Food

When I wake up in the middle of the night I usually begin to fantasize about palominos.I Google palominos for sale and imagine the fun of owning one. This insomniac behavior can last for hours. Sometimes I research vintage Airstream trailers, because, well, they’re pretty to look at. The Bambi model, measuring a mere 16 feet and built from 1961 to 1964, is the most totes adorbs!

I have been a fan of Tutto Il Giorno, now Dopo La Spiaggia (“after the beach”), in Sag Harbor for years. I don’t patronize it frequently because it is a wee bit expensive, but it is cozy and charming, with a view of Bay Street and the marina. Now Dopo La Spiaggia has opened at the old Laundry (later the Lodge and Race Lane) space in East Hampton.

Red wines from southern France will be the focus at the next in a series of weekly wine classes at Park Place Wines and Liquors in East Hampton. The sessions — on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. — are free, but reservations have been requested. Italian wines will be up next, on March 1. Reservations are a must for the first annual “whole animal, cured, pickled, fermented, and preserved things” beer dinner to be held at Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton on March 1.

A product cannot get more local or artisanal than FoodFitness Granola Clusters, which Renée McCormack single-handedly makes and packages in the certified kitchen of her East Hampton house and delivers to some 20 fitness studios and specialty shops from East Hampton to Southampton.

Blood oranges will lend their flavor to the Valentine’s celebration at Almond in Bridgehampton on Tuesday. A $75 holiday menu will include Montauk pearl oysters, a winter salad, duck and foie gras ravioli, Peconic Bay scallops, and entree choices of North African-spiced rack of lamb or smoked and roasted salmon. Guests at the 1770 House in East Hampton can partake of a Valentine’s Day tasting menu that will include a dozen dishes in its four courses. A fifth, a cheese course, is optional.

At Almond in Bridgehampton, the next Artists and Writers Night on Tuesday at 7 will feature Scott and Megan Chaskey, both poets. A $45 fee for the evening includes a three-course family-style meal with a glass of craft beer or wine. A tip is included. Reservations are a must. Super Bowl Sunday this weekend will bring food and drink specials at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett beginning at 6 p.m.

It’s time for Super Bowl LI (that’s 51 for those of you who failed Roman numerals in school). The Atlanta Falcons vs. the New England Patriots! Brady vs. Ryan, chowdah vs. frogmore stew! Lady Gaga will be performing at the halftime show. Again.

Slow Food East End will sponsor a pasta-making class on Feb. 9. Pierre Friedrichs, a chef and vice-president of the group, will lead the session at his own house, along with Laura Luciano, a food writer, photographer, and recipe developer for Edible East End whose blog, Out East Foodie, focuses on growing, cooking, and eating locally on the East End. The first-ever wintertime Long Island Restaurant Week lasts a few more days, through Sunday. A three-course prix fixe meal is being offered for $27.95 at more than 100 restaurants across the island, which are listed online at longislandrestaurantweek.com.

If you are what you eat, then Donald Trump is a basket of, I mean, bucket of, deplorable K.F.C. chicken, washed down with Diet Coke. “If he had any class, he’d eat Popeye’s,” grumbled my gourmet offspring when he heard this revealing tidbit.

The Shagwong of Montauk is offering a three-course early-bird menu for $19.95 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays. A new chef, Darren Boyle, who cooked at Salt on Shelter Island will be presenting his new dishes. Word is that Vine Street Cafe on Shelter Island is planning a springtime opening of an East Hampton outpost in the Montauk Highway building long occupied by Cafe Max.

Every time I travel I take copious notes, mostly about food and regional dishes, and wonder how I can adapt these discoveries once I get home. The similarities between Key West, Fla., and Montauk cannot be missed. They both claim the clever title of “a drinking town with a fishing problem,” and each calls itself “The End.”

“Small Works (Part Two),” an exhibition organized by Folioeast, an online gallery founded by Coco Myers to showcase the work of East End artists, will take place at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Bridgehampton from Saturday through Jan. 30. An opening will be held Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. The RJD Gallery, which will reopen in its new space on Main Street in Bridgehampton in March, has issued an open call to artists for submissions to the eighth annual Hamptons Juried Art Show to benefit the Retreat. The show will open at the gallery on April 22.

The new headquarters of Art of Eating Catering and Event Planning will be opening next month on Butter Lane. The move, according to a press release, will accommodate “a substantial growth in business” for the caterers. Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett is offering diners half-price bottles of wine with certain meals on Thursdays and Sundays.

I thought driving to Islip at 3 a.m. on Friday in a snowstorm was white-knuckle harrowing. Little did I know that several hours later I would have just missed dodging a bullet at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

Stave off cold-season boredom and ennui by dropping into Dopo La Spiaggia, an Italian eatery with a Sag Harbor location that recently opened another restaurant at the former Race Lane in East Hampton. The East Hampton Dopo is open nightly at 5:30 and for lunch and/or brunch on Saturday and Sunday. For a regular old night, or lunch, out, Service Station in East Hampton, which opened this year on Montauk Highway where Winston’s was, is open every day year round from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Whether it’s celebrating the end of 2016 or the start of 2017, there are a number of options for those who want to go out, eat, and party. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton will feature a la carte specials. The restaurant will be open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and for New Year’s Day brunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The New Year’s Eve dinner party at the Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton will have a Gatsby theme, with a “toast to new beginnings” at midnight.

Need some options for Christmas Eve? A la carte holiday specials for Christmas Eve at Red/Bar Brasserie in Southampton include grilled Montauk oysters, Hudson Valley foie gras, Maine lobster, smoked Long Island duck breast, angus rib steak, and cedar plank-roasted Scottish salmon. Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton will offer visitors a chance to both dine and to give, as a portion of the revenue from meals that night will be donated to the Pajama Program, which gives warm pjs and brand-new books to children in need. A la carte holiday specials will be on the menu through Dec. 31, based on availability, at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, which will serve dinner on Christmas Eve from 6 to 10 p.m. and be closed on Christmas.

Even though the ground is hard, the trees are bare, and most farmers markets are closed for the winter, locally sourced and produced food items are still available for last-minute holiday gifts. The list of artisanal purveyors on the East End seems to grow every year, and one of the newest is Two Jammin’ Chicks.

Need a place for dinner Christmas Eve? Try the 1770 House in East Hampton. Michael Rozzi, the chef, will add some holiday dishes to the restaurant’s a la carte menu. An eight-course dinner paired with wine, whiskey, and sake will be presented tonight at Sen in Sag Harbor. From 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Park Place Wines and Liquors of East Hampton will host a pre-dinner wine tasting. Dinner will follow.

Why in the world would you attempt a spectacular, complicated dessert when you’ve already got so much to do during this holiday season? Because it is an accomplishment, it shows how much you care about your friends and family, and sometimes it’s just cool to create a whopper of a showstopper!

a sake and wine dinner will be held next Thursday at Sen restaurant in Sag Harbor. The event will start at 5:30 p.m. with a complimentary wine tasting by Park Place Wine and Liquors of East Hampton. Barbecue and creativity go hand in hand on Monday nights at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack this month, with visits by Nikki Payne of the Salty Canvas, who will host paint parties from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday and Dec. 19.

It began with the invitation that couldn’t be refused: “Would you and your friends like to come to Paris for Thanksgiving?” Hot diggity dog, yes, please!

How did a meatball from Staten Island with a 45-year pedigree wind up with a shrine to itself in Bridgehampton? The journey of Tony Meatball began in 1971, when Anthony and Joanne D’Andrea, first-generation Italians, opened the RoadHouse, a restaurant some three miles west of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Wear your ugly holiday sweater to the tree-lighting party at Baron’s Cove in Sag Harbor tomorrow at 7:15. There will be live music by the Lynn Blue Duo from 6 to 10 p.m. The next Artists and Writers Night at Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton gets underway at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, with a theme of “Protest Prose and Notes on Comfort.”

It is especially hard to write a review of a place that you wanted to like, thought you should like, and hoped to like, but it ends up being a rather expensive disappointment. Such was the case with Tauk at Trail’s End.

The Amagansett Farmers Market will host a Buy Local, Give Local holiday market on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Shoppers will have the opportunity to purchase comestibles made by Anke’s Fit Bakery, Bonac Bees, Browder’s Birds, Peconic River Preserves, and the Amagansett Sea Salt Co. For a Thanksgiving alternative, Momi Ramen will be open today from 5 to 10 p.m. Tomorrow, the restaurant will serve from noon to 11 p.m.

This is your last chance to dine at Café Max in East Hampton.The restaurant is to close after Nov. 26 after 25 years in business. Till then, however, there is a $22, three-course prix fixe dinner offered all night, all week. Winter farm shares at Quail Hill Farm are available, and will provide the holders with items such as root vegetables, fresh greens, herbs, winter squash, carrots, garlic, dried beans, and wheatberries from Friday, Nov. 18, until February.

Babette’s restaurant in East Hampton is offering a $21.95 prix fixe dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. on Sundays. Need ideas for Thanksgiving celebrations? The Highway Restaurant and Bar in East Hampton can provide all the side dishes and desserts needed. All you to do is prepare the turkey. The Scarpetta Beach restaurant at Gurney’s in Montauk will be serving a four-course Thanksgiving prix fixe next Thursday from noon to 8 p.m. A children’s menu will be offered, as will activities for children between noon and 4 p.m., allowing parents to sit back and enjoy a holiday respite.

The first Thanksgiving of 1621 was simply referred to as a harvest celebration. An Englishman named Edward Winslow described it in a letter to a “loving, and old friend”: “I never in my life remember a more seasonable year, than we have here enjoyed — for fish and fowl we have a great abundance, fresh cod in the summer — our bay full of lobsters, all the springtime the earth sendeth forth naturally good salad herbs: Here are grapes, white and red, very sweet and strong also.”

The poet Walt Whitman was a frequent visitor to Greenport because his sister Mary Elizabeth Van Nostrand lived there. He described it as a “handsome situation” that was “unsurpassed for health.” He must have been eating a lot of oysters!