1920s his gang of cronies, nicknamed “the committee,” used to have poker games at the Blackstone Hotel. The owner of the hotel, Charles Schimmel, put the Reuben on the menu and it became nationally famous when one of his employees won a competition with the recipe. Another story credits Arnold Reuben of the now defunct Reuben’s Delicatessen in New York City. Regardless of its origins, it is a perfect combination of salty meats (corned beef, turkey, or pastrami), crunchy vegetables (saurkraut or coleslaw), Thousand Island or Russian dressing, and/or Dijon mustard on good rye bread.

    The club sandwich is another delicious classic, a combination of turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on toasted white bread. This sandwich has been seen on American menus since 1899 and is believed to have originated at, you guessed it, a gambling club in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

    Some sandwiches sound downright dangerous or gross. Remember fluffernutters? Nothing but marshmallow cream and peanut butter on white bread. The chip butty of Sheffield, Yorkshire, is French fries with vinegar or ketchup on bread. In the Baoding Hebei province of China they eat a savory sandwich of shredded donkey. The Danish enjoy a slice of aspic and red onion with salt beef on fat-smeared rye. Another Danish specialty is sal over Gudhjem, an open-faced rye sandwich with smoked herring, chives, and a raw egg yolk.

    Remember tea sandwiches? People seldom make them anymore, but they are a charming, dainty tradition for parties. Cucumbers or watercress and finely minced chicken salad or smoked salmon are spread on super thin white or wheat bread. Seasoning, moisture, and restraint are the key ingredients. Crusts cut off, cut into triangles, pinkies in the air when consuming! The trick I learned about tea sandwiches is butter on one slice of bread, mayo on the other. My favorite is a Vidalia onion tea sandwich. Use paper-thin slices of the onion, which is quite sweet and mild. Another good one is made on thin pumpernickel or brown bread spread with a schmear of cream cheese that has been flavored with grated orange zest.

    At the other end of the sandwich spectrum are Sloppy Joes and Dagwoods. Sloppy Joes were popular when I was growing up. They are basically a mixture of a barbecuey-tomato sauce and ground hamburger meat on a bun. The Dagwood can be any sandwich piled up ridiculously high with ingredients, made famous by Dagwood Bumstead of the Blondie comic strip. The muffaletta of New Orleans is another huge, thick sandwich made on big round loaves of Italian bread. It contains a wide variety of meats like salami, ham, sopressatta, and cheese. The key ingredient, however, is olive salad, an oily, vinegary mixture of chopped green olives, celery, and garlic.

    Another great sandwich that has gained popularity is the banh mi of Vietnam. It is often made with a layer of paté, some roast pork, pickled vegetables, some hot sauce, and mayonnaise. The bread used is key. The Vietnamese version of French bread is lighter and crisper, a bit spongy, like Cuban bread. You don’t want a chewy, dense baguette scraping the roof of your mouth with this sandwich.

    A grilled cheese sandwich can be as simple as the child-pleasing American cheese on white bread to the more sophisticated Taleggio with quince paste or cheddar and gouda layered with bacon and tomatoes on Portuguese buns. The French croque monsieur or croque madame is made with a good Gruyere cheese, ham, and a layer of bechamel.

    Of course, two of the best sandwiches ever invented are the lobster roll and a plain old tomato sandwich, always only served at the height of summer with a perfect beefsteak tomato, thickly sliced.

    You can make a simple sandwich for your children to enjoy, a healthy vegetarian sandwich utilizing hummus, avocadoes, sprouts, and any other vegetables you like on a seven-grain bread, or make one of those belly bombs like a Reuben or Cuban sandwich (roast pork, ham, pickles, cheese, and mustard). Use your imagination! Here are some recipes to inspire you, starting with one of my favorites, the sandwich my father used to make for us on Sunday afternoons.

Click for recipes

Now For Home

    The tomato sauce prepared and used at Astro Pizza and Felice’s Restaurant, the side-by-side Italian spots in ­Amagansett, can now be purchased for use at home, and even ordered by mail. Containers come in two sizes: 16 ounces for $5.50 and 36 ounces for $7.50. Homemade pizza dough and the restaurants’ homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing are also available in takeout packages.

Heating Up

    Slowly but surely, the restaurants that have been shuttered for a winter break are reopening. In Montauk, Sammy’s by the docks will fire up the stove once again tomorrow, and will offer St. Patrick’s Day-inspired prix fixes nightly through March 17.

    The Coast restaurant, downtown in Montauk, reopens next Thursday, and will serve dinner beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursdays through Sundays. Next Thursday, as well as on March 21 and 28, there will be a family trivia night, with teams of four to eight people competing.

    An admission price of $20 for adults and $10 for children includes dinner, with children offered a choice among three entrees and a dessert, served with a juice box, and the grown-ups offered a choice of soup or salad, and one entree of three on the list.

    Advance reservations have been suggested and can be made by calling the restaurant or sending an e-mail to reservations@ thecoastmontauk.com.

Chocolate and Wine

    At Wolffer Estate vineyard in Sagaponack on Sunday, a chocolate sommelier will offer tastes of different sweets, all paired with wines. Roxanne Browning will discuss the cacao varietals and blends, and their terroir.

    Four different pairings will be served during two sessions. The first will be from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., followed by a 2 to 3 p.m. tasting. The cost is $35 per person, plus tax, or $30 for Wolffer wine club members. As seating is limited, reservations should be made online at wolffer.com

   I have a huge cookbook collection. I am constantly editing, but the collection grows. People give me books, I buy more. I am first in line at the cookbook booth at the Ladies Village Improvement ­Society Fair. I have even bought back books I donated to the L.V.I.S. That’s mental.

    And this collection was never well organized until I moved. These books now reside in a little closet lined with shelves. I am proud to say they are currently arranged by nationality, single subject, resource, narrative, local, etc. I recently began to ponder, which 10 books are my absolute favorites, and why.

    When I mentioned favorite cookbooks to a fellow foodie friend, he insisted that I must include Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and “Joy of Cooking.” Sorry, I seldom crack either of these open. Some of my choices are sentimental, some books I simply love for their pictures, menus, and stories. Here are five favorites.

    Edna Lewis was an African-American born in Freetown, Va., in 1916. In her 80-year lifetime she published four books and worked for many years at Cafe Nicholson in New York City, where she was best known for her roast chicken and chocolate souffles. Craig Claiborne declared her book “The Taste of Country Cooking” “the most entertaining regional cookbook in America.”

    The menus are mouthwatering. How does this one, for a late spring dinner, sound? Skillet spring chicken with watercress, buttered Jerusalem artichokes, garden green peas in cream, biscuits, pear preserves, and rhubarb pie. Here is another menu, this one for Christmas Eve supper: oyster stew, baked country ham, scalloped potatoes, pan-braised spare ribs, ham biscuits, wild blackberry jelly, watermelon rind pickles, yellow vanilla pound cake, hickory nut cookies, dandelion wine, plum wine, and coffee. Keep in mind that every meal that was prepared in Freetown was grown, fished, farmed, hunted, preserved, and foraged.

    Aside from having so many simple but delicious seasonal recipes, this book also was my favorite because when my son was attending East Hampton Middle School he would read this book in the car every day on his way to and from school. I think there is something comforting and cozy in Edna Lewis’s manner of writing that even reached a 10-year-old boy.

    Richard Sax’s encyclopedic “Classic Home Desserts” has more foolproof delicious recipes than any other dessert book I own. Mr. Sax was a prolific chef and cookbook writer and was the founding director of Food and Wine magazine’s test kitchen. Sadly, he died of AIDS at the age of 46. His book is filled with historical tidbits, entertaining quotes, and has the best pie streusel, ginger hottentots, butterscotch pudding, and lemon custard ice cream. It has fools and syllabubs and flummery, crisps, compotes, and cobblers. He even had a soft spot for ancient English recipes, which he appreciated for their “unadorned frankness.”

    Douglas Rodriguez’s “Latin Flavors on the Grill” is one of my favorites because it was a gift from my brother, Sherman, and it is just so darned good. Mr. Rodriguez has been dubbed the godfather of Nuevo Latino cuisine. By the age of 13 he had his own collection of pots and pans and cookbooks. He is the author of four books and has several restaurants throughout the country. Every time I am looking for a light and spicy way to prepare fish, I turn to this book. Tuna with mango ginger lime mojo, salmon with dill chimichurri, and clams with chipotle cachucha mojo with bacon are outstanding. This book also has the best chocolate cake recipe, ever.

    Martin Picard is a wild man, French-Canadian chef, author, and TV personality. His restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, is famous for elevating Quebec’s “muscular” food to new heights. It is loud and bawdy, a bastion of excess. Foie gras appears on the menu in every way, shape, and form. His cookbook “Au Pied de Cochon” looks more like Hunter S. Thompson’s rambling stories in Rolling Stone illustrated by Ralph Steadman. There are spatters of blood, pig’s feet, and foul language. This book was a gift from my son, who knows what I like.

    Mr. Picard is an avid hunter and fisherman, as well as an expert maple syrup maker. This book is full of stories about the people who fish and farm for him, full of photographs of the messy behind-the-scenes world of restaurants, and most of all, full of Mr. Picard’s passion and love for what he does — feed the lucky gourmands who flock to Au Pied de Cochon.

    The late Lee Bailey was a resident of Bridgehampton and the author of several lifestyle cookbooks. He contributed stories to Vogue and The New York Times and had a charming little housewares shop in Henri Bendel. His book “Country Weekends” transports you to the beach, to the field, and to the garden for simple, accessible meals, or as the title proclaims, “recipes for good food and easy living.” His lovage and apple stuffed roast chicken with pan gravy is my favorite go-to chicken recipe. Now imagine it accompanied by the rest of his menu, grits souffle, beet and carrot puree, flaky biscuits with parsley butter, followed by grapefruit sherbert and candied grapefruit rind! The table settings and flower arrangements are beautiful but look like something any of us could do. Or as Mr. Bailey said, “there is a kind of appealing grace in having the end result of a project, food or otherwise, seemingly brought off without strain.” The book is set up from Friday evening meals to more elaborate Saturday suppers to Sunday lunch and finally Monday diet meals. Who knew white china, wildflowers, and your back porch could make a meal feel special?

    I am the kind of cookbook owner who dog-ears pages, spatters the recipes, and makes notes in the margins. Some might find this disrespectful, but when I open one of these favorite books and find a favorite old recipe that I have been preparing for over 30 years, I don’t see stains and scribbles, I see history and love and many, many meals shared with family and friends. Thanks to Edna and Douglas and Richard and Martin and Lee.

Click for recipes

Lovage and Apple Stuffed Roast Chicken

    Here is Lee Bailey’s recipe. I substitute celery leaves for lovage.

    Serves six.

2 21/2-lb. chickens

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 cup butter, softened

1 handful lovage

1 large cooking apple, peeled and cored

Gravy:

1 Tbsp. butter, softened

2 Tbsp. flour

1 cup chicken stock, heated

1 Tbsp. chopped chives

    Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry chickens, mix salt and pepper into softened butter. Chop apple and lovage (or celery leaves). Alternately stuff chickens with softened butter and apples and lovage. Reserve a bit of butter for tops of chickens.

    Place chickens breast side up on rack in roasting pan. Smear rest of butter over chickens. Bake an hour and 15 minutes, basting occasionally. Remove chickens to warm platter.

    To make gravy, mush butter and flour together to make paste. Pour fat out of roasting pan and add hot stock. Swirl around and scrape up crispy bits in pan. Thicken with the flour butter mixture and cook until thickened, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with chives.

Grilled Asparagus With Crab Mayonnaise

    This recipe is from Douglas Rodriguez’s “Latin Flavors on the Grill.” It is great as an appetizer or served with fish, chicken, or veal.

    Serves six to eight.

1 lb. asparagus

2 Tbsp. oil

Salt and pepper

Zest and juice of 3 lemons

2 Tbsp. adobo sauce, from canned chipotles in adobo

1 lb. Alaskan crabmeat or jumbo lump crabmeat

1/4 cup minced chives

1/2 cup finely diced red onion

2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

4 red jalapenos, stemmed, seeded, diced

    Blanch asparagus for four minutes, then plunge in ice water. Drain, then peel away tough outer skin.

    Prepare a medium low fire on the grill.

    In bowl, toss asparagus with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill for a few minutes on each side, until lightly charred. Transfer to serving platter.

    In another bowl, combine mayonnaise with lemon zest, juice, adobo, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Gently fold in rest of ingredients. Spoon crab mayonnaise over asparagus and serve.

Mary’s Pignoli (Italian Pine Nut Macaroons)

    This is a great recipe from Richard Sax’s “Classic Home Desserts.” If you find pine nuts to be too expensive, you can substitute slivered or sliced almonds or a combination of pine nuts and almonds.

    Makes about five dozen.

    1 lb. almond paste

    11/4 cups sugar

    4 large egg whites

    1 lb. pine nuts

    Preheat oven to 350. Line two or three baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly butter the pans.

    Break up the almond paste and place in bowl with sugar. Crumble together with your fingers or in an electric mixer until evenly combined. In separate bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Stir a little of the egg whites into almond paste mixture. It will be fairly dry. Fold in remaining whites.

    Place nuts in shallow bowl. Roll almond paste mixture into one-inch balls and press each into nuts, gently turning to coat evenly. They will look like little porcupines. Place on baking sheets, one inch apart.

    Bake until cookies are evenly pale gold, about 15 to 17 minutes. Cool.

    In Montauk, the Coast restaurant, which has reopened for dinners on Thursdays through Saturdays, will also be open this week on Sunday, when the Friends of Erin holds their annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., the bar will be open and a takeout menu featuring soups, stews, reuben sandwiches, and more, will be offered. Tonight will bring the second in a series of family trivia nights at the Coast, with a prix fixe meal offered to adults for $20 and to children for $10, along with an opportunity to compete on a trivia team. Another session will take place next Thursday.

Montauk Yacht Club

    This month, the Gulf Coast Kitchen at the Montauk Yacht Club is offering a five-course prix fixe for $29.95 every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It includes an amuse bouche, an appetizer, an entree, petit fours, and dessert.

    South Fork residents, from Westhampton Beach to Montauk and including Shelter Island, who dine at the yacht club may register to receive a keychain that is good for a 10-percent discount on food and beverages at the Gulf Coast Kitchen as well as at the other yacht club eateries, Hurricane Alley and the Barracuda Bar and Turtle Lounge. Keychains will only be given to the first 1,000 registrants, and may also be used for savings on lodging.

Cooking Class

    Next Thursday, the East End Chefs cooking class series at the Whalers Church in Sag Harbor will begin its 2013 session by featuring Greek cuisine. Tim Salouros, the owner of the Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack, and Emmanouil Aslanoglou, the restaurant’s chef — who was selected chef of the year in Greece in 2010 — will demonstrate how to prepare a classic Greek salad, a beef pastitsio, a moussaka, and, for dessert, ekmet, a traditional Greek cake topped with roasted pistachio nuts, pastry cream, whipped cream, and mastic syrup, which comes from a tree in Chios, Greece. Advance reservations have been requested. Admission is $30 and includes wine.

Suffolk Theater Eats

    Tom Schaudel, the chef behind restaurants such as Allure in Southold and A Mano in Mattituck, and the author of “Playing With Fire,” is the culinary director at the newly reopened Suffolk Theater in Riverhead, which has a restaurant with two bars. A small plate menu, which is crafted to fit with the theater’s Art Deco theme, includes items such as fish tacos, crab cakes, a cheese or salami plate, spring rolls, quesadillas, burgers, tuna sashimi, clam fritters, wings, and a selection of seasoned flatbreads.

Best Burger Award

    The Smashed Smoke Burger served at LT Burger in Sag Harbor won an award sponsored by the Red Robin food chain at the recent South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami. The burger features black-peppered bacon, New York State cheddar, Spanish onion, and a sweet sauce. It will be offered for a limited time on the menus of more than 465 Red Robin restaurants in Canada and the United States.

    The well-known chef and part-time Amagansett resident Bobby Flay won the People’s Choice award at the festival’s Burger Bash with his green chili cheeseburger topped with queso sauce, green chili relish, pickled red onions, and potato chips.

Rowdy St. Patrick’s

    Also on Sunday, Rowdy Hall in East Hampton will serve Irish drinks and an Irish meal in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. A two-course prix fixe for $22 will include either an appetizer and entree, or an entree and dessert. The menu includes potato leek soup to start, followed by a choice among three entrees, corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mash, or shepherd’s pie. Drink specials will include a special holiday tap beer, Magner’s Original Cider, and Irish Mimosas, which is the cider with orange juice.

    This week’s food news includes options for upcoming spring religious holidays.

    At Stuart’s Seafood market in Amagansett, Charlotte Sasso has her homemade gefilte fish and horseradish available. Other Passover specialties, which must be pre-ordered, include brisket, latkes, and kosher noodle kugel. Stuart’s is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except on Tuesday.

    For those ready to make reservations for an Easter Sunday restaurant dinner, Cafe Max in East Hampton will be serving a three-course holiday meal for $30 beginning at 1 p.m. on March 31.

    At the Gulf Coast Kitchen in Montauk, an Easter buffet from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. will include a carving station with roast turkey, prime rib, and smoked ham, and stations serving pasta and omelets, as well as a raw bar. Also available will be steamed mussels, pan-seared wild salmon, antipasto, macaroni and cheese, and side dishes, as well as dessert. The cost is $39 per person, or $17.95 for kids ages 4 to 12. Those younger may eat for free.

Recipe Sharing

    Hilary Herrick Woodward, a yoga teacher and lifelong Southampton resident, will offer samples of vegetarian and non-vegetarian recipes at a Memorable Meals program at the Rogers Memorial Library on Wednesday at noon. Reservations must be made by Sunday by calling the library, or going to myrml.org.

Dinner and Movie

    Also in Southampton, the Plaza Cafe is offering a dinner-and-a-movie special on Sundays through Fridays from 5 to 10 p.m., and on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. The $39.50 special includes a three-course prix fixe meal and a ticket to the Southampton Cinema, which can be used for any show. Tax and gratuity are extra. Among the menu items are Long Island seafood chowder and entrees such as horseradish-crusted cod, sliced flatiron steak, and lemon-herb marinated chicken.

Out on Weeknights

    At little/red in Southampton, weeknights bring specials for $22.95 beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays. In addition, each night a la carte menu items will be offered at a discount price. The lineup includes fish and chips on Monday, rigatoni with sausage on Tuesday, moules frites on Wednesday, and hanger steak on Thursday.

Stomachs, Ready . . .

    Eaters, on your mark. Hamptons Restaurant Week begins on April 7. For a week, numerous East End restaurants will offer $19.95 and $27.95 prix fixes and specials on wine, while lodgings will offer visitors discounted rates. At certain locations, a portion of the proceeds from dinners will be donated to two local nonprofit groups, Project MOST, which offers after-school programs to kids at Springs School and the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton, and the Edible School Gardens program.

    The event is sponsored by East Hampton’s own WordHampton Public Relations. Businesses may sign up to participate, and additional information can be found at hamptons­restaurant­week.com.