Hillary Davis - The Hamptons Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes Pairing Land and Sea

SEASONAL RECIPES PAIRING LAND AND SEA

HILLARY DAVISandSTACY DERMONT

INCLUDING ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHY
BY BARBARA LASSEN

FOREWORD BY GAEL GREENE

Photo Credits: : zeleno/iStockPhoto.com

Copyright 2020 by Hillary Davis and Stacy Dermont

Photographs 2020 by Barbara Lassen

Foreword 2020 by Gael Greene

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, The Countryman Press, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

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Cover photo Barbara Lassen

Book design by Anna Reich

Production manager: Devon Zahn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

The Countryman Press

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A division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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978-1-68268-360-6

978-1-68268-361-3 (ebk.)

My adored husband and I had separated. There didnt seem to be much choice. He was in love with her, he said. I had a fall deadline for the first third of my novel. I would find a house in the Hamptons and force myself to write.

I always longed for the beach. But Don had preferred the country. Thats why we bought the little church on top of the hill outside Woodstock. The one consolation of seeing my life fall apart was, now, at last I could go to the beach.

My HamptonsBridgehampton, Wainscott, Amagansetthas always been about food. What will we cook? Who do we know that can get us into Nick & Tonis or the seasons torrid new spot (that most probably wont be around by next year).

I didnt swim. Id never surf. I had no interest in boating or fishing. I am a most unlikely beach person. But I love it. That first sad and uncertain summer, I moved into Dan and Rita Wynns weathered gray cedar house in Springs not far from Craig Claibornes place. One day I was pretending to swim, when a car full of Frenchmen arrived and took over Craigs kitchen. They had come to cook the buffet lunch for the wedding of Pierre Franeys oldest daughter.

The new young chef de cuisine of Le Cirque seemed shy. I teased him for not putting on shorts like the others. But thats another story.

This book is a love affair with seaside eating. Each new summer I would promise to live on vegetables and fish and shed the pounds Id gained reviewing restaurants all year. But in that first year on Bay Lane I discovered Devon Frederickss Loaves and Fishes on Sagg Main and every weekend I would buy her sour cream coffee cake and maybe an extra, just in case.

Devon doesnt recall where she and her partner got the recipe, but she remembers going with me to Silvers for lunch in Southampton so that I could dissect the experience for an early restaurant roundup. (Devon is married to Eli Zabar now, more evidence that romance in the Hamptons starts with food.)

Most days I would find a quiet spot on the beach for my old blanket and, masked in sunscreen under a big hat, I would read novels and think about dinner. For me the Hamptons was often about cooking with friends on the weekend. I found an enthusiastic coconspirator in Harley Baldwin, who would, a few years later, focus his real estate and social creativity on the Caribou Club empire in Aspen.

But long before Aspen, Harley would visit on weekends. I would chop raw clams and bake them in the shell under peppery crumbs. There were always big, sun-ripened tomatoes, bursting with juice and painted with olive oil and dribbles of balsamic vinegar.

One Friday night Harley stopped at The Seafood Shop in Wainscott on the way to my rental of the year and arrived with an eight-pound lobster. It jumped out of the big brown bag.

Its going to be tough, I promised him. He persuaded me to call Pierre Franey for advice on how long to steam it. Eight pounds. Pierre laughed. I tied a blue ribbon around the critters neck and walked him across the kitchen.

The waters ready, Harley said. I closed the door and left the two of them to their final struggle. Much to my amazement, the lobsters torso was perfectly tender. Perhaps, it was Pierres blessing.

One foggy afternoon of another summer escape, I stood in front of my A-frame and watched a lone fisherman pulling in bluefish. He offered to clean a really big one for me. I took it into the kitchen, and then thought now what? Would I ever have a fresher fish? I called Pierre Franey and asked him what to do with it. He offered to come by and cook it for me.

He looked around my kitchen. He found some olive oil and some mustard and made mayonnaise. I didnt have much to work with except too many overripe tomatoes. He dropped them in boiling water to peel them quickly and smashed them, sprinkled a bit of onion and garlic sauted in butter and lay two big fillets of fish on top. Then he painted them with the mayo. A few minutes in the oven, then a quick binge under the broiler.

I poured some icy wine from the fridge and toasted Pierre. Many people dont like bluefish, but all its flaws disappeared that evening in Pierres alchemy. I cannot count the times since that I have mounted fish on smashed tomatoes and painted it with mayo. Hellmanns, of course.

About this book. In 2011, I did a dinner-and-reading to promote my memoir Insatiable at Eric Lemonidess Almond Restaurant in Bridgehampton. At the end, Stacy Dermont emerged from a far corner. She had a basket filled with jars of preserves made from her garden fruit and a peach pie balanced on topa gift for me. I knew her from her many food-related tales and gossip column in Dans Papers and from interviews.

When I found myself booked on the Jitney for a desperately needed Hamptons getaway with my promised guest room suddenly not free, Stacy thought her new friend, Hillary Davis, might take me inDid I know Hillarys spectacularly beautiful French cookbooks?

I moved into a guest room overlooking the garden with Hillary and her most agreeable guy. I brought them a pie from Round Swamp Farm and when I found it the next morning untouched on the kitchen counter, I demonstrated the joy of pie for breakfast by cutting the first piece for myself.

Yes, I was the one who insisted that Stacy and Hillary should put together the book that would be an irresistible celebration of the Hamptons for those of us who love to eat and drink and cook. And here it is.

Gael Greene

A white Range Rover was parked near the Tiffany-blue pool. I was in the Hamptons for the weekend, a place I had never visited. Once unpacked, I passed the Range Rover and began a long walk down the road toward the ocean beach. And this was when I realized there were two Hamptons. The one with the Tiffany-blue pool surrounded by a buzz-cut tall hedge, and the one I was passing on my walk, the one with a rickety farm stand at the side of a potato field.