Food

James Lubetkin, an amateur baker who lives in Amagansett, brought home four blue ribbons and a second-place prize for baking from the New York State Fair in Syracuse, and was among seven people chosen to compete for the fair’s culinary grand prize.

Rowdy Hall in East Hampton will kick off its Oktoberfest celebration with a traditional festival from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The restaurant and its courtyard will be transformed into a traditional German beer garden, with picnic tables outside and communal dining tables indoors. La Fondita, the Mexican takeout shop in Amagansett, will celebrate Mexican Independence Day by offering some specials tomorrow and Saturday.

What happens when 13 chefs from 13 restaurants around the country come to Montauk to fish for striped bass, fluke, and bluefish, and then form three teams, prepare their catch-paired side dishes, and compete to win in their category? Crazy good food, that’s what happens!

Many of the favorite East End seasonal places will remain open through September, or even beyond, providing those who eschew the heavy crowds a chance to partake. Another end-of-season focus for some foodies is the gleaning program organized by the Amagansett Food Institute, which mobilizes volunteers to collect excess produce from farm fields that would otherwise go to waste. The yield is donated to food pantries here.

Corn and tomatoes will be plentiful into October, but the locally famous treasures you should be enjoying right now are melons. The East End has long been famous for outstanding musk melons, cantaloupes, and watermelons.

As we near the end of the summer season (waaaaaah!), I have been reflecting on how many really very good restaurants opened this year. The new Wolffer Kitchen in Amagansett is most certainly one of them.

On Wednesday at Navy Beach restaurant in Montauk, a Hook ’Em and Cook ’Em dinner will also serve as a competition among 14 chefs from Barcelona Wine Bar and Restaurant locations across the country. Tickets are on sale for the 11th annual North Fork Foodie Tour, an opportunity to visit 20 sites and get a glimpse behind the scenes at farms, wineries, and other places that produce local artisanal foods and beverages.

Dinner nightlyBistro Eté is a little jewel. It is the kind of place I’m not sure I want to share with you because it is tiny and charming and the food is a delicious mash-up of French, Middle Eastern, and Greek . . . oh, let’s just call it Mediterranean cuisine.

Tickets are on sale at $100 each for a “hook ’em and cook ’em” event at Navy Beach restaurant in Montauk on Sept. 6. Fourteen chefs from Barcelona Wine Bar locations nationwide will spend a day fishing for fluke, striped bass, and bluefish and then prepare a meal from their catch.

A chance to learn Chinese cooking with Karen Lee, the author of five cookbooks and a caterer and cooking teacher based in New York City, is coming up in Amagansett, where Ms. Lee will teach a session on Aug. 27 at a private residence. Sammy’s Restaurant and Bar in Montauk has opened a new grab-and-go window for Hawaiian poke bowls, raw fish (typically tuna) that is cubed and tossed with seasonings and blended into a bowl of greens and other ingredients.

Walking through the Sag Harbor Farmers Market the other day, I decided to try some of the more peculiar and obscure vegetables. There were some bright yellow striped globes nestled in with the heirloom tomatoes and squash, so I assumed they were some kind of unusual hybrid squash. Turns out they are lemon cucumbers, one of the more ancient varieties. When cut into, the flesh is bright white and the seedy part is pale lime green. Beautiful!

Imagine a farm that starts at 85 feet across, narrows to 50 feet, and goes back far enough to fill a total of 1.4 acres. Sort of like an extra-skinny railroad flat in New York City, or a much attenuated flag-lot oasis.

Fresh local oysters will be served paired with wine during a tour of the shellfish hatcheries at the Suffolk County Marine Environmental Learning Center in Southold on Friday, Aug. 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. The Slow Food East End chapter has a potluck dinner planned for next Thursday at Myron and Susan Levine’s residence in Sag Harbor. Reservations are required and can be made at slowfoodeastend.org

Everything about our recent meal at Elaia Estiatorio in Bridgehampton was a delight. From the simple but elegant renovation of the space at 95 School Street to the food to the dinnerware to the friendly staff, the evening was everything one could hope for.

The families of the Organic Krush founders — Fran Paniccia, James Tchinnis, and Michelle Walrath — have played an important role in what they do and the food they offer at their shops in Woodbury, Lake Success, and now Amagansett.

Susan and Myron Levine of Sag Harbor will host a Slow Food East End potluck at their house on Aug. 17 from 6 to 8 p.m. Reservations are being taken online at slowfoodeastend.org. Karen Lee, a New York City caterer and cookbook author, will offer two cooking classes in Amagansett this month focusing on using organic and/or local ingredients to make tasty and healthful meals.

Share the Harvest Farm in East Hampton will hold its eighth annual sunset barbecue in its farm fields at the East End Community Organic Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton next Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. A star lineup of chefs will be preparing dishes for the Hayground Chefs Dinner on Sunday at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton. Among the local participants are Claudia Fleming of the North Fork Table and Inn, Josh Capon of Lure Fishbar, Jason Weiner of Almond, and Christian Mir of the Stone Creek Inn.

The East Hampton Library’s Tom Twomey Lecture Series brought together three leading local winemakers to talk about the region's wines.

Corn is one of our most precious and plentiful summer treats. Steamed corn on the cob with some good butter slathered all over it is something we look forward to all year, along with that perfectly simple beefsteak tomato sandwich on white bread with mayo.

Breakfast is the thing at Sugar, a new eatery in Montauk, which has design-your-own bowls of cereal and fresh-made donuts daily, as well as sundaes and milkshakes. It is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and is downtown on South Edison Street. Dan’s GrillHampton, a cooking competition and tasting event at which eight East End chefs will compete against eight chefs from Manhattan, will take place tomorrow night at the Fairview Farm at Mecox in Bridgehampton.

Anybody who’s ever made a pie knows they’re not that easy. Making a good piecrust can be a delicate and somewhat complicated process. If you overmix or add too much water, you may end up with a tough one. Even the humidity in the air can wreak havoc with your efforts. Getting the bottom crust to bake thoroughly without burning the rim is nerve-wracking. Choosing what kind of fruit filling can also lead to mistakes: Do you add cornstarch or flour to bind it? How much? You may end up with a runny mess, a glutinous one, or a dry-as-a-bone one.

The Ludlow family of Water Mill will have a grand opening of the Farm Store at Mecox Bay Dairy on Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. featuring a barbecue, tastings of the dairy’s cheeses, and farm tours. Tickets are on sale for a Taste of Montauk, a smorgasbord of the hamlet’s culinary offerings to be presented at the Montauk Yacht Club alongside Lake Montauk on July 23 from 6 to 9 p.m.

If bluefish are the Rodney Dangerfields of the fish world (“don’t get no respect”), then surely porgies are the juvenile delinquents. They are tough little fellas — thick-skinned, bony, and travel in gangs. But once you get past that “rebel without a cause” exterior, they are sweet and worthwhile.

We knew going to Duryea’s Lobster Deck on the Sunday night of July Fourth weekend could be a freakout. Navigating the half-naked human traffic by the Surf Lodge was an exercise better suited for the driving skills of Juan Manuel Fangio, arguably the greatest Formula One driver in history.

Four Long Island restaurateurs will be on the panel at the next “Out of the Question” discussion at the Southampton Arts Center, hosted by Warren Strugatch next Thursday at 7 p.m. A potluck dinner will be held tonight at the Peconic Land Trust’s Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton from 5 to 8 p.m. in conjunction with Slow Food East End.

Let’s begin with the good news: The food at Le Bilboquet in Sag Harbor is excellent. Now permit me to regale you with the gauntlet we had to run to get into the place.

Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe in Montauk is now open daily for lunch and dinner. The restaurant has added a sushi bar, where the chef will be making platters featuring three, six, or nine rolls from the menu, which includes a choice of 10 local sushi selections. Eric and Adam Miller, the father and son behind Bay Kitchen Bar on Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, have opened a new restaurant, Flagship, on the docks in Montauk. The menu features local seafood, meat, and poultry entrees, small plates to share, crudos, and raw bar items, and there is a seasonal cocktail menu.

Slow Food East End is gearing up for a summertime potluck on July 6 at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton. Reservations are being taken online for the event: slowfoodeastend.org. Peter Gethers, the author of “My Mother’s Kitchen: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and the Meaning of Life,” in which he describes his effort to give his aging mother, the daughter of a renowned restaurateur and a friend and mentor to famous chefs, the final gift of a feast featuring all her favorite foods, will be at the Sylvester & Co. store in Sag Harbor on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. for a book signing and cocktail party.

Summer is upon us, so now it is time to think about salads and grilling, which means it’s also time to think about oils — olive for salads, peanut for frying up those zucchini blossoms and chips, flavored oils for marinades, etc.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that dining at the new Cove Hollow Tavern, in its infancy at the time of our visit, was a seamless, professional, and delicious experience. The reason it shouldn’t have been a surprise is that this new restaurant in East Hampton is brought to you by the fine folks of Vine Street Cafe on Shelter Island.