The Food Maven Diary
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The Hamptons With A Recipe
Last weekend I had a very restful as well as productive time in the Hamptons, as oxymoronic as that sounds. I stayed with novelist Rona Jaffe in Sagaponick. Her first bestseller, "The Best of Everything," originally published in 1956, has just been re-released and is becoming a bestseller all over again. And the movie version of the book, starring Joan Crawford, Susy Parker, and Eva Marie Saint, has just been released on DVD, with Rona's voice-over commentary, plus remarks by a film historian. Also at Rona's for the weekend, were Rozanne Gold, Michael Whiteman and Bob Harned. We are all very old and very close friends, so that was nice -- to be altogether in the same house for a few days. And it was very, very nice that I ate in restaurants only twice in nearly four days. I read (a new food and wine guide to Campania by my friend Carla Capalbo). I swam in Rona's pool. We all took a walk together on the beach.
On Thursday night, we went to Joan Hamburg's for dinner. Earlier that evening, we had attended the taping of Joan's annual program from the Blue Parrot -- a disorganized dump of a bar and Tex-Mex joint, disorganized dumps being refreshingly rare in the Hamptons. It was a small guest list for dinner, by my request. We were my hostess and host ("Long Suffering" Skip Hamburg), my housemates, my old friend Jim Villas (long-time food columnist of Town & Country, cookbook author, and dear, amusing man), and the Hamburgs' good friend, screenwriter Avery Corman (Kramer vs. Kramer, among others).
Joan outdid herself. She made her duly famous chicken pot pie, which is truly fabulous in all ways – big tender cubes of white meat chicken in a well-seasoned creamy gravy filled with chunky vegetables and topped with crisp and flaky pastry. And she made a pudding-y cornbread, and baked ham. She had fresh peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was all so delicious, I had seconds of everything. I confess: I willingly overate when Joan, reminding me of my mother, urged me to eat even more at the same time she complimented me on my weight loss (or told me to lose weight, take your pick). Actually, I thought, I could have eaten thirds with no pain a couple of months ago, but I really, really have been pretty good controlling my intake. I left the Hamburgs woozy with food.
Friday night, I gave a talk at Bookhampton in East Hampton. By the way, I left behind autographed copies, so if you are out that way, you know where to find some. After Bookhampton, I went home to Rona's for a dinner that had been prepared by Rozanne and Michael. The thick slabs of grilled swordfish stayed moist under Michael's expert hand, and he served them with a salsa of corn and tomatoes, herbs from Joan Hamburg's garden, and who remembers what else he and Rozanne found at the farmer's market, plus grilled vegetables. It was perfect for the moment, as was the lunch served us by Silvia Lehrer at her house in Water Mill on Sunday. Silvia (yes, I am spelling her name correctly) is the founder of Cooktique in Tenafly, New Jersey. All her many fans on the other side of the Hudson should know that she and her husband, Fred, are fine and fit. She sold the cookware shop and cooking school 15 years ago, but she continues to keep her hand in the food world as the food columnist for Dan's Papers, the much-read tabloid of East End of Long Island.
We ate on Silvia and Fred's terrace. The weather was perfect – clear, warm, and breezy -- and Silvia served the perfect lunch for the day. The recipe for her mother's Zucchini Cheese Gratin follows. With it she had a salad of sliced tomatoes and beets with basil; a salad of fresh fava beans and cubed mozzarella with lemon zest and fresh marjoram, and a salad of farro and corn, which she devised for her column in Dan's. For dessert, we had fresh fruit salad splashed with Triple Sec, and biscotti, a recipe from a Sephardic cookbook that she was testing. Rozanne and I noticed that Silvia had a stack of Sephardic Jewish cookbooks near her desk, and wondered about her obvious interest. That's when we learned that she is from a Greek Jewish family. I asked Silvia if she had been to the Jewish Museum in Athens. Of course, she had. But let me point out to any of you who may find yourself in Athens – whether you are Jewish or not – that the Jewish Museum should be on your must-see list. The history is fascinating and there are dossants – volunteer guides -- at the museum to tell you about it, in English. Even without a guide, the artifacts and exhibits themselves are beautiful and interesting. The building itself is interesting, too – a sort of mini Guggenheim, with a spiral walking pattern that starts at the top (there is also an elevator).
But back to the Hamptons: I also appeared, Friday morning, on the Morning Show on Plum TV, the local cable station. It airs live from B. Smith's restaurant in Sag Harbor, right by the marina, and is hosted by Steven Gaines and Jenny Mayer. I brought a Junior's cheesecake to show off as a talking point, and to give to the crew to eat, while I spouted off on New York City Food, my book that is. I am finding that Junior's cheesecake is the easiest thing representing New York City food that I can carry to a radio or TV show. By the way, the recipe for this classic New York cream cheese cake is in "Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food," as is the whole story of this landmark restaurant in Brooklyn. And if you think the cheesecake from Junior's bakery is good, you should try making it yourself. If you're too lazy or whatever to bake one yourself, and you don't live or work close enough to Junior's to be able to buy one at the restaurant bake shop, you can buy one by mail order directly from Junior's. In case you'd like to know, I prefer the "plain" cheesecake.
I also did the Sunday Brunch Bunch with Steve Gaines, the Sunday morning NPR program that is broadcast from the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. Boy, is Sag Harbor having some problem with their new traffic "brownies." Before the show I was given a warning by one because I waited for a car to pull out of a parking space. That's not allowed in Sag Harbor. Only when a parked car's back-up lights are on are you allowed to stand and wait for the spot. I transgressed by waiting while the parked driver fumbled for his keys. Then, while on the radio show, another guest told of his law suit against the town because of the harassment by "19-year-old" traffic officers. Finally, when I was leaving town, I witnessed one of these teenage enforcers screaming at a driver who claimed to have done nothing wrong.
The main reason I was in the Hamptons in the first place was to be the auctioneer at a benefit "barbecue" gala that raised money for the EECO Farm, an organic farm that teaches children about ecology and agriculture (where their food comes from), and gives locals plots to farm. The benefit was one of those eat-around affairs. Well, that's what I call them. For two hundred almost entirely tax-deductible dollars, you stand on lines to get small portions of food from various and many restaurant chefs. There is always a lot of drink, too. In this case, Bacardi a had stand where they mixed mojitos. Several Long Island wineries were dispensing their products, and there was a Martini bar, etc. Mark Weiss, who calls himself the DJ Chef, spun records – mainly 1970s and '80s stuff for this decidedly Baby Boomer crowd. Sean Combs was no where in sight. This benefit was presided over by chair-people B. Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, and Christie Brinkley and her husband, Peter Cook. Unfortunately, Christie couldn't be there. Her mother, who lives in Los Angeles, fell the day before the event, hit her head, and is in a coma. (This is getting to sound like a gossip column.) Christie delivered her decorated Adirondack chair, however, the subject of this "Chairity" auction. There were eight Adirondack chairs for sale, all decorated or designed by well-known designers or artists. If I may say (and I may, since this is my newsletter), the Isaac Mizrahi chair was by far the most creative and beautiful. Mizrahi took the vertical slats off the back and seat of the wooden chair, stained the frame dark, and replaced the wooden slats with plexiglass. Maybe you'll see it at Target next year. In the end, the chairs sold, on average, for more than $1,000 each.
As much as I hate eating at these type events, I have to say the food this night was very good. In particular, everyone was raving about the Strip House's braised short ribs, and they were indeed unbelievably savory and of that soft, gelatinous texture that is the most sublime form short ribs can take. All off the bone and in neat rectangular slices, too.
As I said, I did have two restaurant meals, although I would hardly call my breakfast at Estia a meal, and I hardly ate enough food to make any assessment of the place. I split "Tuscan toast" with a few clumps of goat cheese, wilted spinach, and poached eggs with Rozanne. We split it because I was trying to diet. It was good, although I hate when bread is called "Tuscan" when it totally isn't. Bob Harned ordered banana pancakes. I had two bites. They were okay, but then I have this new, high standard for pancakes that is hard to match: Try the recipe for Childs pancakes in Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food. You'll see why Childs was so famous for pancakes. By the way, it was to the Estia on Route 79, south of Sag Harbor, that I went to. The other Estia, in Amagansett, is no longer owned by Colin Ambrose, founder-chef of Estia. His place near Sag Harbor is a shack along the side of the road, albeit with a recently planted orchard and herb garden behind it, and it is, everyone tells me, very chic. That means it is okay for women to wear the shabbiest clothes, as long as they have 10-carot diamond and emerald pendants on their neck. To those customers, what's $12 for eggs with bacon, toast, and home fries.
I also had lunch at the combination bookstore and café, Paradise in Sag Harbor, which Joan Hamburg recommended as a pleasant and unpretentious place for a light lunch, a place where we wouldn't have to deal with too many celebrity wannabes and suck-up social climbers, which is who you mainly see on the streets during the Hamptons high season. (I am supposing the nice people stay home all day, or go to the practically deserted beaches.)
On the theory that if you eat like a thin person you will eventually become a thin person, I followed Rona's lead and ordered a salad with grilled chicken. She had the Caesar, and then defeated the whole purpose of ordering a salad with dry grilled chicken by asking for extra dressing. But, like I said, she's thin. She can afford extra dressing. I ordered the Thai grilled chicken salad. I figured it would have slightly less fat but more sugar, turning out slightly better and certainly no worse calorie-wise in the end. Both came with chicken pounded so thin and so overcooked on the grill that it might be called chicken leather. I generally hate dry chicken breast, but in this case I realized, as I tried in my mind to turn my painfully dietetic lunch into an enjoyable lunch, that there was a certain appeal to leathery, virtually carbonized chicken. You can appreciate it for its burnt-ness. It reminded me of the sweetbreads that Seymour Kaye tells me were pounded thin, then grilled to a fare-the-well at his Roumanian steakhouses, the Parkway and the Parkway East on the Lower East Side, then Seymour Kaye's in Forest Hills. "These sweetbreads were like matzoh -- so crisp and dry. You would never know what it was , just burnt flesh. Delicious!"
Silvia Lehrer's
Zucchini Cheese Gratin
"Simply grate a few zucchini; mix with eggs, farmer cheese, some breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and bake," says Silvia Lehrer
Serves 6 to 8
4 farm-fresh narrow zucchini, about 1 1/2 pounds
3 eggs, beaten
1 (7.5 ounce) package farmer cheese
3 to 4 tablespoons plain bread crumbs, preferably homemade
6 to 7 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Coarse (kosher) salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Scrub the zucchini well and trim stem ends. Pat dry with a paper towel.
Hold onto the stem end of each zucchini and grate on the large holes of a four-sided grater or in a food processor fitted with the shredding blade. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
Add beaten eggs to the zucchini and stir to mix. Add remaining ingredients and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Butter a shallow 9 to 10-inch baking dish, such as a gratin or quiche pan, or a Pyrex pie plate. Pour the zucchini mixture into the dish.
Place in preheated oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the mixture is firm and slightly puffy.
Cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then cut into wedges to serve.
Can be prepared ahead and warmed through or served at room temperature.
