If ever a tribe of cannibals wanted to fatten up some homo sapiens like the poor geese of Perigord, New Orleans would be the place to do it. The geese of Perigord are force-fed through a contraption called a gavotte, which engorges their livers to create, in some people’s opinions, delicious foie gras fattiness.  Take me to New Orleans and I will voluntarily consume every oyster, etouffee, gumbo, Sazerac, beignet, muffaletta, remoulade, Abita beer, po’ boy, mudbug tail, and praline I can get my hands on — making me one tasty and large human liver.

    We arrived in N’Awlins early on a Monday morning and only had three days to sample as much deliciousness (and Tums) as we could. Our guide was a local author, Mimi Read, who writes like an angel and looks like a ballerina but can pack away as many oysters as, oh, I dunno, Peyton and Eli Manning combined. Lunch was at Felix’s, where gumbo, oysters Rockefeller, raw oysters, crawfish tails, and etouffee were heartily consumed. As well as onion rings, why not?

    Dinner was more about music than food. A local wine shop, Bacchanal, serves food on its patio, casually ordered from a fast-food-like window and brought to your table. More important, up-and-coming jazz musicians perform almost every night, weather permitting.

    Breakfast the next morning was in the Roosevelt Hotel, beignets, and shrimp and grits with tasso cream. Other choices on the breakfast menu are such native delights as blue crabmeat on an English muffin, fried crawfish tails and boudin cakes with creole hollandaise, and sweet potato pancakes. Oatmeal was on the menu but it is clearly so alien to them, it was misspelled.

    There was mention of having lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Garden District but that was not to be until the next day. Visions of light and crunchy summer rolls, fresh, raw vegetables, and fragrant jasmine rice swam in and back out of my head. Ah, well, off we went to Casamento’s, surely one of the best and more casual establishments in the city. Opened in 1919 by Joe Casamento, this shrine to oysters and all manner of fish fried in lard is still run by the family.  More raw oysters, char-grilled oysters (these are doused in garlic butter), a fried catfish sandwich for yours truly, fried oysters, French fries, and some iceberg lettuce.

    Like quite a few other restaurants, you must go through the kitchen to reach the restrooms. The seasoned cornmeal for battering is on a low shelf, a three-gallon bucket of lard sits nearby, and three pots of bubbling this and that sit on the tiniest stove I’ve ever seen in a restaurant that handles such volume. Like pretty much everyone in the Crescent City (so called because the Mississippi River curves through like a half-moon), the staff and chef and dishwasher and owner are happy to chat with you about history, recipes, and the beautiful tiles that line every surface of Casamento’s.

    That evening’s festivity was a book party for my friends Tommy and Mimi.  Little glasses of crabmeat and avocado soup were passed around along with little tartlets with shrimp remoulade. I nibbled on Tums and cursed my inability to consume everything like I used to. A late dinner at a charming restaurant called Lilette was a roasted beet salad for me.

    In between meals our time was spent walking, walking, and walking for miles, admiring architecture, poking around antiques stores, listening to buskers on the streets, and marveling at how reasonable New Orleans is. Our hotel, a branch of the Waldorf Astoria, was cheaper than a Holiday Inn Express by JFK airport. Our meals at some of the best restaurants in the city never exceeded $200 for four people.

    The sidewalks are full of cracks and holes, and the streets severely potholed. There is plenty of poverty, but more so, pride. Public drinking is encouraged and crime is a problem. But the resilience and friendliness of the people is inspiring and the music uplifting.

    Lunch the last day was outdoors at the aforementioned Vietnamese restaurant.  I practically needed sunglasses, the food on my plate was so bright. What is that?  Ah, crisp lettuce leaves with shredded carrots and radishes, sprigs of cilantro and mint, lemongrass-scented bits of chicken, pho, healthy food! Enough to fortify us for our last supper at one of the shrines, Galatoire’s, where gentlemen must wear jackets. One of the things that most amazed me were the prices. Salads are $6.50 to $14, fish and shellfish dishes are $19 to $28, sides are $6, and desserts a mere $5 to $8. That’s cheaper than Espresso or John Pappas! The food is glorious — souffled potatoes, oysters en brochette, grilled pompano topped with crabmeat, hearts of palm with asparagus, crabmeat sardou, ravigote, Clemenceau, Marguery.  The most expensive item on the menu is the souvenir cookbook at $35.

    Whenever I return from a food exploration trip, I search for ways to incorporate what I have learned and eaten into my everyday cooking.  You won’t find me seeking out lard to deep-fry oysters but I have discovered that a pinch of homemade creole seasoning does wonders for egg salad, mashed potatoes, and creamed spinach. My evening cocktail is now a Sazerac, carefully, slowly, meticulously, lovingly prepared and served in small doses.

    I don’t think I’ll be making fried eggplant sticks and serving them with Crystal hot sauce and a pile of powdered sugar. Seriously, this is considered a delicacy in New Orleans, who thought of that? I did stop by Citarella upon my return to find out if I could order pompano and head-on shrimp. As far as oysters go, honestly, I prefer ours, more briny than bayou. But I may soon try subjecting some Montauk Pearls to a few drops of jazzy Crystal hot sauce with WWOZ 90.7 on in the background and an ice cold Abita. Just to bring me back to old New Orleans.

    I’m embarrassed to admit how much research I have done on the Sazerac since my return from New Orleans. You can make these with either bourbon or rye whiskey. I find that a mid-range priced rye whiskey is best, and lower alcohol, too. They range from 100 proof to 84 proof. This recipe is from the Sazerac Bar of the Roosevelt Hotel, a beautifully restored bar with original W.P.A. murals.

Click for recipes

    Reservations are being taken for a Nov. 1 wine dinner called France Uncorked, featuring French wines and five courses at the Living Room restaurant in East Hampton, at c/o the Maidstone inn.

    Co-sponsored by Park Place Wines and Liquors, the dinner will begin at 7:30 p.m. and costs $145 per person. The menu will include oysters four ways and sea scallop carpaccio followed by pulled, slow-baked pheasant with sautéed chanterelles on toasted brioche with frisee salad and caramelized onions. After that, tournedos Rossini, a French steak dish with foie gras, will be served, followed by a dessert of chocolate ganache with raspberry compote. A different wine will be served with each course.

Artists, Writers at Almond

    Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton is reintroducing its artists and writers nights, when diners may eat a prix fixe served family-style and hear from a guest of the night. On Wednesday, the speaker will be Janet Goleas, a freelance art curator who recently created “The Moby Project,” a multi-disciplinary exhibit centered on the themes in “Moby-Dick.” The evening begins at 7 p.m. and will cost $40 in advance, or $45 at the door. The fee includes three courses, a glass of local wine or craft beer, and tax and gratuity.

Dinner Tonight

    Diners at four local restaurants tonight will help to support the Amagansett Food Institute, which will receive 20 percent of the evening’s proceeds from Almond, La Fondita, Fresh, and Meeting House. The institute, a fledgling organization formed to support East End farmers and food producers, has 20 members, including Amber Waves Farm, Anke’s Fit Bakery, Gula Gula Empanadas, Open Minded Organics, Fat Ass Fudge, and Bhumi Farm.

Harvest Cooking

    A cooking class at the Bridgehampton Inn on Saturday, sponsored by the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton, will center on cooking with pears and pumpkins. Carolyn Giacalone will teach students how to make pumpkin gnocchi, roasted stuffed hens with pear and walnut stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta, and caramel­ized pear tart with pumpkin ice cream. The class will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. and cost $165.

Pie Class

    Leslie Dumont at Proud to Be Flakey Pie School will give a class on making apple pies and tarts on Oct. 20 from noon to 3:30 p.m. The $75 cost includes refreshments during the session and a pie crust to take home. Registration is through the school’s Web site.

1770 House Tavern

143 Main Street

East Hampton

324-1770

Dinner nightly

    It’s Columbus Day weekend and the Hamptons International Film Festival is on the South Fork so I know all of you ladies and gentlemen and black-clad cinephiles want to know where to eat. With movies being shown in six locations from Southampton to Montauk your dining options are plentiful. However, if you check the festival’s Web site looking for places to eat, you may be steered in an out-of-date direction. Some of the recommendations are Rugosa, oops, closed, and now the excellent Highway Diner, Spring Close, closed, Copa, gone, Almond, moved, Turtle Crossing, defunct. The only restaurants in Sag Harbor mentioned are the Corner Bar and Il Cappuccino. Really?

    This is not a dining guide for this upcoming weekend. (If you want to know where to eat, within any price range, in any of the villages showing movies this weekend, ask a local. In East Hampton, Rowdy Hall, Sam’s, Cittanuova, and Nick and Toni’s are favorites.) This is a review of one of my favorite fall and winter spots, the Tavern downstairs at the 1770 House.

    The 1770 House is a beautifully restored inn with pretty rooms, a charming garden in back, a little cottage, and basically two restaurants. The upstairs one is comfortable but more formal. Take the tiny, winding stairs down to the tavern and you have two seating options. Turn right and you are in the small bar area with a few tables, a fireplace, and the ubiquitous flat-screen TV. Turn left and you are in another small cozy dining room, rather like an underground pub. People who dine here have strong opinions. Some don’t like the dimly lit atmosphere and the feeling of being underground in close quarters. I adore it. The gray-green wooden banquettes wrap around the small room and have plush paisley cushions. Lighting is provided by dim sconces and votive candles. The Tavern has its own, less formal menu, but you can also order anything from the grander upstairs menu.

    The meal begins with some nice warm sourdough rolls with olive oil for dipping. You used to get a choice of warm cheesy brioche and black olive twists as well, which were deliciously rich and threatened to spoil your appetite. Perhaps they are saving pennies now.

    We began our meal with oysters on the half shell, beet salad, foie gras, and corn and potato chowder. The oysters (Hog’s Neck Bay, North Fork), received raves from everyone but the best part was the super tangy frozen cucumber mignonette, crunchy like a granita. The beet salad was also excellent. The wedges of Balsam Farm beets were tossed with julienned endive, toasted hazelnuts and dabs of salty blue cheese. The dressing was citrusy and light and may have had a drop or two of additional nut oil. The slight bitterness of the endive contrasted nicely with the sweet beets.

    The foie gras (always on the menu at 1770 and always good) was seared and served with local peach compote and a warm brioche emulsion. I don’t know what a warm brioche emulsion is but my teenage gourmand guest, Lara, who ordered it wished she had gotten some toasts alongside. The local corn and potato chowder was very good, thick and rich and corny.

    For entrees we ordered the Tavern burger, the Tavern meatloaf, salmon, and roasted chicken. The burger at 1770 is justifiably famous. It is big, served on a brioche bun, juicy from the right degree of fat content, and served with crispy fries. A tray of condiments arrives before you have to ask for them. The Tavern meatloaf is another signature dish you can always find on the menu. The presentation is new; the meatloaf is served as one large oval slice on a bed of mashed potatoes, with roast garlic gravy all around, and a mild, roasted garlic clove adorning the top. Barely sauteed spinach tries to find room on the generous platter. This is a good deal for $22!

    The salmon was also a generous portion, served with a tart tomatillo salsa, kabocha squash, duck confit, and smoked apple. It was cooked medium and was perfectly seasoned. The roasted chicken was also excellent. There is nothing better than a half chicken that has been boned for you, has a crunchy crust, and remains moist inside. And it tastes “chickeny” as Julia Child used to say. The spiced sweet potato puree and sesame baby bok choy served alongside were also delicious.

    The service on the night of our visit was excellent. Our waitress, Tina, knew her wines and was perfectly charming. There are always several people on hand, refilling your water glasses and making sure each guest is served at exactly the same time, smooth and unobtrusive. Prices at 1770 are $12 to $24 for appetizers, $20 to $42 for entrees, with sides for $9, desserts $10 to $12.

    We were too stuffed for dessert but this was a belated birthday occasion so we got a slice of ricotta cheesecake and a little tres leches cake with candles in them for the table. The ricotta cheesecake was fluffy and fresh, served with a crunchy hazelnut crust, sitting on a crosshatch pattern of blueberry compote and caramel sauce with a mound of fresh blueberries on the side. The tres leches cake was moist, sweet, and rich, served with a scoop of refreshing coconut sorbet.

    The Tavern menu at the 1770 House seems shorter, more streamlined than it used to be, but this is okay since, as mentioned before, you can order from the upstairs menu, as well. The executive chef, Kevin Penner, put the 1770 House on the map when it re-opened over 10 years ago. It is now in the professional and capable hands of another former Della Femina chef, Michael Rozzi. The restaurant is on the expensive side but it must be noted, there are always good values on the menu and the prix fixe menus through the winter are the best out here.

    Whether you want a grand filet mignon with Bordelaise emulsion or a simple wild mushroom pizza, 1770 House will have a variety of choices for you, offered in a cozy, professional, and welcoming atmosphere.

Paella Dinner

    A cooking class centered on making a paella dinner, to be offered by Bridgehampton’s Loaves and Fishes Cookshop at the Bridgehampton Inn on Saturday, will include instructions for making both seafood and chicken and sausage paella. For dessert, a milk chocolate flan with a pistachio sable sauce will be prepared. The class takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. and costs $165.

The Merliance

    East End wineries that produce merlot have teamed up to create Merliance, a cooperative merlot blend. With the newest addition, Lieb Cellars of Cut­chogue, the producers number seven, including Clovis Point, McCall Wines, Raphael, Sherwood House Vineyards, T’Jara Vineyards, and Wolffer Estate Vineyard. Two barrels of Lieb Cellars’ merlot will be included in the 2012 vintage of Merliance.

    Lieb was recently acquired by Southport Lane, a private equity firm, and is under the business leadership of Peter Pace, and technical direction of Russell Hearn, an East End winemaker and founding member of Merliance. The Merliance group seeks to advance research and quality initiatives as well as the perception of merlot and merlot blends as Long Island’s “signature wines.”

Fresh Family Night

    A family night menu at Fresh restaurant in Bridgehampton includes starters such as organic sweet corn chowder, Greek salad, and kale chips, followed by a choice of entrees including pan-seared local skate or porgy and grass-fed beef hamburgers. Service begins daily at 5 p.m.

Winemakers’ Sundays

    At Noah’s in Greenport, a five-course tasting dinner on Sunday at 6 p.m. will feature pairings of wines from Sparkling Pointe. On the menu will be a local white root vegetable soup, Catapano goat cheese salad, Maine lobster and local potato ravioli, pepper-crusted filet mignon, and a crème brulee duo for dessert. The cost is $76 per person plus tax and gratuity. Reservations have been strongly recommended.

    I love Halloween. I love being scared, love haunted houses, love costumes, and love candy corn. But nowadays it seems like zombies and vampires are so popular that we are inundated with the undead, bloodsucking creatures all year round. Turn on the TV to watch something blandly amusing and ads for “The Walking Dead” or “American Horror Story” will scare the bejesus out of you. Change the channel and there’s Ted Cruz. Eeeek!

    When I was little, my brothers and I would traipse around our neighborhood with paper bags for candy and little cardboard boxes for pennies for Unicef. Our parents would follow at a discreet distance. A few neighbors made the mistake of offering apples or some homemade unwrapped treat that our mother would promptly dispose of. Razor blades! Poison! Urban legends! Once home, we would lay out our loot and swap and trade with all the seriousness of Tony Soprano divvying up crime territories with his cronies at Satriale’s. Sherman and I would finish our candy within days. John’s would last for months and he would torture us as he revealed some new Atomic Fireball or Milky Way in mid-February.

    Costumes were also simpler, and most often homemade. Got an old sheet? Presto, you’re Casper the Friendly Ghost. Got charcoal? Smudge your face and you’re a hobo. Nowadays, according to the National Retail Federation, we spend approximately $75 dollars on costumes, decor, and candy. According to the N.R.F., nearly 44 percent of Americans will wear a costume this Halloween, 13.8 percent will also dress up their pets, nearly 31 percent will celebrate at a party, 44 percent will carve a pumpkin, 20 percent will visit a haunted house, 32 percent will take their kids trick or treating, and 48 percent will decorate their yard and/or house.

    When my son was little and sweet and innocent he was Winnie the Pooh and one of the Ninja Turtles. As a teen he morphed into gory zombie creatures. Now he seems content with the irony of just being Cameron from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” or Kim Jong-Un. Comical and frightening.

    When it comes to food for Halloween, you can work wonders with food coloring, Jello, squid ink, slimy noodles, lychee nuts, and so on. After you carve your pumpkin, save the seeds and roast them with a little olive oil and salt. If you want to make pumpkin soup, buy the cheese or sugar pumpkins, which are pale tan and squat. They have the best flavor and are less watery than the bright orange ones. It’s also fun to hollow out the tiny pumpkins and put dips in them.

    Popcorn balls, and candy and caramel apples are some other favorites that nobody seems to make from scratch anymore. Super fresh, crisp apples are key for making these. The Milk Pail in Water Mill is a good source for pumpkins, gourds, apples, cider, and cider doughnuts for Halloween. If you want to get really creative, buy some dry ice from Berkoski’s to create a spooky, smoky vapor rising up from your bar or punch bowls. Freeze fake bugs in your ice cubes, just be careful when the cubes melt!

    There are plenty of Halloween activities coming up — haunted house tours, haunted graveyard tours, and my favorites, the ragamuffin parades in East Hampton and Sag Harbor Villages.

    Halloween is the only “holiday” or occasion that allows us to indulge our fantasies, explore our fears, and gorge on candy. Whether you want to be a fairy princess, ghoul, vampire, silly animal, or heaven forbid, this year’s number one character, Miley Cyrus, be safe, enjoy the treats, please no tricks, and have fun trying some of these recipes.

Click for recipes

Highway Diner and Bar

    The Highway Diner and Bar in Wainscott, a year-round, locally-owned bar and restaurant, is gearing up for the fall and winter season with a new cocktail menu, which includes a spiced pumpkin vodka martini, and lower prices on wines by the glass.

    Peter Thomas is the new chef at Highway, and is adding new menu items such as steak frites, pastrami and gyro sandwiches, a variety of pasta dishes, seasonal soups, chili, and local seafood entrees. Every weekday night, the restaurant is offering a special $20 entrée. Mr. Thomas, a well-known chef on the East End, worked most recently at Salt on Shelter Island.

Smokin’ Wolf

    Smokin’ Wolf, a barbecue place on Pantigo Road in East Hampton, now has a place for patrons to sit indoors. With its recently received beer license, patrons may now relax and enjoy a brew with their barbecue.

Wednesday Wine Night

    At Fresh in Bridgehampton, Wednesday is wine night. All bottles of wine priced at under $100 will be offered at a 50-percent discount.

Citta’s Specials

    Weeknight specials at Cittanuova in East Hampton are as follows: on Tuesday, a choice of pizzas, along with a draft beer and dessert, is $15, on Wednesday, a New York strip steak is the special, served the diner’s choice of one of three ways, for $19, and a three-pasta sampler for $15 on Thursday nights. On Monday, during Monday night football on TV, there are complimentary wings and $4 draft beers at the bar. During a 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. daily happy hour, Cittanuova offers quartinos of pinot grigio or Chianti for $5, well drinks for $6, draft beers for $4, and small appetizers at the bar for $5.

Round Swamp Season

    Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton will close its farm stand earlier than normal this year, on Nov. 4. Those who traditionally visit the stand for soups, prepared foods, baked goods, and uncooked frozen pies for holiday dinners, have been advised to stock up early. The stand is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Winemakers’ Sundays

    Those who like wine, and a weekend jaunt to the North Fork, may want to visit Noah’s in Greenport for one of its Winemakers’ Sundays. This weekend, at 6 p.m., a five-course menu will be served along with wines from the Kontokosta Winery. The menu includes an endive radicchio salad, ravioli made with Catapano goat cheese and artichokes, pan-roasted local blackfish with butternut squash puree, and braised kale with smoked paprika oil, a grilled Tuscan-braised pork tenderloin, and spiced pumpkin cake. The cost of the dinner and wine is $75 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations have been recommended. 

    A la carte service will also be available at the restaurant on Sunday.

    This is the saga of an attempt to get an interview to publicize a cookbook for the benefit of an author who approached The East Hampton Star for said story in the first place.

Martha Stewart, or more accurately, the editors at Martha Stewart Living have published a book called “Cakes.” It is a very good book, well illustrated with recipes ranging from simple coffee cakes to a more elaborate chocolate truffle cake. There are bundt, tube, cheese, and layer cakes. Some recipes are charmingly old-fashioned, such as the blueberry buckle, and some are modern and more sophisticated like the Meyer lemon coffee cake and blackberry cornmeal cake. There are some gluten-free recipes and a few that can be converted to kosher for Passover. The illustrations for techniques are very user-friendly, not intimidating at all. Ingredients and technique are so important in baking and this book is very thorough and helpful in listing the best of the former and easiest of the latter.

    Given the choice between an actual interview or an e-mail-submitted interview, any journalist will take the real-time interview. It is spontaneous and more revealing. One question or answer can serendipitously lead to another and so on. E-mail answers to questions can often be a bit stilted, too literate, just not the same. So I was delighted that Martha’s people offered mea 15-minute interview over the phone.

    With some fairly innocuous, softball questions at the ready, I eagerly awaited the appointed time, 2 to 2:15 p.m., but with an open window until 3 on a Monday in September. A friend called me earlier in the day. “Your interview will probably be canceled! Have you seen today’s Page Six of the New York Post?!” No, I hadn’t, I don’t read that crap, but that day I did. Indeed there was a snippy item at the top of the page about Martha and a tawdry alleged affair with a married fellow in East Hampton and blah, blah, blah. At 2 p.m. on the dot, my interview was canceled. This was distressing to me, as I had traveled into the city that day, blown off a lunch date with my only child, and scheduled a much later Jitney bus to accommodate the timing of the interview with Martha Stewart.

    Her people were very apologetic and assured me it would be rescheduled. It never was, but then they/she agreed to an e-mail interview. I submitted my fun questions. Long story short, three more deadlines were missed. My editors and I gave up completely and moved on. Then, out of the blue, came a reply. It appeared that Martha had cherry picked through my questions, answering only 5 out of 12, and most assuredly not answering the most interesting and revealing of them. Sample: “This is a question I ask all of my chef and foodie friends: What would be your last supper?” And, “Considering your life and career up to this point, what would you most like to be remembered for?” “What is your daughter’s favorite birthday cake? What is your favorite cake?” Some answers I received: The chocolate cake on the cover was chosen because “it’s beautiful and delicious and anyone can put it together ‘from scratch.’ ” Her favorite cake is lemon meringue. She dines at Nick and Toni’s and La Fondita. She supports “the local small farmers and gardeners that use fresh locally-sourced ingredients.”

    This entire process of being courted by a person (or her people) who wants your paper to give her publicity, thereby making her more money, and then being blown off numerous times got me to thinking. How hard is it nowadays to reach an ultra-famous, super-busy, accomplished person, and get him or her to answer your questions? I gave myself a challenge. As Martha chose not to answer “What is your daughter’s favorite birthday cake?” and this made me very sad, I thought I would put that simple question out into the atmosphere.

    A friend of a friend of a friend knows Jeff Bezos’s mother, Jackie. We wrote her an e-mail asking what Jeff’s favorite cake is. Keep in mind, these people have no reason to reply, they are not promoting a cake book or asking our newspaper to interview and write about the author. F.Y.I., Jeff Bezos is the founder and C.E.O. of Amazon.com, just bought The Washington Post, and is on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index as one of the world’s wealthiest people. His mom wrote back within 12 hours. “I don’t know what Jeff’s favorite cake is actually. Think it has changed since he was little. He had four kids so birthday cake is a frequent offering. You could ask Jeff [his actual, personal e-mail address inserted here] or I could forward for you.” Within 24 hours we got an answer from Mr. Bezos himself: “Zebra cake. It also might be the easiest cake in the world.”

    Thank you, Mr. Bezos, for being human and accessible and taking the time to answer a simple personal question. Thank you, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia employees for doing your best.

Click for recipes

    Long Island Restaurant Week begins on Sunday. For a week, through Nov. 10, participating restaurants will be offering $27.95 prix fixe menus. The special will be offered all night each night, except on Saturday, when it will be available only until 7 p.m. It will include a choice from at least three appetizers, three entrees, and three desserts.

    Among the local eateries that are participating are Almond in Bridgehampton, Noah’s in Greenport, the 1770 House and the Living Room in East Hampton, and the Bell and Anchor in Sag Harbor.

    A full list, spanning the entire island, can be found at longislandrestaurantweek.com. Last year, there were 248 restaurants to choose from.

World Cuisine

    At Fresh in Bridgehampton, each Thursday brings an opportunity to visit a different culinary region through a three-course prix fixe prepared by Todd Jacobs, the chef, between 5 and 8 p.m. The special costs $34 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

Holiday Treats

    The Springs General Store has a lineup of homemade Halloween treats, from handmade cookies and Yummy Mummy cake pops, to hot chocolate mixes with homemade marshmallows.

    La Fondita in Amagansett will celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, tomorrow and Saturday with menu specials including pork tamales in salsa roja, chile and cheese tamales, turkey in red mole sauce, and a salsa-dipped chorizo and potato sandwich. All can be ordered alone or with a side of rice and refried beans. A traditional Day of the Dead drink, atole de pina, a warm porridge beverage with pineapple, will also be available.

    La Fondita is currently open during lunch and dinner hours on Wednesday through Sunday.

Rowdyween Halloween

    Rowdy Hall will have its 14th annual Rowdyween party tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight. Those attending must come in costume, and can enter into a contest for $500 in prizes awarded for the best Halloween get-ups. A $30 admission fee will include one drink and passed hors d’oeuvres. There will be drink specials and a D.J. spinning tunes.

New, Scandinavian

    Mathias Brogie, the chef at the Living Room at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton, has added some new Scandinavian-inspired dishes to the menu. They include, as starters, pumpkin blinis, button mushroom soup with smoked eel, herring with egg, brown butter, and dill sautéed potatoes, blackened gravlax “pastrami” served with pumpkin chutney, and foie gras tacos.

    As entrees, flounder meuniere, grilled monkfish, pan-fried Arctic char, crispy duck breast, venison, and biff rydberg, a Nordic beef dish, are available.

At Indian Wells

    Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett will host a fund-raiser on Monday from 6 to 10 p.m. for the East Hampton High School Camerata singing group, which is raising money for a spring trip to Italy. There will be a cash bar, passed hors d’oeuvres, and a silent auction. Admission is $20.

Nammo’s Estiatoria

136 Main Street

Southampton

287-5500

Dinner nightly, closed Mondays

    Nammo’s Estiatoria is a big, beautiful, airy restaurant situated in the Old Post House in Southampton. It was most recently Nello’s Summertime, but may be better known as a summer season disco and lounge. Indeed, there are lots of private cabanas on the back porch and a disco closed off from the main restaurant at this sleepier time of year. The main room — white with accents of Aegean blue here and there — is huge, two stories high with lots of windows and work by various local artists on the walls. The owners are making a go of staying open all winter and have lowered the prices and streamlined the menu. God bless ’em, I wish them the best of luck, but a few things need to be worked on, first and foremost the food.

    On a recent visit, my friends and I were the only guests in the restaurant so we chose a cozy corner by a fireplace. The only other people in Nammo’s were the chef from Old Stove Pub, and another fellow with whom he had shared a mutual birthday the night before. Their posture and mumbled conversation suggested it was an awesome birthday celebration. Other than those gentlemen, it was just us, and Emilio, who paid so much attention to us I could have married him on the spot.

    Emilio had been playing mixologist recently so we tried two of his new specialty cocktails. One was a hot cider with a bit of Ya Mastiha, a Greek liqueur made from the sap of mastic trees. The other was a refreshing fresh lime juice martini topped with micro-planed lime zest.

    The meal began with a delicious platter of nicely toasted pita triangles, a dish of fruity olive oil, and a cream cheese and roasted red pepper dip. It was delicious. For appetizers, we chose a broccoli salad, calamari, and meatballs. The broccoli salad was a tasty surprise. The little florets were just blanched, then dressed in a sweet-tart dressing with golden raisins, strips of red and yellow peppers, and pancetta bacon. The pancetta was actually regular smoked bacon but the whole combination was excellent and light. The calamari was also very good, with a light and crisp crust surrounding still-tender calamari. This was served with the same cream cheese red pepper dip. The beef meatballs were also very good, three fairly large, fluffy, and well-seasoned meatballs with a simple homemade tomato sauce. The menu said they were served with a yogurt balsamic dressing but we didn’t detect any. They had a hint of mint in them, just about the only Greek accent up to that point.

    For entrees we ordered the grouper, braised lamb pappardelle, and chicken souvlaki. I had hoped for a classic Greek whole fish simply prepared with olive oil and lemon but Emilio insisted the last piece of “fresh” fish in the kitchen was, in fact, not. Sadly, the grouper was a bland square of fish. The side dishes were far better, a light slaw of thinly sliced fennel with dill and lemon and a superb green apple and celery root puree. The braised lamb pappardelle had good flavor, but the pasta was pre-al dente, a bit chewy and undercooked. The chicken souvlaki (marinated chicken on skewers) was overcooked and a bit dry. The lemon potato served with it was good, though. There were a few other entrees that sounded more Italian and American than Greek, a wild mushroom pasta with truffle oil, and a heritage pork chop with asparagus.

    Prices at Nammo’s are very reasonable. Appetizers are $8 to $12, entrees are $16 to $25, sides are $7, and desserts are $7 and $8.

    There are currently only two desserts on the menu, baklava and loukoumades, but Emilio had an extra special one he gave us, leftover from a previous party. The baklava was excellent, although served ice cold from the fridge. It had a good balance of walnuts and pistachios, the phyllo crust was still crisp and the honey syrup very floral and cinnamony. The loukoumades (little round Greek donuts) were also great, warm and yeasty with a drizzle of more honey and a dainty scoop of vanilla cinnamon ice cream. The extra treat was chocolate mousse served in a martini glass. It, too, was very good, creamy and rich.

    I wish very much for Nammo’s to succeed in the off-season. It is a beautiful space with a manager who truly cares. I wish there were a few more Greek offerings (taramasalata, haloumi, moussaka!), and I wish the kitchen cared as much as Emilio does. Most of all, I wish them good luck.

   With the exception of Swedish meatballs and gravadlax, most Americans, no matter how culinarily sophisticated, have a limited knowledge of Swedish food.

   A lot of our ignorance is due to a concept of humility that informs the Swedish temperament called janteelagen, according to Andrew Reice, an American who lives in Sweden and mounted Swedish Culininary Summer, a marketing campaign to introduce South Forkers to both Swedish cuisine and culture this summer. “It’s hard to promote yourself when you’re not supposed to brag,” he said.

   So, as a “self-appointed evangelist” Mr. Reice has taken on the mission to “show the world what I’m discovering every day about this incredible country from food to products to culture.” Zagat just placed Swedish restaurants in the number two and number three spots on its list of the world’s top 10 restaurants, he said. Not only that, in 2012 Sweden swept the entire Culinary Olympics, a big deal in Europe, taking away five gold medals. Who knew?

   In June the goal was to make appearances at 15 events, but as the summer progressed and invitations multiplied, that number turned to 20. In order to create a “critical mass of attention,” he said “it had to be a campaign that took place over an entire summer.”

   Fifteen chefs were brought over  — “all the best in the country, several with Michelin stars, all with their own restaurants” — to prepare dishes for such high-profile events as Much Ado About Madoo in Sagaponack, the Get Wild! benefit at Chuck Scarborough’s house, and Authors Night, the annual East Hampton Library fund-raiser.

   At all the events little plastic cups, filled with flora and fauna like culinary terrariums, were lined in neat rows, beckoning to curious partygoers. At the Benefit for the Bays held on a yacht docked in Sag Harbor, to raise money for the Peconic Baykeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance, a chef prepared such exotic items as a flan made from Vasterbottens cheese, one of the sponsors of the campaign, Swedish ceviche, cured and baked back of cod with crispy kroppkakor (Swedish dumplings) stuffed with anchovy and chives, and cloudberry mousse. Diners were surprised with the innovation and quality of the offerings, Mr. Reice said.

   Another major aspect of the campaign was to introduce people to Swedish tourism and products by offering live and silent auction lots of such items as a wheel of Vasterbottensost cheese, home furnishings from Lexington Clothing Company, a Swedish retailer with a shop on East Hampton’s Main Street, handmade steak knives by Mora of Sweden, an “ice driving” trip to Are, “the Aspen of Sweden, where you can ski in and ski out right from the hotel,” and a springtime stay in Cotenberg.

   Mr. Reice, a business developer who had a house in Water Mill for 20 years, visited Sweden 13 years ago when one of his interns, a Swede, told him about a Swedish product she thought would sell well in the States. He “fell in love” with the place and subsequently moved to Stockholm.

   He spent 11 years “trying to get Swedes to understand that one of best ways to make inroads in the American market is through the Hamptons and through charity events.” Finally, this year he was able to raise enough money through a clutch of sponsors to see his dream come to fruition.

   The series of summer events was, he believes, a huge success, so much so that he was approached by Guild Hall to feed guests at a recent reading. He also created a happening for the Hayground Summer Camp. It was a perfect fit, as the camp has a culinary program. With members of the Swedish Junior Olympic Culinary Team as mentors, campers prepped a gala eight-course dinner for 150, doing everything from setting the table to baking their own bread and making their own butter.

   He also produced several small events in the organization’s rented Wainscott house including a Ten Mile Dinner for Harvest East End. At that “experience,” he said, 20 guests participated in preparing their own dinners including making their own aquavit.

   Mr. Reice plans to return again next year, and has already booked a date — Swedish midsummer — for an event to benefit the World Childhood Foundation, founded by the queen of Sweden.