Food

It’s that time of year. Perhaps you are sending a daughter or son off to college, or in my case, helping a son set up his first singleton apartment. Hopefully, by now, you have taught your offspring one of the most important life skills: how to cook for his or herself. If you haven’t, woe be to those children, for they will be eating Domino’s pizza and Subway sandwiches and bagels from the cafeteria.

Sometimes reviewing restaurants is fun and swell and delicious and sometimes it is a chore and a bore and requires a good supply of Bromo-Seltzer. (That’s old-school lingo for antacids.) Reviewing restaurants when our season is in full cry requires the driving skills of Mario Andretti, the military acumen of Gen. George Patton, and the stamina of an illegally fortified Lance Armstrong.

Zigmund’s Bar is revving up to be an off-season regular with live music events and a nightly happy hour from 5:30 p.m. till sunset, featuring $5 specials of rosé, beer, and lamb chops. The Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn on East Hampton’s Main Street is taking reservations for two upcoming special dinners. On Sept. 15, wines from the Frank Family Vineyards in California will be served with dishes designed to complement the selections. Swedish cuisine will take center stage at the Living Room on Sept. 29, with a five-course tasting menu reflecting the heritage of the inn’s proprietors to be served for $95 per person plus tax and gratuity.

The whole family can have fun at pizza night at Amber Waves Farm behind the Amagansett Farmers market on Tuesday from 5:30 to 7. The cost is $35 per person, or $25 for members of CMEE or the Amber Waves C.S.A. program. Space is limited, and preregistration is required with CMEE. Vicki’s Veggies in Amagansett is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year with a celebration tomorrow from 3 to 6 p.m. which will include refreshments and other activities.

When eggplants were taken from India to England long ago, they were considered an ornamental plant. They are the only major vegetable of the nightshade family (tomatoes, squash, tobacco, peppers, potatoes) that came from the Old World. According to Harold McGee in his book “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen,” “an early ancestor may have floated from Africa to India or Southeast Asia where it was domesticated.” Eggplant was being eaten in Italy by the 15th century and in France by the 18th.

Dan’s Harvest East End will be held at the McCall Vineyard and Ranch in Cutchogue on Saturday. Geoffrey Zakarian, a chef who has appeared on the Food Network’s “Chopped” and “The Kitchen,” along with his newest show, “Cooks vs. Cons,” will be the host. Tickets are on sale for Gala in the Garden, a Sept. 10 benefit at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor that will be hosted by Colin Ambrose, the eatery’s owner and chef, and his wife, Jessica Ambrose.

First of all, I have to tell you I am not a food snob. I am not even a gourmet, more like a gourmand. I enjoy a chile con queso made with Velveeta “cheese” as much as fresh sea urchin gonads. Yes, uni are gonads, not roe. That being said, we approached Grey Lady East in Montauk with open minds and hearty appetites.

Hayground School in Bridgehampton will host the Great Food Truck Derby on Friday, Aug. 19. More than a dozen trucks featuring a wide range of cuisine and beverage choices circle up from 4 to 7 p.m. Don't miss this roundup! Al Goldberg, a leader of the Slow Food East End group and a fisherman and chef, will host his third annual clambake and “snail supper” at his East Hampton residence on Aug. 28.

This review is dedicated to Freddy the fly, the musca domestica, who died valiantly trying to escape from the glutinous, candied apple syrup of our “hot and numbing crispy beef.” Sorry, Freddy, there was no escape from that quicksand of a sauce.

Brioche-style doughnuts are made fresh throughout the day at Grindstone Coffee and Donuts on Sag Harbor’s Main Street. Varieties include blueberry lemon, chocolate with toffee popcorn, and peanut butter mousse with chocolate. Roman Roth, the winemaker at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, will present a preview taste of the winery’s Christian’s Cuvée 2013 at a barbecue dinner on Wednesday night.

Jonathan Glynn will host a Slow Food East End August potluck “snail social” dinner at his residence in Sag Harbor on Aug. 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. Reservations can be made on the Slow Food East End website. the Amagansett Food Institute will partner with Around the Fire Catering for a session on Wednesday on “living pizza” that will result in dough made from sourdough starter.

Although I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of big fat beefsteak tomatoes and sweet white corn at the farm stands, there are plenty of interesting fruits and vegetables available right now. Actually, tomatoes and corn are starting to come in from the North Fork, so have at it. You know what to do with them.

When Michael Cohen was 15, growing up outside of Philadelphia in Cheltenham, Pa., his father told him and his brother it was time to get summer jobs. “My brother went to work in a pet store, because he was interested in fish and reptiles,” Mr. Cohen recalled one sunny afternoon in the garden of East Hampton’s 1770 House. “I said I’m going to work at a restaurant as a busboy. I found a job at a really swanky restaurant, and I got the bug. I’ve had a passion for wine and hospitality ever since.”

Some big food events of the summer are almost here. Dan’s Taste of Summer’s GrillHampton, a Taste of Two Forks, and the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs and Champagne, are among the many exciting happenings.

The Hamptons Greek Festival was held last weekend in Southampton at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons.

Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett will be the site of the Peconic Land Trust’s annual outdoor supper. The event will be held on Aug. 7 at 4 p.m. Slow Food East End has organized a summertime potluck “snail supper” to be held on Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Judith Axelrod’s house along the bay in Sag Harbor.

Gone are the days of tenderloin of rabbit, white tablecloths, and a $60,000 winking snowy owl art installation by the bar. Goodbye Tom Colicchio, hello Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Goodbye lobster mushroom gnocchi, hello . . . hamburgers and spaghetti? Whaaaat?

Rustle up some good food at Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe on East Lake Drive in Montauk. The new brunch offerings include dishes such as eggs benedict, asparagus and caramelized onion omelette, lobster asparagus frittata, brioche French toast, and more. Open Minded Organics has a new farm stand on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sam Gelin was enjoying a nice piece of fish that had come from Montauk one day not long ago in New York when he thought it would be really interesting to use salt that derived from the same waters. He had recently traveled on the West Coast, where he had seen a sea salt company, and it “kind of lodged in my mind,” he said in a recent interview. And so the Montauk Salt Company was born.

Hungry for seafood? Bostwick’s, the seafood spot on Pantigo Road in East Hampton, is now open seven days for lunch and dinner, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Sail your boat westward to the Bell and Anchor in Noyac for even more seafood. It is now featuring raw bar specials on Montauk Pearl oysters and littleneck clams, for $2.50 each, all night Sundays through Thursdays, and on Fridays and Saturdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Twenty years ago, on the fourth of July, Breadzilla opened its doors. Well, it was about to open its doors, but the owners realized 20 minutes before that they forgot to get screen door handles. So Brad Thompson, co-owner, co-chef, and friendly ex-husband of Nancy Hollister, co-owner, co-chef, and friendly ex-wife, grabbed a drill and some nails and some forks and spoons he found in the basement and .created some bent utensil door handles. They remain in place today as just another quirky and charming element to this bakery and takeout shop.

When he talks about the various dishes from around the world that can be made over an open cooking fire and the different effects flame has on food itself, Adam Kelinson exudes enthusiasm and expertise.

Wolffer Estate winery in Sagaponack will release a new rosé, Finca Wolffer Rosé, on July 1. It is the second vintage of a rosé made from grapes grown in Mendoza, Argentina. Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett will kick off a series of brunches and dinners with an Argentine-inspired asado barbecue meal in the field on Saturday. It will be cooked by Paula Segura Mallmann, whose uncle, Francis Mallmann, is an Argentine chef, along with her partner, Emiliano Cordeiro.

Some call it preppy food. I call it WASP soul food. For those not familiar with this acronym, it stands for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. As an Irish Catholic with a good dose of Norwegian from my grandmother’s side, I am clearly not a member of this tribe. But many of my schoolmates and lifelong friends certainly are. As a result of this, I have become extremely familiar with WASP “cuisine.”

The Hamptons goes rosé wild! Events include a “pink party” at Domaine Franey Wines and Spirits in East Hampton on Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m. Then Five rosé wines from the Channing Daughters winery in Bridgehampton will be paired with each course of a dinner at Almond next Thursday at 7 p.m. Arbor restaurant in Montauk will also feature summer’s pink wine at its prix fixe weekend brunch.

The chef, John Ross, will speak at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton at noon on Wednesday about his new cookbook, "The Poetry of Cooking,” Registration is with the library, by phone, or at myrml.org. Today is the debut of the Montauk farmers market on the Montauk green from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thirty-five vendors will participate this year.

At the ripe young age of 23, Jay Astafa is an accomplished vegan chef, owner of his own catering and event company, a consultant for Surf Lodge’s vegan menu, and will be providing the food for the Wellness Foundation’s summer benefit on June 18 at the Mulford Farm in East Hampton.

Kozu, a restaurant that offers Japanese cuisine and sushi with Peruvian influences, has been opened in Southampton by Zach Erdem, the restaurateur behind 75 Main. The head chef, John Keller, is formerly of Nobu; the sous chef, George Nikolo­polous, worked at Le Bernardin, and the sushi chef, Joseph Kim, is formerly of Morimoto. The second annual Food Lab conference will take place tomorrow through Sunday at Stony Brook Southampton, sponsored by Slow Food East End.

The farmers markets have opened for the season, and while many visitors associate them with the bountiful berries, corn, and tomatoes of mid to late-summer, right now is a glorious time. There are tender stalks of freshly picked asparagus, bright peonies, crisp spinach and lettuce, plants to help you to get started on your own garden, mushrooms, honey, cheese, chickens, and so much more.

While the culinary world’s emphasis on locally sourced ingredients shows no sign of abating, the ingredients and techniques of global cuisine are increasingly important to the chef community, as exemplified by the presence at the Stony Brook Southampton Food Lab’s upcoming conference of Deuki Hong, a 25-year-old chef at one of New York’s hottest Korean restaurants.