Long Island Larder: 'Specials' Strategy

The talk turned to food, as it often does around our dinner table, a topic that used to be thought an eccentricity of the French and utterly declasse by the English. I don't think Americans have come to any final decision on the matter, and they probably never will if they keep the telly on during meals, a quintessential American habit.

As an inveterate reader of restaurant reviews, I'd been thunderstruck by Ruth Reichl's review in The New York Times of an East Side eatery called Il Postino that caters to the Sutton Place crowd, and curious to know if any of my guests had dined there. One had.

This place has a minuscule written menu and wine list, substituting instead the irritating, unenlightening practice of having the waiter reel off a rapid-fire spiel of "specials."

Intimidation

In the age of a computer in every kitchen, what could be more unnecessary than this kind of transparent ploy to intimidate clients into ordering dishes they don't know the price of? I usually counter with a disconcerting "What does that cost?" after each "special" mentioned, figuring two can play at this game.

Well, apparently Ms. Reichl didn't ask (after all, her employer pays for her meals), though she and her guests, charitably I thought, put it down to "theater." (I thought restaurant-going as "theater" had died with other ostentatious spending of the '80s, but apparently not.)

When the bill came, Ms. Reichl realized she'd have been better off springing for a ticket to a Broadway show. Her "few strands of pasta drenched in a very garlicky tomato sauce" topped with a small baby lobster cost $58.50 (we call those four-for-$20 runts "chicks" around here).

Not a simple $58 even, but $58.50! A dessert plate of fresh fruit was $28.50. Talk about "let them eat cake." What about bringing back the guillotine?

Detestable Recitation

I have never yet met anyone who did not detest the intrusive "specials" recitation, usually delivered in garbled English and forgotten completely after Item Three.

One of my guests says her counterattack is to ask, "What was that you mentioned just after the pasta fra diavolo but before you got to the veal thingydingy . . . or was that when you were listing the appetizers?"

Well, fellow victims, shall we all give it a try? And whip out a pad and pen to write down the price of each "special"? Maybe then we can drive this hokey practice out of existence and back to a true Daily Specials listing, handwritten in purple ink if necessary, on a scrap of paper, as the old French bistros used to do.

While we're complaining about restaurant gouging, let's try to ward off the blossoming gambit of defending outrageous prices with the excuse that "it's enough for two to share." That's what most people have to do at home, bub, and they aren't particularly pleased to have to wrangle over whose favorite dish will be the one to be shared.

Smaller portions, please, with smaller prices to match.

The popularity of opening "Tuscan" restaurants among entrepreneurs who are only sometimes Italian, much less "Tuscan," is readily apparent to any food shopper able to operate a pocket calculator. Keep your eyes peeled for yet another restaurant in Sag Harbor, this one to be located on the site of the old Remkus fishing station at the foot of the bridge.

Early rumor has it that the place will be a seafood joint, but pricey seafood is a harder sell in Sag Harbor than around Sutton Place, especially if the restaurant expects any winter trade. Chances are pretty good that it will wind up, yes, another "Tuscan" trattoria full of pasta and beans with a handful of seafood dishes on its menu.

Or perhaps we'll get lucky and the operators will find a cook who knows the food of Friuli, the Alto Adige, or Trieste, with its interesting mix of influences. Or how about giving the food of Berlin or Vienna a chance? After all, we had a Spanish tapas restaurant run by a couple of Americans from Shelter Island for a few years.

Lasagne Interpreted

In this age of "fusion" cookery I am an enthusiastic devotee of applying Eastern techniques to Western dishes, and so long as we are now free to put anything on top of pasta asciutta, I feel that dishes called "lasagne" are open to interpretation too. Lord only knows there must be a million versions of it in New Jersey alone.

So here's mine:

Harbor Light Turkey And Spinach Lasagne

Okay, so it sounds unpromising. However, it's been one of the most popular dishes I've sprung on my family in years. (This and a green-and-white chili they think I should patent and market as Mom's Own Harbor-Mex Chili. Another day, perhaps.)

Fills one 9-by-13-by-2-inch baking dish.

Lasagne always seems like a lot of trouble to me, but this amount always is enough for two family meals and it waits around fairly well for late Friday-evening stragglers. Most of the mincing, chopping, and grating can be done in a food processor, and if you do it in the proper order, without having to wash the thing.

2 pkgs. frozen leaf spinach, thawed

2 Tbsp. olive oil

4 cloves fresh garlic

1 medium-large onion

1 lb. ground turkey (not breast meat)

1 cup sliced mushrooms

Salt and coarsely ground fresh pepper

1/2 tsp. dried marjoram leaves

1 24-oz. jar home-style spaghetti sauce (marinara with mushrooms)

11/2 lbs. part-skim ricotta cheese

1 egg, beaten

Several scrapings nutmeg

1 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves, minced

3 cups shredded Gruyere or firm imported Fontina

1/2 cup cubes of whatever: Chaumes, Port Salut, any semi-soft tasty cheese you have on hand (even Havarti or Gouda)

1 eight-ounce pkg. "no-boil" lasagne pieces

Squeeze the thawed spinach of excessive water (not too dry, though) and chop it roughly with a knife. Set aside. Use the food processor to mince the garlic and chop the onion. Heat two Tbsp. olive oil in a large, heavy saute pan. Add the garlic and onions and saute briefly. Add the mushrooms and turkey, stirring to break it into small chunks. Cook over medium heat until it loses color, then season with salt, pepper, and dried marjoram (or thyme leaves). Add the spaghetti sauce and stir well. Turn off the heat.

Stir to gether the ricotta, egg, nutmeg, fresh oregano leaves, and reserved spinach. Neither American Fontina nor mozzarella from anywhere has much flavor, so I prefer to use the much nuttier Gruyere or Emmenthaler (both are imported cheeses similar to what we call Swiss, the first made in France and the latter in Switzerland).

The Assembly

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Assemble the lasagne as follows:

Be certain your baking dish is no larger than the one above (it could be a bit smaller, though not much). Put a thin layer of the turkey-spaghetti sauce on the bottom. Lay three of the large noodles side by side, not overlapping. Cover thinly with turkey sauce, then layer evenly a third of the ricotta mixture on top of the sauce. Sprinkle with some shredded cheese and then a layer of dry noodles. Spread with a thin layer of turkey sauce, then ricotta, then shredded cheese.

Repeat. On top, dot with the cubes of whatever semi-soft cheese you've selected - goat cheese is good too. Sprinkle with several sprigs of fresh thyme for garnish. Cover very lightly with oiled foil and press the edges under to retain the steam that will arise to cook the noodles, but try to avoid having the foil touch the top layer of cheese as it could pull it away upon removal.

Bake in the center of the oven for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and return the dish to the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Don't overcook or the dish will be dried out. The "no-precook" lasagne noodles are quite thin. Let the lasagne settle in its dish for about five minutes, then serve on warmed plates.

Such a potentially rich dish - and believe me, it can be taken to reckless heights of luxuriousness, as in an all-white version I once ate that was made with goat cheese, sauce Bechamel, and pounds of whole-milk ricotta and buffalo mozzarella - can be even more delicious scattered with sliced black Italian or Greek olives.

A mixed green salad is quite an adequate accompaniment.