I’d already had a decadent – if not disturbing – breakfast – I put Round Swamp Farm’s peach pie on top of my no-fat yogurt and All Bran.  Then my East Hampton host returned from an errand with a pair of muffins, thrilled to find the pastry chef of the recently defunct Laundry installed just minutes away, turning out brownies, strawberry-rhubarb crostada, fresh dipped strawberries and roasted tomato and onion focaccina.

         I took a bite of the strawberry muffin.  And then in the name of research, a bite of the blueberry, grabbed my notebook

Photo: Howard Schuster

and drove to the scene, 283 Pantigo Road East.   “Food&Co” it said above the awning on the small green and white cottage fitted out with a charming old counter and a giant ice box from the 1920’s that’s refrigerated now even though a door doesn’t quite close.  I tasted a few broken cookie samples and chatted with patissier Susan Moore when suddenly the Times’ FloFab and husband Richard barged in through the screen door in tennis whites. “I can’t escape you,” I said. She took that as a compliment, I thought, bought some goodies and left. At that point, Moore mentioned the butter and her background.  Ritz Carlton trained, she spends winters as lead baker at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. When she gets a catering order, she turns out extras for the Cakeshop. At $2 for a brownie or a muffin, she defies Hamptons tradition for highway robbery.  631 329 1000. 

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