Customers expecting overflowing bins of fresh produce or deli cases bursting with prepared foods might be confused upon entering the new Amagansett Farmers Market, which the Amagansett Food Institute reopened on Aug. 1. The selection is small compared to what was offered by previous proprietors. Take a closer look, though, and you’ll notice that almost everything in the market, save the olive oil, is grown or produced on Long Island or in New York State, some of it at the institute’s own business-incubator kitchen at Stony Brook Southampton, called South Fork Kitchens.

There’s ice cream by the scoop from Joe and Liza’s Ice Cream in Sag Harbor, a Lucy’s Whey concession with a focus on cheeses produced in New York State, frozen Gula Gula Empanadas made in Mattituck, Plain T iced tea by the cup or dried and loose, and Backyard Brine pickles made at Stony Brook University’s incubator kitchen in Calverton.

The market also carries Sfoglini whole-grain rye pastas from Brooklyn, North Fork Chocolate, and out of South Fork Kitchens it has Carissa’s Breads, cookies and sweets from Flower Girl Jen, and sandwiches and prepared salads by the Madeline Picnic Co. and Hamptons Aristocrat. The corn is from Pike’s Farm in Sagaponack and Balsam Farms in Amagansett, and all the rest of the fruits and veggies are locally grown, too.

“Our mission is to promote the farmers and food producers of eastern Long Island, but we also want to introduce people to other small-batch producers who are using local products in the rest of the state, products we think are really excellent that are not available at other food stores and come from farmers and producers we think are really using the right methodology and that we like to support,” said Kathleen Masters, the Food Institute’s executive director.

While filling customers’ shopping baskets is important, keeping true to that mission and creating an educated consumer in the process is equally so. In one corner of the market, there is a lending library with books like “The Produce Bible,” “The Green Food Bible,” Joel Furman’s “Eat to Live,” and Peter Pringle’s “A Place at the Table,” available to borrow and read over a cup of tea or coffee in the market’s garden.

Below the bookshelves are tips about how to store different fruits or vegetables to minimize waste and maximize flavor. Surprise! Some fresh produce — potatoes and tomatoes, for example — should be stored on the counter and not in the fridge, where too-cold temperatures can alter their chemistry, affecting taste and texture.

“Our educational focus for the year is reducing food waste,” Ms. Masters said last Thursday. At the market, the institute will do that by encouraging people to think about canning, freezing, drying, and ways to use produce that’s past its prime, and by working to make as little food waste as possible itself by processing less-fresh produce into products with added value, like soups or sauces. Laura O’Brien of Josephine’s Feast, a master canner, has offered to run workshops in the fall on canning and preserving.

“We’re also going to do a gleaning project on the farm,” Ms. Masters said. The institute will recruit people to harvest leftovers in the fields and then process those into products, under South Fork Kitchens Glean label, that can be shared with the farmers or whose proceeds can be shared.

“Forty percent of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, wasted at all levels of the food system,” from the farm to transport to retail outlets and in our own homes, Ms. Masters said. There’s been a movement afoot among chefs to use oft-rejected ingredients — seafood once referred to as “trash fish,” unloved vegetable parts, bruised lettuce leaves.

For three weeks this spring, Dan Barber, the acclaimed chef and co-owner of the Blue Hill restaurants in Greenwich Village and at Stone Barns, transformed his Manhattan restaurant into a pop-up showcase for the discarded that he called WastED, challenging patrons and kitchen staff alike to think about food waste in a new way. “It’s a current topic and an important one when people are hungry, and it has implications for the environment and for food security,” Ms. Masters said.

To that end, the market sells day-old corn from Balsam at about a third of the cost you’d pay for fresh-picked, suggesting that it’s great for cooking.

It took some time for the Food Institute to negotiate the farmers market lease with the Peconic Land Trust, but Ms. Masters felt it was important to have a summer presence at the market, even if it was a limited one. If all goes according to plan, August will be just a small taste of the rich offerings ahead. In time, she hopes the market will once again have a functional commercial kitchen, where items like soups and egg sandwiches could be cooked on site.

A pumpkin-carving event is planned for mid-fall, and before Christmas the market will host a fair with local food-related gifts.

Once the bigger farmers markets start to close down for the season and farmers lose that connection to customers, Ms. Masters said, the Amagansett spot will provide an alternative market for the bounties of fall harvests.

As the busy, busy, (can I emphasize, very busy?) season for East End eateries wraps up, there is not much word about new initiatives, menu shifts, specials, and whatnot. Presumably, our restaurateurs and their staffs are just hanging in there, serving summer customers, and will come up for air post-Labor Day.

One thing that will continue through September is the weekly Sunday barbecue at Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton. It starts at 6 p.m. and features wine pairings by Wolffer Estate Vineyards. Space is limited, so reservations have been requested. The cost is $95 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Those who like the al fresco scene may wish to reserve the firepit at Topping Rose for an outdoor gathering. The restaurant is also continuing a summer prix fixe, daily from 5 to 6:30 p.m. for $35 plus tax and gratuity.

Peanuts at Stuart’s

Stuart’s Seafood market in Amagansett will be handing out bags of peanuts to customers this weekend, suggested snacks for watching a Mets game on Monday at which Dante Sasso, the 11-year-old son of the market’s proprietors and the winner of the NY 529 Plan SNY Kidcaster Contest, will call an inning.

The game, against the Phillies, airs on SNY at 7 p.m., and the proud parents will celebrating all weekend by passing out the packs of peanuts.

Osteria del Circo

If the impending autumn turns one’s cravings toward hearty Italian food, a $39 early prix fixe at Osteria del Circo in Southampton might be just the thing. The Tuscan-style restaurant is the East End representative of a chain that includes Manhattan and Abu Dhabi locations.

North Sea Tavern

And Raw’r Bar

1271 North Sea Road

North Sea

631-353-3322

Dinner nightly

Lunch, Wednesday through Sunday

Sometimes reviewing restaurants can be a bore and a chore. You have no idea how many expensive, mediocre, noisy evenings I have spent with friends trying “locally sourced” this, “artisanal” that, “farm to table” flotsam, and “muddled shrub with cranberry spheres” jetsam. North Sea Tavern and Raw’r Bar, I am pleased to report, is a new restaurant that doesn’t just talk the talk, it walks the walk.

Having never been to the old North Sea Tavern or TAPS, also at this location, I wouldn’t know what went into the renovation. The place is simple looking, with pale, blue-gray and white walls, some mirrors, a wee bit of artwork, plain wood tables with a few communal picnic tables, and surprisingly comfortable aluminum chairs. On the night of our visit, it had only been open two weeks, so business was slow, especially for a Saturday in August. I suspect, and hope, this will change soon.

We began our meal with mussels, tuna bao, and fried fish tacos. All three were absolutely delicious.

The mussels came in a somewhat murky broth, full of spice. The menu described it as “blood orange pale ale-blueberry-garlic-butter-herbs-chili.” It was the blueberries that gave it the dirty dishwater hue, but this did not detract from our enjoyment. The mussels were served with a big wedge of crusty bread that had been drizzled with lots of good olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.

The tuna bao was two bao buns (similar to the mushy, soft buns of the Chinese steamed pork buns variety) with thick pieces of barely seared tuna, a bit of spicy aioli, and a vinegary chive relish. The combination of rich aioli and tart relish was perfect with the mild tuna. The fried fish taco dish was two deep-fried flour tortillas topped with crispy fried fluke, scallion crema, and herbal chimichurri sauce — crispy, crunchy, original, delicious.

For entrees we ordered a crab roll, swordfish, an oyster po’ boy, and a side of New Bay fries. The crab roll was an insanely generous portion of jumbo lump crabmeat piled onto a brioche bun, moistened with a bit of garlic white wine sauce, and topped with arugula.

The swordfish was cooked perfectly, as in, not overdone, and was served with pan-roasted Halsey Farm corn “chowder” and a big portion of salad. The only problem with this dish was the overzealous amount of roasted garlic added to the corn, overshadowing its sweetness. The salad served with it was utterly fresh greens, a bit messy in a homemade way, with a delicate vinaigrette.

The oyster po’ boy was another winner. A couple of huge perfectly fried oysters were piled into a brioche bun and served with spicy red aioli and a slice of good tomato. Now let’s talk about the fries. We ordered them because Old Bay seasoning is one of my favorite spice blends, and we figured “New Bay” would be North Sea Tavern’s riff on it. It was. The fries were sooooo good. The fat little nubbins of spuds were seasoned with what tasted like freshly ground spices, including just a hint of nutmeg and clove, but not so much that it was weird. Our minor quibble was that ketchup had already been added to a corner of the big bowl of fries, and some people don’t like ketchup. I liked it because I’m pretty sure it was the Sir Kensington brand, which is much more savory than the usual Hunt’s or Heinz.

The menu itself is short and interesting, almost verging on “Really? Do you have to add gooseberries to that app? Do chilis, coconut, peaches, pineapple, sherry, and flowers really go with shrimp?” It’s got a touch of Williamsburg-meets-Portlandia-and-plops-down-in-North-Sea. It’s quirky and original.

There is also a caviar menu offering reasonable domestic and foreign, sustainably harvested roes served with frozen vodka, a great idea that I plan to investigate on my next foray. The cocktails and wine list are also impressive in that there are a lot of Long Island wines and beers and creative concoctions.

The service on the night of our visit was very good, especially considering how new North Sea Tavern and Raw’r Bar is. But as I said before, business was pretty slow that evening. The prices are moderate, especially considering the quality of the food. Raw bar items, appetizers, and small plates are $1.75 to $21, large plates are $17 to $32, sides are $5 and $6, desserts are $9.

Alas, not everything was divine. There were three dessert offerings that night, chocolate raspberry pots de creme, blueberry bread pudding, and Blue Duck Bakery apple pie a la mode. We already know that Blue Duck makes a swell apple pie so we just tried the other two desserts. The chocolate pots de creme came out with a soupy, milky puddle on top, so I asked our waitress, “What’s up with that?” I thought perhaps some whipped cream had melted on top. Nope. Then we tasted it. We were so flustered by its weirdness that when I referred back to my notes, I saw that I had written “milk with salted salt.” And that’s exactly what it tasted like. The chocolate part was good but we sent this back.

The blueberry bread pudding was also a sad state of affairs. We suspect the kitchen took some of the glorious, toasted and oiled and salted bread that accompanied our mussel dish and incorporated it into a dessert. It was crisp and crunchy and salty but lacked the moist pudding part. I totally get salted caramel and appreciate a wee bit of saline with sweetness, but these desserts had too much.

On the drive home we all agreed that this is a great new addition, and if it was closer to Sag Harbor, we would be regulars. Regardless, it is worth the trip and I look forward to discovering what kinds of cuckoo combos the chef comes up with next.

Hard to believe as I write this column, still under August’s summer sway, that not only is Labor Day nigh, but Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is coming up soon. Those who wish to dine on some of the homemade holiday specialties offered by Stuart’s Seafood in Amagansett would do well to think about putting their orders in now. Gefilte fish, kugel, latkes, and more will be available for the Sept. 14 holiday.

Argentine Wolffer Wine

The Wolffer Estate winery in Sagaponack augmented its rosé offerings this year by producing Finca Wolffer Rosé  in Argentina, which will be featured at a dinner on Sunday at the Crow’s Nest in Montauk. The restaurant’s guest chef, Fernando Trocca of Buenos Aires, will prepare a selection of tapas and a platter of paella for an Argentinian Summer Send-Off dinner, with servings at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wolffer’s Dry White and Rosé Cider will also be served, as will a special Wolffer cider cocktail made for the occasion. In case of rain, the dinner will be held on Monday.

Round Swamp Break

Speaking of Labor Day, the Round Swamp Farm markets in East Hampton and Bridgehampton — usually swamped all summer with customers — will take a break for 10 days in September before reopening for the fall harvest season. The markets will close at noon on Sunday and reopen on Sept. 16.

Dine With the Clintons?

If that’s what you’re after, it’s probably too late for this year, but a visit to Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, where President Bill Clinton was recently photographed with the staff, can present exciting options in the form of weeknight specials: a two-course prix fixe, with wine or beer, for $30 on Tuesdays, $19 fajitas and margaritas on Wednesdays, and prime rib for $26 on Thursdays. From Monday through Friday, Indian Wells has a 4 to 6 p.m. happy hour, when there are half-price appetizers and drinks available at the bar.

It’s been quite the year for Shawn Christman and Courtney Fruin Christman. Not only did they open the Sea Bean, a gourmet food truck that does catering and sells from Montauk’s Lions Field and other prime spots, but they got married on June 6 and are expecting the birth of their first child in a few weeks.

Mr. Christman graduated from firefighter school and was officially inducted into the Montauk Fire Department on Sunday, and Ms. Christman just accepted a position teaching special education at the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton.

The Sea Bean is really Mr. Christman’s baby, but it’s taken a family effort to get it started. His mother, Mary Jo Fuoco, helped fund it. He also launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in the spring that netted him a bit over the $15,000 he was looking for.

Mr. Christman grew up in Montauk and spent a lot of time at Christman’s restaurant and bar, his grandparents’ place in the harbor area. When his parents divorced he moved up UpIsland with his mother, but when she enrolled in a culinary school program, he returned to the hamlet to live with his father for awhile before leaving again to pursue a music career. “I wanted to be a rock star,” he said.

The pull of Montauk was too strong to resist, and he eventually moved back east. He worked at Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton and was then hired to work for Tom Colicchio at the Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, where he stayed for two years, before moving on to the Crow’s Nest in Montauk under Jeremy Blutstein.

“I gained my confidence from working with all the great local chefs,” he said. Mr. Blutstein, he added, gave him the courage to offer only the best local and seasonal foods, which he sources from Balsam Farms, Bhumi Farms, Pantigo Farms, and other local farm stands.

His menu items include Montauk Brewery beer-battered fish and fish tacos, with all of the fish bought right from the docks in Montauk. A favorite item on his chalkboard menu are the short ribs that he serves on Blue Duck brioche. Most of his sandwich items are made with bread from Carissa’s Breads. When he gets a bread delivery, he orders limited amounts, as the weather isn’t kind to bread at this time of year.

The meat and chickens he uses are free range, grass fed, and humanely treated, he said, adding, “We want to live by a better set of standards.” He serves breakfast burritos, ranch beef burgers, gourmet hotdogs, green curry cheese fries, and salads. There are fresh-squeezed juices available and healthy snack items such as kale chips, curry chips, and spicy peanuts. The inside of his truck is all stainless steel that on Sunday was gleaming in the sun. The couple posts menu items and a schedule daily on Facebook, Instagram, and at theseabean.com, so fans of their food can find the truck, which under town rules can stay in one spot for only a limited amount of time.

“We don’t mind moving,” Mr. Christman said. “We’re just thrilled that we’re up and running.”

The annual Great Food Truck Derby will roll in to Bridgehampton for the fourth year on Friday, Aug. 14, with a roundup of food trucks offering a wide variety of dishes at the Hayground School from 4 to 7 p.m.

Among the more than a dozen food trucks participating will be Whole Le Crepe, Pizza Luca, Noah’s, Slammin’ Slider Nice Buns, Sea Bean Natural Foods, Sweet ’Tauk, and the Long Island Oyster Company. Tickets, at $65 each, include one serving at every food truck and complimentary beverages, regional wines and craft beer among them. Tickets for kids age 12 and under are $20 and include tastes from four food trucks and a drink. Those who buy V.I.P. tickets for $100 can gain early access, beginning at 3:30 p.m., before the lines at the food trucks begin to grow. Tickets may be ordered, for a fee, online at eventbrite.com.

The event will take place during the same time as the Hayground School’s farmers market and will benefit school programs.

Coffee Subscription

Red Thread Good Coffee is offering three-month subscription plans for whole coffee beans, biodegradable K-cups, and cold brew coffee concentrate at prices ranging from $199 to $295. The coffee company was co-founded by Lynda Sylvester of the Sylvester & Co. shops in Sag Harbor and Amagansett, who also created a coffee flavor called Dreamy Coffee. Red Thread donates a portion of the money made from all of its coffee sales to local charitable organizations, and, in New York City, has partnered with God’s Love We Deliver, which delivers meals to those in need.

Order In at Inn

Guests at the Inn at Windmill Lane in Amagansett are able to order takeout from a number of Amagansett and East Hampton eateries using an in-room iPad for room service delivery by the inn. Participating restaurants include the Meeting House, Fresno, and East Hampton Grill.

Harbor Market and Kitchen

The Harbor Market and Kitchen in Sag Harbor is now open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., serving everything from egg dishes, pastry, and espresso to sandwiches, tacos, lobster rolls, and wood-oven pizzas, and specialties by the pound such as Castelluccio lentils, with carrots, celeriac, toasted hazelnuts, and mint, or a popular roasted cauliflower dish with caramelized onions, raisins, and pine nuts. The market, owned by Paul Del Favero, the chef, and Susana Plaza Del Favero, features local grocery, dairy, and farm products.

Wolffer Kitchen

29 Main Street

Sag Harbor, NY

725-0101

Dinner, Tuesday through Sunday

It’s not often I get such a gaggle of friends to come along on a restaurant review. My preferred number of guinea pigs is three or four. On this night we were seven, which made for much frivolity, wildly differing opinions on the food, and me trying to grab at dishes to try them before they were inhaled by my guests.

We arrived at the very moment the doors opened, or more accurately, the moment the doors were kept locked. At 5:30 on a recent Sunday evening, the staff was scurrying around inside as an angry, hungry mob waited perplexed outside. Okay, it wasn’t really an angry mob, just a bunch of New Yorkers, and one woman who pushed us all out of the way announcing it was her birthday.

This space next to Sen in Sag Harbor has changed cuisines and decor quite a bit over the last few years. Phao was Thai, I think there was an Indian restaurant briefly, and there was the Cuddy, a gastro pub. Now it is Wolffer Kitchen, the first restaurant on Long Island connected to a winery.

While the P.R. company for Wolffer describes it as “a bright, Bohemian spot,” and “inspired by Mallorca, where the Wolffer family also has a vineyard,” it is actually a bit more industrial-chic. The front patio has steel plates separating diners from the sidewalk and a steep, gray painted cement step. The interior has pale wood floors, a muted gold, gilt ceiling, bentwood chairs, and smoky mirrors everywhere. The most eye-catching feature is a huge print of the colorful silkscreen found on Wolffer’s Summer in a Bottle rosé. There is a bar to the left and a few banquettes on the right. A back wall is all Wolffer wine bottles. This is a lot of hard surfaces for sound to bounce off of, so be prepared for a happy, noisy din.

A basket of whole grain and crusty white bread was delivered after we were seated. We began our meal with the house-made ricotta, an artichoke special, lobster deviled eggs, lamb skewers, calamari, and mussels. The ricotta was delicious — a small dollop on the plate sprinkled with hazelnut praline, tart, grilled slices of plum, and some peppery arugula.

The artichoke special was also very good. The two halves were topped with plenty of Parmesan cheese and herbs and were served with a zesty, garlicky aioli. My only suggestion would be to provide a discard bowl for leaves and chokes and perhaps some lemon wedges and extra napkins to clean messy fingers afterward.

The lobster deviled eggs were a disappointment. The portion was three egg halves for $12. My half of a half bit had no discernible lobster meat, it was just a pretty good, run-of-the-mill deviled egg. The lamb skewer, however, was excellent. The chunks of tender meat were topped with a salty black olive tapenade, crispy roasted chickpeas, and a refreshing salad of diced cucumbers on arugula. The calamari (a special this evening) was quite pale but had good crunch nonetheless. We would have appreciated a few more tentacles with the dainty rings, but it was well seasoned, tender, and had a nice, lemony aioli served alongside.

The mussels were exceptionally good. They were served in a slightly Thai broth, with a bit of coconut milk and red curry paste, along with superb bits of house-made veal chorizo and a big slab of grilled bread for sopping up the broth.

For entrees we tried the grilled scallops, a tuna special, house-made gemelli pasta with sugar snap peas, house-made campanelle with braised duck, and two side dishes, green beans and potato gratin. The grilled scallops were perfectly cooked, as in just enough, and the citrus butter drizzled on top was an inspired tart-sweet note with the caramelized scallops. They were served on a bed of toasted quinoa and wilted baby spinach.

The tuna special was also a success. Several big wedges of seared yellowfin were topped with aioli, surrounded by chunks of roasted potatoes, and perched on an arugula salad with pickled red onions and bacon bits. I love bacon combined with rich fish like salmon and tuna. It’s a somewhat bold and very successful marriage. Most of us enjoyed the two pasta dishes, but one guest did not find her gemelli very distinctive. I found it to be light and well balanced, the slices of sugar snap peas barely blanched and super sweet, and there was a generous amount of golden chanterelles. The campanelle pasta with braised duck was absolutely divine. The duck was tender and tasty, the sauce had a bit of marjoram or oregano, lots of escarole, chunks of fresh tomatoes, and plenty of Parmesan.

The side dishes were both superb. The string beans were buttery and sweet with a bit of heat from chili pepper flakes. And who doesn’t appreciate a perfectly made potato gratin? This one could have come directly from a bistro in France, bubbling in its own ramekin and rich with Parmesan and bits of pancetta.

The service on the night of our visit was very good, especially considering how new this restaurant is. We arrived early, and the place filled up quickly. The hostesses wear Hamptons-skimpy ensembles, and the waiters are outfitted in smart-looking black and white checked shirts with heavy denim aprons garnished with lots of leather gewgaws. Kind of Amish butcher-meets-bartender at the Wythe Hotel rooftop bar in Williamsburg.

Obviously, wine is an important feature here, and we just happened to have the knowledgeable Michael Cinque of Amagansett Wines as one of our guests. He declared the list excellent and reasonable. We enjoyed Wolffer’s Summer in a Bottle rosé and Bedell’s Cabernet Franc, both fairly priced.

The prices at Wolffer Kitchen are moderate to expensive. Starters are $9 to $17, main courses and pastas are $25 to $35, sides are $10, and desserts are $12.

For dessert we tried the dark chocolate tart, crispy polenta, and fresh lemon curd phyllo crisp. Here, again, opinions varied wildly.

I found the chocolate tart to be exactly like the Marie Claude Gracias flourless chocolate cake from Patricia Wells’s “Bistro Cookbook.” It was dense but light, a bit crumbly but moist, and made with very high quality bittersweet chocolate. It was drizzled with a salted caramel creme anglaise. I loved it. The guest who disagreed said “it shouldn’t be this way.” Whah? Sigh. The crispy polenta was a bit disappointing. It was a square of firm polenta, warm but not crisped, topped with olive oil and vanilla ice cream.

The lemon curd dessert was the best of all. The fresh, tart, and tangy curd was sandwiched between round discs of crisp phyllo dough dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

The menu at Wolffer Kitchen is short, but it is not simple. The signs of a talented chef (Deena Chafetz) are evident: House-made pastas, chorizo, garlic-piquillo dressing, confits, exotic mushrooms, pralines, smoked almonds, mild homemade ricotta, and more, make this an intriguing and creative menu.

I am grateful I live in Sag Harbor!

Cooking Classes

Sunday night will bring an opportunity to learn how to make healthy Chinese food at a cooking class in Amagansett offered by Karen Lee, a New York City caterer who specializes in that cuisine. The gluten-free menu will include ginger beef, steamed Sichuan whole sea bass, Asian eggplant, cilantro rice pilaf, and poached peaches in red wine.

On Wednesday, at another class, Ms. Lee will teach cooking students how to make caponata goat cheese crostini, grilled wild salmon or swordfish with cilantro-garlic butter, grilled vegetables, a quinoa pilaf, peach and cherry cobbler, and crème chantilly.

The sessions take place from 6 to 10 p.m. at a private residence and include sitting down to the meal. The cost is $115, and the maximum class size is 12. Reservations can be made through Ms. Lee’s website, karenleecooking.com.

Event for Foodies

Guild Hall in East Hampton is planning a “garden to table” tour as part of its Garden as Art event on Aug. 22. In addition to visits to six private gardens, there will be stops at five local farms during a garden tour and a panel discussion on edible landscapes featuring a food writer, farmer, a landscape designer, and two chefs. Breakfast will be served to start the day alongside a mini farmers market featuring products by several purveyors. Complete details and tickets, at $125 and $100 for members, and are available through Guild Hall.

In North Sea

A team of Manhattanites — restaurateurs, an event planner, and a bar owner — has taken over the North Sea Tavern in Southampton and launched a “seafood-centric” eatery and “Raw’r Bar.”

Sandy Dee Hall, a co-owner and the executive chef at Black Tree on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, will offer a menu centered on light dishes made from seasonal and sustainable ingredients, which will change from week to week. The raw bar will also feature items with a twist, such as toast with trout roe, uni (sea urchin), ceviche served inside a coconut, with steamed shrimp and hot pepper, or beef tartare.

A brunch menu will be added later, and in the fall the restaurant, which is expected to remain open year round, will serve more rustic and heartier dishes. Mr. Hall’s partners in the venture are Jon Pirozzi, who also owns Stone Creek Bar and Lounge in Manhattan, and Cletus McKeown, who manages the Wooly, also in Manhattan.

My son, Adrian William Taylor, turns 28 today, and this is the story of his enduring love for one particular cookbook.

It began in middle school. Every morning, along with Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin, and a variety of other books scattered around, under, and in his bed, I would find my copy of Edna Lewis’s “The Taste of Country Cooking.” This book has no pictures, no cartoons, no comic strips, no color photography. It is simply a book with recipes and reminiscences of Ms. Lewis’s life growing up on a farm in Freetown, Va. Her tone is cozy and upbeat, the menus mouthwatering but completely alien to most of us: dandelion wine, cymlings, salsify, divinity cream, quince, sorghum, smothered rabbit, watermelon rind pickles, and Tyler pie.

Adrian’s fascination with this book has never waned. Sometimes he would bring it in the car on the drive to school. When he went away to college I jokingly offered the book to him, along with a copy of “Joy of Cooking,” really the only cooking tome a college boy needs. Nope, he liked the idea of this book staying at home, so when he returned and continued his habit of reading and scattering books around his bed at night, Edna Lewis would be there.

He is now an editor at MSNBC, lives in Brooklyn, and returns home on the occasional weekend. When I found “The Taste of Country Cooking” splayed out on the floor of his room recently, I suggested that for his upcoming birthday dinner I would make any menu of his choice from this book. He solemnly replied, “I would like ‘A Cool Evening Supper.’ ” And so it began.

“A Cool Evening Supper” on page 132 consists of summer vegetable soup, soda crackers, ham biscuits, cucumber pickles, and Tyler pie. But wait, there’s another “Cool Evening Supper” on page 137. That one has lima beans in cream, smothered new cabbage, hot spiced beets, and watermelon rind pickles, so I decided to combine the two menus.

I knew a few of the items could not be duplicated or found anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line. Country ham is a different animal from the hams we are used to. It is cured, super salty, and strong-flavored, served in thin little chips in beaten biscuits. Beaten biscuits are definitely an acquired taste. They are labor-intensive, hard, crumbly little things, not at all like the fluffy, rich, flaky kind most of us are familiar with. After some research, I decided to trust Broadbent’s of Kentucky to deliver authentic country ham and beaten biscuits. I ordered the watermelon rind pickles from Blue Ridge Jams of North Carolina, along with pickled beets and fire and ice pickles. Everything else was made from scratch.

I started the vegetable soup in the morning, still having no idea how many people were coming. I didn’t follow Ms. Lewis’s recipe to the letter, which included chicken feet, shank and bones, and “one pound of the bony part of the fowl,” as there is always the possibility of a vegetarian in our midst. All of the ingredients for this and the other dishes were bought from Saturday’s farmers market in Sag Harbor and a few other local farm stands.

Next came the smothered cabbage, lima beans in cream, and Tyler pie. Adrian trotted down to the 7-Eleven for Saltine crackers because Edna says “it was a great novelty to have soda crackers once in a while with soup or cheese. They were always fresh tasting and crisp and delicious with soup. They came in bulk and one could buy as many as one wished.”

Has a simple cracker that we take for granted ever sounded so alluring?

My biggest concern was the Tyler pie, full of butter, sugar, milk, eggs, and a wee bit of lemon extract. Many old recipes like this (buttermilk pie, chess pie) relied on these inexpensive and filling ingredients when fresh fruit, nuts, spices, or chocolate were not available or were too expensive. I bumped up the recipe with the addition of lots of freshly grated lemon zest and extra vanilla extract.

I sampled a beaten biscuit and discovered that the folks at Broadbent’s probably looked at our shipping address and said, “Damn Yankee New Yorkers. Let’s send them some biscuits that have been in the freezer since 1974. They won’t know the difference.” They were ghastly, so we threw them away.

By now I knew we had 10 guests, friends and family, probably all mystified by the unusual menu and so uncool, unHamptons early dining hour. My nephew William got to work assembling ham biscuits and immediately fell in love when he tried his first watermelon pickle.

We began our meal out on the porch with the vegetable soup in coffee mugs, because I don’t own 10 bowls. Next we gathered in the kitchen for the ham biscuits, smothered cabbage, lima beans, beets, and pickles galore. I have to admit the lima beans were not quite as popular as the other delicacies, but I adore them. Lastly, we dug into the Tyler pie with a birthday candle in it, and it was absolutely delicious.

I am well aware that our comfy, spacious house in Sag Harbor is worlds apart from the hard life of recently freed slaves farming their own land in Freetown, Va., a century ago. But food is the connector that keeps traditions alive and families together around the table.

Maybe some of our guests went home that night scratching their heads over the unique menu. My son retired to his room with his favorite book.

Happy birthday, Adrian, you have grown into a fine young man, and I am one proud mom!

Click for recipes

Stonecrop Rosé

Andy Harris and Sally Richardson of Montauk, the owners of the Stonecrop vineyard in Martinborough, New Zealand, will pour tastes of their newly released 2015 rosé, along with Stonecrop’s sauvignon blanc and 2011 pinot noir, at the Domaine Franey wine shop in East Hampton on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Hamptons Salt Company

A Southampton company is selling a variety of natural sea salt products. There are 29 selections, including raw salts from around the world, flavored salts in 13 flavors including Vermont maple syrup, rosemary, ginger, jalapeno, espresso, and lime, and smoked salts made using apple wood, bacon, hickory, mesquite, and chardonnay oak.

The Hamptons Salt Company products are unrefined and free of additives, and are sold individually and in gift box collections. They can be found at local stores including the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop, Red Horse Market, Round Swamp Farm, the Harbor Market, and Gosman’s.

Harvest Your Own

Those who wish to learn how to harvest their own sea salt can sign up for a workshop in Southampton on Aug. 29, led by Michele Martuscello, the founder of Shelly Sells Sea Salt, another artisanal sea salt company.

At an Atlantic Ocean beach, Ms. Martuscello will demonstrate how to harvest and flavor salt. The workshop is sponsored by the South Fork Natural History Society, and reservations can be made by calling the society’s museum in Bridgehampton.

Pop-Up Dinners

The Montauk Beach House hotel will be the site for two “sexy pop-up dinners” by New York City chefs tomorrow night and on Friday, Aug. 28.

In conjunction with Chefs Club by Food & Wine, restaurants in Aspen and Manhattan that serve as showcases for the “best new chefs” selected by Food & Wine magazine’s editor-in-chief, the events will begin with a 7 p.m. champagne cocktail hour and continue with dinner on the Montauk Beach House lawn, accompanied by music by a D.J. and then a live band.

Tomorrow night’s meal will be prepared by Didier Elena, the Chef’s Club culinary director, and a surprise guest. The menu will include spicy wagyu beef salad; gazpacho with crab; lobster sliders; foie gras, truffle, and artichoke tart; suckling pig, and red fruit and pistachio cake.

On Aug. 28, Mr. Elena will work with Cedric Vongerichten, the owner and executive chef of Perry Street restaurant in Manhattan.

The cost is $300 per person, which includes the cocktail hour, dinner with wine, tax, and gratuity. Reservations may be made by calling the Montauk Beach House or sending an email to [email protected].

Lucy’s Cheese at Market

Among the vendors at the newly reopened Amagansett Farmers Market is Lucy Kazickas, an Amagansett resident and founder of Lucy’s Whey, a cheese shop with a home base at Manhattan’s Chelsea Market.

The Lucy’s Whey stand at the market, now an outlet for farmers and food producers run by the Amagansett Food Institute, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursdays through Tuesdays. Lucy’s cheeses are also sold at the Saturday Springs Farmers Market at Ashawagh Hall, and by delivery, through the market’s Lucy’s Whey to Go program.

Harvest East End

Harvest East End, a wine and food fest sponsored by Dan’s Papers, will takes place on Saturday at the McCall Vineyard and Ranch in Cutchogue. Hosted by Geoffrey Zakarian, who appears on the Food Network, it will showcase wines by more than 40 East End winemakers and dishes by more than 30 regional chefs and local food producers.

The honorees of the annual event this year will be Guy Reuge of Mirabelle, a James Beard Award-nominated chef and recipient of the Toque d’Argent award, and Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, which is marking its 30 anniversary year.

Admission for V.I.P.s, which costs $275, begins at 6:30 p.m.; general admission is at 7:30 and costs $125. Tickets can be ordered through the website at danstasteofsummer.com.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Peconic Land Trust, Long Island Farm Bureau, and HRHCare, a community health center.