Long Island Larder: A High Retro Party

Yard sales are like archeological digs - fascinating troves of information about food, lifestyles, and tastes of the recent past, say 40 years or so. (The genuine Shaker pie safe or pressed oak kitchen chair turns up about as often as winning Lotto tickets.)

As the '50s seem to be roaring back in style - those dreadful "butterfly" canvas chairs only a contortionist can heave out of are being manufactured once more - one can furnish a house in now cheap chic "Danish modern." On re-examination, still very good design.

Oh, well, my grandmother tossed out her Victorian "trash" button-tufted sofas and art nouveau lamps that I thought just wonderful when I found them in antiques shops of the '50s. I recently fondled a tambour door Danish sideboard of that period before deciding I really had no place to put it in our tiny Key West house. But I thought about what once sat on it and my yard sale fondue set and shashlik sets I couldn't resist (a dollar each set!), so I'm planning a High Retro buffet party - that's when "buffet" entertaining became de rigueur too. That was just about when the last live-in maid-housekeeper-cook disappeared over the hills too. At least so far as the middle class was concerned.

So the fondue set and outdoor barbecue party where the cooking was part of the "fun" was the necessity that Mother Invention laid on us. Outdoor grills have a total grip on American cookery nowadays - it's no longer even just a summertime activity; I cook on my grill year-around except in driving rain. Rotisseried roasts and smoke-cooked turkeys and game are especially appealing cold-weather entrees, even if you do have to scrape the snow off the grill cover. (However, as this is being billed as "the winter that wasn't," that hasn't been a problem on the East End.)

Outdoor cooking and entertaining are, of course, a year-round way of life in Key West. Many of the older houses feature backyards with huge stone or brick and tile barbecue contructions with built-in fuel areas and immovable tiled outdoor dining tables and storage units.

I'm planning a modest outdoor kitchen area at one end of our dining verandah, but my friend the writer Phyllis Rose is hell-bent on enclosing and modernizing the wonderful open Caribbean kitchen that is part of her Barbados-style plantation house tucked into the middle of Key West. (The temperature has indeed been known to plunge to the low 60s.)

Maybe I'm just going retro all the way. I'm scouring yard sales for a pu pu platter. (Remember, I predicted the return of chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes, and bread puddings more than a dozen years ago.)

Crepes Are Back

Cook's Illustrated, the bible of serious cooks everywhere, seems this month to be in a retro sort of mood too: Key lime pie made with condensed milk, the only truly authentic way to make it, simultaneously smooth and tart, along with fresh lime juice. Little yellow "Key" limes are unavailable except in the Keys, but the green Persian ones do admirably.

The other welcome return to the past is an exhaustive re-testing of one of my old favorites, the versatile crepe, both savory and sweet. And with the first lovely fat asparagus ap pearing in markets right now, what better way to present them than in crepes. Note: All crepes do not have to be served drowning in a diet-busting Be cha mels - there are light versions even of this old warhorse of the French cuisine - or enclosing daunting, time-consuming fillings in crepes.

Savory Crepes

The best pan for cooking crepes was, naturally, invented by the French, who after all invented the crepe. Pancakes are not the same thing, being rather thick, cake-like, and spongy, which is not to denigrate them - they're just a different, albeit delicious, flat skillet bread. The little steel pans are cheap, need to be cured by heating to smoking, then rubbing with oil several times and never ever again touched with soapy water. Like cast iron pans, they improve with age and use. The following recipe for light, thin, tender crepes is courtesy of Cook's test kitchens

Makes about 20 seven-inch crepes.

2 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

6 Tbsp. water

1 cup white (bleached) flour

1/2 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus extra melted butter for brushing pan, clarified preferably

A steel crepe pan works best because it has sharply sloping sides that form a perfectly round crepe in the bottom of the pan, and the shallowness also facilitates turning the crepe and sliding it out of pan. The first side is the pretty one and is always the outside of the crepe. Crepes can be made ahead, cooled on a cookie sheet, wrapped in plastic wrap, and refrigerated for up to three days, frozen for up to two months (though frozen ones tend to get a bit soggy, corrected by use in a composite dish that is further baked: E.g., I always use crepes for canneloni.

Put all the ingredients except the pan-greasing butter into a food processor or blender. Pulse until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours or up to two days.

Heat the pan over medium heat, brush with natural bristle brush (or a cotton mop). Stir the batter and measure a very full one-eighth cup into the left side of the pan and roll it to the right to coat the bottom evenly. Don't be discouraged if the first one or two aren't great, just toss them. Turn after about 30 seconds, using a cake spatula and your fingers. Cook another 30 seconds and remove to a flat surface until all are done.

Asparagus Crepes

If your asparagus stalks are about half an inch in diameter, use about three per crepe, if skinnier, enough to make a decently plump filled crepe. Spread the sad side of each crepe with a tablespoon of ricotta mixed with a heaping teaspoon of Romano or Parmesan, salt and pepper, and a speck of grated nutmeg. Lay the asparagus on the first third of the crepe and roll it up. Allow two crepes per serving. Brush them with melted butter and heat briefly in a microwave or regular oven. Spoon a bit of Sauce Mornay (Bechamel made with Gruyere cheese) over the crepes just before serving, if desired.

Beggar's Purses

Put a crepe into a custard cup, fill it with something like smoked fish or salmon mousse, and tie them into little bundles with "strings" of chive which have been blanched just long enough to make them malleable. Unfortunately these can only be made about an hour ahead of time, placed on wax paper, and refrigerated until half an hour before serving. Red caviar and whipped cream cheese are another popular filling. Anything highly flavored and not too leaky will make a good filling. Invent!

Salmon Mousse Filling

I luckily discovered some smoked Nova (brand name, "Mama's") in an eight-ounce package for about $5 in a local supermarket. While it certainly isn't to be compared with Irish or Scottish smoked salmon, it's more than adequate for this mousse filling. You could substitute any other flaked, smoked fish such as whitefish or eel.

8 ozs. smoked Nova salmon

8 ozs. plain cream cheese

1 Tbsp. fresh dill weed or chives

2 thin slices red onion

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Freshly milled pepper to taste

Cut the salmon in chunks, also the cream cheese. Put the dill into a food processor and mince it with the onion. Chives just slide around under the blades, so if using them snip them up with scissors and add them to the mixture last. Put the salmon into the processor and chop to rough texture. Drop piecs of cream cheese through the tube and continue processing until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Season with the lemon juice and pepper - I like a mixture of red, green, and white peppercorns, but any fresh pepper will do.

Just recently I used this mixture to fill Chinese snow peas, which is a great deal more labor intensive, but makes lots and lots of little hors d'oeuvres. Blanch the peas in boiling water for 10 seconds and toss into a bowl of ice cubes and water. Then, removing a few at a time, slit them open from tail end to stem on the seam side. A very small thin knife helps and it really isn't difficult once you or your willing sous chef get the hang of it. Listen to your favorite music while you work.

This can be done a day ahead of time and stored, covered in a plastic box in the fridge until several hours before serving time. Put the chilled salmon mousse into a pastry bag (plastic lined or disposable) for quick filling. Holding the snow pea open with your left hand (or vice versa for lefties), use a star tip on the pastry bag and squeeze a line of filling into each one. Unless you're very quick with a pastry bag or have a helper hold open the peas, it's best to fill the bag twice so that the mousse remains chilled and firm.

Arrange the filled peas in a circle on a chilled platter as you work. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until serving time.

Less eye-catching, but a lot easier: Use sugar snap peas, blanched and chilled, as "scoopers" surrounding a bowl of the softened, whipped salmon mousse.