In the late 1970s and early ’80s I worked for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. Every year around this time, our beloved “All Things Considered” host Susan Stamberg would share her mother’s recipe, Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish, with her listeners. “Mama” Stamberg got credit for this wildly popular concoction until the true inventor, Craig Claiborne, gently reminded Susan that it was his recipe from a 1959 New York Times column. In 1993, Mr. Claiborne told Mrs. Stamberg: “I am simply delighted. We have gotten more mileage, you and I, out of that recipe than almost anything I’ve printed.”

It is a somewhat peculiar recipe, and the color is disconcerting. It is a vibrant Pepto-Bismol pink, but it is delicious and I make it every year to go with turkey, and later, roast beef sandwiches. I like to imagine Mr. Claiborne foraging for cranberries in the bogs of Napeague long ago.

What are some other old local recipes suited for Thanksgiving Day? How do eel, coot, and samp sound? Ground nuts? Montauk Starve to Death? These are some of the treasures I found in a first edition copy of the “Ladies Village Improvement Society 60th Anniversary Cookbook,” published in 1955. The names are as familiar as today: Rattray, Tillinghast, Wainwright, Dominy, Lester, Hand, Bennett, Edwards, Gay, and more.

Hector Bonomi of the Devon Yacht Club shared his recipe for vichyssoise, but his “clamssoise” was a closely guarded secret. This got me to thinking: A completely pureed clam chowder could be a marvelous first course. There are plenty more clam chowder recipes and they all include salt pork, not bacon. We should bring back salt pork as a chowder ingredient! There is nothing better than rendered “cracklins” on top of a bowl of clam chowder.

“Torup” were the big turtles found in local ponds and turned into stew after being “fattened on sour milk in the swill barrel.” With a little touch of xenophobia, the cookbook proclaims “big, fat, salty, fresh Gardiner’s Bay oysters have it all over the poor little greenish things that are considered such a delicacy in France and England.” Meow. The clam pies of Mrs. Conrad, Bennett, Russell, and Edwards duke it out on page 14, and they all sound delicious.

There is a chapter titled “For Men Only,” and since that isn’t enough, the next chapter is called “Hearty Fare Recommended by Other Men.” These chapters include an interchangeable recipe for breast of coot or venison (“shot by Dudley Roberts Jr.”), which involves soaking the coot in salt water, then frying in butter. I’ll pass on that one. 

Root beer was homemade in those days with a gathering of sassafras root, wintergreen, wild cherry, hops, and ginger root, then fermented with “turnpikes,” as yeast cakes were called. It is also noted that East Hampton was mostly a dry town, while Sag Harbor always voted “wet” at town meetings. No wonder I live in Sag Harbor.

Interestingly, there isn’t a single recipe for bluefish in the book, whereas there are four in the “L.V.I.S. Centennial Cookbook,” published in 1994. There are plenty of clam, oyster, scallop, lobster, flounder, potato, cauliflower, duck, Montauk grape, cranberry, and beach plum recipes, so this was curious. I’m guessing the ladies just didn’t much like bluefish or no one was enjoying it at the time.

“Palette to Palate,” Guild Hall’s local artists’ cookbook published in 1978, has some interesting recipes as well. At least the artist Ralph Carpentier talks about how delicious freshly caught, filleted, and fried bluefish can be. Leif Hope, on the other hand, is quite the scamp, offering his recipe for a peanut butter sandwich. It includes raw onion, bacon, mayonnaise, longhorn cheese, blackberry jelly, mustard, and . . . cinnamon.

One of the recipes I am going to try this Thanksgiving comes from a suggested side dish to Chicken a la Mowry, from Mrs. Stuyvesant Wainwright in the 60th-anniversary cookbook. She recommends a “spinach ring filled with small beets.” I got to thinking how pretty this could be on the table, green and red, perhaps even better suited for a Christmas dinner. No recipe was given for this, and I feared it may have involved gelatin, but I found a pretty tasty recipe online and filled mine with roasted beets in a shallot Dijon mustard vinaigrette.

I am also going to make the mashed turnip and potatoes, layered with fried onions and topped with crushed Corn Flakes, provided by Mrs. Samuel Cline. Besides Mama Stamberg’s, a.k.a. Craig Claiborne’s, cranberry relish, I’m going to make the simple sounding recipe from the same book for cranberry orange relish, no more than one pound of cranberries, two cups sugar, and one orange ground together and chilled.

It is comforting at holiday times to enjoy foods that are not just rich, but rich with history, lore, and legend. Have a happy and historical Thanksgiving, everyone! And let us give an extra thanks for those who recorded these local recipes so that we can replicate them hundreds of years after our ancestors.

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With a husband who is a chef, Patty Sales cannot generally be found cooking. But baking is a different story.

The namesake of a grassroots East Hampton business, Cousin Patty’s Cookies, she grew up with a wooden spoon and mixing bowl at hand. “It’s very relaxing,” she said on a recent rainy day, perfect for baking. 

Ms. Sales’s decorated cookies come in all shapes and sizes. Individually packaged or boxed, they are perfect for special occasions, and are catching on as gifts. “I paint, too,” she said, so it was not too far a step to make decorated cookies her medium. She gets ideas, she said, from Food Network shows, or online baking sites. She makes her cookies from a “basic shortbread recipe,” but a tasty one, she said, “because if you go to that much work, it should be good to eat.”

But there’s technology involved, too, which helps set Cousin Patty’s treats apart. She invested in a printer that can turn a photograph into an image made with edible ink on rice paper that can be affixed to cookies. 

Over time, her cookies have been decorated with all kinds of images — from a “Grumpy Cat” character for a child’s birthday to vintage greeting card designs, which she is partial to and uses for cookies meant as Mother’s Day gifts. There are Cousin Patty’s cookies appropriate for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays. Gingerbread cookies made to look like a rabbi were even sent into Manhattan on a Hampton Jitney for Hanukkah. And there are many simply intended for a friend. 

 For the Fourth of July, Ms. Sales does patriotic designs.  She has made cookies for a party to which military families and participants in Jordan’s Run, a tribute to Jordan Haerter, a marine from Sag Harbor who lost his life in Iraq, were invited. With three Gold Star families that had also lost loved ones, she made cookies with images of the families’ “challenge coins,” medallions that had been carried by the service members. She’s made cookies for baby showers and bridal showers, and created edible business cards and welcome cookies for real estate brokers to leave for clients who have just purchased a house. 

With an inexhaustible number of possibilities, the print-decorated cookies also, she said, lend themselves to gags, a surprising way to rib someone or make a joke.  

She’s often done cookies as mini books for book clubs and for authors to offer as treats at book signings. Once, they stood in for books themselves. In August, before the East Hampton Library’s Authors Night, Ms. Sales made cookies depicting the cover of Tom Clavin’s “Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West.” Mr. Clavin was on hand at the event — but his books had failed to arrive. So he signed a cookie or two instead. 

Ms. Sales’s chocolate chip cookies, the result of tweaking a few recipes to create a custom mix, are a staple and a “crowd-pleaser,” she said.  She also makes her grandmother’s peanut butter blossoms.  “My grandmother, who lived in Montauk — you’d go to her house … she was always baking. You’d probably leave with an apple pie, or cookies.”  Her mother baked, too, and “we were always a big part of it, hands on,” she said. The oven was going whenever there was a bake sale or other event coming up. “As soon as we were old enough,” Ms. Sales said, her mother would say “make them yourself.”

Baking also was a family activity when her two daughters were growing up, and now she bakes with a young child who is a friend of the family, and with preschool children her daughter teaches. “I think it’s important,” she said.

“I’ve always enjoyed baking,” Ms. Sales said. “Wherever I went, I would bring cookies.”  She would deliver a gift of cookies in a jar or tin with an offer for refills. But the “turning point,” she said, came after a friend impressed upon her that people would pay good money for her baked goods. This fall, as Election Day neared, Ms. Sales was making “candidate cookies” for a friend on the ballot. Another friend, a summer visitor to East Hampton who lives in New York City at other times of year, was always amazed at how many people Ms. Sales knows or is related to here. 

“Everybody’s her cousin,” the friend would tease.  One day, she turned the joke into a logo on a Facebook page, but the business continues to be run largely by word of mouth. Although you might encounter Cousin Patty’s Cookies at a local fair or bake sale, you don’t have to wait to buy some. Orders are now taken by email, at [email protected].

For Procrastinators

Just decided to come out east at the last minute and have no plans or food in the house for the holiday? Maybe the Bumpuses’ dogs ate your turkey as it was cooling on the kitchen table?

Some last-minute ideas for Thanksgiving dinner include the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton, where a four-course prix fixe meal is being served up for $85, $40 for children under 12, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The restaurant also offers a nightly prix fixe for $37 from 5:30 to 9 from Sunday to Thursday and Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m. Kids and dogs are welcome at the sunroom brunch on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The bar’s nightly happy hour includes $10 cocktails and snacks by the fire from 4 to 7 p.m. 

In Southampton, Tutto Il Giorno will also be open on Thanksgiving with a prix fixe menu for $65 that includes a choice of baby kale Caesar salad or a baby artichoke appetizer, wild mushroom tortelli or roasted turkey pastilla as an entree, and carmelized pear crostata or pumpkin semifreddo for dessert. These items can also be ordered a la carte along with the regular menu. The restaurant will remain open during its regular hours throughout the weekend.

Farther East at Highway

Highway Restaurant and Bar in East Hampton will have a special Asian menu next Thursday. Chef Anand Sastry’s Thai, Singaporean, and Chinese-inspired dishes include a Thai Jungle Soup with chicken, shrimp, galangal, and lemongrass, crispy Long Island duck with hoisin sauce and moo shu pancakes, and Singapore noodles. A $39 prix fixe menu or a la carte options will be available.

Highway continues to offer its chicken pot pies on Monday nights to comfort and warm during the colder months this season. The restaurant is open Thursday through Monday from 5 p.m. (the bar opens at 4), with brunch on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The restaurant is closed today for Thanksgiving.

Lunch Special at Rowdy

East Hampton’s Rowdy Hall is offering a daily $12 lunch special this season beginning at noon. The meal consists of a cup of soup and salad or half sandwich and will change daily. It will not be offered on holidays.

Sips and Strokes

The Baker House 1650 on Main Street in East Hampton will host one of its regular Paint and Sip evenings on Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30. Instruction and materials will be offered by the Salty Canvas, a “traveling paint studio,” for $50, which includes a glass of wine.

The weather may still be disconcertingly balmy, but the farm stands and supermarkets and nurseries are all letting us know it’s fall! Hank’s Pumpkintown is up and running and busy as ever. The folks at John’s Drive-In in Montauk are cranking out their delicious pumpkin ice cream. There are pumpkin lattes, pumpkin doughnuts, pumpkin ales. There are caramel apple kits at King Kullen and corn mazes everywhere. I kid you not, I spied Pepperidge Farm Pumpkin Swirl bread (limited time only!) at the Sag Harbor I.G.A. The Pepperidge Farm website exhorts you to “Wake up to swirls and swirls of yummy morning magic!” Goodness gracious, almost gave me flashbacks to 1969.

At the Montauk Fall Festival last weekend I bought some pumpkin raviolis. I chatted with the amiable fellow selling them. “What do you suggest, browned butter with fresh sage to top the raviolis?” “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he confided. “Try them with cinnamon and whipped cream for dessert. I’m telling you, you can’t go wrong.” With this information weighing heavily upon me, I went in search of another Montauk Brewing Company Pumptauk pumpkin-yam beer.

If you’re going to cook with pumpkin, you should know that our very own Long Island cheese pumpkin is the best. These are the pale, creamy-orange colored, somewhat squat pumpkins you’ll see everywhere. But what about all the other winter squashes, pumpkins, and gourds you see in abundance at farm stands? There are over 100 “genera” in the cucurbiteae family, and more than 700 species.

Acorn squash is a variety you will see all year round. They are relatively small (12 ounces to two pounds) and dark green with deep ribs and blond-orange speckles and stripes. They are thick-skinned with somewhat stringy flesh and are good for roasting, baking (stuffed or not), steaming, mashing, and sautéing.

The blue Hokkaido pumpkin is a beauty, with gray-blue skin and bright orange flesh. This is a tasty one, sweet and nutty, good for baking and stuffing or just on its own, roasted with butter, salt, and pepper.

Butternut squash is the sweetest of winter squashes and has passed the acorn in popularity (probably because you can now get it peeled and cubed at the grocery store). The flesh is firm and holds its shape when roasted. Try it with grated fresh ginger, rosemary, and maple syrup.

 It is also worth noting that many of these squashes and pumpkins can be eaten with the skin on. Just make sure to give them a good scrub before cooking.

Delicata squash are small and oblong, striped with yellow, green, and orange. This one is a bit drier than others. I like it cut into thin wedges and roasted with assertive Middle Eastern spices and topped with a dollop of yogurt.

Hubbard squash are those big fellows you often see sold in halves and quarters, they’re so huge. They are roundish, teardrop-shaped with dark green to pale blue-grey-colored skin and a bit more warty surface than Hokkaido. Their thick skin makes them one of the best for long-term storage (up to five months), and their flesh becomes sweeter as they age. They are very sweet and “pumpkin-y,” making them ideal for baking into cakes and muffins.

Kabocha is another squash you will see everywhere. This one is squat, round, and green with orange splotches. The flesh is sweet and tender and nutty and also keeps its shape when cooked, making it a good choice in soups and stews.

The red Kuri, also called Hokkaido, just to confuse you, is a small bright-red-orange squash similar in shape to a pumpkin but without the ridges. Its size makes it good for stuffing and roasting.

Since we covered the Long Island cheese pumpkin at length last fall, suffice it to say that this is one of the best and most versatile for baking and stuffing. Look up Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for “Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good.” It is one of the best recipes I have ever tried, cheesy, rich, and creamy, and quite the showpiece when brought to the table whole.

If you are going to use pumpkin or squash in a pie, I would strongly urge you to roast it first. Boiling just makes it watery, roasting brings out the natural sugars and concentrates the flavor. Ever tasted the difference between boiled beets and roasted beets? Same thing.

So, when you’ve had enough pumpkin lattes and cider donuts and Kabocha kimchi bubblegum, visit your favorite farm stand and try one of the more unusual offerings of the cucurbiteae family. They are inexpensive, healthy, and versatile.

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Bourbon and Pork

Dishes made with pork from a heritage-breed pig raised at the Root ’n’ Roost Farm upstate, paired with New York-made bourbon and rye from Widow Jane, will be the centerpiece of a meal at Almond in Bridgehampton next Thursday. Reservations are being taken for the $70 dinner, which will begin at 7 p.m.

Champagne Weekend

Champagne Philippe Gonet will be served at a guided tasting during a “champagne weekend” at the Baker House 1650 in East Hampton on Oct. 21 and 22. Chantal Gonet, the brand’s winemaker, will host a seminar and tasting on Oct. 21 at 5 p.m. A cocktail party will follow from 6 to 8 featuring more French champagne served with hors d’oeuvres in the Baker House gardens and living room. Tickets are $50 per person. On Oct. 22 beginning at 11 a.m., there will be a champagne brunch, also $50 and attended by the winemaker.

Tickets can be reserved by calling the Baker House or purchased on the eventbrite website.

Tacos at Indian Wells

Getting through the first workdays of the week might become easier with a Tuesday night visit to Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, which is hosting Taco Tuesdays. Diners can choose among three different tacos, served with chips and salsa to start, topped with radish, cilantro, and queso fresco, and accompanied by rice and beans. The choices of fillings, subject to change, could include steak, spicy pulled chicken, or seared yellowfin tuna. 

Fall at Coast Kitchen

Coast Kitchen restaurant at the Montauk Yacht Club has a $29.95 (plus tax and tip) three-course prix fixe special for fall, served daily from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Among the possible menu selections are a first course of pumpkin bisque, spicy tamarind chicken wings, or salads, followed by a choice of bourbon-glazed chicken, grilled branzino, pasta with seasonal veggies, or grilled skirt steak. Dessert is included as well. 

The restaurant is also offering bar bites for $10 during a daily 4 to 7 p.m. happy hour, when beers are $3, glasses of wine $8, and house specialty drinks $10. 

Wine Wednesdays

Speaking of wine — the main topic at Wainscott Main, where the proprietor, Chimene Visser Macnaughton, puts her sommelier skills to good use — Wine Wednesdays have started up again. The series of wine tasting and educational events continues weekly at 5:30 p.m. with different expert speakers and topics. Next week, Sag Harbor’s “sake sensei,” Jesse Matsuoka, a partner and general manager at Sen in that village, will lead the session. 

Admission for each weekly class is $10, and those interested have been asked to call the store or send an email to [email protected] to sign up. The sessions will run through mid-December. 

Microgreens Tour, Tasting

Slow Food East End is taking reservations for a Nov. 2 tour and tasting at Good Water Farms in Bridgehampton, which produces microgreens and has just released “The Microgreens Cookbook: A Good Water Farms Odyssey.” Brendan Davison, the farm’s owner, will lead the tasting and tour and provide each visitor with a box of microgreens to take home. Small bites made by Megan Huylo, the chef at East Hampton’s Bhumi Farms, will be served. 

Reservations for the 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. event are limited and can be made at the Slow Food East End website by Oct. 31. The cost is $65.

Fall at Lulu

There are new specials for the fall at Lulu Kitchen and Bar in Sag Harbor. A two-course lunch prix fixe is offered on Mondays and Wednesdays through Saturdays for $26.95. The restaurant is closed for lunch on Tuesdays. A three-course dinner offer is $34.95 Sundays through Wednesdays.

Menu selections, which are subject to change, include, at lunch, a choice of French onion soup, beef tartare, or lentil salad to start, followed by a choice of sandwiches — croque monsieur or madame or tuna nicoise — or an omelette with butternut squash, arugula, and fontina cheese. Dinner entree selections may include pasta, veal osso buco, fall ratatouille, or wood-fired grilled codfish. 

During a daily happy hour from 5 to 6:30 p.m., bites can be ordered off the bar menu — from blistered shisito peppers to wild mushroom and pea shoots served with crispy cabbage, smoked butter, and bread, wood-grilled marinated artichokes, and more. 

Montauk Beer at M.S.G.

The Montauk Brewing Company, founded in 2012 by three young men who grew up in East Hampton, is finding continued success with increased distribution across Long Island and the New York metropolitan area. Most recently, the company announced that its beer will be served at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, both on tap and in cans. 

Vaughan Cutillo, a co-founder, thanked supporters in a recent press release, noting that the beer brewers had delivered their first keg by bicycle and a keg trailer just a few years ago. 

For Meatless Mondays

Stefanie Sacks, a “culinary nutritionist,” will present a series of workshops with instructions for “meatless Mondays” beginning next week at a private residence in Bridgehampton. The 5:30 to 8 p.m. sessions, suitable for adults as well as children ages 10 and up, will begin with a brief discussion followed by hands-on cooking instruction. Five different plant-based recipes will be prepared, and the sessions will end with a family-style meal. 

Each class costs $100. Those interested can register on Ms. Sacks’s website, reboot-food.com. 

Pork and Bourbon

Tonight’s the night for a dinner at Almond in Bridgehampton featuring spirits from Widow Jane, a Brooklyn distillery, and pork from a pig raised at Root ’n’ Roost Farm in Livingston Manor, N.Y. Four courses served family style will be paired with a Widow Jane bourbon or rye. The tentative menu includes head soup, a mixed grill, ham and grits with spicy pickles, and a caramel-apple dessert with bacon. The cost is $70.

In summertime you can get away with slicing up a watermelon, dropping some berries in a bowl, or stopping at a farm stand for a fruit pie, and voila, dessert is done. But this time of year don’t you want to make a little more effort with a homemade dessert? The following three cakes are so easy and so good, you are going to cut them out and keep them forever. They are fast, fruity, and foolproof!

Let’s begin with one of the most iconic cake recipes ever published by The New York Times: Marion Burros’s plum torte. This recipe was given to her by her friend Lois Levine for their self-published 1960 cookbook “Elegant but Easy.” It was simply called “fruit torte,” because it is very adaptable to the seasons — blueberries and peaches in summer, plums in the fall. It was so popular The Times ran it every September from 1983 to 1989. In 1989 the newspaper was so tired of running it over and over that it printed it with a broken-line border and larger type and exhorted its readers to cut it out and laminate it. Not being able to leave well enough alone, it also later published a New Age Plum Torte that replaced the butter and eggs with bananas and egg substitute. Sounds ghastly. In 1994 there was an apple cranberry version and at one point a whole wheat one. Trust me, Ms. Burros’s original plum torte is the best.

A few months ago my friend Mona begged me to try to get the recipe for the Crow’s Nest’s olive oil cake. I was confident I could get it for her because chefs are usually pretty cool about sharing recipes with each other. 

I contacted the current chef and assured him it was strictly for my friend, not for publication. He said he would not give me the recipe, but said that it has been modified three times and is baked in a skillet. Thanks, pal. 

When it comes to research, I am a like a dog with a bone, so I took the next (which should have been first) logical step: I Googled “Crow’s Nest olive oil cake.” Duh. Lo and behold, the original recipe came from my friend Jeff Schwarz, who had been the chef at Crow’s Nest years ago. He had published it in his excellent blog for The Times’s T Magazine, “A Chef in the Field.” 

I have made this cake at least seven times in the last few months with a few minor changes of my own, and it is one of the easiest, best cakes ever. It literally takes five minutes to throw together.

The third recipe I have fallen in love with is a simple pear cake from “French Country Cooking” by Mimi Thorisson. The only fiddling around I have done with this recipe is experimenting with different varieties of pears. As the cake is mostly fruit, I have found that Bartletts are almost too juicy and watery. My favorite pear is Bosc, those brown-skinned ones that seem to take eons to ripen. Beware, even when they are ripe, they stay firm, so just buy some and let them sit out on the counter for about four or five days. I also serve the cake pre-sliced, sprinkled with additional confectioner’s sugar, and toasted up in the oven.

The first time I made the olive oil cake I found it to be quite oily — the recipe calls for a full cup of olive oil. It also tends to stick to the skillet, even a well-seasoned one, so I bake it in an enameled cast iron pan. I have made it in 12-inch, 10-inch, and 8-inch pans. They are all perfectly fine, as long as you adjust the cooking time. Mr. Schwarz’s original recipe calls for a 10-inch skillet. Be sure to use a very good, fruity olive oil, I like Arlotta and Frantoia brands. To serve, I also like to pre-slice each portion and heat it up so the almond flour edges crisp up and the citrus aromas waft about.

All three of these cakes are good for breakfast, teatime, or a rustic but grand dessert. And they all freeze beautifully. What more could you ask for? Perhaps a dollop of creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream. . . .

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Does the seasonal change have you craving heartier food and drink? At Townline BBQ in Sagaponack, there’s an option all rolled into one. Called the Hail Mary (a version of a Bloody Mary) and served in and on a glass, this meal-in-a-drink starts with a Bloody Mary. The drink is then topped with a piece of Townline’s barbecue brisket, a St. Louis rib, a hush puppy, a pickle, and an olive. It costs $15.

Prix Fixe, Pizza

Reasons to visit Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton this fall: three prix fixe specials to choose from, wood-oven pizzas, and “social hour” at the bar.

The pizzas are available on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. During social hour, which is 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on weekdays and on Sundays from 2:30 to 6:30, drink specials are offered along with a special bar menu for noshing. Menu items range from pizza to meat or cheese plates, meatball sliders, pickled garden veggies, bruschetta, and truffled polenta fries. 

The prix fixes start at $30, which includes “simply dinner” — a salad, pasta entree or pizza, and two scoops of gelato or sorbetto. For $35, a “classic” prix fixe includes romaine salad or penne to start followed by roasted chicken as an entree and tartufo for dessert. The chef’s choice prix fixe for $40 features an appetizer, entree, and dessert of the day. The specials are not available during holidays or for takeout. Nick and Toni’s is closed on Tuesdays. 

Dia de los Muertos

La Fondita in Amagansett will celebrate Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead, with traditional food specials Wednesday through Friday, Nov. 3. The menu will include pork tamales in red salsa with rice and beans, chicken tamales in green sauce with rice and beans, chile and cheese tamales with rice and refried beans, and chiles en nogada, which are poblano peppers filled with cheese and topped with a walnut cream sauce and pomegranate seeds — also served with rice and refried beans. Also available will be churros for dessert and champurrado, a thick hot chocolate drink. 

Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, is a celebration that originated with the Aztecs of central Mexico thousands of years ago. Nov. 1 is the Day of the Innocents, or Dia de los Inocentes, or Dia de los Angelitos, Day of the Little Angels, that is, children. Nov. 2 is for celebrating deceased adults. These are not days of mourning the passing of friends and family, they are celebrations of their lives, and the rituals that accompany these holidays are to welcome them back for a day.

Toys and candy are the ofrendas, or offerings, for children. The adults get alcohol and a variety of other foods. Sometimes families build altars in their homes, and sometimes makeshift altars are built at the gravestones of the dead. Occasionally, poems are written and recited, anecdotes are shared, and songs are sung. Strings of paper cutouts are hung to represent the wind and sky.

Some of the traditional foods offered on the day of the dead are a sweet, eggy bread with glazed dough “bones” on top, candied pumpkin infused with cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, and orange zest, ornately decorated sugar skulls (calaveros), tamales, atole, sweetened hibiscus tea, tequila, and mezcal. It is believed that the deceased will receive the “spiritual essence” of the food, taking the nutritional value, but the living celebrants will eat it anyway. Candles, incense, and bright marigolds are also elements of the ofrendas.

When the spirits of the dead return for one day, it is believed they will provide protection, good luck, and wisdom for the living.

Before the Spanish conquest, this holiday was celebrated at the end of harvest season in late August. When the Catholics came around, it became a mash-up, now coinciding with All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

The Day of the Dead is also celebrated in Italy, Spain, South America, and the Philippines, although more somberly. There are special masses, and gravestones and tombs of loved ones are cleaned up. Central and southern Mexico make it a more festive celebration with music, drinks, and parties. Tears are not meant to be shed, for the departed may slip on them on their journey. It is more of a cultural holiday than religious one, a time to recount not how the loved ones died, but how they lived.

There are always worthwhile things to learn from other cultures, and the lessons of Dia de los Muertos are good ones to teach our children. Celebrate your ancestors by playing their favorite song, bring them back to life with an amusing anecdote, and prepare some of their favorite foods.

The following candied pumpkin recipe would probably be great made with Long Island cheese pumpkins. I wouldn’t recommend using your now shriveling jack-o’-lantern from Halloween.

If you can’t find Chimayo peppers for the red chile sauce, you can substitute any other fairly large (about two to four inches dried), fairly hot chile pepper. It is a little labor intensive, but so worthwhile. Also be sure to get good corn tortillas and high-quality Monterey jack cheese for the recipe, it makes a big difference.

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This year is the 25th anniversary of the Hamptons International Film Festival, which runs from next Thursday through Oct. 9. Congratulations, HIFF!

This got me thinking about food in films and films about food. There are so, so many, I thought it prudent to divide them into categories: the films that are specifically about food — “Babette’s Feast,” “Mostly Martha,” “Chef,” “Burnt,” “Chocolat,” “Waitress,” “Ratatouille,” “Tampopo,” “Big Night,” and the marvelous “The Hundred Foot Journey” — and the movies that are not about food whatsoever, but in which a scene with or about food becomes one of the most memorable in the entire movie — “Goodfellas,” “The Godfather,” “It’s Complicated,” “Tom Jones,” “Mystic Pizza,” and “Amelie.”

Sometimes food is just a prop in a movie; sometimes it becomes the star. We are all drawn to food scenes because they are familiar to us, as family dinners, as foreplay, as fights.

Food can be a useful tool for actors. In the movie “Big,” Tom Hanks is magically transformed back into a young boy. When he finds himself at a grand party, he picks up an ear of baby corn and consumes it as if it is a full-sized ear, nibbling the kernels daintily from one end to the other. In “What About Bob?” Bill Murray’s character follows his therapist (Richard Dreyfuss) to his vacation home and plops himself down to enjoy their porch supper. His enthusiastic moaning and compliments to the therapist’s wife makes Dreyfuss’s blood boil. 

“Mmmmmm, Faye, this is scrumptious! Is it hand-shucked?”

In “Goodfellas,” the character Henry Hill narrates Paulie’s way of slicing garlic with a razor blade. The scene demonstrates that even though the mobsters are in prison, they are not doing without; they can still prepare a fine Italian feast behind bars.

Everyone remembers the iconic scene in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen and Diane Keaton attempt to cook lobsters. (That scene, by the way, was filmed at the Amagansett house of The Star’s editor, David E. Rattray!) In “It’s Complicated,” the scene where Meryl Streep makes chocolate croissants for Steve Martin’s character makes you want to run out and buy 20 fresh croissants. The food for “It’s Complicated,” “Julie and Julia,” and “Eat Pray Love” was all made by the talented Susan Spungen, an occasional East End resident. “Julie and Julia” is a fine example of a movie that’s better than the book, in my opinion. That buttery hollandaise with artichokes!

Food in movies is often intertwined with sex. For instance, that dumb scene in “9 1/2 Weeks” where Mickey Rourke feeds a variety of refrigerator items to a blindfolded Kim Basinger — ice cubes, maraschino cherries, a jalapeño. What a sadistic dude. In “Tom Jones,” one of the most famous scenes is Albert Finney sharing a gargantuan feast with a lady friend. They consume the food lustily and messily, beginning with soup, then lobster, chicken, and oysters, followed by ripe pears. “Tampopo” is a film all about noodles (ramen) but the more memorable food/sex scene involves a raw egg yolk being passed back and forth orally between lovers until . . . well, check it out for yourself if you like.

In movies that are specifically about food, there is usually a climactic food scene. Remy the rodent in “Ratatouille” cooks for Anton Ego “the poison penned restaurant critic.” Why are we restaurant critics always portrayed as monsters? Same portrayal in “Mystic Pizza.” 

In “Big Night,” the preparation of timpano is epic. Timpano is a complicated concoction of homemade pasta, layered with more pasta, meatballs, sauce, hard-boiled eggs, mozzarella, and salami. Oof!

In 2005 I had the unique experience of making all the pies for the movie “Waitress,” now a Broadway musical. I was flown back and forth to Los Angeles to make the pies four or five times. The movie was shot at a diner an hour outside of L.A., which meant 30 to 40 pies had to be transported each time. I was confident in my pie making skills but not in my ability to navigate the L.A. freeways, so I’d make someone else in the crew drive them out to the set. It was fun to teach Keri Russell how to roll dough and hang around craft services with the other actors and crew.

When it comes to authenticity in the movies, one of my pet peeves (in “Burnt” and a few others) is the immaculate restaurant kitchen, chefs with spotless coats, and chopping scenes with the fingertips exposed. No restaurant kitchen is clean during the rush, chefs’ coats get spattered with all manner of food and grease, and every good cook knows to curl his or her fingertips under while chopping to prevent the loss of digits. The movie “Chef” is one of the few that got all of it right.

Mike Nichols once said that all movies, plays, and life in general, are about three things: fights, seductions, and negotiation. The same could be said about food in movies. Fights: “Animal House.” Seduction: “It’s Complicated” and many more. Negotiation: “Five Easy Pieces” and “Goodfellas.” Those gangsters had to do something to get all that fresh parsley, tomatoes, and garlic past the guards. 

The wonderful writer and director Nora Ephron often put recipes in her books (“Heartburn”), and food played an important role in many of her movies. She once said, “I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them.”

To paraphrase the director Federico Fellini: “Life (and film) is a combination of magic and pasta.” ­