Tune in Wednesday, July 1, at 11 a.m. to talk about food and restaurants.

The town of Yarmouth, Maine, about 11 miles northeast of Portland, is hosting its annual Yarmouth Clam Festival July 17-19 this year.

Cape Elizabeth textile designer Ann Veronica has designed a clam print bag ($15) for the event; half the procees go back to the festival, which is staffed entirely by volunteers.

If you want to attend a food festival in a small New England town, think about driving up. This one has surely worked out all the wrinkles. It's in its 44th year.

In the July 4 spirit, T.W. Food's wine series salutes the good old US of A tonight. $49 gets you the likes of local fish soup, Vermont veal and beef meatloaf, and local strawberry shortcake, plus the following American wines:

Chardonnay, Sharpe Hill, 2007, Pomfret, Connecticut
Cabernet Sauvignon, Kamiak, 2005, Columbia Valley, Washington
Petite Syrah, Fleur de California, 2006, North Coast, California
Port, Sakonnet Winery, Little Compton, Rhode Island

Anyone tried the chardonnay or the Port? I'm curious what they're like.

Greek food authority Vefa Alexiadou has written 13 cookbooks and they've been compiled in "Vefa's Kitchen," published by Phaidon Press. That's the house who brought us Spain's "1080 Recipes" and Italy's "The Silver Spoon," both classics in their regions. In her country, Alexiadou has sold more than five millions books and has her own TV show. She lives in Athens and the Halkidiki peninsula in Greece.

"Vefa's Kitchen" is a treasure box of octopus, beans, phyllo dough, stewy garbanzo dishes, game birds, fish stews, pilafs, and long-cooked vegetables. You look at photos of this food and you can imagine some grandmother toiling away in a small kitchen on a Greek island.

Nothing about this cooking is particularly beautiful, but the dishes seem sensible and classic. An omelet (a kind of frittata) filled with egg noodles, more than half a pound of feta, and half a dozen eggs made me want to run out for ingredients and head to the stove.

Small egglant stuffed with ground beef, tomatoes, and kefalotiri cheese, topped with white sauce, are homely but exceptionally appealing.

Taramosalata, the classic Greek spread, is one of my favorite dishes (it's the pink one in the middle, below). The main ingredient, cod's roe, can be quite strong. Alexiadou's tip is to mix pink and white fish roe (white is more expensive but milder, she writes), so you get the pink color without the fishy flavor. Or dilute the roe with boiled potatoes in place of soaked white bread.

Taramosalata
Serves 8

6 thick slices of day-old bread, crusts removed or 7 ounces potatoes, cooked and peeled
7 ounces cured cod's roe
1/4 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup mixed olive and corn oil, or to taste
5 tablespoons lemon juice
3 scallions, finely chopped (for garnish)
Handful pitted kalamata olives, chopped (for garnish)

1. Tear up the bread. In a bowl, combine the bread and enough water to cover it. Set aside for 5 minutes. Lift out the bread, squeeze it out, and transfer to a bowl. Coarsely chop the potatoes.
2. In a food processor, combine the roe, onion, and 1/3 cup of the oil. Work the mixture until the roe is broken down and the mixture is blended.
3. Add the bread or potato a little at a time until the mixture is smooth.
4. With the motor running, add the remaining oil in a thin steady stream until the mixture is smooth. Add the lemon juice. Taste for seasoning. If you like, add up to 1/4 cup more oil. If the mixture is too thick, thin with club soda or sparkling water. Beat until light.
5. Transfer to a bowl, cover, and chill for several hours. Sprinkle with scallions and olives. Adapted from "Vefa's Kitchen"

The new "Good Housekeeping Grilling for Every Day" is a bookazine, which I think means that it's more than a magazine but less than a book. The soft cover publication, launched this week, costs $9.99. There are other bookazines on the market, but this is the first food-related one I've seen.

Here's a sample of one of the 137 recipes, all designed for a Fourth of July barbecue.

Shrimp and pineapple with basil and greens
Serves 6

3 to 4 limes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 pineapple (3 pounds)
12 corn tortillas
Olive oil (for sprinkling)
6 ounces mesclun or other baby greens
2 heads Belgian endive, thickly sliced

1. Prepare outdoor charcoal or gas grill for medium heat.
2. Grate enough of the limes to make 1/2 teaspoon grated rind. Juice them to get 1/4 cup juice.
3. In blender, combine the lime rind and juice, olive oil, 1/2 cup basil leaves, and a generous punch each of salt and pepper. Blend until pureed.
4. Transfer 2 tablespoons of the basil mixture to a medium bowl. Add shrimp and toss well.
5. Cut off crown and stem ends from pineapple. Stand pineapple upright and slice off rind and eyes. Cut pineapple lengthwise into 8 wedges. Cut off core from each wedge. Place pineapple wedges on hot grill rack and cook about 10 minutes or until lightly charred and tender, turning once.
6. Place shrimp in a grill basket or on a small grill rack and transfer to grill. Cook 5 to 8 minutes or until opaque throughout, turning once. Transfer shrimp to large bowl. Transfer pineapple to cutting board and cut into 1/2-inch chunks.
7. Sprinkle tortillas with oil. Grill 4 to 5 minutes or until toasted, turning over once.
8. Add greens, endive, pineapple, remaining basil, and remaining dressing to the shrimp. Toss well.
9. Place 2 tortillas on each of 6 plates; top with shrimp and pinenapple salad. Adapted from "Good Housekeeping Grilling for Every Day"

The little Maille mustard jar on the right-hand shelf (top row) contains a mustardy vinaigrette. In the summer, I like to make vinaigrette in quanitity and keep it on hand for freshly picked lettuces.

To the right in the orange pot is turkey chili. I buy Empire kosher ground turkey at Trader Joe's and mix light and dark meat with lots of beans and hot peppers. Under the pot is a cazuela filled with bean salad. The recipe will be on www.boston.com/food tomorrow afternoon.

Below that on the bottom shelf is a bag of small mild hot peppers, great on the grill.

The blue square baking dish holds a small turkey breast for roasting. Under that, in the red oval dish, is chicken made with many things (handful of mushrooms, some leeks, leftover poultry pieces, delicious white wine sauce) cobbled together for dinner one night.

To the left are two rectangular red-topped containers that hold pizza dough ready for shaping and baking. Restaurant critic Devra First is writing about pizza this week, multimedia guru Michael Saunders has a video on how to make 10-minute pizza, and I give instructions for a homemade pie. Yesterday was a great day to shape and bake pizza.

To the left is a stack of containers: the top holds hard-cooked eggs to grab for lunch. Under it is a yellow container filled with blueberries. The green bowl on the bottom holds local strawberries.

Here's how to keep them for a week: Line the bottom of a container with a paper towel. Add the berries, cover with another paper towel and a tight-fitting lid. The towel absorbs the moisture so the berries last.

I got the idea from Donna Hay, who is the brilliant Australian cook with an empire something like Martha Stewart's. Down Under, of course, the season is wintry. Considering what's going on outside, food for chilly weather seemed appealing.

The great thing about this dish is that you don't brown the chicken. Just put all the seasonings -- I used a sprinkle of sea salt, maras pepper, lemon slices, black olives, small tomatoes, and thyme -- right onto the pieces, cover with foil, and send the dish to the oven. Two hours later, you've got a fine meal.

Chicken with lemon, thyme, and tomatoes
Serves 4

1 chicken (3 1/2 pounds), cut into 8 pieces
1 1/2 cups white wine
Olive oil (for sprinkling)
Salt, to taste
Maras or black pepper, to taste
5 small tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
Handful fresh thyme

1. Set the oven at 375 degrees. Have on hand a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
2. Arrange the chicken in the dish. Sprinkle with wine, olive oil, salt, and maras or black pepper. Add tomatoes, olives, lemon, bay leaf, and thyme. Cover with foil.
3. Cook the chicken for 2 hours or until it is very tender and no longer pink at the bone. Discard the lemon and thyme. Spoon the cooking juices over the meat.
4. Turn on the broiler. Broil the chicken for 2 minutes or until the skin looks crisp and golden. Sheryl Julian

Tomorrow, June 24, the Natick branch of Boloco celebrates its second anniversary by giving away burritos from 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

The Boys & Girls Club will be there taking donations, so you can give back while getting full.

This blogger is known as the Queen of Slaws. She can shred anything!

I'm also happy with a cheap mandoline and some vegetables. I mixed red and green cabbages this weekend to make a colorful bowl:

This is the recipe, more or less (you have to take some initiative and add what you like to a slaw; that's part of the fun). The dressing is vinegary with just a little mayo.

Then I decided to make a fennel slaw. You can't slice the fennel by hand because you can't get it thin enough. I used a Benriner (it's the green plastic implement beside the bowl, below). I dressed the slaw with sherry vinegar and added a bouquet of fresh herbs, including mint, which disappeared into the dish but softened the fennel.

Fennel slaw
Serves 6

2 bulbs fresh fennel
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1/2 yellow bell pepper, seeded and very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (thyme, parsley, mint)
5 scallions, thinly sliced

1. Trim the fennel. Halve the bulbs and use a mandoline to slice them thinly. Transfer to a bowl, layering with salt. Set aside for 15 minutes. Tip out any juices that accumulate in the bowl.
2. Add the bell pepper, vinegar, oil, and black pepper. Toss well.
3. Add the herbs and scallions. Toss again. Sheryl Julian

Nestle announced a recall of its prepared refrigerated cookie doughs.

If you need a dough that keeps well in the refrigerator and turns out very crisp cookies, here's our nominee. The recipe comes from Alice Medrich, an extraordinary baker whose books I admire. She melts the butter for the cookies so they need to be refrigerated before baking (otherwise the dough is too soft). Keep it in a plastic container for a couple days, then press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the dough and freeze to keep it longer. Defrost in the refrigerator for a day before baking.

Refrigerator chocolate chippers
Makes 5 dozen

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cool but still liquid
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups chocolate chips

1. In an electric mixer, beat the butter with the granulated and brown sugars. Beat in the salt.
2. Add the eggs, one by one, followed by the vanilla.
3. Beat in the flour and baking soda. Remove the bowl from the mixer stand. With a large spoon, stir in the chips.
4. Transfer the batter to a plastic container, cover, and refrigerate for half a day or up to 3 days. Freeze if keeping longer.
5. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Let the dough sit out for 30 minutes to soften. Set the oven at 375 degrees.
7. Scoop the dough onto the baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes or until they are firm to the touch. Adapted from "Cookies and Brownies"

I'm not usually a stickler for having high-quality glassware. A lot of people are very particular about being able to drink their wine from an appropriate vessel. I mostly don't care.

Recently, though, I'm having glassware issues. First there were the stunted little tumblers at Tory Row. Now it's the water glasses at Tupelo. Or should I say water vats?

I don't have a whole lot of complaints about the restaurant, as you'll read on Wednesday. But I hate the ginormous Mason jars they're using as drinking glasses!

1. I can barely wrap my hand around the thing.

2. They only fill them about halfway anyway. Why not use the more manageable standard-size Mason jar, then?

3. I'm not sure about how I feel about the glasses as a representation of some sort of "poverty chic" aesthetic. If you can't afford drinking glasses and are making the most of what you have, that's one thing. But at this point, IKEA glasses are probably cheaper than Mason jars. It's not, actually, cool to be poor.

Do you care what kind of glassware your beverage comes in?

Formerly of now-shuttered Z Square, Scott Robertson is moving over to Grafton Street.

He's also worked at the Franklin Cafe, the Linwood, Publick House, the Fireplace, and more.

At Grafton Street, his offerings will include raw bar platters, country pork terrine with fig jam, hanger steak frites with roasted shallots and Great Hill blue cheese butter, and a toasted chickpea burger with yogurt and cucumber sauce.

This is shakshuka, a dish of spicy tomato sauce with eggs cooked in it. The white part is the eggs; the green dabs are pureed chilies. Wow! I had it for breakfast this morning at Sofra Bakery and Cafe in Cambridge.

As it happens, I was editing a story yesterday from a writer who had eaten shakshuka in Israel. So I was delighted to dine on it today. Sofra presents it in a shallow copper dish with a tender, salt-topped roll.

Here's what my dining companion ate.

It's a small ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on that same delightful roll. Except she had them hold the ham and hold the cheese. Still, what was left -- fried eggs on that exceptional roll -- was pretty terrific.

Taste of Allston takes place June 28. This might be my favorite "taste of" lineup, simply by virtue of the culinary ground it covers: Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, the US, Vietnam, and beyond.

Participating restaurants include Bravo Pizza, Buk Kyung, Camino Real, Dawat, Gitlo’s, Grain & Salt, Jo Jo Taipei, Lilly’s Gourmet Pasta, Mt. Everest Kitchen, Sunset Grill & Tap, and more. There will also be live music from the Allstonians and a silent auction.

The event is at the Murr Center at the Harvard Athletic Complex in Allston from 12-3 p.m. $18 per person in advance, $20 at the door, $10 for kids under 12. All proceeds benefit Allston Village Main Streets.

This week I reviewed Tory Row, the new place in Harvard Square from Matthew Curtis and Chris Lutes. They're the pair behind Audubon Circle, Cambridge 1, Middlesex Lounge, and Miracle of Science, all places I like fairly well, some quite a lot. But I didn't much like Tory Row.

When writing less-than-kindly about a new business, something I take no joy in, the least I can do is offer a forum for rebuttal. Here's the e-mail I received from their publicist, Elizabeth Lascaze of marlo marketing/communications:

"Saw your review of Tory Row in today's paper. We were disappointed to hear about your lackluster experiences but as the owners continue to fine-tune their newest project, we hope you'll consider another visit in the future once it's more established.

"I also wanted to take an opportunity to respond to some of the questions outlined in the review - really more of an fyi. Hope it helps.

"Raison d'etre - Tory Row is meant to serve as a continuous (breakfast, lunch, dinner) community meeting place at one of the most interesting intersections in the county - particularly as people watching goes. The concept behind the entire storefront being glass is for everything to be as transparent as possible, creating an open dialogue between the restaurant's dining room and the vibe of Harvard Square.

"Menu - the menu's theme is Pan-Atlantic. The owners chose to showcase simple American and European dishes, i.e. the Austrian raclette, Spanish black bean soup, etc. All of their seafood (lobster, cod, clams) is locally sourced and brought in fresh daily.

"Dessert - Chris and Matthew keep desserts minimal as they feel there are a lot of great dessert options in the Square (Finale, Upstairs on the Square and L.A. Burdick) and they want to encourage exploration of the neighborhood.

"Hummus - Would like to clarify that the hummus is house-made."

We spent a lot of time last spring, summer, and early fall working on this. It's coming out Labor Day week. Some really nice recipes in this volume, including terrific chowders, summer salads, favorite fruit desserts. Here's a sample.

Strawberry-rhubarb compote
Serves 8

Lightly sweetened rhubarb and strawberries, simmered together for an hour, turn into a soft pink-colored compote, which tastes dreamy with a little cold heavy cream. Serve it with a plate of simple cookies.

8 thick stalks of rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 quart fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 Navel orange
1 cup heavy cream (for serving)

1. In a heavy-based flameproof casserole, combine the rhubarb, strawberries and sugar.
Grate the orange rind into the pot. Halve the orange and squeeze the juice of one half into the fruit. With your fingers pull the squeezed orange membranes off the rind and add them to the pot.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the juices run. Cover and let the mixture bubble steadily over low heat, stirring often, for 30 minutes.
3. Uncover, turn the heat to medium, and continue simmering for 30 minutes or until the juices reduce and the mixture thickens.
4. Divide the mixture among 8 small bowls and pour the cold cream around the edges of each bowl. Sheryl Julian

This is chef Mariella Lencioni, who lives in Tuscany, Italy and works as a culinary instructor. She'll be cooking at the Boston Center for Adult Education on Aug. 17 and Aug. 27 ($60 for members; $70 for nonmembers). It's part of the new La Pentola di Rame program run by Carleen Haylett, an American trained in the culinary arts in Tuscany, who is bringing more Italian chefs to Boston to prepare their regional cuisine.

I'll have a a thick slab of the delicious saltless Tuscan bread with a plateful of cured meats, followed by gnocchi.

Tune in Wednesday, June 17, at 11 a.m. to talk about food and restaurants.

Our first CSF delivery is here. Now we have to deal with it.

As completely excited as I am about eating the freshest fish and supporting local fishermen, I am not a pro at scaling and filleting. Anybody have any tips?

Particularly when the ice cream comes in exciting flavors.

Da Vinci is incorporating savory gelati and sorbetti in some of its antipasti and entrees. Examples: beef carpaccio with celery sorbetto and shaved Parmesan, or creamy gorgonzola gelato served on a poached pear. Other flavors include arugula and basil. (I've always wanted to make horseradish ice cream to serve with thin slices of rare roast beef. Someday.)

Starting June 21, Asana and M Bar & Lounge introduce their Summer Ice Cream Delight. Ice cream flavors include lavender honey, green tea, toasted almond, and tiramisu. Sorbet flavors include mandarin orange, kiwi, rhubarb strawberry, banana mango, and green apple. Toppings include candied citrus peel, praline almonds, crunchy meringue, butter crunch toffee, and dark chocolate shavings, plus raspberry, hot fudge, and orange passion fruit sauces.

Who makes your favorite ice cream flavor, and what is it?