A clambake at East Hampton

Claiborne has rented a house near the water for the summer and decides, in the grand manner he can never quite resist, to dig a real clambake pit in the sand. The Times has printed his recipe for a kitchen version, but out here he wants the smoke and the seaweed and the steam.

James Beard, who is not well and tires easily, is installed in a chair with a drink and holds court on the correct way to layer clams and corn. Fisher watches the proceedings with an amusement she will later turn into an essay about appetite and abundance. It is the sort of generous, over-scaled evening that Claiborne loves and that Beard, who taught him to love it, is glad to see repeated.