Opened, Closed

    Tom Colicchio opened his restaurant at the Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton last weekend. The restored 1842 Greek Revival mansion will also house a luxury inn. The 50-seat eatery will have a locavore focus, with a vegetable-centric menu that includes dishes made with produce grown on an on-site garden plot.

    Mr. Colicchio, the recipient of five James Beard Foundation Awards and the head judge on the Bravo TV show “Top Chef,” has a résumé that includes numerous prominent Manhattan restaurants, among them the Quilted Giraffe, Gotham Bar & Grill, and Gramercy Tavern, which he opened with Danny Meyer in 1994.

    In East Hampton, Spring Close restaurant is shuttered after reports of management and financial difficulties. Its phone has been disconnected and its Web site taken down.

The Blue Parrot

    Southwestern specials at the Blue Parrot in East Hampton include $10 enchiladas on Wednesday, tacos plus a Tecate beer or tequila on Thursday for $12, and a daily happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m. featuring $7 margaritas. For Sunday sports lovers, free chips and salsa are served, along with “touchdown shots.” The Blue Parrot opens at noon Friday through Sunday and at 4 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

Oktoberfest

    The annual Oktoberfest at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton will get under way with a kick-off party on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. The restaurant will be transformed into a traditional German beer garden, with picnic tables in the courtyard and communal dining tables inside. German bar snacks will be offered, such as fresh-baked pretzels with mustard, and knockwurst, bratwurst, and bockwurst platters. There will be traditional Bavarian music, too.

    Beer specials are to include brews served in a Rowdy Hall commemorative beer mug for $7, with refills for $4. Several Oktoberfest beers will be available on tap as well as bottled, and a tasting flight will be offered for $9.

    Throughout Oktoberfest (through Oct. 7), Rowdy will offer a daily “fester preis,” or prix fixe, featuring German fare for $24 each night starting at 5. The dinner specials will change weekly. The first, to be offered beginning Saturday, will include wienerschnitzel with herbed spaetzle and gold beets, with Black Forest trifle for dessert.

Osteria Salina

    At Osteria Salina in Bridgehampton, a “stuzzichini,” or late-night menu, is available starting at 9. It includes Sicilian classics such as fritto misto — shrimp and squid with zucchini, capers, lemons, and arrabiata sauce — and meatballs. Charcuterie plates with imported olives and cheeses and cured meats, served with orange blossom honey and fig marmalade, are also available, as are seafood dishes such as jumbo lump crab cakes with saffron citrus aioli, and yellowfin tuna served with pepperoncino oil, cucumber, and avocado.

Pork and Football

    The football season at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack features not only the games on TV but also specials on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to closing, as well as on Monday nights after 7, during the games. They include a Sunday “pigskin special” for $16, with a half-pound of pork served with potato bread and barbecue sauce, or with tortillas and avocado salsa, plus two sides. A can of Porkslap beer can be added for an extra $3. Townline will also offer beer specials on pints, cans, and pitchers, plus specials on bar snacks to nosh on during the games.

Fall Prix Fixe

    “Economy gastronomy” at Muse in the Harbor, on Sag Harbor’s Main Street, means a $30 prix fixe that includes a choice of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. The special is available all night on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and on Friday and Saturday nights from 5 to 6:30.

Gourmet to Go

    Fall hours at Pepalajefa, a takeout food shop in Sag Harbor, are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday. The shop is closed on Wednesday. Among the offerings are sandwiches, salads, including lentil salad, Argentinean potpies, figs with goat cheese and bacon, roasted potatoes with lemon and cumin, meatloaf, and figs with goat cheese and bacon.

    At Lucy’s Whey cheese shop in East Hampton, the seasonal hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. However, the shop can make up a platter or gift box during the week, if orders are placed by calling its other location at Chelsea Market in Manhattan.

At Camaje

    Abigail Hitchcock, the chef and owner at Camaje Bistro on MacDougal Street in downtown Manhattan and a local girl who attended the Hampton Day School in Bridgehampton and East Hampton High School, has announced a lineup of special events at her restaurant this fall.

    Camaje features Dark Dining Projects, evenings in which diners are invited to explore “new frontiers of sensory experience” that combine new gourmet dishes by Ms. Hitchcock along with music and other elements. One such event was filmed by VH1, and those interested will be able to view it later this fall.

    Also starting up at Camaje is a 13th season of cooking classes, held in the restaurant’s kitchen during service hours. After preparing their own meal, students repair to the dining room to enjoy it with wine. Additional information is on the eatery’s Web site at camaje .com.

Seasonal Cupcakes

    Hamptons Cupcake Lounge has new fall varieties of its cupcakes and “cuptails” — an adult version of the sweets, containing spirits. They include pumpkin spice, caramel apple, Oh So Gingy! and Blueberry Bliss, which uses Duck Walk vineyard blueberry port.

    The cupcakes are made with natural ingredients such as unsweetened applesauce and fruit purées in place of butter and oil, and with Truvia, a natural sweetener, instead of sugar. Eggs are limited, and organic grains are used.

    The cupcakes have been sold at farmers markets, including the Southampton market on Sundays on Job’s Lane, which continues until Oct. 10, but they can also be ordered online at hamptonscupcakelounge.com.

Cooking Demo

    Silvia Lehrer, a Water Mill cookbook author and cooking teacher, will be at the Williams-Sonoma store in Bridgehampton on Saturday. At 11 a.m., she will demonstrate how to prepare mushroom caviar, served on crostini, and an apple galette using local ingredients.

   Where most people’s houses are landscaped by trees, shrubs, or flowering plants, Michael Cinque’s, set back from Montauk Highway opposite an Amagansett gas station, is surrounded on three sides by grape vines, 100 or more, neatly trained against wire trellises but growing so closely up against the windows that you can reach right through and touch them.

    Which, in fact, Mr. Cinque did one night last week, when he and his wife, Amy Slack, were awakened at 3 a.m. to a rhythmic thump-a-thump outside. He threw open a bedroom window as the motion-sensor lights came on, “and there stood a deer with a mouthful of pinot grigio.”

    They have a word for people like Mr. Cinque in France. Garagistes, they call them — men who make wine in their garages.

    Most wine merchants are in business for one reason only, to make a buck. Not this one, not anymore anyway. Mr. Cinque, the owner of Amagansett Wines and Spirits since 1979, has, as they might say in the trade, a full, rich, complex life with sometimes nutty overtones, all revolving around wine.

    Besides the pinot gris, he grows chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and pinot blanc, chosen, he said, because those grapes ripen earliest. A few years ago, when he first started making wine, he would pick each kind separately, which meant monitoring four different vats for a month while they fermented, then “racking” them (siphoning off the sediment) one by one, once or twice a month for the next three months.

    “It was crazy,” he said. “So last year I made a skin-fermented cuvee [blend] of all four.”

    The cuvee, which Mr. Cinque wouldn’t dream of selling — it’s for benefits, friends, and house guests, of whom there’s a steady stream — is similar, he went on, to Grav­ner, a little-known wine from a little-known wine district in northeastern Italy called Fruili, where a man named Josko Gravner produces some of the most sought-after whites in the world. “It’s not good — it’s great!” he raved, speaking as much of the Cinque cuvee as the Gravner Gravner. Once Mr. Cinque is off and running on his favorite subject he becomes almost oblivious to his audience. “He ferments his wines in clay pots lined with beeswax!” he marveled.

    There was envy in his voice as he said this, and sure enough, 15 minutes later, he remarked that he’s been thinking about keeping bees.

    Every day during the 140-day growing season, Mr. Cinque gets up with the sun and pads out with his morning coffee to check on the vines. Watering is not a problem: He’s devised a drip irrigation system buried under the neat rows of crushed stone in which the posts holding the trellises are planted. But trellising, training, spraying, pruning — especially pruning — that’s another story. “Otherwise, it would run wild,” he said. “The vines don’t know they’re supposed to grow fruit. They want to grow leaves and go to the sky. So you’ve got to control them. I force everything to grow at the same level, about three feet, the ideal fruiting height.”

    He learned by doing. “You prune at the top, like privet. Who knows how to prune? It seems easy for the first five vines, then there are 15 to go.” From one plant, he said, he gets six bunches of grapes, though “someone else might have 20. It’s like snipping off the flowers on tomato plants. You wouldn’t have 2,000 tomato plants on a bush, you’d have 12 beauties.”

    Where pruning is predictable, spraying is weather-dependent. Sun-worshippers may remember the summer of 2012 as an almost endless procession of cloudless days, but vintners saw mildew under every leaf. “This was the toughest season,” said Mr. Cinque. “Evening rain, morning rain, 90 days. I was constantly spraying.” All by hand, too — the vines are too close together, on a lot of maybe a third of an acre, to admit of any other way.

    Commercial vineyards, of course, are mechanized. “They put the sprayer on the truck, they turn the handle, and they go,” he said. “I put a 40-gallon sprayer with 32 gallons of spray on my back.” Even that big a load covers only half the vines. He has to fill the thing twice, but “it’s spiritual, it’s good, it’s therapy for me. It’s beyond growing your own tomatoes. It’s raising another kid. What does a wine guy do? Plant more grass? Mow more lawn?”

    When he was a kid himself, growing up in Lynbrook, it was a Sunday ritual to go to his Italian grandparents’ house in Brooklyn, “a brownstone with a tiny backyard and an amazing garden,” where his grandfather grew fig trees, all kinds of vegetables for putting up in winter, and table grapes. The old man bought his wine grapes, though, at the Brooklyn Terminal Market, and 4-year-old Mikey would watch wide-eyed as he made wine on a venerable hand press. “I’ve tried to use it, but it’s too old,” his grandson said regretfully. The press now resides on Main Street, Amagansett, in a corner of his store. “It’s my good-luck charm.”

    Grandpa Cinque lives on also in a homemade red wine that Mr. Cinque calls Mi Famiglia. On the label, made from an old family photo, grandpa and grandson, both beaming, are holding wine glasses. The stains on the 4-year-old’s shirt suggest that he started in the business pretty young.

    The family name, which means “five” in Italian, was originally pronounced chin-quay, but “when my father went into the Army they could never get chin-quay, so he gave up and went to sink-you,” said Mr. Cinque. “They wound up calling him “C.Q.”

    Ever mindful of the past, he would like to revive the old pronunciation, but even with Italian-speakers he runs into snags. “When I call a restaurant and say, ‘Reservation for eight, Chin-quay,’ they say, ‘Is that eight or five?’ ” Some friends simply call him “Mikey Five.” It was the late Jeff Salaway of Nick and Toni’s who started that, years ago when Mr. Cinque set up the restaurant’s first wine program.

    “I have almost 100 friends through food and wine over the years,” Mr. Cinque said: chefs, suppliers, buyers, winemakers, retailers, oenophiles, and others. When they have dinner out together, eight or twelve at a time at top East End restaurants, everyone brings wine. “Last time, someone said, ‘I’m bringing a Barolo.’ I knew it would be a great Barolo, so I brought one too.”

    At one of those dinners two weeks ago everyone agreed to bring Rhone wines. One man was new to the group. “I told the new guy, ‘Bring your best Rhone, because they will.’ ”

    He pulled down a bottle of red from a kitchen shelf. It was a gift, he said, from “my paisan from Arthur Avenue. People bring me their home brew. He has Mike’s Deli in the Arthur Avenue Market,” in the Bronx.

    Deli Mike also dropped off packages of homemade prosciutto and sopressata, a large pan of tiramisu, and a tall bottle of deep gold olive oil with a label you have never seen on a store shelf, when he was here cooking for a charity event they did together in Southampton, one of dozens Mr. Cinque contributes to each year. Among the beneficiaries are the Peconic Land Trust, the Hayground School, the Children’s Museum of the East End, the Ross School, Guild Hall, Souper Tuesday at Eli’s Farmers Market — the list goes on. Mr. Cinque, a member of the all-volunteer Amagansett Fire Department, president of the Amagansett Library board of trustees, and active on more committees than a flowchart could comfortably contain, is nothing if not community-minded.

    On or about Oct. 2, their wedding anniversary, he and Ms. Slack, who is CMEE’s program director, will bring in the last of this year’s grapes. “She picks and I crush,” he said. “This will be my fourth leaf” — winespeak for harvest.

    A visitor left Mr. Cinque to wander among the vines, where, he said, “most mornings, I sing and pray a lot and laugh and cry. I don’t know how many dead relatives have visited me.”

   It may be firmly post-Labor Day, but almost all of the local farmers markets continue. Going through the close of September are the East Hampton Farmers Market, on North Main Street on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the Shelter Island Farmers Market, on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the grounds of the Shelter Island Historical Society on South Ferry Road. The Saturday markets at Ashawagh Hall in Springs and in Sag Harbor at Bay and Burke Streets, which both take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., will extend through October. The farmers market at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton concluded at the end of August.

Rosh Hashanah Fare

    Homemade gefilte fish and other items for New Year meals will be sold at Stuart’s Seafood in Amagansett. Advance orders would be appreciated.

Fall Wine Previews

    Amagansett Wine and Spirits is offering a series of “one-shot special score” deals for members of its “inner circle.” Customers who join through the shop’s Web site, amagansettwine.com, will receive e-mails featuring wines at special savings.

Fall Hours

    Phao restaurant in Sag Harbor is now serving dinner from 5:30 to 10 p.m. from Sunday through Thursday, and until 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

    Right next door on Sag Harbor’s Main Street, Sen serves during the same hours from Sunday through Thursday, but until 11 p.m. on the weekend.

Watch Football, Eat

    Those who like to have a bite at a local eatery while not missing a football game will find specials at the bar every Sunday and Monday night during the games at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett. A hamburger, six chicken wings, and a pint of draft beer will be offered for $16 on Monday nights at the bar or in the dining room, and items on a bar menu, served only to those who belly up, will be $5. All pints of draft beer will be $4 during football games.

    At Muse in the Harbor in Sag Harbor, a special bar menu will be offered on Monday nights from 5 p.m. until the end of the game, and draft beers will be $4. To spice things up, bartenders will allow customers ordering a draft beer to roll a pair of dice; if they roll doubles, the beer will be on the house.

Culinary Garden Tour

    Bryan Futerman, the chef and owner of Foody’s in Water Mill, will offer a “culinary tour” of Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton on Sunday between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. There will be wines selected by Michael Cinque of Amagansett Wine and Spirits, a “recipe hunt” through the gardens, and a raffle featuring prizes, including a private dinner at the gardens.

    The event is sponsored by the Peconic Land Trust. Tickets are $125 for adults and $35 for children, and can be ordered through the organization’s Web site, peconiclandtrust.org. Proceeds will be used to support Bridge Gardens.

    Now that Labor Day has passed, restaurants are rejiggering for the fall season.

    Beginning next Thursday, Bostwick’s Chowder House in East Hampton will be serving on Thursday through Sunday, opening at 11:30 a.m. for lunch, and continuing through the dinner hours.

    At Muse in the Harbor, on Sag Harbor’s Main Street, brunch featuring both breakfast and lunch items will be served on Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. On the menu is a version of French toast made with challah bread stuffed with peanut butter mousse, grilled New York strip steak served with roasted red pepper home fries, eggs, and toast, and organic turkey and veggie burgers on toasted brioche buns.

    Muse will also be serving dinner nightly from 5 to 10 p.m., and the bar will remain open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

    During a “steel drum happy hour” on Mondays, there are $4 draft beers and island rum punch for $8.

Sunday Brunch

    At Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, a Sunday brunch offers an alternative to a weekend beach day now that the weather will begin to shift.

    An a la carte brunch menu, including specialty brunch cocktails, will be offered each week from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The restaurant serves house-made breakfast pastries along with whipped honey butter and homemade preserves, as well as egg dishes, red flannel hash, and more.

    Along with brunch, the fall schedule at Nick and Toni’s includes dinner on Wednesday through Monday beginning at 6 p.m.

Foodie Tour

    Farming, local foods, and chefs will be highlighted on Saturday when the North Fork Foodie Tour will provide an opportunity to learn about the bounty of Long Island’s North Fork.

    The self-guided daylong event will include an opportunity for behind-the-scenes tours and an introduction to local food producers, methods of sustainable agriculture, and artisanal foods and wines.

    From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., participants have been invited to visit a host of North Fork locations including the Catapano Dairy Farm, the North Fork Egg Farm, Lavender by the Bay lavender farm, Harbes Family Farm, and the Croteaux Vineyard. Other sites include Shinn Estate Vineyards, Patty’s Berries and Bunches, Sang Lee Farms, and Satur Farms.

     There will be a tomato tasting, as well as a chance to sample dishes made with local ingredients by members of the Slow Food organization. Keith Luce, the chef at the Luce and Hawkins restaurant at the Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport, will give a cooking demonstration.

    Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased online at brownpapertickets. com/event/244944, or on the day of the tour at participating locations, including the Peconic Land Trust’s Agricultural Center at Char­new’s Farm in Southold, which will serve as event headquarters and provide maps to the featured sites and a schedule of special events. Children under 12 may participate for free.

    The annual event is presented by the North Fork Reform Synagogue and a number of other sponsors.

Clam and Chowder House

At Salivar’s Dock

470 West Lake Drive

Montauk

668-6252

Lunch and dinner, Thursday

through Monday, noon-4 p.m.

and 5-10 p.m.

When I brought a group of friends to review Westlake Clam and Chowder House a few years ago, they tried to convince me to write a mediocre review. Everyone loved it so much they wanted it to be “their little secret.” Well, “their little secret” has moved and expanded, to what seems to be triple the original size, and is now called the Clam and Chowder House at Salivar’s Dock. What used to be home of the best hangover eggs is now the home of awesome sushi and more.

Not much has changed in the venerable Salivar’s huge bar area. The massive mounted and hung fish remain, the tail of a 540-pound thresher shark hangs over the bar, the jaws of a 4,500-pound great white shark gape from a wall, and a few disco balls add some sparkle. It is a beautiful high-ceilinged room with a neon Salivar’s sign, green-and-white-checked linoleum floor, and is about as noisy as a bar can get. Granted there were dueling sports events that evening, the Belmont race and U.S. vs. Nigeria soccer.

To the left of the bar are various levels of dining options, indoors and outdoors, upstairs and downstairs. There is a long sushi bar and an upper deck to take in lovely sunset views. After dodging spindly lasses in stiletto heels mincing along the roadways to reach Cyril’s and the Surf Lodge, we arrived at the Clam and Chowder House early enough to get a table outside.

We began our meal with buffalo blowfish tails, shrimp shumai, and shaved brussels sprouts salad. To serve blowfish with buffalo wing sauce is genius, and this was an excellent example. The crunchy tails were coated with just enough hot sauce to enhance the sweet mildness of the fish. Four big ones were on a platter of lettuce with the usual accoutrements — carrot and celery sticks and a good blue cheese dressing. The shrimp shumai were very good. It’s hard to tell if they were made in house or commercially. What enhanced them were the light, somewhat meaty sauce on the bottom of the plate and some delicate slivers of scallion.

The shaved brussels sprouts salad was excellent. The finely shredded sprouts were tossed with fresh peas, some frisee, toasted walnuts, shredded Parmesan, and a pretty, edible orchid.

For entrees we tried the pan-seared yellowfin tuna, pan-roasted fluke, and a Fire Island sushi roll. The pan-seared yellowfin tuna was a generous portion, two big steaks cooked medium rare with just a bit of salt and pepper. They were topped with a shredded papaya salad with red onions. It was similar to Thai green papaya salad, but the papaya was halfway ripened so it was slightly sweet. The tuna was on a bed of black rice (also known as “forbidden” rice as it used to be reserved only for royalty). Black rice is crunchy and nutty and nutritious! There were a few swirls of a tasty basil vinaigrette on the plate, which just made the whole dish delicious.

The pan-roasted fluke was another winner. It was kind of a deconstructed fish taco. The fluke fillets were piled on top of a mild avocado puree with a corn and crab salad, crumbled tortilla chips, and roasted shishito peppers. The corn and crab salad was sweet, the avocado rich and creamy, the shishitos slightly spicy. My only criticism of this dish is that the shishitos were overcooked, just slightly limp, as though they’d been boiled before roasting.

The Fire Island roll was also excellent. Sometimes I order rolls with too much stuff in them, on them, and around them, but all of the flavors and textures of this roll came through. The shrimp tempura stayed crunchy (no mean feat at a marina), and the spicy tuna and kani were flavorful. The best part was the creamy yuzu, drizzled along the sasa (bamboo) leaf lining the platter. Soy sauce was superfluous.

For such a large, busy, and casual place, the Clam and Chowder House was impressively clean and organized. The staff are friendly and professional. Our waiter was excellent; he knew his stuff.

The prices at the Clam and Chowder House are moderate. Soups, salads, and appetizers are $4 to $16, entrees are $18 to $38 (or market price), kids menu items are $7 to $10, sushi, sashimi, and handrolls are $3 to $18.75, and desserts are $9.

The desserts are made in-house and are given as verbals, with no printed menu. We only had room for two, so we tried the ice cream sandwich and banana cream pie. They are not skimpy on the whipped cream! The ice cream sandwich was two fat macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies with coconut ice cream and fudge sauce underneath. Did I mention whipped cream? The cookies were very good, the coconut ice cream also very good, but the fudge sauce the best. It was the old-fashioned kind that starts off warm and gooey, then thickens on contact with the cold ice cream. The banana cream pie was also very good, super fresh with a fluffy vanilla pudding full of bananas in a flaky crust and lots and lots of, you guessed it, whipped cream.

A few other noteworthy aspects of Clam and Chowder House are the fishing vessels named on the menu and the $20 nightly wine special. Thank you, Standin’ Up, Lady K, Alexandria Down, New Species, Babalou, Panther, Sequel 1, Ocean Spirit, and 2 Sea Sons for your fresh, fresh fish, and thank you, owners of Clam and Chowder House, for taking the sting out of buying a decent bottle of wine with dinner.

Clam and Chowder House cannot be anybody’s “little secret.” It’s just too good.

It’s Marvelous

    Tomorrow from 4 to 7 p.m., the new Mary’s Marvelous store on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village will have an opening party featuring free hors d’oeuvres, and samples of smoothies and baked goods.

    The new store, where Bucket’s deli used to be, will be the second location for the takeout food shop first opened by Mary Schoenlein in Amagansett 10 years ago.

    It will feature packaged goodies such as cakes, cookies, and spiced nuts, along with other retail goods as well as ready-to-go and made-to-order sandwiches and other dishes, such as soups, vegetables, and grain dishes. At breakfast time, Mary’s makes steel-cut organic oatmeal and its signature “eggs Colombian.” There will be a smoothies menu, as well as a larger salad menu at the East Hampton store.

    The shop will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

At Gosman’s Dock

    Visits to Montauk can be especially nice in the early fall, and Gosman’s Dock restaurant has a lineup of prix fixe dinner specials that will be offered after Labor Day.

    Mondays will be burger or rib night, with dinners for $15, Wednesdays will feature the local seafood catch of the day prepared with a seasonal twist and served with a glass of wine for $24, Thursdays are steak nights, also for $15, and on “fried Fridays” diners will have a choice of fried shrimp, fish and chips, or a fisherman’s platter with coleslaw and French fries for $15. Sunday nights will be lobster nights, with a $24 prix fixe to include a 1 1/4-pound lobster, corn on the cob, coleslaw, and fries.

The Lobster Roll

    The Lobster Roll on the Napeague Stretch will remain open seven days a week for lunch and dinner for a while, and is offering specials as well as a happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. daily featuring $5 margaritas.

Silvia Lehrer and Her Book

    Silvia Lehrer, the author of “Savoring the Hamptons: Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End,” will give a cooking demonstration at the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton on Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. She will prepare guacamole with tomatillos.

Saturday Party

    Spring Close Restaurant is celebrating the end of summer with a Spring Open Labor Day Party on Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. featuring music. After Labor Day, the restaurant will fire up its wood oven to prepare early fall menu items, and will be once again serving lunch.

Tomato Taste-Off

    The 14th annual tomato taste-off at the Peconic Land Trust’s Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett will get under way at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Volunteers are needed tomorrow to help harvest tomatoes, either during a morning or afternoon session, as well as to prepare buckets for tomato rinsing. On Saturday, helpers are being sought for set up, beginning at 7:30 a.m. at the farm orchard, for assistance during the event, and for cleanup after the tasting is finished at noon. Those interested in lending a hand have been asked to sign up at the Quail Hill farmstand or to send an e-mail to [email protected].

    Nearly 50 varieties of organically grown tomatoes will be laid out for tasting, including cherry tomatoes, paste tomatoes, and heirloom varieties. Tasters will visit various tables with a clipboard in hand to rate the flavor of each. The names of the tomatoes that receive highest accolades will be posted on the trust’s Web site at PeconicLandTrust.org. The cost to participate is $10; free for kids under age 12. In case of heavy rains, the event will be canceled. Those planning to attend have been asked to park on Deep Lane and to walk into the orchard.

   About two dozen members of the Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons in Sag Harbor celebrated their new cookbook recently with a “Munch ’n’ Brunch” at the home of Marcy and Emil Braun in Bridgehampton. In attendance were many of the women and men who provided the recipes, who brought tastes of dishes including flourless gateau de mousse chocolate, mushroom quiche, Aunti Gertie’s apple pie Canarsie, and Egyptian charoset.

    While some guests mingled and tasted on the poolside patio, Ms. Braun offered a challah-baking demonstration in her kitchen. As she braided and twisted the dough, she offered tips: Begin in the middle, where it’s widest, then tapers down. “Yeast is everything,” she advised. “Don’t stand around all day waiting for bread to rise.”

    Acceding to popular demand, Ms. Braun made pumpkin challah, which, she explained, requires the cook to cut the water in the recipe in half, and decrease the amount of oil. Crucial to successful challah, she warned, is the exact measurement of salt. “Count and count again,” she said.

    Challah is commonly baked in the Jewish tradition. It is not specific to any holiday, but works particularly well for kosher cooks, who must prepare food before sundown on Friday to last through Saturday, when kitchen work is traditionally prohibited.

    Titled “Ekhol B’Simha,” which means “Eat in Joy,” the cookbook is named after a traditional Shabbat song usually sung around the table. Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, who was in attendance, explained that blessings are recited before and after eating, to focus attention on the nourishment gained from the meal and in anticipation of “the pleasure of the meal,” thus the title of the book, for which she wrote the introduction. She wrote that food, among other things, is a catalyst for intimacy with others, a way of expressing care and concern for others, and a setting around which words of the Torah are discussed.

    The cookbook is dedicated to Marion Gotbetter, the daughter of longtime congregation members, who was known as a master personal chef and baker. Ms. Gotbetter’s mother was brought to tears at the sight of a sign, upon the table where cookbooks and aprons were displayed, with a picture of her daughter. “That’s just the way she was,” she said, “always with a smile.”

    Near the cookbook display were long tables filled with dishes from the book. Stacy Menzer, president of the congregation, presented salmon in the dishwasher. The fish, she said, is wrapped in double foil with spices, then run through a full cycle on the top rack of a dishwasher (with no detergent!). The cookbook explains that this is an easy way to have a dish ready for Seudah Shelishit on Friday, without taking away oven space for Shabbat dinner.

    A piece of the challah dough was removed before Ms. Braun baked it, and it was wrapped in foil and burned. Rabbi Uhrbach said this was part of the tradition of “giving of the first of everything to God . . . and dedicating it.”

    As the challah was ready to be baked until golden, glazed, and topped, voices of song emerged from the living room, where Cantor Marcos Askenazi and Rabbi Uhrbach led a group in secular melodies, as well as a Hebrew/English version of the Beatles’ “Let It Be,” and Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”

    More than 125 recipes fill the book, in seven categories: challah and other breads, soups and salads, vegetarian and dairy, fish, chicken and meat, desserts, and Passover favorites. Dishes range from rich delicacies such as Brooklyn Heights brownies to tri-color gefilte fish loaf, as well as such basics as vegetarian chili and matzoh balls.

    The $20 cookbook also includes tips and hints, a measurement equivalency chart, suggestions for quick fixes, calorie counts, and even napkin-folding.  Proceeds will benefit the general fund of the synagogue.

Click for recipe

    Kathleen King, who has forged a baking empire with her goods now sold under the Tate’s Bake Shop name, garnering accolades from foodies such as Ina Garten and Rachael Ray, will sign copies of her new cookbook, “Baking for Friends,” at the mint-green painted shop on North Sea Road in Southampton on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m.

    “Baking for Friends” includes gluten-free, low-fat, vegan, and nut-free recipes among the categories of muffins, pies, tea loaves, cookies, and party cakes, to name just a few, along with tips on stress-free baking. It is Ms. King’s second cookbook, after a 2006 release, “The Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook.”

    Those who attend Saturday’s event will be able to purchase an advance copy of the book and to taste some of Tate’s sweets, as well as to enter a drawing for a chance to win a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Zucchini Pepper Soup

    Anna Pump’s recipe for zucchini pepper soup, which was included in the “Hamptons Long Island Homegrown Cookbook,” will be prepared during a free cooking demonstration at the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton on Saturday. It will take place from noon to 2 p.m.

More Summertime Soup

    Produce from the Peconic Land Trust’s Quail Hill Farm will be used to make the soup that will be sold at the trust’s next “Souper Tuesday” at the Amagansett Farmers Market. Each cup of soup costs $6, which will benefit the land trust’s conservation efforts.

    The event, from 5 to 7 p.m., will include live music, tastings of local wines, and a chance to chat with farmers and Peconic Land Trust staff. It will not take place if it rains.

Swallow East

474 West Lake Drive, Montauk

668-2500

Noon to 11 p.m., daily, late bar menu available until 1 a.m.

Seasonal

   What fun we had at Swallow East the other night! Winston Irie was playing, the evening was beautiful, and the restaurant was packed but not insanely, unmanageably so.

    Swallow East is located on the dock on Montauk’s West Lake Drive, where Lenny’s used to be. It is huge and open with indoor and outdoor dining. There is a big bar at the front, an open kitchen to the left where you can watch your small plates being prepared, and a nice patio with strings of lights and bright orange chairs. Other than some huge nautical flags and cool black and white photographs, there is not much in the way of decor, nor do they need it. Who needs a bouquet of flowers when you can look out at the Makowish, Adios, and Lazy Bones?

    The scene at Swallow East is 99 percent young and good looking. You will see plenty of locals, young families, and a few fishermen. Yes, they do still exist out here in the midst of the jeunesse dorée who have made Montauk their latest nesting place.

    Upon entering we were greeted by at least three hostesses, all friendly and helpful and directing the flow like air traffic controllers. Our wait for a table was only 20 minutes, which gave us a chance to go outside and enjoy Mr. Irie’s gentle reggae.

    The menu is great fun, just small plates with emphasis on seafood. I always appreciate the chance to try several dishes rather than commit to one large entree. We began with blue point oysters, seaweed salad, steamed mussels, and fresh mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes.

    The blue points were excellent, served with lemon wedges, a nice mignonette with shallots, a creamy horseradish sauce, and my favorite, a tiny bottle of Tabasco. The seaweed salad was also delicious, but it takes no finesse; it always comes prepackaged from Japan.

    The steamed mussels, all Prince Edward Island, come with a tempting variety of preparation options such as curry, shallots and cream, or smoked tomato and grilled scallions or toasted fennel with roasted garlic. We opted for the coconut, cilantro, and lime broth and it was delicious. For a small plate offering at $14, this was a generous portion. It was served with a slightly sweet wedge of toasted bread, more like Texas toast than baguette. The broth was delicious with a hint of sweet chili sauce.

    The fresh mozzarella salad, highly recommended by our excellent waitress Tessa, was worth it. The mozzarella is made in-house and it verges on being more like burrata with a creamy, rich center. The pesto was made with pistachios and it had just enough zesty garlic in it to make the heirloom cherry tomatoes taste sweeter. The whole was sprinkled with mache leaves, delicate and pretty.

    Next we tried some of the tacos, one with fried clams, the other pulled chicken. The servings, two tacos each, are just enough. The clam taco was very good, served with a pickled jalapeno tartare sauce. Unfortunately, the pulled chicken was a dud. Served with grilled scallions and queso fresco, all I could taste was canned tomatoes, a bit tinny.

    Our second round of dishes were the asparagus fries, barbecue prawns, crispy calamari, and “peeking” duck.

    The asparagus fries were ridiculously good. They were in an excellent super-crisp beer batter and served with a tart lemon Dijon aioli. The prawns were also excellent except for one addition. The big head-on prawns were perfectly cooked, served with stone ground grits, andouille sausage, and grilled pineapple. As the perfectly cooked grits were cheesy, the pineapple seemed superfluous. The crispy calamari were outstanding — crunchy little rings served in a Chinese takeout box and drizzled with sweet chili sauce, chopped peanuts, and scallions. The “peeking” duck was also a winner. A moist shredded duck confit, it was served in two little steamed buns with leeks, cucumber, and hoisin sauce.

    Service on the night of our visit was excellent. Besides our lovely waitress, there were plenty of bussers refilling water glasses and tending to every detail in this fairly new, extremely busy, and big restaurant. Among my few gripes are that the oysters were served on a plate lined with a napkin filled with ice. As it melted, the water seeped through the slats of our outdoor table. Also an empty discard bowl for the mussel and oyster shells would have been nice.

    The prices at Swallow East are moderate. It is easy to look at a small plate menu and think you are saving money. However, once you have ordered two small plates you have already spent $28. But the small plates here are quite generous and satisfying. Raw bar offerings are $6 to $15, the rest of the menu ranges from $7 to $16. The dainty desserts are a mere $4.

    For desserts, made in-house, we tried the chocolate peanut butter cake, creme brulée, and bread pudding. The chocolate peanut butter cake was very good, rather like a moist brownie or flourless chocolate cake with a layer of peanut butter in the center. The creme brulée, served in a tiny espresso cup, was also good. The one we loves best of all, however, was the bread pudding. It was just a delicious slice of eggy, caramely goodness.

    While I am generally loath to go anywhere the throngs may be at this time of year (movie theater, Main Street, Waldbaum’s, Round Swamp Farm, my beloved Stephen Talkhouse) it was fun to immerse ourselves in one of the latest hot spots on the East End. Winston Irie’s music was great, Swallow East fun, and the food a delight.

    Irie, irie!

   There is news for the Mary’s Marvelous fans out there who have been wondering when Mary Schoenlein, the Amagansett food shop’s owner and executive chef, would open the doors of her new location on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village.

    A grand opening party for the new store, which comprises the old Bucket’s Deli site plus the space next door, will take place on Aug. 31. The interiors have been renovated, and, on one side, will contain a packaged food retail section featuring baked goods and more, and on the other, a place to order the fresh-made specialties for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that are featured at the current Mary’s Marvelous store. The Amagansett location is now open till 6 p.m.

East End Chefs

    The next East End Chefs session, a series of cooking classes and tastings at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, will be presented by “the butcher, the baker, and the mozzarella maker,” according to a release. Three chef-owners of the Red Horse Market in East Hampton will show attendees how to prepare homemade mozzarella, cold seafood salad with orzo, and a key lime parfait. Along with the food, wine will be served. Admission costs $30 at the door, but reservations have been requested as space is limited. They can be made by calling the church.

Savoring the Hamptons

    Silvia Lehrer will present tastings from her cookbook, “Savoring the Hamptons: Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End,” at the Bridge Gardens on Mitchell Lane in Bridgehampton tomorrow from 2 to 4 p.m.  Admission is $25. The event is sponsored by the Peconic Land Trust, and reservations, which have been requested, can be made by calling the land trust’s Southampton offices.

Summertime Treats

    Special-sounding ice cream flavors made by Jeni’s ice cream are available at Lucy’s Whey in East Hampton, along with late summer fruit tarts and plenty of cheeses. The ice cream comes in dark chocolate, pistachio honey, and sweet corn blackberry varieties.

Souper Tuesdays

    The Peconic Land Trust is holding Souper Tuesdays each week in August  from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Amagansett Farmers Market. Each Tuesday, there will be a soup made with ingredients grown at one of the featured local farms, which include Amber Waves, Balsam, Sunset Beach, and Quail Hill. Michael Cinque of Amagansett Wines and Spirits will provide tastings of local wines, and farmers and land trust staff will be on hand to meet attendees. The event will be canceled in case of rain. Tuesday’s featured farm will be Balsam Farm.v