As Educational as It Is Tasty

The spirit of supporting and celebrating local food is alive at Vela, a Wellesley restaurant. Chef Frank Santonastaso combs local fish markets and farmer’s markets to bring local products to the table at Vela. In his monthly program, To Market, To Market, Santonastaso invites his suppliers into the restaurant and he prepares a multi-course meal that incorporates his guests' products. During dinner, suppliers describe their products and their work. Upcoming dates and featured foods: April 1 topic is seafood, featuring Captain Mardin's; May 6 topic is cheese, featuring Wasik's; June 3 topic is ice cream, spices and specialty foods, featuring Christina's; July 2 topic is produce, featuring Lowell Bros. Dinners are 6 to 8 p.m. and the cost is $50. Information and reservations: 781-235-4449.

Atmosphere Is Warm and Relaxed; Food Is Authentic German

Atmosphere is warm and relaxed; food is authentic German The Student Prince Café -- also known as The Fort – in Springfield is an authentic German restaurant open since 1935 (and named after the lighthearted operetta of Heidelberg student life). Most of the woodwork in the bar area is original; about 20 steins adorned the bar when it opened and the collection has grown. The month of May is May Fest, when the dining rooms are decorated with spring flowers and grapes and an old-fashioned May Pole. Guests enjoy Mai Bock Beer, May wine, homemade bratwurst, and other specialties. Also in May and June, the restaurant combs local farms to serve fresh new asparagus, fiddlehead ferns, and shad. A staple on the menu is homemade Indian pudding. The atmosphere is always relaxed, warm, and welcoming. Phone: 413-788-6628.

Bring Your Appetite for Old-Fashioned Elegance

Bring Your Appetite for Old-Fashioned Elegance Cape Cod Central Railroad’s Elegant Dinner Train invites guests to recapture the romance of a bygone era while enjoying a five-course gourmet meal served on crisp white linen aboard vintage dining cars. The three-hour trip departs from the Hyannis station, crosses the historic Cape Cod Canal railroad bridge, and enters the Cape Cod village of Buzzards Bay. The dinner train was featured among the top three dinner trains nationwide by TV Food Network's “Dining on the Train.” The Dinner Train operates Saturdays in May; Thursdays and Saturdays in June, and Thursdays through Saturdays from July to October. This fine dining experience is for adults only. For a similar but less formal excursion, the railroad offers Cape Codder Gourmet Luncheon Train, Sunday Brunch Train, and a Family Supper Train. Phone: 888-797-RAIL.

Brookline Tour Unveils a Tasty History of Jewish Food

So you think you know Jewish food? You might be surprised by the treasures of this cuisine that await in Brookline. Join the Brookline Food Tour for a three-hour walking tour of Brookline's Harvard Street and Coolidge Corner, and for a chance to visit many of the town's treasured Jewish food stores and restaurants - including Zaftig's, Kupel's Bagels, and the Butcherie. Along the way, you taste samples of gefelte fish, matzo ball soup, latkes, falafel, and kosher wines, and you will discover traditions behind the food. You will learn about kosher rules, holidays, and the influence of different cultures on Jewish cuisine. You will feel the rich history of Jewish Brookline and hear anecdotes about the owners of the various establishments. Tour is held Sundays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., rain or shine. Participants meet in the intersection of Harvard Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue. Phone: 617-821-7667.

Fruit Jams Take Center Stage at this Historic Kitchen

Vacation is not a time you want to find yourself in a jam, with one exception. The Green Briar Jam Kitchen in East Sandwich is a place to watch fruit jam being made as it was done in the early 20th century. The kitchen was founded by Ida Putnam in 1903 and today it is a living history museum. The kitchen still operates using Ida’s recipes; workers prepare the jams, jellies, relishes, and pickles the old-fashioned way, cooked in the oldest commercial solar-cooking operation in the country. You can even sign up for a jam-making workshop. The kitchen shares this property with the Green Briar Nature Center, which has natural history exhibits and nature trails through the Briar Patch conservation area, and the Thornton W. Burgess Museum, dedicated to Burgess, a Sandwich native and children’s book author. Open year-round; call for hours. Phone: 508-888-6870.

New England Diners

New England diners offer no-frills food, from corned beef hash to Boston cream pie

Authentic diners and traditional diner food are alive and sizzling in every corner of New England. From the outside, diners mark their territory with their characteristic barrel roofs, neon lighting, and fringe of cars and trucks with local license tags. Inside, counter stools and booths are packed with families craving hash browns, meat loaf, home made pie and other diner staples.

New England is the birthplace of the diner. In 1872, a pressman at the Providence Journal newspaper began to sell prepared food from a horse-drawn wagon outside the Journal building. Next, companies were founded to manufacture and sell “lunch wagons” with interior seating. Then others began buying old horse-drawn streetcars and converting them to diners. By the 1930s, diners began to adopt a more streamlined, railroad-car appearance. In the 1950s, diners began to lose customers to new fast-food establishments, but a diner revival began in the late 1970s. Hot spots for diner history also include Worcester, Massachusetts, home of the prolific Worcester Lunch Car Company.

The Web site www.dinercity.com has extensive listings of diners by state. Here are some highlights in New England:

Connecticut

Collin's Diner
Route 44, RR Square
Canaan, Connecticut
Phone: 860-774-1837
Notable: National Historic Landmark built in 1941. Open 7 days a week.

Curley's Diner
62 West Park Place
Stamford, Connecticut
Phone: 203-348-2020
Notable: Open 24 hours, near university, low prices, breakfast served day and night. Specialties are cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes.

Eggs Up Diner
1462 Portland Cobalt Road
Portland, Connecticut
Phone: 860-342-4968
Notable: Southern Eggs Benedict includes sausage gravy, a biscuit, and country ham. Really good food and service.

Norm’s Diner
171 Bridge Street
Groton, Connecticut
Phone: 860-445-5026
Notable: Popular with the locals, open 24/7. Great diner authenticity.

Olympia Diner
3414 Berlin Turnpike
Newington, Connecticut
Phone: 860-666-9948
Notable: 1950’s atmosphere with great neon lights. Great meatloaf and Olympian breakfast. Open daily until midnight.

O'Rourke's
728 Main Street
Middletown, Connecticut
Phone: 860-346-6101
Notable: Special dishes are the steamed cheeseburger — a Connecticut passion — 3-way chili “Seeley style” (named for the diner’s most devoted patron), and the tuna smelt.

Parkway Diner
1066 High Ridge Road
Stamford, CT,
Phone: 203-329-9511
Notable: Platter specials with big portions.

Quaker Diner
319 Park Road
West Hartford, Connecticut
Phone: 860-232-5523
Notable: Best breakfast in the world. Friendly people and great 1930s atmosphere. Super busy on Sundays after church.

Maine

A1 Diner
3 Bridge Street
Gardiner, Maine
Phone: 207-582-5586
Notable: This Worcester Diner arrived by truck in Gardiner in 1946. Flaky biscuits, grilled sandwiches and burgers are still favorites.

Brunswick Diner
101 1/2 Pleasant Street
Brunswick, Maine
Phone: 207-729-5948
Notable: This diner was a vintage Worcester Lunch Car that has gone under many renovations but has kept its charm and originality. Hot turkey sandwiches, breakfast at any time and thick frappes (milkshakes) are all good. Step up into the booths and play the Old Elvis songs on the juke box.

Becky's Diner
390 Commercial Street
Portland, Maine
Phone: 207-773-7070
Notable: Located right on Hobson's Wharf in the Old Port in Portland. Great breakfasts every time. Open 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.

Maine Diner
2265 Post Road
Wells, Maine
Phone: 207-646-4441
Notable: Served its four millionth customer in fall 2005.

Moody’s Diner
U.S. Route 1
Waldoboro, Maine
Phone: 207-832-7785
Notable: The blueberry muffins won a gold medal from the Culinary Hall of Fame and Gourmet magazine has requested the recipe for the world-famous walnut pie.

Miss Portland Diner
49 Marginal Way
Portland, Maine
Phone: 207-773-3246
Notable: The diner appeared in the Mel Gibson film “Man Without a Face.” It is an original 1949 Worcester diner filled with Art Deco influence and lots of families.

Palace Diner
18 Franklin Street
Biddeford, Maine
Phone: 207 282-6468
Notable: A landmark 15-stool diner 1926 Pollard diner where mayors and mill workers have eaten side by side for almost 80 years.

Massachusetts

Al Mac’s Diner
135 President Avenue
Fall River, Massachusetts
Phone: 508-679-5851
Notable: Slogan is "Justly Famous Since 1910." Built in 1954 by the DeRaffle Manufacturing Company of New Rochelle, New York.

Arthur's Paradise Diner
112 Bridge Street
Lowell, Massachusetts
Phone: 978-452-8647
Notable: Authentic Worcester Diner car, circa 1937. A favorite item is the Double Meat Boot Mill Sandwich, with egg, home fries, cheese and bacon on a grilled roll, is a real stick-to-your-ribs breakfast.

Agawam Diner
Route 1 and 133
Rowley, Massachusetts
Phone: 978-948-7780
Notable: Tiny chrome diner with red vinyl seats. Hamburger plates, grilled cheese sandwiches, beef stew and terrific pies. Great prices too.

Blue Bonnet Dinner
324 King Street
Northampton, Massachusetts
Phone: 413-584-3333
Notable: “Has to be one of the best diners in New England.” Daily specials.

Boulevard Diner
155 Shrewbury Street
Worcester, Massachusetts
Phone: 508-791-4535
Notable: A classic Worcester Lunch Car with the wooden interior and wooden booths. Fluffy omelets, cheese steaks, and Brazilian-style hamburgers.

Deluxe Town Diner
627 Mount Auburn Street
Watertown, Massachusetts
Phone: 617-926-8400
Notable: Great breakfast. Many healthy choice meals. Classic dishes and unique desserts every day. Sweet potato pancakes with real Massachusetts maple syrup.

Morgan Square Diner
6 Myrtle Avenue
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Phone: 978-343-9549
Notable: Manufactured in 1941 by the Worcester Lunch Car Company, with porcelain exterior, hardwood interior, beautiful Gothic lettering.

Miss Florence Diner
99 Main Street
Florence, Massachusetts
Phone: 413-584-3137
Notable: Classic techno-fifties diner with large portions of good food. Table juke-boxes to entertain. Pancakes are terrific.

Salem Diner
326 Canal Street
Salem, Massachusetts
Phone: 978-471-7918
Notable: This Sterling Streamliner was built by the J.B. Judkins Company in 1941 and has occupied a small lot at 326 Canal Street for nearly 60 years.

New Hampshire

Littleton Diner
145 Main Street
Littleton, New Hampshire
Phone: 603-444-3994
Notable: Traditional New England home-cooked food. Great cheeseburgers, French fries, meat loaf, and corned beef hash.

Plain Jane's Diner
Route 25
Rumney, New Hampshire
Phone: 603-786-2525
Notable: This beautiful 1954 O’Mahoney sits in the middle of nowhere, on a long stretch of mostly deserted but highly traveled mountain highway. A tasteful and tasty experience.

Peterborough Diner
10 Depot Street
Peterborough, New Hampshire
Phone: 603-924-6202
Notable: The Boston cream pie is out-of-this-world great.

Sunny Day Diner
Connector Road
Lincoln, NH
Phone: 603-745-4833
Notable: Beautifully restored diner made by the Master Company of Pequannock, NJ in 1958. The owner-chef is a Culinary Institute of America graduate. Everything is delicious and prepared from scratch. Don’t leave without having a piece of pie.

The Red Arrow Diner
61 Lowell Street
Manchester, New Hampshire
603-626-1118
Notable: Slogan: “We really serve it on a blue plate,” the diner says of its Blue Plate Specials.

The Tilt'n Diner
Exit 20 off Route 93
Tilton, New Hampshire
Phone: 603-286-2204
Notable: Slogan: “Think ‘Happy Days’ in New Hampshire”

Rhode Island

Haven Brothers
Parking space next to City Hall
Providence, Rhode Island
Notable: This historic figure is towed every night to the edge of Kennedy Plaza next to City Hall, this classic stainless-steel diner serves up food all night long to club goers, bikers, and other wanderers. Two barstool-style seats at a short counter are the only indoor seating. Outdoor annex seating is the front steps of City Hall.

Seaplane Diner
307 Allen Ave. at Mural Street
Providence, Rhode Island
Phone: 401-941-9547
Notable: A true mobile diner in every sense of the word. Many hidden surprises and nuances in their menu offerings. The service is terrific.

Jigger’s
145 Main St.
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Phone: 401-884-5388
Notable: The best Johnny cakes (cornmeal pancakes) on the planet, according to aficionados.

Bishop's 4th Street Diner
184 Admiral Kalbfus Road
Newport, Rhode Island
401-847-2069
Notable: Thin and crispy Johnnycakes and biscuits and gravy that are not to be missed. Try the Portuguese sweet bread. Service is great and prices are what you want from a diner.

Modern Diner
364 East Ave
Pawtucket, RI 02860
Phone: 401- 726-8390
Notable: 1941 Streamliner Diner. First diner to be listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Cash only. Hearty breakfasts and great meatloaf.

Vermont

Blue Benn Diner
314 North Street
Bennington, VT
Phone: 802-442-5140
Notable: Authentic diner. Specialties include turkey hash, breakfast burritos, all sorts of pancakes and lots of vegetarian options. Local people rate it as the best diner in the country.

Chelsea Royal Diner
Route 9 West
Brattleboro, Vermont
Notable: 1938 Worcester Diner with breakfast and dinner specials and three or four blue plate dinners every day.

Farmers Diner
5573 Woodstock Road (Route 4)
Quechee, Vermont
Phone: 802-295-4600
Notable: Everything on the menu is from local farmers.

Miss Bellows Falls Diner
90 Rockingham
Bellows Falls, Vermont
Phone: 802-463-9800
Notable: Built in the 1920s by the Worcester Lunch Car Company, Vermont's only surviving barrel-roofed diner was moved here from Massachusetts in 1942. Look for part of an earlier name painted on the back.

Putney Diner
Main Street
Putney, Vermont
Phone: 802-387-5433
Notable: Serving classic Vermont cooking with a few surprises, like the Cajun Skillet Breakfast, a short, tasty trip from sugar maple forests to the Gulf Coast bayous. Also displays the work of local artists.

T.J. Buckley’s Uptown Dining
132 Elliot Street
Brattleboro, Vermont
Phone: 802-257-4922
Notable: T.J. Buckley's Uptown Dining Some say this is a Worcester from the 1920s; others claim it is a converted. Unusually tiny in size, with two seatings per night.

Yankee Diner
Quechee Village, Route 4
Quechee, Vermont
Phone: 802-296-7911
Notable: a beautifully restored 1946 Worcester Streamliner.

Diner Slang

Cup of Joe or Java -- cup of coffee
Adam and Eve on a Raft -- two eggs on toast
Soup jockey – waitress
Sun kiss -- orange juice
Baby juice -- glass of milk
Life preservers – donuts
Blowout patches with Vermont – pancakes with maple syrup
Wreck ’em -- scrambled eggs
Shingle with a shimmy and a shake -- toast with jelly
Burn the British -- toasted English muffin
Sweep the kitchen or Clean up the kitchen -- a plate of hash
Noah’s boy on bread – a ham sandwich
Cow paste – butter
Dog soup – glass of water
M.D. – Dr. Pepper
Mike and Ike – salt and pepper shakers
Sea dust – salt

And, to order a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and onion, your waitress may tell the cook to “burn one, drag it through the garden, and pin a rose on it.”

Web Sites

American Diner Museum

i Love Diners.com

Diner City

Diner Reading

Lost Diners and Roadside Restaurants of New England and New York, Will Anderson, 2001.

American Diner, Richard Gutman, 1979.

Diners: People and Places, Gerd Kittel, 1990.

Blue Plate Specials and Blue Ribbon Chefs: The Heart and Soul of America's Great Roadside Restaurants, Jane Stern, 2001.

Greasy Spoon. A quarterly periodical.

New England Foods

New England cookery combines the older English methods of steaming and boiling with ingredients familiar to Native Americans, like corn, game, shellfish, potatoes, cranberries, maple syrup, and cornmeal. New England has meager and rocky soil but it has a bounty of fish — especially cod — and shellfish, including clams, oysters, and lobster. Boston baked beans, which became a Saturday supper staple because of the Puritans’ Sabbath rules, cranberry dishes of all kinds, and maple syrup and candy have all found a place in the American palate through New England.

Clambake The New England clambake is both a meal and an outdoor construction project. The work begins with cooks assembling the ingredients (lobsters, whole fish, ears of corn, clams, mussels, red bliss potatoes, and onions) and cooking gear (firewood, charcoal, stones, seaweed, tarps, and shovels). The crew begins by digging a hole – preferably on the beach -- and lining it with stones, wood, and charcoal. Essentially, they are creating a below-ground bonfire and heating the rocks to create a steam bath for the food. When the wood has burned down to ash, saturated seaweed is laid over the hot rocks, creating a pit of steam. Small packets of seafood, corn, and potatoes wrapped in wet cheesecloth are laid on top of the seaweed. The food packets are covered with more seaweed, and the whole pit is covered with a tarp for up to about two hours. At the end of the cooking time, the food is unearthed and served with lots of drawn butter and compliments for the cooks.

Lobster A New England lobster feast is no place for the shy or faint of heart. It takes work and skill to bust open the exoskeleton of the bright-orange, spiny beast, but the delicate taste of the lobster meat, dipped in drawn butter, is well worth the effort. The most popular variety in the United States is the Maine lobster. It has five pairs of legs; the first pair is large, heavy claws that contain a good amount of meat. The other meat-rich portion of the animal is its tail. Boiled lobster is served with a bib, drawn butter, a cracking tool, and a narrow fork for easing the meat out of the broken shell.

Cod Cape Cod, the sand-scoured curl of land extending from Massachusetts into the Atlantic, didn’t get its name for nothing. Cod is New England’s fish, a white, lean, firm and mild-tasting meat. Cod and scrod (the name for young cod and haddock) can be baked, broiled, poached and fried. Whole fish, which can range in weight from one-and-a-half to 100 pounds, can be stuffed. Cod cheeks and tongues are a local delicacy.

Clam Chowder Clam chowder has many varieties, and each has its loyal following. One three-way division of clam chowders is New England clam chowder, with a creamy broth; Rhode Island clam chowder, with a clear broth; and Manhattan clam chowder, with a tomato-based broth. The chowders made by early settlers used salt pork and biscuits. Today chowder cooks discard the biscuits, but often sprinkle crackers on top of the chowder. Clams, hard or soft, are the basis of the most common chowders, but other types of fish are often used, depending on the season and the catch. According to “50 Chowders” by Jasper White, the oldest known fish chowder recipe in print appeared in the Boston Evening Post on September 23, 1751.

Cranberries Shiny, scarlet cranberries have a bigger job than just looking beautiful on the Thanksgiving dinner table. They grow wild but also are extensively cultivated in huge, sandy bogs, mostly in Massachusetts. The peak period to buy and use fresh cranberries is October through December. Apart from cranberry sauce, this fruit makes delicious chutneys, pies, and cobblers. Because they are sour, cranberries are best combined with other fruits, such as apples or dried apricots.

Maple Sugar The maple forests of northern New England do more than cover the hills with blankets of gold every fall. In later winter – February to March — the combination of freezing nights and warmer days causes sap in the maple trees to begin to move. The Indians collected sap by making slashes in the tree trunks. Early European settlers in New England at first copied the Indians’ sap-collection methods, but by 1800 they began harvesting the sap by drilling a small hole in the tree and inserting a tube made from a hollowed twig. In the early years, maple sap was boiled down and made into maple sugar, not syrup, because it was easier to store the dried and hardened sugar. Early makers of maple products boiled sap in iron kettles hanging over an open fire. This process evaporated water out of the sap, leaving the essential syrup. When it was thickened, the syrup was stirred until it began to crystallize, and then poured into molds. Today, during March and April, hundreds of sugar houses all over New England welcome visitors to watch the process and taste the fruits of the maple tree.

Boston Baked Beans The short definition of Boston baked beans is dried navy beans baked slowly with molasses and salt pork. The early colonists learned to cook dried beans from the American Indians, who would dig pits in the earth and slow-cook beans with maple sugar and bear fat. This dish evolved into baked beans with salt pork and molasses. It was traditionally served on Saturday nights in Colonial times. The Puritan Sabbath — when no cooking could be done — ran from sundown Saturday to sundown on Sunday. Puritan wives baked beans in brick ovens on Saturday for that night’s supper. The leftovers were still warm when the family returned from church Sunday morning.

New England Boiled Dinner This dinner, with roots in Ireland, is a one-pot meal native to New England that contains various ingredients, but primarily corned beef, cabbage, carrots, turnips, and potatoes. These ingredients, along with seasonings, are added at various times during cooking and slowly simmered together to create a hearty one-pot meal. Common condiments include horse radish, mustard, and vinegar. The dish is representative of the cultural heritage of the region, notably that of the Irish.

New England is Apple Country Apple growing has found a fertile home in rocky soils, long, hot summers, and crisp fall days of New England. The New England apple industry is still largely family-owned and orchards are an important community resource. Many growers offer pick-your-own sales and farm stands that sell homemade apple butter, applesauce, pies, and other treats. Among the other treats is apple cider -- fermented (“hard”) or non-fermented. Until the mid-1800s, hard cider was the most popular beverage in North America because apples were plentiful; it was cheap to make; and, unlike milk, it would not go bad. All the colonists, young and old, drank hard cider at all types of family and church occasions.

Portuguese Food Is a Spicy, Seafood-Rich Exploration

Fall River is the native stomping grounds of celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, so this town had better know something about good cooking. This city also is home of a longstanding Portuguese community, so a visit to Fall River is the best way to discover (or re-discover) this spicy, fish-and-vegetable-rich Mediterranean cuisine. Start at Estoril, a five-star, European-style restaurant known for its unique, unpretentious comfort and great food. Named after a cosmopolitan beach resort town west of Lisbon, Estoril (esh"too-rēl') has a menu that makes it painful to have to make only one dinner choice. Examples from the menu: Shrimp Mozambique sautéed in spicy saffron seasonings with fresh garlic and wine; Portuguese soup with beans, carrots, kale, cabbage, chourico (a Portuguese sausage), beef, and potatoes; and the awesome paella, with littlenecks, scallops, squid, crab, shrimp, chicken, pork, and chourico in a mild yellow rice. Phone: 508-677-1200.

Red Lion Inn Preserves a Tavern Offering Hospitality Since 1773

For an authentic, high-New England experience, one of the top destinations is the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. Among the dining options here is the cozy Widow Bingham's Tavern, named for Anna Bingham, who, with her husband, Silas, established a general store in Stockbridge in 1773 on the road from Boston to Albany. The store soon evolved into a stagecoach stop, tavern, and inn under the sign of the red lion. Wayfarers who step into the Widow Bingham’s Tavern today will enter a cheerful room of wide-plank floors and dark paneling adorned with authentic historic signs, railroad lamps, and hunting prints. For the thirsty, the selection of beers is impressive. The menu brims with local highlights such as New England clam chowder, butternut squash bisque, local cider, and Equinox Farm field greens with maple vinaigrette from Ioka Farm in nearby Hancock. Phone: 413-298-5545.

Stir Welcomes Cookbook Browsers and Students of Food

There are those who love to eat; there are those who love to cook; and there is a hard-core group that loves to simply browse through cookbooks. For all three, there is Stir, a demonstration kitchen and cookbook library in South Boston that is part of the No.9 Group of restaurants and food establishments, under the leadership of Chef Barbara Lynch. Stir offers two major thrills for foodies: the cookbook library, loaded with hard-to-find books, is open to the public. Also, three nights a week, the public can sign up for classes in which 10 to 12 guests sit around a center island in Stir’s kitchen and watch a professional chef prepare and serve a full meal and answer questions from onlookers. Check the website well in advance for class dates and for daytime operating hours. Also available for private events. Phone: 617-423-STIR.

Stowaway Sweets Offers Awesome Views Along With Terrific Chocolates

It is hard to replicate the breathless joy that customers bring to the subject when they describe their love affair with the confections produced (since 1929) by Stowaway Sweets in Marblehead. The smallish candy shop, attached to the cozy Stowaway Suites Bed and Breakfast, is located on a beautiful property boasting a goldfish pond and a wonderful view of the Atlantic. The central topic, though, is the chocolate. Various reviewers have their own favorites, but highlights include the dark chocolate, the Milk Chocolate Meltaway, the almond bark, and the chocolate-covered cherries. And if you really, really can’t bear to leave, the attached bed-and-breakfast in an old English country cottage offers suites, a comfortable sun room, a flower-lined patio, and other luxuries. And you might find a chocolate or two near at hand. Phone: 781-631-0303.

Talented Chefs Show and Serve the Best Seafood Choices

Seafood dinners at an aquarium? Do they hang curtains in front of the tanks to ease anxiety by the gill-breathing residents? Seriously, though, the New England Aquarium in Boston offers this year a Celebrate Seafood Dinner Series, offering seafood choices that are good for both the palate and the ocean. This evening combines the talents of some of Boston’s best chefs with the aquarium’s experts on sustainable seafood for a unique dining experience and an introduction to making smart seafood choices. New celebrity chefs will be featured at each of the dinners. The dates are April 1, June 3, October 7 and November 18. Each dinner includes introductions, cooking demonstration, discussion, wine pairing, question-and-answer. These unique dining experiences are a great gift for the foodie, aspiring chef, or seafood lover in your life. The series is part of the aquarium’s effort to ensure that future generations will have plenty of fish. Space is limited and reservations are required. Cost is $75. Phone: 617-973-5200.

With All These Great Soups, Who Needs a Fork?

Healthy, delicious and filling comfort food with room for lots of creative variations. One short syllable satisfies all these requirements: soup. Six days a week, the Marblehead Chowder Company serves from 8 to 10 different soups, all of them handmade on the property. With the possible exception of the creamy chowders, all the soups are made with a goal of healthiness: no excessive fat, sugars, or salt. Owner Mitch Wondolowski writes, “Living and cooking here in Marblehead, we are fascinated by the rich heritage of our local and regional chowders. These simple one-pot meals were staples for those who first lived here. They were easily prepared at sea as well, using ship’s provisions. Clams were at first only considered a ‘tolerably good’ substitute for fish. It was later on that this tasty surf clam gained the popularity it enjoys today.” Soup is sold in quart-size take-out containers, so if you must have more, more can travel with you. Phone: 781-631-6300.