The news for local foodies this week includes notices about restaurants one can cross off the list, either seasonally or permanently.

    Rugosa restaurant in East Hampton closed up shop for good as of last weekend. In Montauk, Dave’s Grill ended its 2011 season, and, on Napeague, the Lobster Roll will serve its final plates of seafood for this year on Sunday.

Cape Cod Scallops

    Scallop lovers can tide themselves over until local scallops are in by stopping at Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett, which for now has Cape Cod scallops.

Brunch Goes Down

    The price of Sunday brunch at Cafe Max in East Hampton has gone down, from $20 to $18. It includes three courses. A la carte entrees, for $14 to $16, are also available. The brunch is served from noon to 3 p.m.

Fudge on Food

    Footage from a visit by the Food Network to the indoor Sag Harbor farmers market will air on Monday at 1 p.m. It includes coverage of Donna McCue and her Fat Ass Fudge.

    The company now offers a chocolate martini mix. Products can be ordered online at Fat-AssFudge.com.

Steak, Fajitas

    Tuesday is steak night at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett. A three-course dinner includes soup or salad, steak with potato and vegetable, and a choice of dessert, all for $26. On Wednesday, fajita night, a choice of fajita with steak, chicken, or vegetables is $17, and there are discount margaritas.

    Late nights at Indian Wells — from 10 to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays — are ladies nights, with $6 glasses of wine and cosmopolitans for those of the right gender.

Wine and Dine

    Taste, Wine, and Dine, a four-course wine-tasting dinner at the Living Room restaurant in East Hampton, will take place tonight with two seatings, at 6 and 6:45. The evening begins with a tasting of six wines and an opportunity for diners to choose four selections to accompany the meal. The cost is $95 per person plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are required.

Halloween Cookies

    Cookies for trick-or-treating will be prepared during a free cooking demonstration at the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton on Saturday from noon to 2 p.m.

    Green mustard, pink-flecked cakes, squid-inky-black quenelles, and oysters and crabs and scallops overflowing from sidewalk vendors. These are just a few of the sights and tastes that thrill a gourmand’s heart.

    I had the great good fortune of spending last week in Paris as the guest of my fellow foodie and dear friend Tommy. Upon arrival in late morning we were greeted by his partner, Mike, with a staggering platter of croissants, whole grain breads, apple tarts, slices of ham and cheese and butter and jams. “No, no,” insisted Tommy. “If we’re going out for lunch we shouldn’t eat now.” I grabbed the apple tart and skulked away with it, nibbling away at the flakiest, sweetest little pastry I had ever tried. I may also have nicked a slice of ham and a dainty wedge of cheese but I don’t recall. I was jet-lagged.

    Lunch was at Chez Janou and began with tiny fried fish called éperlans, a type of smelt. I virtuously moved on to a simple salad with baked slices of goat cheese. Mike enjoyed the rouget (red mullet) over a bed of saffron-infused julienned vegetables, and Tommy tucked into a smoked duck salad. As we all agreed that dessert was completely unnecessary, a large bowl of chocolate mousse passed by our table. “Just a taste,” we told our waitress. Well, that’s not the way it works in France. When it comes to dishes like celeri remoulade or rice pudding or the aforementioned chocolate mousse, it is most likely to be placed on your table, the entire bowl, and left for you to scoop out as much as you desire. It’s kind of an honor system that would never work in America, much less get by any health department inspector in the U.S.

    We briefly mapped out our priorities for the upcoming days. As Mike lives and works in the Marais, he had no other obligations than to enjoy my scintillating company and witty repartee. Tommy, a designer, was on a mission to find dining chairs from the flea market for a client in San Francisco, visit some hardware stores, and be my partner in food crimes. My mission was to taste as much as I could of what Paris has to offer without breaking the bank, and find inspiration as pastry chef and food writer. Neither the Louvre nor d’Orsay nor a double-decker bus tour nor bateau mouche down the Seine were on my list.

    We tried hard to establish rules: Only one major piglet fest would be allowed per day, for both monetary and digestive reasons. If a nap seemed a possibility, then a little daytime drinking was permitted. As Tommy is a superb cook, we also planned out a few meals to have in the apartment.

    The biggest thrill of being in Paris is walking everywhere. The subway system is also efficient, as is the rental of a public bicycle to get around swiftly and deposit somewhere else in the city for the next person who needs it. What astounded me most were the specialized shops. Yes, there are still butcher shops and pastry shops and bakeries and candy stores and cheese mongers. But there was one store that sold nothing but quenelles, savory little oval mounds of pike and veal and squid ink or vegetables, sweet quenelles of apple and vanilla and pistachios. To accompany them, you could choose from an array of appropriate accompanying sauces. Imagine that, a store that specializes in a side dish!

    Quenelles are a French version of German dumplings, basically a ground mixture of fish or meat or whatever, bound with a bit of breadcrumbs and egg, then poached.

    Another specialty shop sold nothing but tremendously amusing cakes made of brioche dough into which crushed hot pink pralined almonds have been folded and baked. “Think Sara Lee coffee cake,” suggested Tommy before my first bite. Indeed, it was reminiscent of those rich, nutty, buttery breakfast cakes of my youth. My first Proustian moment in Paris!

    One store specialized in honey, another in mustards. One store, looking like a sleek medical laboratory, sold nothing but frozen foods. I was assured that the quality was surprisingly good, but we passed on purchasing anything.

    One of my goals was to try food from the lowest end of the culinary spectrum of Paris (our McDonald’s, natch) to the highest, perhaps Taillevent. Was it true that the Paris McDonald’s is superior? That Gruyere cheese was used on le grand mac instead of American? Non! It was exactly the same except for a nice little curry sauce instead of ranch or barbecue. Taillevent was deemed too expensive and time-consuming, even for lunch, so we “settled” for some less expensive establishments.

    One of the highlights of exploring food in Paris was the diversity of choices. One lunch was at a tiny, popular Vietnamese restaurant. Spring rolls, lacquered duck, sticky rice, pork belly, and a zesty salad of julienned carrots, vermicelli noodles, crushed peanuts, and cilantro, all washed down with beer. Uh, that was one of our “no lunch because we’re having a rich dinner” days. (The Vietnamese have been migrating to France since the early 20th century due to France’s colonization of Vietnam. By the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, there had been a massive influx of refugees.)

    There are also many Middle Eastern restaurants and food stalls throughout Paris, serving tagines with couscous and fiery harissa. We paused just long enough at one to enjoy a pastilla stuffed with pigeon, almonds, and raisins, along with a few links of spicy merguez lamb sausage to fortify us. We stopped for another snack at a Chinese restaurant and had chunks of crispy fried chicken, topped with chopped onions and served with a spicy ketchup.

    For over 20 years, a friend has been sending me seeds from a plant shop named Vilmorin. No offense to the folks at Burpee, but these seeds grow tastier mache, mesclun, and arugula than any others I have tried. We made a pilgrimage to Vilmorin and I spent more euros on seeds than I did on my smashing new scarf! I can already imagine next summer’s salads, born in France, raised on Long Island, dotted with chervil, lightly dressed with mustard from Maille. Perhaps followed by my own attempts at that kooky, candy-colored Proustian pink cake!

    Stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon, where we break baguette with ex-husband (!), run into friends from East Hampton (!!), and get serious about the best and most affordable ways to eat in Paris.

Click for Recipes

    Spring Close restaurant in East Hampton has some new additions to draw visitors to its dining tables and hospitable bar. A pub menu has been added, as well as a new lunch menu and new items on the dinner menu. The wood-fired oven is being put to use every day to make thin-crust pizzas.

    Running the kitchen now at Spring Close is Justin Hoke, a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology Culinary School, who worked at Le Bec Fin, a five-star restaurant in Philadelphia.

At Babette’s

    New hours at Babette’s in East Hampton are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. A prix fixe dinner menu is available all night on Friday, and on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. New dinner items include pan-seared scallops with roasted brussels sprouts, grilled yellow squash, pecans, and a carrot-ginger reduction, as well as sesame-crusted tofu with grilled asparagus, sautéed mushrooms, and organic brown rice with a sweet soy dressing.

Restaurant Week

    Long Island Restaurant Week begins on Sunday. At participating restaurants across Long Island, diners will be offered a three-course prix fixe for $24.95. The promotion runs through Nov. 13, but is only available on Saturday night until 7 p.m.  More than 220 restaurants are participating.

    Those on the South Fork include: Almond, the 1770 House, Fresno, the Living Room, Michaels’ of Maidstone, Nick and Toni’s, and Serafina in East Hampton, Gulf Coast Kitchen at the Montauk Yacht Club, little/red and red/bar brasserie in Southampton, and Muse Restaurant and Aquatic Lounge in Water Mill.

    This year, LITweetup Helps, a campaign to help neighbors in need, will hold a food drive at participating restaurants, which will collect nonperishable food items and supermarket gift cards or cash during restaurant week. In East Hampton, Nick and Toni’s will participate from Wednesday to Nov. 13 from 6 to 10 p.m. On Wednesday the restaurant will also host a “Tweetup,” a gathering of people who enjoy social networking and are connected on Twitter, at 6 p.m.

Thanksgiving Dishes

    A series of free cooking demonstrations at Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton this month will focus on making dishes for Thanksgiving using a TurboChef oven. On Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., zucchini crostini appetizers will be on the menu.

Autumn Wine Dinner

    Rowdy Hall in East Hampton will host an autumn wine dinner next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. for $75. The wines were selected by Jacques Franey of Domaine Franey Wines. The menu will include passed hors d’oeuvres of Napeague Bay oysters with Wolffer Verjus mignonette, chanterelle mushroom tarts, roasted Balsam cheese pumpkin wrapped in Serrano ham, country terrine on baguette, and Iacono Farms chicken liver paté on the table. These will be paired with a Hughes Beaulieu, Picpoul de Pinet 2010.

    The first course will be garbure, a rich French stew with a Roquefort crouton served with Le Clos, Languedoc Rouge 2010. The second course is a chicory salad with lardons, sourdough croutons, and a soft cooked egg paired with Chateau du Cedre, Cahors 2008. The third course is a cassoulet or grilled aubergine with tomato confit paired with L’Ancyre Pic St. Loup 2008. A Halsey Farms apple tarte Tatin with creme fraiche is for dessert with a Mas Amiel Cuvée Special, Maury.

All Night, Every Night

    The Harbor Grill on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton now offers a three-course $19 prix fixe every night. The menu, created by Damien O’Donnell, will change daily. The restaurant is open 7 days from 4 p.m.

Not Your Usual Burger

    Serafina on North Main Street in East Hampton has added an Italian burger special to its menu on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. The burger is prime sirloin, with a choice of mozzarella, cheddar, or Swiss cheese, garnished with pickled vegetables and pink sauce on the side with hand-cut French fries for $19.

Harvest and ENE News

    East by Northeast restaurant in Montauk has a $15 prix fixe and a steak dinner and wine for two special for $38 served Sunday through Thursday and until 6:45 p.m. on Fridays. Harvest in Montauk is again serving half portions of its menu items and will be open for Thanksgiving.

    The Springs Farmers Market continues post-Labor Day each Saturday morning at the Ashawagh Hall green, at the junction of Fireplace Road and Old Stone Highway.

    The market offers vegetables from five different farms, plus specialty mushrooms, cheeses, breads and other baked goods, jam, flowers, homemade dog treats, pickles, coffee, and seafood.

Supporting Farmers

    Lucy Kazickas of Lucy’s Whey in East Hampton, which carries numerous cheeses from farms hereabouts as well as in other parts of the Northeast, is urging customers to support the farmers in upstate New York and Vermont who have been affected by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Cheeses, crackers, and condiments by those producers are available at Lucy’s Whey.

Bar and Food Crawl

    On Sunday there will be an opportunity to participate in a new version of the old-fashioned bar crawl: a cyberspace bar crawl in which teams of participants will check in online on FourSquare or Facebook from each of the restaurant locations.

    The event begins at 2 p.m., when participants — organized into five teams of five people each — will board a party bus at the long-term parking lot in East Hampton, near the YMCA RECenter, and head off for visits to restaurants in East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Montauk, and Amagansett.

    At each location, each person will have an opportunity to earn a total of five points — one point each for drinking a featured, complimentary drink, eating an included bar snack, checking in on FourSquare or Facebook, presenting a collectible from that location, such as a matchbook or coaster, and correctly answering a trivia question about the establishment.

    At the 10 p.m. end of the “crawl,” the team with the most points will receive a grand prize. Second and third-place prizes will also be awarded. Tickets are $125 and include the drinks, food, transportation, and a T-shirt; a portion of the proceeds will be donated to a fund for families and victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Those interested can contact WordHampton Public Relations in East Hampton.

Navy Beach in Fall

    At Navy Beach restaurant in Montauk, new menu items for fall include duck leg tacos with hoisin barbecue sauce and mango chutney and lamb osso buco with Israeli cous cous and harissa.

    During September and through Oct. 9, Sundays at Navy Beach will be dubbed “Sixy Sundays,” with a number of items priced to match, such as 60-cent jerk wings and $6 Navy dogs at the bar, as well as $6 draft beers and $6 “Bacon Bloodies.” Navy Beach is now serving dinner on Thursday through Sunday, as well as lunch on Saturday and Sunday. Those who plan to head there have been advised to call ahead, as there are some dates that are booked for private parties.

Harbor Bistro News

    Beginning on Monday, Harbor Bistro in East Hampton will offer at $29 prix fixe all night every night at the bar, as well as in the dining room on Thursday and Sunday, and on Friday and Saturday between 5 and 6 p.m. It includes a choice of three courses, or two courses plus a glass of wine.

    Another option is a $19 chef’s prix fixe, which is available every night between 5 and 6 p.m. Damien O’Donnell, the bistro’s chef, will also be cooking up nightly fall specials.

    Harbor Bistro will stay open through Columbus Day, serving dinner on Thursdays through Sundays.

Fall Hours

    Also making fall adjustments is Serafina, an Italian eatery on North Main Street in East Hampton. As of next week, it will serve lunch at noon on Saturday and Sunday and dinner starting at 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.

At Citta

    On Sundays at Cittanuova in East Hampton, a family-style dinner is served, including salad and the chef’s daily pasta special, for $16 per person ($9 for kids). Mondays bring football at the bar, with complimentary chicken wings and $3 draft beers. On Tuesdays, the restaurant is offering a 50-percent discount on bottles of wine costing $50 or less. Wednesday night is steak night, with a New York strip steak, prepared one of three ways, according to diner’s choice, for $19, and on Thursdays, any pasta entree on the Cittanuova menu is $15.

Grill on Pantigo

    Specials at the Grill on Pantigo include nightly $19 plats du jour and on Sunday, meatloaf with an appetizer, Monday, two burgers and a pitcher of beer, Tuesdays, the chicken du jour, Wednesdays, fish du jour, and Thursdays, steak du jour. In addition, the Grill offers a $24 wine and food prix fixe, and $5 kids’ dinners, nightly between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.

Oh, boy! Here is yet another red-hot Montauk spot swarming with mini-dresses and cocktails and fedoras. The Crow’s Nest is red-hot because it was taken over by the restaurateur and hotelier Sean McPherson last year. I’m not sure what this means as far as the inn goes, but the restaurant has been transformed into an absolute delight.

    The Crow’s Nest is located on Old West Lake Drive on Lake Montauk. The big white building that encloses the restaurant has a huge, sweeping lawn leading down to the water, twinkly lights sparkling everywhere, and swampy, marshy grasses on the perimeter. There is a fire pit lounging area near the entrance for those waiting for tables and unruly, sugared up children wielding burning sticks.

    The interior is lovely, mostly bare wood, some beautiful, ancient looking textiles bordering a few walls and the bar, and turquoise vases on each table with succulents and ferns. It is open to the elements and most tables look out onto the fairy-like landscape.

    Upon arrival we were snipped and sniped at by the attractive yet ungracious hostess. We were three, awaiting two. We assured her that we were starving and thirsty enough that we would commence eating and drinking immediately and our friends could catch up midmeal. We prevailed, as we were larger. And hungry.

    After being seated, we got a platter of honeydew melon cubes on skewers with a light sprinkling of salt and chili flakes — a piquant and refreshing way to begin cocktails and our meal, so much healthier than bread and butter.

    The menu is creative and different from all others I have seen out here. Every offering sounded tempting and delicious, the choices heavy on local vegetables and fish. Some friends who had dined at the Crow’s Nest the night before had returned for some of the same dishes, so we followed their suggestions. We began with squash blossoms, the whipped ricotta with grilled baguette, hot and cold tomatoes, and local kale salad. The squash blossoms were delicious, stuffed with ricotta and basil and deep-fried. They retained their crunch, although they were quite small. The whipped ricotta was delicious as well, with bits of sage, and a light drizzle of lemony oil. They forgot to grill our baguette slices, however, which would have added some nice texture and flavor. The hot and cold tomatoes were an inspired dish. Big, cool slices of heirloom tomatoes were topped with sizzling, sautéed cherry tomatoes. Just a bit of olive oil and basil made this a dreamy summer appetizer. The kale salad was the best of all. Kale has an assertively grassy flavor and can be quite tough, but this kale was just tender enough and finely chopped. It was lightly dressed and had some slivers of fennel, sunflower seeds, and tiny, salty croutons mixed in. We ordered several more.

    For entrees we tried the heirloom tomato spaghetti, fresh lemon pasta, and local vegetable red curry. The heirloom tomato spaghetti was simply sautéed cherry tomatoes with basil and chili flakes. The fresh lemon pasta was a reasonably sized portion of tagliatelle, tart and oily, with a tangle of arugula on top. Both were delicious, simple dishes that you might have at a friend’s house on a summer evening. A friend who is a very good cook and lets the fresh, local ingredients shine. The local vegetable red curry was a bit of a dud. It was predominantly silky tofu cubes, and the jasmine rice had gone from being rice to being congee, i.e., a mushy rice gruel. Too bad, because the coconut milk red curry sauce was delicious, well balanced with heat and richness. It had a nice mixture of eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, and basil. The serving dishes are a charming and quirky hodgepodge of old green-and-blue Wedgwood plates and wooden platters.

    Service on the night we went was friendly but not terribly efficient. Our waitress did the best she could, but the runners, servers, and bus-folk could use a bit more training. Dishes were plopped on the table, empty ones remained stacked on our windowsill, and additional cutlery had to be requested.

    The waitstaff is curiously clad in white T-shirts and white painter’s overalls. It was observed among our group that the fit of the overalls was perhaps two sizes too small. One employee admitted to feeling a bit uncomfortable in her constricting uniform. It gave the fellows in overalls a bit of “the missing Village People singer” look.

    The restaurant was mobbed, the crowd happy, and we all ran into people we knew. Some patrons seemed delighted to be in the happening place. Most seemed happy to be in a beautiful location with an exquisite view, getting truly delicious and original food.

    For desserts we tried the chocolate bread pudding, olive oil cake, grilled peaches, and salted caramel ice cream. The bread pudding was excellent, warm and custardy inside, bread cubes crunchy on top and bits of bittersweet chocolate melting throughout. The olive oil cake was moist, dense, and orange scented with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. The grilled peaches were big and perfectly ripe, topped with creme fraiche, a few lavender blossoms, and pistachios. The salted caramel ice cream was a favorite with everyone. It had an excellent vanilla base with just enough salted caramel swirled through it, making each bite a sweet, creamy surprise.

    All of the food we tried was delicious. The portions were not huge; they were normal. The menu has so many other tempting sounding dishes that I look forward to going back. There are at least 6 local fish and shellfish dishes on the menu, and 10 dishes (entree and side) featuring local vegetables. This is admirable. Prices are $11 to $36 for appetizers and salads, $17 to $42 for entrees. Sides are $6 to $8. The wine list is short and expensive. The rosés, the boissons d’ete, are particularly cher, so beware.

    The Crow’s Nest will close for the season in early October. I hope you get a chance to try it.

    Colin Ambrose, the chef and owner of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, will present the next program of “Cooking With East End Chefs” at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor on Wednesday. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., Mr. Ambrose will prepare roasted squash salad, striped bass, and cafe con leche flan, and will discuss his use of East End produce and goods. The requested donation for the event is $30. Wine will be served. Those interested have been asked to call to reserve a place. Payment can be made at the door.

Lobster Roll

    At the Lobster Roll on Napeague, a special for $13.75 includes two lobster roll sliders, each served with a quarter-pound of coleslaw, plus two sodas and an  order of crispy fries. The Lobster Roll is now closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Football Specials

    Football season specials are served at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack on Saturdays and Sundays beginning at 1 p.m., and on Monday nights, starting at 7. Besides beer specials, there will be $3 wings, chili cheese nachos, or pretzels with mustard, chili dogs, or burgers for $5, hushpuppies for $2.50, and hot dogs for $4. Townline is open starting at 11:30 a.m. from Thursday through Monday.

At Gosman’s

    Gosman’s Inlet Cafe, which is now closed on Wednesdays, is offering an $18 prix fixe, which includes a choice of dishes, including sushi, from Monday through Friday nights, 5 to 7 p.m.

Pumpernickel’s to Close

    The folks at Pumpernickel’s  deli on Pantigo Road in East Hampton have announced that the shop will close at the end of September, and have thanked their customers for their support over the years.

Big Day for Oenophiles

    The Long Island Wine Festival continues tomorrow with a series of exclusive dinners featuring local foods, each seating just a dozen or so diners who will be hosted by different chefs and winemakers at private residences.

    On Saturday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., a wine tasting will take place at the Ludlow farm in Bridgehampton. Up to 30 local wineries will offer samples of not-yet-released 2010-vintage wines, said to be one of the best Long Island vintages ever. The wine will be served with locally produced foods and dishes served by top chefs. There will also be a silent auction of small original paintings, conceived as wine labels, that were commissioned for the event; the story of their creation is reported on the front page of this section. Tickets to Saturday’s event are $125.

    Following the tasting and silent auction there will be dinner and a live wine auction. Tickets to both the afternoon and evening events are $275. A three-course farm-to-table dinner will be prepared by Long Island chefs, including Tom Schaudel of A Mano, CoolFish, A Lure and Jewel, served with wines from across the East End.  Students from the International Culinary Center, home of the legendary French Culinary Institute and the School of Italian Studies, will assist.

    There will also be live music from The Jerry Costanzo Orchestra. Tickets may be ordered online at www.harvesteastend.com.

    Here’s Ishmael, from “Moby-Dick”:

    “But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small, juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. . . . We despatched it with great expedition.”

    Sweet friends, this is an excellent time of year for clamming. The Mercenaria mercenaria in our waters are particularly clean right now. And with the recent closing of the mysterious Crystal Room, home of that old Clam Pies sign, my curiosity  about this local delicacy has been piqued. As the days shorten and become cooler, clam pie sounds more appealing to me than clams on the half shell or simple grilled clams.

    In researching clam pies, I have come across many interesting recipes. Some are vague and include a few shortcuts, such as powdered poultry seasoning or granulated garlic. Some call for a double crust, some suggest just a top crust. Some locals believe the clams and potatoes should be chunky, some believe in grinding all the ingredients together.  Some recipes include bacon or salt pork, and tomatoes. When I attempt my first clam pie, I’m going to go for chunky, in a homemade two-crust pie shell, with the addition of fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

     The hard-shell clam, or quahog (that’s pronounced KO-hog) is the most important food clam of the Atlantic coast, with the peak season being June through September. (Around these parts, people traditionally just call them “hard clams” and leave it at that.) There are basically three well-known categories for classifying hard clams. Little Necks are small, one to two inches, and are usually the most expensive because they are the sweetest and most tender; these are best on the half shell, but grilling, steaming, and frying are all good preparations. Cherrystones are two to three inches, and can be eaten raw and are great broiled, chopped for chowders, or baked into dishes like clams casino. Chowder clams are any clams over three and a half inches; these are almost always cooked and chopped (although some hard-core clam-diggers love to eat the big orange foot part like sushi). 

    If you want to get technical — and, oh, you know I do! — there are also the topnecks, a market term for the size between cherrystones and chowder clams, and seed clams, those under one inch, which you have no business taking out of the water anyway.  Before they are classified as seed clams, the babies are actually hermaphrodites.  Clams of Little Neck size are usually about 3 years old and some of the larger quahogs can be as old as 30.

    The name quahog or quahaug comes from the Narragansett Indian word “poquahock.”  New England Native Americans used clam shells as ornaments and tools. The prized purple-splash shells were most valued as wampum, or money.  The Indians are also credited with inventing what we now know and love as the clambake: layers of shellfish, potatoes, and corn cooked over a bed of rocks covered with steaming seaweed, right on the beach.

    Clams are bivalve mollusks, invertebrates with shells divided into two pieces called valves. These are joined by hinge joints and two adductor muscles to open and close.  The kind of clams we are talking about inhabit subtidal regions of bays and estuaries. They basically cruise around on one foot, syphoning delicious phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other gourmet detrital material. 

    You can buy clams from any reputable fish shop out here, and they will usually be fresh and inexpensive. But half the fun, to me, is the clamming experience. Like surfcasting for striped bass and blues, or finding a secret patch of wineberries, clamming is primal and zenlike at the same time. You are harvesting the freshest, wildest food that Mother Nature has to offer out here, and it’s free.  With some patience, a little practice, alone or with some buddies, there are few more satisfying culinary forays into nature than quiet clamming. (Just make sure you have gotten your shellfishing permit from East Hampton Town Hall before you break out the rake.)

    Once you’ve got your clams, storage and preparation are fairly simple. Clams can be kept in a plastic bag with holes poked into it in the refrigerator for a few days. They are quite happy just hanging out in their shells, living in their own little juices. It’s not hard to tell if they’ve gone over the hill, by the way: If they either are hanging open or they do not close tightly when touched, discard them; same goes if they do not open upon steaming or grilling.

    Soft clams (a k a, steamers, or soft-shell clams, and their cousins the razor clams) are a bit more tedious to clean because they hang around with their mouths open. They require soakings in fresh water — during which they spit out sand and silt — and even after cooking and removal from the shells, generally benefit from a swirl in their own broth. Hard shells, on the other hand, usually only require a good scrub on the outside, because they keep their valves so tightly shut.

    Three years ago, I took a six-month shellfish course through the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery. We grew our own algae, learned about spawning and field growout. We seeded oyster, scallop, and clam beds. I may or may not have gotten permission to maybe or maybe not seed my own clam bed in Napeague Bay. If I did, they may or may not be ready for harvesting in 2012 or 2013. Only about 20 percent of seeded clams survive, and clams can take four to five years to reach legal size.  When the time comes, it will be a great thrill to try my own clam babies that began with algae on my south-facing windowsill. That is, if in fact I did any of this. . . .  

    In the meantime, here are some clam recipes for all to enjoy.

Spicy Lemony Clams with Pasta

This is a recipe I found in The New York Times many years ago; it was adapted from the Lobster Club.

Serves four.

1 lb. spaghetti, linguine, or other pasta

1/2 cup olive oil

8 cloves garlic, sliced

36 Little Neck clams, well scrubbed

3/4 cup dry white wine

1 Tbsp. hot pepper flakes

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

    Fill a large stockpot with water and add 1 tablespoon salt.  Cook pasta until al dente, then drain.

    In a large skillet over medium-low heat, heat olive oil.  Add garlic, and sauté until translucent, about two minutes.  Add clams and wine and cover immediately. Raise heat to medium-high. Shake pan often, and check clams after four minutes. If any have opened, transfer them to a bowl so they don’t overcook. Simmer remaining clams until all have opened.

    In large serving bowl, combine clams and broth from pan. Add pepper flakes, lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Add pasta and toss. Great served in soup bowls with toasted sourdough bread alongside.

Gramma Merrill’s Amagansett Clam Pie

    I found this recipe on Cooks.com. It called for granulated garlic, but I think you will want to substitute a teaspoon of fresh-chopped garlic.

Makes two nine-inch pies.

2 dozen shucked chowder clams, chopped

1 large onion, diced

2 large potatoes, grated

1 stick butter, melted

3/4 cup flour

2 eggs, beaten

2 Tbsp. parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp. fresh-chopped garlic

2 prepared pie crusts

    In a large bowl, combine clams, onions, and potatoes. Add the other ingredients and blend until pourable and thick. Place one crust each in two Pyrex glass pie pans. Pour in fillings and bake at 375 degrees for approximately one hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

    Tips for canning and preserving the seasonal produce bounty will be provided by Liz Moran during a program at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free for farm members and $10 for nonmembers. Rain cancels.

Eat, Drink, and Be Happy

    Now that fall is here, lots of restaurants are trying to lure in a bar crowd by offering specials on drinks and bar food, or even free eats.

    At the Spring Close House, happy hour extends to three hours, from 3 to 6 p.m., and includes, along with deals on drinks, specials on dishes from the restaurant’s wood-fired oven and other nibbles. An early-bird special from 4:30 to 6 p.m. includes a three-course prix fixe for $25.

    Free food is served at the bar on Wednesdays and Fridays during a 4 to 6 p.m. happy hour at the Beachhouse in East Hampton. On Thursdays, free pizza is served at the bar all night.

    Fall happy hour at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack on Thursdays, Fridays, and Mondays from 4 to 7 p.m. includes specials on sangria and margaritas, along with beer and other drinks, which can help wash down chili cheese nachos, warm pretzels with mustard, and wings served with blue cheese dressing, each for $3. Free popcorn and peanuts are served.

    Also at Townline, on “pigskin Sundays” whole smoked pigs will be ready for eating around 1 p.m., just before kickoff of the first football game. A $16 roasted pig special will include pork, a choice of two sides, and a choice of potato bread and barbecue sauce or warm corn tortillas with avocado salsa.

    Groups of four or more who visit the bar at Serafina in East Hampton during a 5 to 7 p.m. happy hour on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays will be served free pizza.

    Half-price Buffalo wings will be offered to the happy hour imbibers at the Gulf Coast Kitchen at the Montauk Yacht Club Mondays through Fridays from 3 to 5 p.m.

Fajita Night

    Fans of the Southwestern specialties at Turtle Crossing in East Hampton, which this year has offered a revamped menu including bistro-style dishes, might wish to note that Thursday night is fajita night at the restaurant, with a choice of steak, chicken, shrimp, or a combination of two choices. The cost is $18.

Boathouse Lobster

    Every evening before sunset — often a world-class sight from the Boathouse restaurant on Three Mile Harbor — there is a special on lobsters: a 11/4-pound crustacean, served with potato and vegetable, for $25.

    Clam lovers can order a dozen clams on the half shell for $5 every day between 4 and 6 p.m.

Peter Thomas Is Chef

    At East Hampton’s Beachhouse, service is now family-style and Peter Thomas is the new chef. The restaurant will be the site on Saturday of a benefit for Una Escuelita, a nonprofit after-school program in southwestern Nicaragua. Tickets, which can be purchased at the door for $50, include appetizers and a performance by Julie Bluestone, who plays jazz saxophone. There will also be a cash bar and a silent auction.

Indian Cuisine

    Pallavi Ghayalod will introduce Indian cooking techniques during a program at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Wednesday at noon. She will make salads and cold appetizers and an Indian drink and discuss how ayurvedic principles apply to the dishes. Reservations are required and can be made online at myrml.org or by calling the library.

Mexican at Estia

    Colin Ambrose is cooking up Mexican specialties at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor and offering them for less than $15 on Thursday and Sunday nights. This week’s menu includes a pork loin dish with Mexican herbs, rice, and beans, as well as other dishes made with organic pork, including pork tacos del Corazon and Mexican Caesar salad with organic pork trotters and shredded corn tortillas.

How to Fillet a Fish

    Instruction in how to properly fillet a fish, the way it is done at Sen restaurant in Sag Harbor, will be offered on Saturday at the Sag Harbor Farmers Market between 11 a.m. and noon. Sushi chefs from Sen will demonstrate a special fillet technique and offer a selection of vegetable rolls made with produce from market vendors. The market is on Bay Street next to the Breakwater Yacht Club.

New on the Menu

    At the Harbor Grill in East Hampton, some new dishes on the menu have been made using stocks and sauces that can also be found in dishes at the Harbor Bistro, a sister restaurant. Among the new items are a fresh pork garlic hero with a dipping sauce and a new and improved steak sandwich. A new Web site for the Harbor Grill, harborgrill.org, features downloadable menus and photos.

Business Lunch

    The Living Room restaurant in East Hampton offers a daily three-course lunch prix fixe for $29 from noon to 3 p.m. on weekdays, and from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekends. It includes a choice among three appetizers and three entrees, as well as dessert or a glass of Long Island wine and coffee.

Dating on Thursday

    Thursday is date night at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, where a complimentary glass of wine will be served with the purchase of an entree that night.

Oktoberfest

    Oktoberfest is on at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, with picnic tables in the courtyard and communal dining tables in the dining room creating a traditional German beer garden atmosphere. Along with German bar snacks, beer specials, and traditional music, the restaurant is offering a weekly $24 dinner special. From Saturday through Oct. 1, it will include knockwurst, bratwurst, and bockwurst with German potato salad, sauerkraut, and mustard, followed by German chocolate cake. Tonight and tomorrow, the special entree is sauerbraten, with a Black Forest trifle dessert.

Gosman’s Dock

    Two courses cost $22.95 at Gosman’s restaurant in Montauk from 5 to 7 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Appetizer choices include salads, fried calamari, stuffed mushrooms, and baked stuffed clams, while entrees include jumbo stuffed shrimp, fluke, shrimp scampi, and rib-eye beef. Gosman’s is still serving lunch and dinner daily, except Tuesday.

A Correction

    A special at the Lobster Roll on Napeague that includes a lobster roll slider with coleslaw, a soda, and fries is $13.75 per person, not $13.75 for two, as was printed here last week. The Lobster Roll is seasonal, so fans of its specialties might want to make visits soon.

    This week brings the final opportunity till spring to purchase produce and other edibles directly from farmers, fishermen, and local producers at both the East Hampton and Springs farmers markets.

    Vendors will gather in East Hampton at the Nick and Toni’s parking lot on North Main Street tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Those who receive assistance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or through the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program can cash in their coupons for scrip that can be used to purchase fresh food at the market.

    In Springs, the farmers market takes place on Saturday at Ashawagh Hall. 

    At the Sag Harbor farmers market on Bay Street on Saturday, Canio’s Books will sponsor a visit by Silvia Lehrer, the author of “Savoring the Hamptons: Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End.” Ms. Lehrer will sign copies of the book, which features recipes centered on local ingredients along with profiles of farmers, vintners, and other food producers, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tastes of items featured in the book will be provided.

Tre Bella, Yacht Club

    In Montauk, Tre Bella, the restaurant at the Montauk Manor, is open now on Thursday night for dinner, on Friday and Saturday for both breakfast and dinner, and on Sunday for breakfast.

    At the Montauk Yacht Club, the Gulf Coast Kitchen is offering a prix fixe for $29.95. Those who take along a Montauk Yacht Club key chain will be offered a locals’ discount.

Oktoberfest

    The Oktoberfest celebration carries on at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, where $24 German dinner specials will be offered each week through Oct. 14 starting nightly at 5 p.m. There are beer specials as well.

    From Saturday through Friday, Oct. 8, the menu will include wiener schnitzel with herbed spaetzle and gold beets, and apple streudel for dessert. Tonight and tomorrow, the special entree is knockwurst, bratwurst, and bockwurst with German potato salad, and German chocolate cake.

Saturday Lunch

    The Harbor Grill on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton is now serving lunch on Saturdays beginning at noon.  Items on the menu include buffalo wings, a bacon and blue cheese salad, burgers, veggie black bean burgers served with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, and chipotle mayonnaise, a garlic hero with either roasted pork, turkey, or roast beef, shrimp scampi, and char-broiled Salisbury steak. A kids’ menu includes deep-dish pizza or grilled chicken.

Indian Wells Specials

    Monday is burger night at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, with a $15 special that includes a burger, a half-dozen buffalo wings, fries, and a draft beer. On Thursday, a prime rib special for $21 includes soup or salad, prime rib, a baked potato, and a vegetable.

Cheese Month

    Bet you didn’t know that October is also American Cheese Month. To celebrate, Lucy’s Whey cheese shop in East Hampton is selling a cheese month “passport,” which entitles the holder to a 40-percent discount off the daily featured cheese at participating retailers. Fall hours at the East Hampton Lucy’s Whey (there is a second shop at the Chelsea Market in Manhattan) are Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Rugosa’s Steak Special

    Rugosa restaurant in East Hampton has designated Wednesday as steak night. The menu will include a choice of steaks, all served with potato gratin, local seasonal vegetable, and garlic-parsley butter. The prix fixe will cost $14.95 for a grilled flat iron steak, $18.95 for a marinated flank steak, and $21.95 for an all-natural, antibiotic and hormone-free New York strip steak.

    As the special continues, Rugosa might change the choice of steaks and offer a selection of different compound butters to go along, at an additional price, but the restaurant promises a choice among three different steaks, with the price beginning at $14.95. Reservations have been suggested.

    Ellenka Baumrind of Springs, who started by handing out a few jars of her ratatouille to friends about eight years ago, never expected to make a business out of it.

    But Ellie’s Country Delights — all-natural vegan vegetable stew in original, spicy, and mushroom forms — has made the jump from kitchen to local markets, to now being offered in 400 Stop & Shop stores in the Northeast, and is a recent addition to the Whole Foods Market lineup as well. Ms. Baumrind has gone from an original run of about 360 jars in 2005 to over 50,000 jars in 2010.

    “Dad had an allotment in Harrow,” Ms. Baumrind said of her English upbringing. An allotment is a sort of ancient urban vegetable garden — rented out in Great Britain from as far back as Saxon times, taken over by the Church of England under Elizabeth I’s rule, and now governed by local or state offices.

    “It was a really metropolitan area, right next to the railroad tracks,” she said. “But he would make ratatouille. It was delicious and organic.”

    After years as an assistant equities trader at Goldman Sachs in London, Ms. Baumrind eventually migrated to the United States in 1998, and moved to East Hampton in 2003, where she fell in love with the produce at the farm stands.

    “The squash was huge, like back at home,” she said. She began experimenting again with the ratatouille of her childhood — a tomato-based squash stew with other vegetables and a European favorite — to give to friends.

    “I rode in a local barn, and had given out some of the stew there,” she said. “And people started asking me, ‘If we buy you the vegetables, can you make it for us?’ ”

    A business was born.

    “Making the stew takes about six hours,” she said, between cleaning, prepping, cooking, canning, and cleaning up afterward. It is vegan, gluten-free, and has multiple uses, Ms. Baumrind said, including as the base for pizza, a bruschetta, and “straight out of the jar, hot or cold.”

    Ms. Baumrind quickly learned that she needed to educate herself in both food manufacturing and owning a business. “I worked with the Cornell University Small Entrepreneurial Program in Syracuse,” she said, a program that specializes in small-scale specialty food production. “I was one of their first students who took what I had and created a shelf-stable product.”

    Fine-tuning her wares has been a constant growth experience, as has learning about the big world of supermarket selling. “Whole Foods approached me,” she said. “They loved the concept, but told me I needed to tweak my ingredients.”

    But learning to do that using all-natural products — rather than monosodium glutamate and other synthetic ingredients was “almost like chemistry,” she said. Her final outcome was the Ellie’s Country Delights in the aisles now, with a shelf life of two years.

    Ms. Baumrind was truly committed, and still is, to her product. “There’s nothing else like it out there,” she said, without a hint of conceit. There are items on the shelves like caponata, “but that’s prepared with aubergine,” she said, using the British term for eggplant.

    Locally, Ellie’s Country Delights can be found at Django’s Organics in Springs, and at the Hampton Marketplace in East Hampton and the Seafood Shop in Wainscott.

    “Hampton Market and the Seafood Shop were really supportive right from the beginning,” she said. Another gourmet retailer with several presences in the area, “who shall remain nameless,” she said, bluntly told her “no way.”

    “They were not interested in carrying local products,” she said.

    In 2009, Ms. Baumrind took part in a woman and minority-owned exposition held by Stop & Shop and Giant supermarkets, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based company, Royal Ahold. “There were 600 vendors there,” she said. “And the Stop & Shop people walked around and sampled everything.” Ellie’s Country Delights was chosen to be sold by the large chain.

    The goods are prepared in a professional kitchen in Brooklyn about twice a year, at a family-owned company with “50 years in the business,” Ms. Baumrind said. The preparations begin at 11:30 p.m. “Cooking begins at 6:30 a.m. the next morning, and goes all the way through to 8:30 that night.” Ms. Baumrind, although beyond cooking such large quantities of ratatouille herself, “is 100 percent there.”

    “It’s expensive to produce a quality product using only fresh vegetables,” she said. Her goal now is to partner with another food manufacturer.

    She said she is thankful for her success up until now. “There’s no turning back.” But, she admits, it’s a lot to handle.

    “I’ve done it for eight years,” Ms. Baumrind said. “I have so many ideas for new product lines but I need someone with more expertise. I’m really looking forward to partnering up.”

    Her company has a Web site, which also accepts orders, elliescountrydelights.com.