I would normally go to the Union Square Greenmarket on a Friday, but yesterday I decided not to go (heavy rain; I waited for it to clear, until it was probably already too late; I didn’t really have to go; etc., and, anyway, I could go the next day, even though it would be crowded – I think of Saturday as largely for amateurs, and people holding hands – so that night I broke out a box of local pasta and looked around the kitchen for something that would make an interesting sauce.

Cucumbers!

There was a first course, to add even more interest to the meal.

• two ounces of La Quercia Prosciutto Americano from Whole Foods, drizzled with a bit of good olive oil, Badia a
  Coltibuono, Monti del Chianti from Chelsea Whole Foods Market
• a little wild arugula from Lani’s Farm, dressed with the same oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a dash of Aceto Cesare Bianco white wine vinegar from Buon Italia (using a mix of Langhe white wines)
• slices of a She Wolf Bakery miche (this bread goes on forever, never losing its flavor, and almost none of its texture or crustiness)

To avoid much of an interval, the water for the pasta was already being heated when we sat down with the prosciutto, and the simple, quickly made sauce, the ingredients already assembled, was begun when we had finished.

• eighteen ounces of Korean cucumbers from Lani’s Farm, sliced about 1/2″ thick, dried, sautéed inside a large antique high-sided copper pot in a little olive oil over a fairly high flame until they had begun to color, joined by 2 whole small dried red Calabrian peppers from Alewife Farm, the thickly chopped bulbs and sliced leaves of 6 small ramps from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, cooked until the ramp bulbs had softened slightly and the surface of the little peppers began to look like that of candy apples, seasoned with salt and pepper, then 8 ounces of a local pasta, Sfoglini trumpets, cooked al dente, and some of the pasta water, were added to the vegetables, stirred over a high flame for a couple of minutes to blend the flavors and the ingredients, and to emulsify the liquid, after which a pinch of fenugreek was added, and a bit of juice from a Persian lime from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, the mix transferred to 2 shallow bowls, drizzled with a bit of olive oil around the edges (after the picture above was taken) and scattered with homemade breadcrumbs, made from crusty loaves darker or more strongly-flavored than most, that had been heated and browned, stirring in a little olive oil inside a small seasoned antique cast iron pan, the bowls garnished with the pretty spectacular effect of some micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was an Italian (Marche/Matelica) white, Fontezoppa Verdicchio di Matelica 2017, from Garnet Wines
• the music was an album featuring Ernst Krenek’s Symphony No. 4 and his Concerto Grosso, Alun Francis conducting the North German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, but after the Krenek we switched from classic (classic for us) to something closer to now music, an album of contemporary chamber works by Kaija Saariaho (b. 1958): ‘Chamber Works for Strings, Vol. 2’, performed by the Meta4 string quartet, with the chamber music songs sung by soprano Pia Freund