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.”

    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.

Oeufs en Meurette

    This recipe is from the now defunct Peter Kump New York Cooking School. Oeufs en meurette are a Burgundian specialty of poached eggs in red wine sauce.

    Serves six.

6 large eggs, poached

1 Tbsp. each of classic mirepoix (finely diced carrots, celery, onion, and ham)

8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, clarified

2 to 3 cups hearty red wine, Burgundy is preferred

Bouquet garni

1 to 2 Tbsp. beurre manie (butter that is kneaded with equal parts flour)

6 slices bread

1 clove garlic, peeled

2 Tbsp. minced parsley

    Hold poached eggs in cold water.

    Saute the mirepois in two tablespoons of the butter for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly browned.

    Add the red wine and bouquet garni and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes to reduce by half. It won’t thicken, just reduce.

    Strain out the vegetables, pressing down to extract all juices. Return the sauce to the heat and bring to a simmer. Whisk as much beurre manie as needed into the sauce, a little at a time. Return to a boil for two minutes after each addition. The sauce should have the consistency of heavy cream.

    Meanwhile, with a cookie cutter, cut the bread into round croutes and saute the croutes on each side in the remaining clarified butter. While still warm, rub each croute with the clove of garlic. Or you may toast in oven until brown, then brush with butter.

    Ten minutes before serving, reheat the poached eggs.

    Place an egg, drained and dried, on a croute, pour some sauce over it, and garnish with parsley.

Kale Caesar Salad

    I recently clipped this recipe from the Fat Radish restaurant from a magazine. It does not give serving amounts so I’m guessing six to eight, with extra dressing leftover.

Dressing:

5 egg yolks

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 lemons, zest and juice

1/2 cup anchovies, finely chopped

1 tsp. dried oregano

21/2 cups blended oil

1 cup water

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Salt, to taste

Salad:

1 bunch kale, stems and leaves coarsely chopped

1 lemon, juiced

Extra virgin olive oil

Handful of garlic croutons

Shaved Parmesan cheese

3 boiled eggs

Salt, to taste

    For dressing, in large mixing bowl whisk together the yolks, mustard, lemon juice and zest, anchovies, and oregano. Slowly add the oil, as the dressing thickens, and add a little water to loosen it. It should have the consistency of loose mayonnaise. Add Parmesan.

    For the salad, place kale in a large mixing bowl and add salt, lemon juice, and olive oil. Mix everything together with your hands, scrunching until kale begins to break down. Add the croutons and shaved Parmesan, then cut the boiled eggs in half and add them last. As you plate the kale, add generous amounts of the Caesar dressing.

     Eggs are delicious. Eggs are boring. Eggs are a perfect little package of protein. Eggs can be dangerous. Eggs are good for you. No, they’re bad for you. All of these things are true. Eggs are confusing!

    As a cook and someone interested in nutrition, I believe in the sunny side of eggs. As a pastry chef, I constantly marvel at the egg’s ability to be transformed into a light and airy souffle or meringue or a rich custard or ice cream. They are simple; they are complicated.

    Years ago I worked for a labor-intensive cooking school called Peter Kump’s. One lesson was eggs. After an hour lecture, we proceeded to cook, for six hours, various egg preparations such as omelettes, oeufs en meurette, and souffles. After class I never wanted to taste another egg in any way, shape, or form. Oddly, the next day I woke up craving eggs, and went about my egg homework.

    Egyptian and Chinese records show that wild fowl were laying eggs for man in 1400 B.C. Europe has had domesticated hens since 600 B.C. It is believed that Columbus, on his second trip to the New World in 1493, brought the first chickens related to those now in egg production. These chickens originated in Asia. There are almost 200 breeds and varieties of chickens but only a few economically important as egg producers. Most laying hens in the United States are single-comb white leghorns.

    There are approximately 280 million laying birds in the U.S., each laying 250 to 300 eggs per year. According to incredibleegg.org, the Web site of the American Egg Board, the U.S. produces about 75 billion eggs per year, about 10 percent of the world’s supply. The site says 60 percent are used by consumers, about 9 percent by the food service industry, and the rest to make egg products like mayonnaise.

    For a while in the 1970s and ’80s eggs were demonized for their cholesterol content and egg consumption dropped. But in 2000 the American Heart Association revised its dietary guidelines for healthy adults, saying one a day is okay. The New York Times assures us that this is true, except for those with diabetes. The Mayo Clinic has found that consuming four egg yolks a week has not been found to increase the risk of heart disease. Now, people on low-fat diets can eat one or two a day without measurable changes in their blood cholesterol levels. Saturated fat in the diet, not dietary cholesterol, is what influences blood cholesterol levels the most.

    As Harold McGee says in “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen,” “neither familiarity nor fear should obscure eggs’ great versatility. Their contents are primal, the unstructured stuff of life. This is why they are protean, why the cook can use them to generate such a great variety of structure.” Eggs can reconcile oil and water into a smooth sauce. They refine the texture of candies and ice creams. They give flavor, substance, and nutritiousness to soups, drinks, breads, pastas, and cakes. On their own, they’re amenable to being boiled, fried, deep-fried, baked, roasted, pickled, and fermented.

    A large, shelled egg weighs about two ounces. The white is mostly water; the yolk contains most of the protein and other vitamins. The best way to store eggs is under refrigeration, in a still location, not on the door of your refrigerator. If you are concerned about salmonella, you should be sure to cook eggs to 140 degrees for five minutes, or 160 degrees for one minute. You can also find pasteurized eggs and egg products at most grocery stores.

    What is the best way to hard boil an egg? Don’t boil it; simmer it gently. Want to avoid that weird gray-green coating around the yolk of hard-boiled eggs? Cook them gently at the recommended cooking time, then plunge into cold water. Have you forgotten which eggs you boiled and which are still raw? Do the spin test. The cooked egg will spin nicely; the raw egg will wobble from the liquid inside.

    The French have always been the most genius at finding versatile methods of egg cookery. Floating Island is a marvelous but fairly obsolete dessert that demonstrates what each component is capable of. The whites are whipped up into a frothy sweet lightness, then poached. The yolks are turned into a rich, vanilla-scented sauce upon which the little islands of meringue can float. The souffle, another French creation, is a tricky but doable concoction if you understand a little of the science to it. Mr. McGee explained it in his book: J.A.C. Charles, a French scientist and balloonist, discovered inflated air in a confined space would expand when heated. Much like a balloon expands when the air inside of it is heated, a souffle will grow up and out of its dish when the air bubbles in the egg are heated in the oven.

    Did you know that you can put a deflated and cooled souffle back into the oven and it will rise again? Not quite as dramatically, but nonetheless. . . .

    One of the beauties of living where we do is we all have access to farm-raised, organic eggs produced by happy hens. You should do a taste and color test of your own. If you are willing to pay the price (still cheap), you will find there is a great deal of difference in flavor and freshness.

    Go buy some eggs and play around with them. Try mastering a simple omelette or tackle some oeufs en meurette. To quote Mr. McGee once again: “The egg does embody the chain of creation, from the developing chick back through the hen to the plants that fed her, and then to the ultimate source of life’s fire, the yellow sphere of the sky. An egg is the sun’s light refracted into life.” The incredible, edible egg.

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 18 Bay

23 North Ferry Road

Shelter Island

749-0053

Dinner Thursday through Saturday

Brunch and early dinners Sundays

beginning April 7

   Eighteen Bay on Shelter Island is the kind of restaurant you see all over Europe but seldom in America. In tiny villages throughout France and Italy you can find little bistros and trattorias serving one menu offering whatever is seasonal and whatever the chefs found at the market that day.

    It’s the same at 18 Bay, which offers one four-course menu but happily accommodates vegetarian and vegan guests with alternative choices on that set menu. Located on North Ferry Road, 18 Bay is in a lovely restored farmhouse with big windows and a covered porch. There is a wood-burning stove at the entrance, a bar in the middle, and about 12 tables all around. It is a quiet and pretty place with shiny dark mahogany-colored floors and creamy buttery yellow walls.

    Upon arrival we decided to try a few of the specialty cocktails at the bar. The cucumber gimlet, no more than Hendrick’s gin, cucumber puree, and lime juice was light, not too sweet, and a relative bargain at $12. When we moved to our table we were served some delicious warm and crusty wheat bread with a cauliflower puree that had a hint of truffle oil in it. I decided to go for the regular set menu and my guest went for the vegan option. The first course was an antipasti platter with four mini portions nestled into four dents of a square plate. The regular menu offered handmade pizzette with mozzarella and roasted tomatoes, baby kale, blood orange, and duck confit salad, roasted beets, and baked Peconic Bay scallops. Each was utterly delicious.

    The pizzette had a chewy, slightly sweet and salty crust and the roasted tomatoes were very flavorful. The baby kale with blood oranges and duck confit was also absolutely divine. The baby kale was remarkably tender and the citrus tang of the blood oranges complimented the richness of the duck. The roasted beet salad included a few pretty and tender stems, a few leaves, and was surrounded by a wonderful pistachio pesto. The Peconic Bay scallop dish was two large scallops nestled in their shells topped with plenty of buttery breadcrumbs. The presentation of these four antipasti was beautiful. The vegan substitutions for this first course were an olive tapenade on the pizzette instead of mozzarella, and grilled fennel as a substitute for the scallops.

    The next course for me was risotto Milanese, the vegan version prepared with Swiss chard. Both were excellent, although I much preferred my more intensely flavored, ultra-cheesy, cooked ­al dente­ Arborio rice treat.

    For entrees there were two choices on the regular menu, either lamb or monkfish osso bucco. I chose the lamb which, again, was excellent. While the serving portions before were somewhat dainty, this was a good-size piece of lamb with a nice bone with marrow. It had an excellent sauce, a light jus, and had a few little potatoes and artichoke heart quarters scattered on top. The gremolata topping didn’t seem to be garlicky, it was a more subtle sprinkling of lots of flat leaf parsley and slivers of blanched lemon peel. The vegan option was a Napa cabbage caponata stuffed Japanese eggplant with maitake mushrooms. It was well seasoned and . . . virtuous.

    The service on the night of our visit was excellent. Everyone is very low key, mellow, soft-spoken, kind. Even the Cure playing through the speakers sounded uncharacteristically mellow. As this is the kind of cozy spot where people chat with each other, we struck up conversations with people at the tables nearby. One couple, local vegetarians, said they come to 18 Bay often. On the other side of us were two hipsters on a date all the way from Brooklyn.

     There is one price at 18 Bay, $55 for the four-course meal. This is a bit steep but the quality of the food justifies it. However, I would feel more comfortable if the vegan and vegetarian offerings were perhaps less. Duck confit, scallops, and lamb shanks are a lot more expensive than cabbage, eggplant, and Swiss chard. Give the vegans a break!

    For dessert there is one choice, a vegan chocolate cupcake served with whipped cream and strawberries or whipped tofu. It is a beautiful little cake with a glistening top of wonderful dark ganache. The cake is very sweet and moist, the whipped cream barely sweetened, just right. I can’t really get my head around whipped tofu, it’s okay.

    The chef-owners, Adam Kopels and Elizabeth Ronzetti, moved 18 Bay from Bayville to Shelter Island in 2011. They are truly dedicated to using local ingredients whenever possible. I loved 18 Bay and can’t wait to see what creativity pops up on the menu as the seasons progress. Bayville’s loss is most assuredly Shelter Island’s gain.

    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.

Salade Tourangelle

    This recipe from “The Taste of France” is more of a guideline, and does not give measurements. Each vegetable is prepared separately but served together on the same platter.

Asparagus tips, cooked and sprinkled with a vinaigrette made with walnut oil and white wine vinegar to which you have added salt and pepper, some finely chopped shallots and a little chopped parsley

Cooked artichoke hearts, with a stronger vinaigrette containing mustard, chopped fresh tarragon, chives, chervil, parsley, and salt and pepper

Cooked green beans, seasoned with same vinaigrette as asparagus

Sticks of celery, strings removed and served raw, sprinkled with lemon juice and salt

Raw button mushrooms, sliced finely and sprinkled with lemon juice, then dressed with heavy cream flavored with mustard, seasoned with salt and pepper, and sprinkled with chopped fresh chervil.

    Serve this salad with toast and fresh walnuts.

Gratin Dauphinois Madame Cartet

    This recipe is from Patricia Wells’s “Bistro Cookbook.”

    Serves four to six.

1 garlic clove

2 lbs. baking potatoes, such as russets, peeled and very thinly sliced.

1 cup (about 3 oz.) freshly grated French or Swiss Gruyere

1 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream

Salt

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub a shallow six-cup porcelain gratin dish with the garlic. Layer half of the potatoes in the dish. Sprinkle with half the cheese and half of the creme fraiche. Sprinkle with salt. Add another layer, using the rest of ingredients. Bake uncovered, until gratin is crisp and gold on top, from 50 to 60 minutes. Serve immediately.

Pan-Fried Onion Dip

    This recipe is originated in Ina Garten’s “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.” I add one extra onion and reduce the fat by using Greek yogurt in place of sour cream, reducing the amount of butter and oil, and using a lighter mayonnaise. Serve this with really good potato chips and crudites.

    Makes two cups.

2 large yellow onions

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup good mayonnaise

    Cut the onions in half, then slice into eighth-inch half rounds. You will have about three cups onions.

    Heat butter and oil in large saute pan on medium heat. Add onions, cayenne, salt, and pepper and saute for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 more minutes, until onions are browned and caramelized. Allow to cool.

    Place cream cheese, sour cream, and mayonnaise in bowl of electric mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until smooth. Add onions and mix well. Taste for seasonings. Serve at room temperature.

    Last week I offered up the first five of my 10 favorite cookbooks, now for the second.

    I had meant to include a “Silver Palate” cookbook but which one? They are all good, and were revolutionary for their time, but I simply couldn’t choose. I am also partial to my little collection of historical cookbooks: Thomas Jefferson’s “Congressional Wives” and “The First Ladies Cookbook,” but none stood out in particular. So I have narrowed my list down to two marvelous French cookbooks, another dessert cookbook, one “Barefoot Contessa,” and one purely for the kitsch factor.

    “The Taste of France” by Robert Freson is one of the most beautiful coffee table-type cookbooks ever. Mr. Freson is best known for his photography and every picture in the book was taken in natural light. The pictures are not glossy, shiny, colorful close-ups of glistening roast chickens and artfully arranged vegetable towers or perfectly symmetrical sci-fi desserts. They are realistic and messy, often portraying the before and after of ingredients. This can be disconcerting when it’s a furry bunny next to a terrine of lapin, but this is France, after all. The book is divided by regions and their cuisines such as Normandy and Brittany, Provence, Perigord, Alsace, etc. The veal scallops with cream and mushroom sauce is one of my favorite recipes, served with sauteed apples and sugar snap peas. Another favorite, so simple and delicious in the summertime, is the salade Tourangelle, no more than a selection of cooked artichoke hearts, asparagus, and green beans served with raw celery and mushrooms. Each vegetable gets its own separate vinaigrette, a sprinkling of herbs such as chervil, and the whole is served with toast and fresh walnuts.

    Ina Garten, a k a the Barefoot Contessa, has written eight books, thus far. I have most of them and have favorite recipes in each. But if I had to choose one, it would be the first, “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.” This book has the only brownie recipe you will ever need, called Outrageous Brownies. There is a curried couscous full of vegetables and my favorite, the pan-fried onion dip. One of the reasons she is so successful with her cookbooks and TV show is that she wants to share recipes that the average home cook anywhere can find the ingredients for. They are simple and foolproof.

    “The Presley Family Cookbook,” a spiral-bound, cheapo production, is more like a regional church or ladies society cookbook. It was compiled by Elvis’s uncle Vester Presley and the longtime cook at Graceland, Nancy Rooks. There are personal anecdotes scattered throughout the book such as after the Twelve-Flavor Ice Cream Dessert, which is one scoop each vanilla, black walnut, banana split, butter pecan, strawberry, chocolate chip, black cherry, lemon, and peach ice cream, and pineapple, lime, and orange sherbet with one pint of fresh strawberries. Ms. Rooks’s notation: “Some days this is all Elvis would have during the day.” After the recipe for Red Eagle Meatball and Spaghetti Dinner (which contains 1/4 cup bacon fat and butter-flavored salt) she added, “This is the last meal Elvis ate.” There are some classic Southern recipes, such as for crowder peas (cook three and a half hours), black-eyed peas (cook three and a half hours), pork ears, feet, and tails (cook two and a half hours), hush puppies (“These are good for children after school”), and fried squirrel (boil, dry, fry.) I think the editors were half asleep when working on this book because some of the black and white photographs are repeated throughout the book. It is definitely more kitsch than kitchen, but I love it.

    I have a lot of cookbooks by professional chefs and/or from well-known restaurants. Quite often the recipes are flawed because the chef is used to producing in great volume and when the recipe is reduced and simplified for the home cook, it simply doesn’t work. This is not the case with Claudia Fleming’s “The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.” Every single recipe I have tried comes out perfectly. Ms. Fleming, who owns and is the pastry chef of North Fork Table, along with her husband, Gerry Hayden, the chef, has divided her book into sections such as berries, stone fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs and flowers, and sweet essences. She is best known for her composed desserts, such as chocolate souffle tart with extra bittersweet chocolate sorbet, milk chocolate malted ice cream, and a chocolate malted. Besides each recipe being accessible and well explained, there are serving suggestions for each dessert so you can keep it simple or be a showoff. This book has the best pecan Sandie cookie recipe ever.

    My last and absolute favorite cookbook of all time is Patricia Wells’s “Bistro Cookbook.” It is my favorite for several reasons. One, bistro-style cooking is my favorite. It is simple, rustic, and seasonal. Secondly, my brother John, an excellent artist, painted a lovely watercolor in the front of the book. When this painting faded away from various cooking stains, he painted it over again. Ms. Wells tells a story about each recipe and the bistro it came from. There are wine suggestions, menus, and various entertaining quotes. Here is the kind of menu that sends me to the store for ingredients: salad of fresh spinach and sauteed chicken livers, Chez Rose’s chicken fricasee with mushrooms, Madame Laracine’s potato gratin, and golden cream and apple tart. Like most of my cookbooks, this one is dog-eared, spattered, and full of my own notes such as this for two chocolate cake recipes in a row: “Great! Would be good served with strawberries or raspberries!” Next page: “Even better!” Madame Cartet’s gratin dauphinois is so easy and delicious. The pear clafoutis with vanilla sugar is simple and inexpensive to make. This book only came out in paperback and it has just a few black and white photos and some sketches. It is simple and classic, just like the recipes within.

    I confess that I love it so much, that when I see a copy at a friend’s house, I pull it off the bookshelf and start to dog-ear and scribble in it.

    Maybe my top 10 list will inspire you to get some of these books, or at the very least, try some of the recipes I have chosen from them. As someone who has cooked professionally for many years, these books probably mean more to me than they would to the average cook. It all boils down to a favorite quote from Grimod de la Reyniere: “Life is so brief that we should not glance either too far backwards or forwards . . . therefore study how to fix our happiness in our glass and in our plate.”

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    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.

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.