Food

The locals are gathering at Momi Ramen in East Hampton on Wednesday for locals night. From 5 to 10 p.m., Sapporo draft beer is two-for-one, and free snacks will be served at the bar. Baron’s Cove restaurant in Sag Harbor is open year round, and on Saturday will have a fall festival from 1 to 8 p.m. featuring barbecue brisket, ribs, beer-can chicken, and smoked striped bass, along with sliders, burgers, and hot dogs.

A warren of small rooms has been opened up and lightened. The floors and trim are dark, the walls off-white, and there are a few hints that this location was, in fact, once a service station, such as the old-fashioned bell hose outside that gives a little “ding ding” when you drive over it.

As early adopters of the Slow Food movement, East End foodies may find the WLIW21 Metrofocus feature on the movement and its adherents old news. Yet to many around the region, the coverage of the East End’s farmers, chefs, and schoolyard gardens may prove edifying.

You can “come to the table.” by joining the East End’s Slow Food chapter. Members can participate in Slow Food dinners and other events that highlight the role of local agriculture and locally grown food. A three-course prix fixe at the Living Room restaurant in East Hampton, at c/o the Maidstone inn, has dropped in price to $35, from $49.

You'll flip for flapjacks!. Pancakes will be served at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor following a talk on Saturday at 5 p.m. by Craig Carlson, the author of a memoir, “Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France.” At Momi Ramen in East Hampton, a bar menu offered on Fridays and Saturdays from 8 to 10 p.m. includes oshinko (Japanese pickled vegetables) and eda­mame for $5; two types of gyoza, a Japanese-style dumpling, for $8, and kara-age, fried items, for $8.

Your mind may already be turning to pumpkins and apples this time of year (or mush, depending on how busy your summer was), but it’s time to get to work. If you want to save some of the glorious corn, tomatoes, herbs, and more to enjoy throughout the winter, you need to get cracking.

There is something about a small, cozy restaurant that creates an atmosphere of jollity and camaraderie. Estia’s Little Kitchen is such a place.

It took longer than anticipated, but last month a 1977 Citroen H van rolled into the Kirk Park Beach parking lot in Montauk and Bex Waffles was open for business.

Get rowdy at the eighth annual Oktoberfest at Rowdy Hall restaurant in East Hampton from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The Hayground School Farmer’s Market will remain open through the end of September. Its hours are 3 to 6 p.m. on Fridays and it takes place on the school grounds at Mitchell Lane in Bridgehampton.

Explore the foodie world of the North Fork with the 10th annual North Fork Foodie Tour on Sunday from the Agricultural Center in Southold. Participating locations include Deep Roots Farm, Lavender by the Bay, Macari Wines, 8 Hands Farm, and the North Fork Roasting Company. At “Garden to Table: Eating for Wellness,” a program on Saturday at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton, Rick Bogusch, the garden manager, will lead a trip to the site’s vegetable garden to harvest fresh vegetables, and will demonstrate how to create a delicious salad from them, which will be shared.

It’s that time of year. Perhaps you are sending a daughter or son off to college, or in my case, helping a son set up his first singleton apartment. Hopefully, by now, you have taught your offspring one of the most important life skills: how to cook for his or herself. If you haven’t, woe be to those children, for they will be eating Domino’s pizza and Subway sandwiches and bagels from the cafeteria.

Sometimes reviewing restaurants is fun and swell and delicious and sometimes it is a chore and a bore and requires a good supply of Bromo-Seltzer. (That’s old-school lingo for antacids.) Reviewing restaurants when our season is in full cry requires the driving skills of Mario Andretti, the military acumen of Gen. George Patton, and the stamina of an illegally fortified Lance Armstrong.

Zigmund’s Bar is revving up to be an off-season regular with live music events and a nightly happy hour from 5:30 p.m. till sunset, featuring $5 specials of rosé, beer, and lamb chops. The Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn on East Hampton’s Main Street is taking reservations for two upcoming special dinners. On Sept. 15, wines from the Frank Family Vineyards in California will be served with dishes designed to complement the selections. Swedish cuisine will take center stage at the Living Room on Sept. 29, with a five-course tasting menu reflecting the heritage of the inn’s proprietors to be served for $95 per person plus tax and gratuity.

The whole family can have fun at pizza night at Amber Waves Farm behind the Amagansett Farmers market on Tuesday from 5:30 to 7. The cost is $35 per person, or $25 for members of CMEE or the Amber Waves C.S.A. program. Space is limited, and preregistration is required with CMEE. Vicki’s Veggies in Amagansett is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year with a celebration tomorrow from 3 to 6 p.m. which will include refreshments and other activities.

When eggplants were taken from India to England long ago, they were considered an ornamental plant. They are the only major vegetable of the nightshade family (tomatoes, squash, tobacco, peppers, potatoes) that came from the Old World. According to Harold McGee in his book “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen,” “an early ancestor may have floated from Africa to India or Southeast Asia where it was domesticated.” Eggplant was being eaten in Italy by the 15th century and in France by the 18th.

Dan’s Harvest East End will be held at the McCall Vineyard and Ranch in Cutchogue on Saturday. Geoffrey Zakarian, a chef who has appeared on the Food Network’s “Chopped” and “The Kitchen,” along with his newest show, “Cooks vs. Cons,” will be the host. Tickets are on sale for Gala in the Garden, a Sept. 10 benefit at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor that will be hosted by Colin Ambrose, the eatery’s owner and chef, and his wife, Jessica Ambrose.

First of all, I have to tell you I am not a food snob. I am not even a gourmet, more like a gourmand. I enjoy a chile con queso made with Velveeta “cheese” as much as fresh sea urchin gonads. Yes, uni are gonads, not roe. That being said, we approached Grey Lady East in Montauk with open minds and hearty appetites.

Hayground School in Bridgehampton will host the Great Food Truck Derby on Friday, Aug. 19. More than a dozen trucks featuring a wide range of cuisine and beverage choices circle up from 4 to 7 p.m. Don't miss this roundup! Al Goldberg, a leader of the Slow Food East End group and a fisherman and chef, will host his third annual clambake and “snail supper” at his East Hampton residence on Aug. 28.

This review is dedicated to Freddy the fly, the musca domestica, who died valiantly trying to escape from the glutinous, candied apple syrup of our “hot and numbing crispy beef.” Sorry, Freddy, there was no escape from that quicksand of a sauce.

Brioche-style doughnuts are made fresh throughout the day at Grindstone Coffee and Donuts on Sag Harbor’s Main Street. Varieties include blueberry lemon, chocolate with toffee popcorn, and peanut butter mousse with chocolate. Roman Roth, the winemaker at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, will present a preview taste of the winery’s Christian’s Cuvée 2013 at a barbecue dinner on Wednesday night.

Jonathan Glynn will host a Slow Food East End August potluck “snail social” dinner at his residence in Sag Harbor on Aug. 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. Reservations can be made on the Slow Food East End website. the Amagansett Food Institute will partner with Around the Fire Catering for a session on Wednesday on “living pizza” that will result in dough made from sourdough starter.

Although I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of big fat beefsteak tomatoes and sweet white corn at the farm stands, there are plenty of interesting fruits and vegetables available right now. Actually, tomatoes and corn are starting to come in from the North Fork, so have at it. You know what to do with them.

When Michael Cohen was 15, growing up outside of Philadelphia in Cheltenham, Pa., his father told him and his brother it was time to get summer jobs. “My brother went to work in a pet store, because he was interested in fish and reptiles,” Mr. Cohen recalled one sunny afternoon in the garden of East Hampton’s 1770 House. “I said I’m going to work at a restaurant as a busboy. I found a job at a really swanky restaurant, and I got the bug. I’ve had a passion for wine and hospitality ever since.”

Some big food events of the summer are almost here. Dan’s Taste of Summer’s GrillHampton, a Taste of Two Forks, and the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs and Champagne, are among the many exciting happenings.

The Hamptons Greek Festival was held last weekend in Southampton at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons.

Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett will be the site of the Peconic Land Trust’s annual outdoor supper. The event will be held on Aug. 7 at 4 p.m. Slow Food East End has organized a summertime potluck “snail supper” to be held on Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Judith Axelrod’s house along the bay in Sag Harbor.

Gone are the days of tenderloin of rabbit, white tablecloths, and a $60,000 winking snowy owl art installation by the bar. Goodbye Tom Colicchio, hello Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Goodbye lobster mushroom gnocchi, hello . . . hamburgers and spaghetti? Whaaaat?

Rustle up some good food at Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe on East Lake Drive in Montauk. The new brunch offerings include dishes such as eggs benedict, asparagus and caramelized onion omelette, lobster asparagus frittata, brioche French toast, and more. Open Minded Organics has a new farm stand on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sam Gelin was enjoying a nice piece of fish that had come from Montauk one day not long ago in New York when he thought it would be really interesting to use salt that derived from the same waters. He had recently traveled on the West Coast, where he had seen a sea salt company, and it “kind of lodged in my mind,” he said in a recent interview. And so the Montauk Salt Company was born.

Hungry for seafood? Bostwick’s, the seafood spot on Pantigo Road in East Hampton, is now open seven days for lunch and dinner, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Sail your boat westward to the Bell and Anchor in Noyac for even more seafood. It is now featuring raw bar specials on Montauk Pearl oysters and littleneck clams, for $2.50 each, all night Sundays through Thursdays, and on Fridays and Saturdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.