East End Eats: Alison Wonderland

You've just had a delightful evening dining out with friends. You eat, drink, and happily pay the bill. But in the middle of the night a thought strikes you - if you hadn't been feeling too lazy to cook, you could have done the meal better at home for a quarter the price.

What a treat it is, then, to have not only congenial company but a really outstanding meal that you couldn't achieve at home in your wildest dreams. A meal where it soon becomes apparent that you're in for something special and you anticipate the next course like a child at Christmas - the beautiful presentation of each dish being the gift-wrapping and the first taste the long-awaited gift. The evening becomes a party.

Alison by the Beach is in a little one-story building, shack almost, perched on the edge of the highway on a corner of a potato field where the Wainscott woods end. Even though recommended, I never went to the Potting Shed, Roger's, or Bruce's, the restaurants that were there before, because it looked such an improbable spot. I had this Midwest vision of a few oilcloth-covered tables bearing flies and ketchup bottles, a banging screen door, a waitress with her feet up on a chair reading The National Enquirer, and one very old drunk at the bar crouched over a Jack Daniel's.

Of course it never was like that but, like the time machine in "Dr. Who," the place is deceptive. Inside, it is amazingly spacious. It is also extremely pretty, with sloping floors, exposed beams, and latticed candleholders that cast patterns on the white tablecloths and fill the room with dancing reflections.

On a recent miserable wet evening, our party was particuarly in need of good cheer. One of the group, recently moved to the country after many years as a chef in Manhattan, had that morning taken a grueling driving exam in heavy sleet with a dragon of an instructor, only to have his car wrecked on the celebratory drive home when the steering system failed.

Ah, The Appetizers

Good acoustics, good bread, and a nice white bean dip set the scene for the meal, as did the impressive wine list, which the restaurant can maintain probably because it is a branch of the Manhattan establishment Alison on Dominick Street.

The appetizers we tried included a crisp apple and celery remoulade, a fine green salad, and a wonderful lentil soup that bore absolutely no resemblance to those bowls of murky brown sludge that one usually associates with the dish - these lentils fairly sparkled.

The desserts provided the crowning flourish at the end of a veritable trumpet voluntary of a meal.

Then there was a warm goat cheese and potato terrine, bound in some sort of crisp vegetable wrapping, that produced sighs of delight. It was served with a salad of chopped young beetroots in walnut oil, good enough to have been a dish by themselves.

Silence For The Soup

But it was the soup - of delicata, buttercup, and butternut squashes with curry cream - that reduced the table to a brief moment of awed silence. As Shakespeare undoubtedly meant to say: "Soup that knits up the raveled sleave of care . . . balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast."

Appetizers run from $7 to $9, with a selection of smoked fish or French cheese priced a bit higher.

Entrees are from $21 to $26. They included a tender and unusual sauteed local striped bass in a potato crust with artichokes and a heartwarming traditional lamb stew with pumpkin gnocchi (vegetables are very obviously chosen from what is in season).

The Driver Revives

The stuffed breast of veal was divine, stuffed with a herb-sausagey mix that wasn't too cloying and accompanied by mashed potatoes and a heap of wild mushrooms.

And the braised beef short ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes removed the lines of trauma from the face of our shellshocked new driver - he looked almost ready to face the L.I.E.

One diner, it must be noted, was not so happy with her salmon. It was not medium rare as promised, not hot enough, and she found the accompanying vegetables with smoked salmon lardons too "busy" in flavor.

But she enthused instead about a wonderful halibut dish she had had at Alison's on a previous visit.

Ta-Da! For Dessert

Restaurant desserts are so often a bit of a letdown, but on this occasion they provided the crowning flourish at the end of a veritable trumpet voluntary of a meal.

The chocolate walnut mousse was such a tour de force that it warranted a phone call to the pastry chef to see how he did it - equal parts butter and chocolate, the egg yolks beaten, then the egg whites beaten, very little sugar. It is then partially cooked, rested, then cooked again, which explained the firm crust and the moist inside.

He also confided that the perfect creme brulee with pinenut glaze was a secret recipe he had been working on for years, and that the delicate wafers of pastry in the apple napoleon was brick dough, not phyllo.

The napoleon arrived like a little Spanish galleon, crowned with sails of the thinnest apple slices and floating in a sea of raspberry coulis.

It Was Worth It

Very fresh nuts fried with a glaze were the secret of a delicious cappuccino, chocolate, sundae sort of thing whose title now eludes me but whose taste was memorable.

One diner finished with a selection of French cheeses - a choice that pleased those of us who hadn't finished our wine yet.

Only one other table was occupied when we arrived. As we ate, the room filled completely, then slowly emptied. We lingered over coffee and complimentary cookies until it would have been embarrassing to stay any longer.

Including some cocktails and two bottles of an excellent ChimŠre pinot noir from California - the first ordered with Scrooge-like caution, the second with festive abandon - the bill came to $80 a head. It was, we agreed, worth every penny. Recipe Gremlins

The devilish gremlins got into one of Miriam Ungerer's recipes - again! The fractions in last week's recipe for baked ham went off for a walk, leaving an incomprehensible trail of footprints behind.

Herewith the corrected recipe:

Barbecued Fresh Ham

A fresh ham weighs about 18 pounds and is a great choice for 30 or more people, depending on whether it's a main course or part of a buffet, when it will serve about 50. Order in advance as these huge cuts aren't always available. Most are cured, rather cursorily, and sold as "ham."

Aged country hams will be covered in another column in time for New Year's and more Hoppin' John to keep you lucky. If you prefer, this recipe can be made in a regular oven; however, the meat will need tenting with heavy foil to avoid drying it out.

Dry Marinade:

1 large bay leaf

1 Tbsp. dried sage leaves

1 tsp. dried juniper berries

1 Tbsp. black peppercorns

1 tsp. whole allspice

1 tsp. marjoram or thyme leaves

1/4 tsp. ground mace

1/4 cup coarse (kosher) salt

A fresh ham (about 18 lbs.)

1/2 lb. slab salt pork, sliced in large thin squares

Grind all the herbs and spices together and mix with the salt. Trim the rind from the ham and reserve it - it's very tasty roasted, and useful in giving body to stews and bean casseroles. Trim the fat to quarter-inch thickness. Leave the skin on the hock to hold it in shape. Rub the marinade mix all over the meat and inside along the bone, opening it carefully with a thin boning knife, then pressing it back together. Put it in a large plastic bag and refrigerate it. Turn it every 12 hours for two days. Rinse and then soak the salt pork slices in a large bowl of cool water overnight. You can marinate the fresh ham three days if you prefer.

The day before serving, wipe the ham dry with paper towels and tie it in shape with soft string. Brush it all over with plain oil, then tie the drained, dried salt pork over any areas not protected with the natural fat. Place it on a V rack in an open roasting pan.

Preheat the charcoal or gas grill to 400 degrees (hot). Put the ham with some water in the underpan into the grill and roast for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to around 325 degrees (medium-low on most grills), brush with oil, and let it while away the time for a total of about 4 hours in a grill, though it can take up to six hours in a conventional oven. Once an hour brush the ham with the drippings under the roast, as quickly as possible. Remove the salt pork an hour before the meat is done and baste well. When the temperature reaches 155 degrees Fahrenheit at the deepest point, the ham is done. Don't attempt to carve it for at least one hour. Fresh ham carves best cold and tastes best at room temperature.

Tiny biscuits or mini corn muffins with mustardy mayonnaise are good cocktail party partners for fresh ham.