On Sunday last week a hurricane roared through Sag Harbor, her name was Irene and in the end my lemon cucumber plants were stripped of their leaves. Not a problem as the plants seem to be regenerating with new flowers and the existing cucumbers are much easier to find with the thinned foliage.

Lemon Cucumbers from the Estia garden for Lymanade recipe

We’ve had a regular at the East Hampton farmers market asking for our Cucumber Mint Lymanade for a few weeks now. The A. Sisters table featured raspberry, strawberry, watermelon, peach, and cantaloupe Lymanades as the season has progressed. Now it’s time to respond to the call for the Mojito mixer that’s been a late summer hit for the past 3 years.

Lymanade Variety

Each of our Lymanades feature a different seasonal, locally harvested fruit, but the basic recipe remains the same. Combine equal parts of lemon and lime juice (1 cup each) and then that much fruit puree (2 cups) with enough simple syrup to soften the citrus (1/2 to 1 cup)
and shake in an recycled wine bottle, chill and serve over ice with soda or your favorite spirit. Read More »

Another Tuesday on Quail Hill, sunny, dry, August at it’s best. I waited for a little girl to finish using the pitch fork in the potato bed. Her hair was tied back in a pink bandanna. If she dug 10 potatoes I’d be surprised but that’s not what it was all about. The look in her eyes, excitement on her face and tone of her voice screamed the story of perfect summer adventure.

On this particular evening we had an Amagansett resident visiting our table, he lives in a house that sits on the hill that overlooks Quail Hill’s fields. He’s an old family friend who’s been a vegetarian for years, oh sure a little fish, some chicken but when Alec comes to dinner, we always make an effort to include a vegetable center piece on the menu to ensure a full belly for the big man. Read More »

This is one of the easiest “oh boy this is great” grilling recipes I know! A few basics to get started. Ask the fish man for 10-20 prawns and 10-20 sea scallops. That simply means that you’d like shellfish that come 10 to 20 per pound. When the prawns are thawed remove the main shell but leave the head and tail on. With a small knife slice the back of the prawn open and run the butterflied pieces under cold water to rinse away the brown stuff.

To clean the scallops, remove the muscle which is a little chip of flesh that comes off with the flick of your thumb.

Ingredients (serves 8):

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You’ll find a grocery on the edge of South Norwalk near the Rt. 7 extension with blue awnings. It’s called The SONO Country Market. My buddy “Hoops” calls it the pig store. There’s an excellent butcher at the “Pig Store” his name’s Arullio and he smiled when I asked for a piece of pork loin with the belly meat attached, rib bones removed.

My vision for this dish comes from a truck at the farmers market on the Ferry Building property in San Fransisco. The outfit is called Roli Roti, a rotisserie on wheels. Their pork sandwich rocks! In my view the trick is on the butchers cut. That’s where Arullio comes into the picture. He did what I asked when he prepared this special cut, bone off, belly on, pork loin. Read More »

The fire’s blazing as I sit at home in East Hampton after a busy day in the “Little Kitchen”. We’ve had Chili con carne specials for years. It’s a good winter dish that supports the breakfast list as an omelet filler, Chili and jack cheese. It is served by the bowl at lunch. The recipes we use have come from the back of our minds as Raul and I improvise our way through the short, cold days of February.

This recipe is being organized with continuity in mind. As Auggie, our hard working prep cook aspires to a sous chef position, writing a chili recipe for Auggie is a labor of love. Today’s Chili con Carne and Jack Cheese Omelet were a hit. We also saw several tables share the Chili and Cheese Dip special with guacamole and corn chips.

Ingredients to serve a party of 10:

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This recipe was developed because last nights roasted chicken went uneaten. I call it “One Legged Shepherds Pie” because it seems logical that after loosing a leg, a sheep herder might scale back to chickens.

If you don’t have time to make the chicken stock from scratch its ok to make the sauce by combining 16 oz of chicken broth from a can with 1 tablespoon of tomato paste (double concentrated, from a tube “Amore”) and 1/2 cup Merlot or other red wine in a sauce pan and reduce by more than 1/2 (about 1 cup). Read More »

Last night Whittier and I made 2 dozen blueberry muffins for her class breakfast scheduled for this morning. Then it snowed 14 inches overnight, the phone rang at 4:30 am: “Snow Day”. We put the blueberry muffins in two Ziplock bags and set them aside for Friday.

That’s when Whittier mentioned that she has 90 kids in her 6th grade class. Something wasn’t right, 2 dozen muffins, was someone else bringing muffins? In fact the answer was yes, one other family, but we were asked to bring 4 dozen “mixed muffins” so we went back to the oven.

Tonight we’re making Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins (with no nuts, a must in today’s school breakfast list of rules). Read More »

The first time that I saw “Albondigas” on a menu was at our Christmas dinner in an excellent neighborhood restaurant outside of Cabo San Lucas. At La Fonda the Albondigas (meatballs) were served in a heavy tomato sauce on a large plate as an entree. After a bit of research I found that the Mexican meatball preparation is similar to the Italian preparation, of course a spicy sausage is used, in this case chorizo.

To adapt the recipe for The Little Kitchen we’ve used our house made ground chicken in place of ground beef. Another twist is using pre-cooked brown rice instead of bread crumbs. Read More »