You know how when you order food in a restaurant and you wait and wait and wait and it’s been like 45 minutes, so then you get up to use the loo and lo and behold, your food arrives at the table? That’s what this column is about. Eastern European food. The hearty, heavy, frigid-weather cuisine that keeps the Georgians and Hungarians and their neighbors fortified during long miserable winters. Because if I write about this, it is a guarantee that the icicles will be melting, perhaps some mountain snowdrops will pop out of the ground, and at least the potholes will begin blooming all over the East End.

Most of us think of Eastern European food as a lot of beets and potatoes and vodka, and that would be accurate. But there is also the lighter and brighter traditional dishes of coastal Croatia influenced by Italy, such as squid ink risotto, grilled fish with chard, garlic, parsley, and olive oil, and brudet, a tomatoey fish stew served over polenta. Even truffles grow in Istria!

One of my grandparents’ dearest friends was a Russian fellow named Vladimir Orloff. He taught them how to make tefteli, a rich meatball dish smothered in sour cream sauce. Our mother made it frequently, and we called it Vladimir’s meatballs. It gave all three of us kids indigestion every time. So some Eastern European dishes are indeed heavy and dense.

The diet of root vegetables, cheap meats, and dairy products was born out of necessity, climate, and poverty. Presumably the vodka is used to cut through the saturated fat and drown misery. If any vegetarians or gluten-intolerant people live in Poland or the other Slavic countries they may be hard pressed to find adequate food. Noodles and breads are prominent, as are pork, chicken, and beef.

Lithuanian cuisine shares similarities with that of Poland, Scandinavian countries, Hungary, and Romania. Potatoes, mushrooms, beets, cabbage, radishes, and cucumbers are grown and are popular, as are apples, plums, pears, cranberries, and lingonberries. And in spite of the richness of the diet — with such dishes as blynai (similar to blinis), kibinai (pastry with mutton), didzkukuliai (potato dumplings), desra (pork sausage), and spurgos (doughnuts) — obesity is very low in Lithuania.

Many Russian dishes may sound more familiar to us. There is the cabbage soup called shchi, meat kebabs called shashlyk, pirozhki, similar to pirogies, pastries stuffed with meat and onions, or rice, eggs, and dill, or mashed potatoes with green onions. Blinis, the thin little pancakes often made with buckwheat flour, are a treat topped with melted butter, sour cream, and caviar, or fruit jam. Olivier, or Russian salad, is delicious when made with fresh ingredients and homemade mayonnaise. It is a combination of finely diced boiled potatoes, hardboiled eggs, peas, and carrots bound with mayonnaise. Vodka is the best known beverage out of Russia, made with grains or most often with potatoes.

The foods of Croatia sound like the healthiest and most diverse to me, combining the influences of Greece, Italy, Turkey, and France. One traditional dish is called ispod peke, actually more of the method of cooking than the dish itself. Lamb, octopus, or veal are paired with seasoned potatoes and cooked in a stone oven under a heavy cover. Hot coals are piled on top and food cooks slowly. According to Travel Adriatics website, “you are awarded with a tender rhapsody of flavors.” Crni rizot, literally “black risotto,” is a Dalmatian dish similar to Italy’s cuttlefish risotto, however the Croatians top theirs with grated cheese, a no-no in Italy. Homemade pastas and polenta are topped with truffles grown in Istria and foraged by trained dogs.

As we eagerly wait for the snow to melt and spring to arrive, we could indulge in some Eastern European-inspired cooking. How about some Long Island potatoes with Long Island’s own LIV vodka? And as things turn green and promising, break out the grill and cook some fish with herbs and chard on the side, a la Croatia.

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With the snow mounds melting and the days now longer, the restaurant roulette wheel is spinning as new ventures rev for the coming summer season and others who already have a foothold in the local eating scene try something new.

Matthew Guiffrida, the chef and owner of Muse in Sag Harbor, will reportedly expand this year to Montauk and open a second restaurant in the space most recently occupied by Coast.

Winston Lyons, a chef who has worked at a number of East Hampton spots, including Bostwick’s, East Hampton Grill, and Turtle Crossing, has been sprucing up the former Nichol’s restaurant building here and will open Winston’s, a seafood and steak grill with a Caribbean flavor, in mid-April. He plans to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner year round, and will offer weekly specials. Tuesday nights will be Montauk night, with dishes centered on Montauk-sourced ingredients; Sundays will bring Caribbean-style suppers, and on Thursday nights there will be specials on Red Stripe beer and a variety of types of wings, including Asian and Caribbean style.

Prix Fixes

Winter specials continue at Le Charlot in Southampton, the East End version of an Upper East Side, Manhattan, bistro. A $25 prix fixe is available at lunch or brunch, and a dinner prix fixe for $35 is offered from 5 to 6 p.m. Both include three courses.

The restaurant has recently expanded its hours and is open Thursdays for dinner, and Fridays through Mondays for lunch (or brunch) and dinner.

In Montauk

Sammy’s restaurant at the Montauk docks has opened for the season and has designated Thursday as pasta night and Sunday as the night for prime rib. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, corned beef and cabbage is being served this week.

The Montauk Yacht Club will offer a free shuttle to and from downtown Montauk and the Montauk train station after the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday for those who would like to dine or imbibe. The restaurant at the club is open on weekends, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturdays and Sundays, and dinner on Friday nights. A $29 prix fixe menu is available on Fridays and Saturdays. Those who march in the parade this weekend will be offered a free buffet.

Restaurant Week

Hamptons Restaurant Week begins on Sunday and runs through March 29. At participating restaurants — a list of which can be found at hamptonsrestaurantweek.com — diners can order a three-course prix fixe for $27.95. The special will be offered only until 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 28.

Typically, when one orders a daiquiri or a mojito, it is not preceded by a call brand the way a Grey Goose martini or a Jack and coke is. With the advent of premium small-batch rums over the past few years, however, that should change.

New York State has become a nexus for craft distillers, and rum, with a rich history traced to the earliest colonies, is tied to this area in many ways. Whether it was the first colonists who discovered their own from the natural fermentation of molasses by air-borne yeast, the whalers who brought back barrels of it from their Caribbean sojourns, or the rumrunners bringing it to our shores during Prohibition, rum could be called our most traditional drink.

In recognition of this history and connection to the area, the Parrish Art Museum and Edible East End magazine brought some rum makers together with a “locavore” mixologist on Friday night to discuss rum and how alcoholic beverages in general have benefited from the “slow food” movement.

Brian Halweil, the editor of Edible East End and the moderator of the panel, said that “Although Prohibition ended 80 years ago, the intense regulation of alcohol persisted for a long time.” As a result, only the largest producers of alcohol were allowed until the passage of the state’s farm distillery law in 1999, which opened up distilling in the way that the farm brewery and winery acts before it loosened more restrictive laws in the state.

Since then, New Yorkers have contributed to more than 60 craft distilleries nationally that have begun offering their take on classic spirits. A law passed last year has relaxed regulations even further to allow distillers to serve their product on premises as a mixed drink instead of a quarter-ounce sample, which was the previous rule. The Wall Street Journal noted that this recent legislation has made New York State one of the most attractive places in the country for farm distillers.

Jason Laan, a former Murph’s bartender, has been aging rum he has sourced in the Caribbean for a couple of years. He infuses it with fruit juice and spices, and then puts it in bourbon barrels to create an amber-style “sipping rum” he bottles under the name Sag Harbor Rum. “We don’t make rum. It’s more like rum-running. We bring it here and age it, like whalers bringing back rum” in the old days. While other companies offer different liquor styles or variations on a core brand, Mr. Laan said not to expect a catalog of brands from him. “I had one vision I wanted to bring to life.”

Leslie Marinoff represented Owney’s Rum, which was named after a bootlegger and speakeasy operator in New York City during Prohibition. It distills its non-aged white rum in Brooklyn using New York water, molasses that is not genetically modified, and a proprietary yeast strain. She said of the fermentation process, “Yeast can’t control themselves. They reabsorb all this ethanol and die of alcohol poisoning. But if you make them happy, treating them like Kobe beef and massaging them, they develop this will to live and they’ll produce incredible flavors for you,” including the smokiness that is Owney’s signature.

The recent explosion of craft distillers in the state and region has made Richard Scoffier’s job much more interesting. He is the food and beverage director for Honest Man Restaurants, the parent company of Nick and Toni’s, Rowdy Hall, Townline BBQ, and La Fondita. On his honeymoon in 2010, he said he discovered a distillery in the Finger Lakes that was producing sophisticated bourbon, grappas, a London dry-style gin, and cassis. After years of finding local and regional produce for the restaurant, he had a revelation, “Why can’t we do this at the bar?” Now the various restaurant bars reflect the region’s produce in the way their menus do. This ethos extends to using things like raspberries from Nick and Toni’s garden to create a homemade syrup or drink base.

Mr. Scoffier brought a drink to the talk and tasting that will be available on tap at Town Line BBQ in Sagaponack soon. He calls it the Keep on Wine-in, for its inclusion of Channing Daughters Winery’s gewurztraminer grapes. The grapes are put in a mixture of sugar and vinegar known as a shrub, a once common farm-made blend of seasonal produce preserved in drink form that is regaining popularity, in part due to Mr. Scoffier’s use of shrubs in drinks at Nick and Toni’s and the other restaurants. The drink also has Dutch’s Spirits Sugar Moonshine, Dutch’s Colonial Cocktail Bitters, and lemon juice.

It was tart and complex and is now being carbonated in a keg for future use. It might also age well. Yes, you read correctly. Mr. Scoffer said barrel aging of cocktails “rounds out the rough corners” of a drink in a process he calls magical in its way of transforming them. The restaurants also bottle cocktails for similar reasons.

With the return of “cocktail culture” in full force and the interest in artisanal and locally sourced drinks at a level The Atlantic described last year as its “heady early Internet phase,” it is likely, as it noted, that many will enter the market with inferior products, which could dampen the enthusiasm for them in general. Similarly, Ms. Marinoff said that one of the largest liquor companies is taking matters into its own hands by building and staffing small distilleries in different cities and hiring local “cool kids” to lay claim to the companies as a marketing ploy.

Still, with the devotion this area has to slow food production and its related offshoots, here, the trend is likely to stay.

Jason Laan’s Sag Harbor Rum Old Fashion

    2 oz. Sag Harbor Rum

    2 dashes Angostura Bitters

    1 splash of water

    1/2 tsp. sugar

    Cubed ice

Garnish with orange peel.

Leslie Marinoff’s NegrOwney

    2 oz. Owney’s NYC Rum

    1 oz. sweet vermouth

    .75 oz. Campari

Stir with ice.

I love bean soups. They are cheap and easy to make, yet require some time and a small bit of attention. This makes me feel like I’m really involved in a cooking project, but, in fact, I’m just making a meal with about 73 cents worth of ingredients. They are healthy and hearty and can be a one-dish meal. You can make them thick and chunky and rustic like a chili, or smooth and silky and sophisticated.

Bean, or legume, soups can be virtuous and vegan, or enriched with cream, cooked with smoked meats, or topped with tadka, an Indian spiced ghee mixture often used to garnish lentil soups.

A legume is either the plant that grows peas or beans in pods, or the bean, pea, or pulse itself. According to Harold McGee in his “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen,” “beans and peas belong to the third largest family among the flowering plants (after the orchid and daisy families), and the second most important family in the human diet, after the grasses.” What makes them most valuable in many cultures is the amount of protein they contain — as much as three times more than wheat or rice.

There are many theories on how to cook beans, how to reduce the flatulence factor, and when to salt them while cooking. Most legumes do not require overnight soaking. Chickpeas are the exception; they definitely need a long soaking period.

You can bring the beans to a quick boil, let them sit for a few hours until they get wrinkly, then proceed with your recipe. (Lentils and split peas require no pre-soaking.) Alternately, you can just cook and cook and cook them till done. Some people recommend discarding the soaking water to reduce the “indigestible carbohydrate reaction” in our bellies. But when you toss this water out, you lose a significant amount of the vitamins and minerals and flavor. It’s better to just give them a long, slow cooking time.

Regarding salt, I come down in the middle. Cook the beans for about 30 minutes before salting your water, then add some for flavor. If you don’t salt until after the beans are completely cooked, the beans themselves will taste under-seasoned. Some people suggest a teaspoon of baking soda per quart of water to speed up the cooking process, but this can give the soup a slippery, soapy-mouth feel. Ew; skip it.

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, are a native of southwest Asia, and like favas, peas, and lentils, they have been cultivated for approximately 9,000 years. Besides being made into soups, chickpeas can be roasted, sprouted, fried, ground into flour, and, most commonly, made into hummus. There are two kinds, desi and kabuli. Desis have small seeds, a thick coat and dark color, and they are most common in Asia, Iran, and Mexico. The kabuli variety are the larger, cream-colored kind, with a thin seed coat, and are most frequently used in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions.

Most lentils are grown in India, Turkey, and . . . Canada. There are basically two kinds: the large, flat seeds and small, rounder seeds. Lentils come in a variety of colors, from brown to orange, yellow, red, black, and green.

Black beans, one of over 500 varieties of kidney beans, are also known as turtle beans or caviar criollo. When cooked, they have a creamy texture and slightly sweet flavor.

If you plan to incorporate beans into a vegetable soup, it is recommended you cook them separately first, with a bouquet garni and a few cloves of garlic. If you are simply making a bean soup, then cook the beans (or peas or lentils) on their own for a while first, then add such vegetables as carrots and celery for the last hour of cooking.

Some legumes take an inordinately long time to cook, which is attributed to old age and/or poor storage. I tend to keep a variety of black beans, split peas, and lentils on hand at all times but find myself throwing them out after a year. It is also a good idea to spread them out on a cookie sheet and check for little pebbles before beginning a recipe.

There are so many ways to cook legumes into soups, and this is a nice time of year to putter in the kitchen, stir the pot, play around with flavors, and have the reward of a super healthy, inexpensive, and hearty meal.

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Pasta Night

Tuesday is pasta night at the Harbor Grill, which is on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton. Beginning at 5 p.m., a pasta dinner special, featuring soup or salad, garlic bread, and an entree, is offered for $17, plus tax and gratuity. Choices include pasta with clam sauce, meatballs, Bolognese sauce, or with sausage, broccoli, garlic, and olive oil.

Cavaniola’s Gourmet

Besides a selection of cheeses and wines, the Cavaniola’s Gourmet shop in Sag Harbor has a winter menu and a lineup of weekly specials on soups, salads, side dishes, entrees, and sweets. Seasonal menu items include grilled salmon, macaroni and cheese made with three cheeses or truffled, chicken pot pies, meatloaf, pulled pork sliders, chicken noodle soup, and kale salad with dried cranberries, five-year aged gouda, toasted almonds, and balsamic vinaigrette.

The specials for this week include, for side dishes, creamed butternut squash soup, potato chowder, roasted beets, marinated gigante bean salad, sautéed napa cabbage with bacon and onions, and mashed celeriac. Among the entree specials this week are some game meats: elk tenderloin with rosemary and thyme, Moroccan duck confit, rabbit and ginger sausage with bok choy and scallions, and squab with sausage and apple dressing.

Merlot Makers

Martha Clara Vineyards in Riverhead is the newest member of the Long Island Merlot Alliance, a consortium of winemakers that seeks to help members produce high-quality merlot and merlot blends in the Long Island region. The group’s president is Roman Roth of the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack. Among the other East End member vineyards are Clovis Point, Lieb Cellers, McCall Wines, Raphael, Sherwood House Vineyards, and T’Jara Vineyards.

A blend of 100 percent merlot wine from each of the member vineyards, called Merliance, is created by the alliance and sold to fund the group’s activities, from research initiatives to events.

Martha Clara Vineyards was founded by Robert Entenmann, a member of the family that owned the Entenmann bakery, and is named after his mother, Martha Clara Entenmann. He developed a former potato farm into a thoroughbred horse farm and then, in 1995, planted grapes and began to develop the vineyard.

I generally eat a very healthy diet. This past week, for instance, I prepared wheatberries and roasted carrots from Quail Hill Farm, and last night I had scallops. A variety of greens are always at the ready in my fridge for a quick saute or salad. I love brown rice and oatmeal and just about any recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Ottolenghi,” “Jerusalem,” or “Plenty” cookbooks, which are full of yogurt and chili peppers and all manner of eggplant and other vegetables. However, I am occasionally possessed by the desire for something naughty, wrong, not so healthful. In other words, I want a guilty pleasure treat of the junk food variety, or a strange combination of foods that would appall most others.

When I cruise the aisles of the grocery store, seeking Velveeta (which is always hard to find because it doesn’t require refrigeration), I hide the naughty items in my market basket if I see a friend, especially a chef friend, approaching. This is guilt.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of guilt is “the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law,” and “an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard.” Pleasure is defined as “a feeling of happiness, enjoyment, or satisfaction, a pleasant or pleasing feeling, activity that is done for enjoyment.” A guilty pleasure is defined as “something, such as a movie, television program, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard. The guilt involved is sometimes simply fear of others discovering one’s lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes.” And this is why I hide the Velveeta or Cheetos or Cool Whip under the broccoli rabe and yogurt in my shopping cart.

I recently asked friends on Facebook for their guilty pleasures. Facebook is the most delightful and useful “tool” for lazy but far-reaching research, and everyone likes to talk about food. Now, you would think that professional chefs would be above such lowbrow guilty pleasures, but you would be wrong. Joey loves Frito pie. Deena eats Spaghetti-Os. Ellen has perfected the frozen Mallomar nuked in a microwave for 10 seconds and swears it’s a good facsimile of a s’more. Andrew likes creamed chipped beef on toast with melted Limburger cheese. Colin loves his grandmother’s mashed potato-carrot puree on braised beef topped with Durkee canned onion rings. Even the super-duper talented David Chang of Momofuku and Ssam fame insisted in a March 2014 GQ article that the fried baloney sandwich served at Wilensky’s Light Lunch in Montreal is “a high point of gastronomy as vexing in its deliciousness as a Zen koan.”

Some of my guilty pleasures are peanut butter, mayonnaise, and lettuce sandwiches, the aforementioned Vel­veeta phony cheese-food product melted into a chile con queso dip, and strawberries dipped in Cool Whip, a chemical concoction made with hydrogenated vegetable oils and high fructose corn syrup that is so artificial and so ghastly I might as well drive without a seat belt.

Some people’s ideas of a guilty pleasure just sounded like delicious treats to me — lobster mac ’n’ cheese, raspberries with heavy cream and brown sugar, chocolate truffles, and cinnamon toast. But some of them are so bizarre, they sound like pica, a serious eating disorder in which people eat such things as soil, chalk, soap, or clay. How does lard on white bread with sugar sound? How about chocolate syrup on leftover Chinese takeout rice? Blech.

And yet, I want to try some of my friends’ guilty pleasures immediately. Amy’s sandwich of baloney, Velveeta, iceberg lettuce, Wishbone Thousand Island dressing, salami, and Durkee’s sandwich sauce on a potato bun wrapped in foil and left in the hot sun on the edge of your beach towel sounds awesome. Maybe it was the “sun” and “beach towel” part that appealed to me. Mike’s description of a hot dog from Hiram’s in Fort Lee, N.J., deep fried on a grilled bun with mustard, sauerkraut, and a Miller High Life just makes me hungry. Mike also happens to be a super healthy athlete so I don’t begrudge him this indulgence.

Hot dogs in many forms appeared frequently as a guilty pleasure. Cocktail weenies, Saucy Susan, and Wispride cheese mentions led me to realize that a lot of these are really childhood memories and, to some extent, comfort food.

If any of these guilty pleasures and following recipes lead you to the store for some naughty ingredients, all I can say is “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

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The Super Bowl this weekend is, for some, as much of an occasion for noshing as it is for watching the game. The fest begins at 10 a.m. on Sunday at East Hampton’s Harbor Grill, which serves a “bottomless” brunch buffet until 2 p.m. The cost is $14.95 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Beginning at noon, those who order food or beverages will receive a free cup of chef Damien O’Donnell’s “championship chili.”

The restaurant will also offer party platters to go, for those who order by Saturday: chicken wing platters (boneless or traditional) at $20 for two dozen, or $40 for four dozen, with a choice of buffalo, Mongolian barbecue, or sweet Thai chili sauces, served with bleu cheese and celery sticks.

At Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, food and drink specials on tap for Sunday include pints of Montauk Brewery beer or Harpoon IPA for $5, a bar menu of $6 snacks, and Tecate, Miller Lite, and Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans for $4. Each drink purchase comes with a raffle ticket for a gift basket giveaway that will take place each quarter of the game.

At Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, the Super Bowl specials will begin at 3 p.m. and include a two-for-one deal on cosmopolitans, for female drinkers only, and beer and wine for $5 and $6. Those who order two snacks from the menu will receive the less expensive one for free.

Over at Townline BBQ in Saga­ponack, there will be whole roasted pigs to eat on Sunday during the game, and raffles held at the end of each quarter, with winners chosen from those in the crowd. The restaurant has recommended placing takeout orders for Super Bowl Sunday in advance. Among the menu items will be bar snacks such as hush puppies, spicy chicken rolls, and wings, and pig roast package specials featuring pork, chicken, and side dishes.

Wood-Oven Pizzas

On Mondays and Wednesdays, Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton offers two-for-one pizzas made in the restaurant’s brick oven, for consumption on site or for takeout. Among the selections, which may vary, are pizza Romana, with white anchovy, capers, and black olives, pizza with ricotta and chorizo, Cavolfiore pizza with roasted cauliflower, basil pesto, and ricotta salata, and Salsiccia, with sweet sausage, North Fork mushrooms, and provolone picante. The restaurant is open Wednesday to Monday beginning at 6 p.m.

Winter Options

At the Cuddy in Sag Harbor, there is a daily happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. featuring reduced prices on wine, beer, and appetizers. On Wednesdays, billed as singles or ladies’ night, there are drink specials all night. The Cuddy also has a $26 prix fixe menu Sundays through Thursdays. Brunch is served from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Tonight is steak night at the Cuddy, with a special on a 10-ounce New York strip steak and fries, served with beer or salad.

In Jamesport, the Diliberto Winery is having Sundays With Grandma, a series of Sunday suppers featuring a pasta-making demonstration, live Italian music performances, and a meal paired with the winery’s offerings. The weekly suppers cost $49 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Tasty Fund-Raiser

The Love Bites fund-raiser on Saturday for the Ellen Hermanson Foundation will feature fare made by several dozen participating chefs representing local restaurants and caterers. Among them are Peter Ambrose of Endless Summer Catering, the “chef chairperson” of the event, Cheryl Stair of Art of Eating, Todd Jacobs of Fresh Hamptons, Damien O’Donnell of Harbor Bistro, Joe Realmuto of Nick and Toni’s, Arthur Wolf of Smokin’ Wolf, and Paul LaBue of the Seafood Shop.

The event takes place at Seasons in Southampton. Tickets can be ordered online at ellensrun.org.

Sweets Special

From now through Valentine’s Day, Tate’s Bake Shop in Southampton is offering a 20-percent discount on treats ordered online. The code vday15 must be used on the bakery’s website, tatesbakeshop.com.

News for Foodies

With Valentine’s Day approaching, those who envision a gourmet dinner for two at home — but don’t know how to cook one — may wish to order a heat-and-serve dinner for two from Debbie Geppert Events and Dreesen’s Catering in East Hampton. Orders must be placed by next Thursday. Packages will include a choice of appetizer, first course, and dessert, and one of four entrees: filet mignon with wild mushroom sauce, rack of lamb with fresh mint demi glace, chicken marsala, and roast loin of pork with sausage and apple-cranberry stuffing.

At the Harbor Grill in East Hampton, Valentine’s Day a la carte specials will begin on Friday, Feb. 13, and continue through Feb. 15. Those who order an entree special will receive a free glass of champagne, house wine, or bottled beer.

Golden Pear Treats

During last week’s snowstorm, Keith Davis, the owner of the Golden Pear cafes, showed his appreciation for all of the village and town highway workers who were out plowing the streets day and night by offering them free coffee, breakfast, and lunch.

Grow Your Own

News for those looking forward to planting and harvesting their own fresh food: The East End Cooperative Organic (EECO) Farm in East Hampton, where gardeners may rent a plot, has a few available for the coming season. They will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so those interested have been advised to act quickly.

The Long Island Regional Seed Consortium is holding a seed swap on Saturday at Suffolk Community College in Riverhead. At the free event, there will be a brief introduction to seed saving at 1:30 p.m., followed by two hours of swapping from 2 to 4 p.m. Even those without seeds to swap are welcome. More information is available from Stephanie Gaylor at [email protected].

Wintertime Cooking

A monthly cooking class with various chefs at the Wolffer Estate vineyard in Sagaponack has been filling up, but as of press time there were still spaces available for the next one, a session with Ryunosuke Jesse Matsuoka of Sen restaurant in Sag Harbor on Feb. 15. The cost is $75 and includes lunch paired with Wolffer wines. Reservations may be made on the Wolffer website.

Slow Food East End will present an introduction to ayurvedic cooking with Corey DeRosa of the Tapovana Ashtanga Healing Center in Sag Harbor on Feb. 15. The class will include an introduction to proper food combining as well as the six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent), and how they relate to digestion and emotional state. The session will be held at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton from 2 to 4:30 p.m. and cost $40 for Slow Food members and $50 for nonmembers. Advance registration is required through SlowFoodEastEnd.org.

I have always wondered why there is the expression “easy as pie.” Pie is not that easy to make! Turns out the expression began as “easy as eating pie.” Now that makes sense. However, I am hoping that this pie column will encourage you to take the leap, perfect a piecrust, make a bunch, and keep them in your freezer so you can whip one up on a whim.

I have a piecrust recipe that I have been using for about 20 years. It comes from the marvelous Mary Schoenlein of Mary’s Marvelous. We had a little pie contest at the Red Horse Market years ago when she was head chef and I was pastry chef. I got all show-offy and rendered my own lard for the crust. It tasted heavy and rancid. Mary’s had the perfect balance between butter and vegetable shortening. Can you guess who won?

Here are the basic guidelines. All-purpose flour is all you need. Butter is essential for flavor but very difficult to work with on its own in a crust. A small bit of shortening will give the crust a nice, light, flaky texture. If you have a problem with shortening perhaps this breakdown of ingredients will ease your mind when ingesting the devil’s fat product. You only need a few tablespoons of shortening per pie. Slice that pie into eight pieces, and you are not consuming very much shortening at all, perhaps a half to one teaspoon. Salt adds flavor, and one or two tablespoons of sugar help the browning of the crust while baking. When it comes to liquids, a few tablespoons of ice water are best. I have seen recipes calling for buttermilk, vinegar, vodka, lemon juice, and more, but water is all you need.

Regarding equipment, I confess that the best, fastest, and easiest way to make crust is in a food processor. The blades do a quick and efficient job of blending the fats and flour without having time to warm up. Lastly, when you roll out your chilled dough, don’t be afraid to use plenty of flour to keep the dough from sticking to your rolling pin and rolling surface. The dough will not absorb much because it is cold. You can brush off excess as you proceed.

Some people suggest you roll dough between two sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap. This is kind of a pain in the behind. Some also suggest folding the dough in quarters, then unfolding it into pan, or laying it over the rolling pin, then unrolling gently into pan. If any of these make you feel more secure in the transfer of dough to pan, then by all means, try these methods. This is all just too much fiddling around for me. Pie dough is delicate, but should be sturdy (and cold) enough that you can pick it up and lay it into the pie pan directly.

When you fill a pie with wet fruit filling, like berries or apples, you should bind the fruit with tapioca, cornstarch, or flour. Tapioca is a favorite for some, but who has that lying around the house? Cornstarch will keep the color of the berries clear, and flour will muddy the color and take longer to thicken, so this is an aesthetic and personal choice. I use flour for apple pies and cornstarch for berry pies. To protect the bottom crust from getting soggy you can also sprinkle some graham crackers on the bottom before filling with fruit. This helps absorb some of the juices and enables the bottom crust to cook evenly.

Regarding pie pans, I like to use glass so I can see how well the sides and bottom are cooking. If you use a dark metal pan, keep in mind that it will absorb most of the radiant heat and conduct it to the crust. Thin metal pans can’t hold much heat, therefore they slow the cooking and produce uneven browning. So invest in a Pyrex glass or heavy-gauge metal pan.

When it comes to apple pie, I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon and nutmeg as additional, traditional ingredients. Try using two kinds of apples, such as Granny Smith and MacIntosh, some lemon juice and lemon zest, and let the apple flavor sing. Same goes for my blueberry pie. I only add a bit of lemon juice, zest, and a few dots of butter before the top crust goes on. Of course, all of these pies have sugar, but this, too, is personal preference and depends on sweetness of fruit.

Some pie recipes call for starting the pie in a pre-heated oven set at 425 degrees, then reducing the temperature after 15 to 20 minutes. If your crust is browning too quickly around the edges, you can wrap some strips of aluminum foil around the periphery until the pie has finished baking. I think baking a pie at 375 for the whole time works just fine, just make sure your oven is accurate and properly preheated.

My friend Eric has been badgering me to teach him how to make a pie. He once had the good fortune to be served Nora Ephron’s Concord grape pie and that’s the one he wanted to learn how to make. After some strenuous research, I have learned that even the great cook and writer Nora Ephron used Pillsbury dough for her pie. She is even quoted in Martin Short’s autobiography telling his children that “no human can make a piecrust as good as Pillsbury.” Well, if you think a crust made with partially hydrogenated lard, potassium sorbate, sodium proprionate, and artificial coloring sounds good, knock yourself out. With all due respect to the late great Ms. Ephron, when Eric gets his pie lesson, it’s gonna be homemade all the way.

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Should Valentine’s Day bring a desire to look into the eyes of a loved one across a restaurant table, the annual lineup of eateries offering holiday specials includes the following.

Almond in Bridgehampton will be serving a four-course menu centered on blood oranges as an ingredient on Saturday. It promises the $75 prix fixe will be “super sexy.” Among the menu items will be, to start, Montauk Pearl oysters with blood orange margarita granita or a shaved salad with blood orange chips, followed by duck and foie gras ravioli a l’orange or Peconic Bay scallops with blood orange, and, for an entree, roasted rack of pork with fennel and blood orange or salmon with spiced root vegetables and blood orange. Dessert will be a Mexican chocolate torte for two with ancho chile and blood orange gel. The a la carte menu will be available as well. Reservations are a must.

Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton has strongly recommended reservations for a Saturday night table, when a couple of a la carte Valentine’s Day specials will be added to the regular menu. They include roasted artichoke ravioli, grilled swordfish, and a melted chocolate pot de crème for dessert.

Holiday additions to the menu at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton on Saturday include a duck confit salad, rack of lamb entree, and dark chocolate panna cotta as dessert.

A special Valentine’s meal for two at the Living Room in East Hampton will be offered at $130 per couple, plus tax and gratuity, in addition to the restaurant’s regular menu. Although the menu is subject to change, slated to be served as of Monday were grilled Peconic Bay oysters, veal carpaccio, a grilled half lobster, and chocolate ganache.

At Sen in Sag Harbor, ladies who dine for lunch or dinner on Valentine’s Day will receive a free red rose.

Slow Food Dinner

A slow food dinner centered on market-fresh seasonal ingredients has been planned by the Slow Food East End group for March 5 at Nick and Toni’s. Joe Realmuto, the East Hampton restaurant’s executive chef, and Bryan Futerman, a chef and the vice president of Slow Food East End, will prepare four courses, which will be served with two glasses of wine selected by the Nick and Toni’s sommelier. The cost is $95 per person for Slow Food East End members, and $105 for others. The dinner will begin with a cash bar cocktail hour at 6:30 p.m. Reservations can be made online at slowfoodeastend.org.

Inlet Seafood Reopening

Inlet Seafood in Montauk will reopen for the season on Friday, Feb. 13, and will be serving lunch and dinner on Friday through Monday that weekend.

Oscar Contest

This is the month that Rowdy Hall holds its annual “Rowdy and the Oscars” contest. Oscar ballots will be distributed to diners who wish to participate and fill them out with their best guesses of who will be Oscar winners. Whoever makes the most correct predictions — as determined at the Oscars on Feb. 22 — will receive a $50 restaurant gift certificate and two movie vouchers. If there is a tie, a drawing will be held.

Winter Chefs Series

On Sunday, Japanese cooking will be the topic at a session of the Wolffer Estate vineyard’s Winter Chef Series featuring Ryunosuke Jesse Matsuoka of Sen restaurant in Sag Harbor. The cost is $75 for the 12:30 p.m. class, which includes lunch paired with wine.