October 8, 1986

''WHENEVER I swallow, it spurs thoughts for new dishes,'' Jasper White said half jokingly, ''and eating is one of the most rewarding aspects of travel.'' Mr. White, the 34-year-old owner of Restaurant Jasper in Boston and considered one of the foremost young chefs on the East Coast, was in the midst of preparing a dish of Portuguese inspiration, made with pork and littleneck clams. He had brought all his provisions from Boston and set up in my kitchen. ''I first tasted the original during a brief visit to Europe when I made a quick side trip to Portugal's Algarve coast,'' he said. On home territory, the dish is actually a stew of fried cubed pork with bits of ham, hot red pepper, garlic and tomatoes. ''When I returned home,'' he continued, ''I decided to create my own version, American style.'' Mr. White's translation is pork chops, seared on both sides and served with a savory clam sauce made with local clams, clam juice, lots of sliced garlic, pork stock and a splash of domestic white wine.

Bracing Wall Street for another depressed quarterly report, the International Business Machines Corporation said yesterday that its strong sales in foreign markets ''are beginning to moderate.'' The company added that total worldwide orders and shipments for the first nine months of the year would probably be below last year's levels. The announcement, while not surprising to industry experts, sent I.B.M.'s stock spiraling down $5.375, to $128.125, in heavy trading. And it quickly overshadowed news yesterday that the company hoped would cheer investors and customers alike: the introduction of a new series of small mainframe computers, called the I.B.M. 9370 Information System, that the company is counting on to revive its offerings in the midrange computer market.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence charged today that a Soviet intelligence officer holds the post of assistant to the Secretary General at the United Nations. The committee, in a report calling for broad changes in the Government's security and counterintelligence programs, added new details to the Reagan Administration's charge that the Soviet Union is using the United Nations as a platform for spying. ''The K.G.B. has succeeded in infiltrating its officers into the U.N. bureaucracy, with some reaching positions of authority,'' the report said. ''The K.G.B. has held the position of assistant to the Secretary General since Viktor Lesiovsky held the post under U Thant. The current assistant is a K.G.B. China expert.''

THERE is a little secret about the New York Mets, which much of America has probably not caught on to. Perhaps it is time to expose this secret before the National League championship series begins in Houston tonight. The Mets - with all their brassiness, with some of their fans vandalizing the field after the title-clinching victory, with the silhouette of a skyline on their insignia - may seem to symbolize the city known as the Big Apple. But the Mets really don't come from that New York, at all.

Carl C. Icahn, the New York investor who announced an $8 billion bid for the USX Corporation on Monday, disclosed yesterday that he had bought an additional four million shares, raising his stake to 11.4 percent. That disclosure came in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Icahn, who sent his bid directly to the USX board on Monday, said he bought the new shares that same day at $26.50 apiece, for a total of $106 million. There had been speculation that Mr. Icahn, who has offered $31 a share for all of USX's stock, was the buyer of the four million shares that were traded late Monday. But there had been uncertainty as to whether those shares were included in the 25 million that Mr. Icahn said he owned on Monday.