I didn’t have any great expectations for this slight, improvised dish, but good artisanal pasta is usually an extremely good collaborator, so it turned out really, really well, thanks also to the claytonia, or miners lettuce that I had picked up in the Greenmarket a few days earlier.

• one medium slightly robust in flavor ‘Camelot’ Dutch red shallot from Quarton Farm, minced, sautéed in a couple tablespoons of olive oil inside a large antique copper pot until fragrant and softened, then a pinch of crushed dried hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper added and stirred in before 8 ounces of a locally-sourced and locally-produced artisanal pasta, a ‘Jerusalem Artichoke Fusilli’ from Norwich Meadows Farm which incorporates their own sunchokes (the name I like to us when I can, since neither Jerusalem nor the artichoke has anything to do this these native American tubers) which had been cooked al dente, drained, were added, and everything stirred, along with a good part of a cup of reserved pasta cooking water, now over high heat,  until the liquid was emulsified, the pasta sprinkled with a little chopped thyme from Phillips Farms and  seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, tossed with a good helping of the stems, leaves, and flowers of Claytonia, or Miner’s Lettuce, from Vermont’s Tamarack Hollow Farm, finished with a squeeze of a small Persian lime that had been raised by David Tifford of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, a farmer (mostly of decorative plants) who is also found in the Union Square Greenmarket
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, AdegaMãe Dory 2017
• the music was the album, ‘Lebanese Piano Music’