I was thinking that it was Tuesday night that would bring single-digit temperatures, and then mid-evening tonight I suddenly learned that the temperature outside was 8º.  I thought that I wasn’t prepared for a dish fully appropriate to that kind of environmental challenge, but it turned out I was wrong.  This Mark Bittman recipe which I think I had torn out of the New York Times sixteen years ago was more than up to the challenge of a cold night, although, to tell the truth, the apartment remained warm, and there wasn’t even any chilling howl of wind to be heard.

By the way, Bittman’s linguine and walnut recipe remains my favorite version for that pairing, and there are certainly many of them.

• the pasta was Setaro linguine, from Buon Italia, the shelled walnuts from Whole Foods, the garlic, produced by Christopher Ranch, was from Eataly, and the parsley from Whole Foods
• the wine was an Italian white, Cesani Vernaccia di san Gimignano 2013
• the music was from the early nineteenth century, that of Ferdinand Reis and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart; very sweet

Still on schedule:  Tomorrow will still be a Kassler Ripchen-und-sauerkraut day, even if the evening temperature reading is supposed to be a balmy 20-something Fahrenheit.

Dessert was a plate of three cheeses (L-R in the picture below), Manchester goat cheese from Consider Bardwell, Frère Fumant sheep cheese from 3-Corner Field Farm, and Twig farm (Vermont) washed rind goat cheese from Eataly,),  with an Anjou pear from Locust Grove Orchards.