Some of our plates are looking a little brighter these days, like spring, if not summer.

It helps that I can find great tomatoes, almost local (from Maine, near Skowhegan, and pretty ‘green’), all winter long.

I chose this ‘tomato butter’ treatment for the fish last night because it can be prepared pretty quickly, and because, not needing a breading, it doesn’t involve several extra bowls and processes; also, it ends a delicious recipe.

There were other vegetables as well.

• two 8-ounce flounder fillets from American Seafood Company, lightly seasoned, cooked with the flesh side down for about 2 minutes in olive oil and butter inside a heavy enameled cast iron pan over medium-high heat, turning once and cooking for another minute or so, placed on the plates, a couple of spoonfuls of ‘tomato butter’ [see below] arranged down the center of each fillet, finished with a sprinkling of halved lengths of chives from Phillips Farm
• tomato butter, begun by cooking one finely-chopped small shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm inside a small pan with 2 or 3 tablespoons of melted butter until the shallot was slightly soft and fragrant, letting the flavored butter cool slightly before being poured over 4 ounces of Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, cut into eighths, adding 2 tablespoons of a mix of almost each of the fresh herbs on hand, chopped (red thyme from Phillips Farm, mint, sage, and Italian parsley from Eataly), the mix seasoned with salt (I usually add a few drops of good Spanish Rioja wine vinegar, but did not do so this time)
• a handful of ‘French Breakfast’ radish greens from Eckerton Hill Farm, wilted in olive oil in which 2 small garlic cloves (very much not local: from Argentina, via Trader Joe’s, but it is March, and I hadn’t put up any preserves last year) had been allowed to sweat for a bit, the greens seasoned with salt, pepper and a bit more olive oil
• four banana fingerlings from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, left unpeeled, boiled in well-salted water, drained and dried in the warm pot, rolled in butter, salt, pepper, and one chopped spring garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, scattered with some micro purple radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, David Akiyoshi Reserve Chardonnay 2015
• the music included brilliant works by 2 women, Kristin Norderval’s album, ‘Aural Histories’, and Olga Neuwirth’s ‘Lost Highway’, and with that report for March 8, we will note that every day is Women’s Day!