Shellfish

Most cookware stores carry baker's peels (wooden, paddle-like implements used to slide pizza into ovens) and pizza stones; these tools make it easy to create a crust with character, but good crusts also require a very hot oven. In our experience, the most common flaw in home-made pizza is mozzarella overdose: Too much of it smothers the rest of the pie, causing what's below to steam into softness. The following pie is made without any mozzarella at all. Needless to say, the roster of toppings is flexible.

Believe it: One-percent milk helps create the rich sauce for the entrée. Team the scallops with steamed red potatoes, Spring Peas with Lettuce and Mint and iced tea for a lovely meal.

These peel-and-eat shrimp are great fun. Just make sure to have plenty of napkins on hand.

Moqueca de camarão Dendê (palm) oil brings to the cooking of coastal Brazil what drums bring to samba: an insistent underlying sensuality. It transforms the coconut milk with its deep orange-red color and makes the flavor of the shrimp sing. But it is as perishable as it is seductive, so smell it before you use it. Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 45 min

Brining the shrimp and then grilling them in their shells will help retain flavor and the natural juices.

This is from Tabla, where it is served with tamarind chutney and pappadams, the savory wafers that accompany most Indian meals.

Use the smallest clams you can find. Mussels would also work in this dish. Serve with: Portuguese rolls and a green salad.

Chilpachole de Jaiba This typical dish is adapted from a recipe given to us by our official guide, Ricardo Muñoz. Although picking the crabmeat is time-consuming (enlist a friend to help), you will be rewarded with a truly exceptional soup.

"My boyfriend and I can't get enough of the Caribbean and Latin foods at Babalu's in St. Louis," writes Traci Anderson of St. Louis, MO. "We love the curry-coconut steamed mussels. Is it possible to persuade the chef to share his secret?" Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Even though Aux Delices des Bois left Tribeca, Thierry and I still love Zutto, the sushi bar that was near our warehouse. It dates back to when Tribeca's cast-iron canopies cast their shadows on silent streets at night. Its metal loading dock held two tables, the precursor to the neighborhood's current profusion of loading-dock cafes. One evening the sushi chef, Albert Tse, made us this special dish, using a fish from each of the seven seas. Kind of like a Japanese version of the ancient French dish Coquilles St-Jacques, it combines fin fish and aromatic oyster mushrooms with the scallops and sharpens the flavor with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and seaweed. If scallop shells aren't handy, use any ovenproof baking dish.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.