salumi II, arugula; grilled mackerel, salsa; potatoes, lovage

Same salumi as yesterday, but different greens, bread.

  • thin slices of the second half of a delicious, 4-ounce Jacöterie ‘Italian Style Salami’ soppressata crafted with pasture raised pork from Walnut Hill Farm in Ancramdale, NY
  • arranged with well washed leaves of arugula from Norwich Meadows Farm dressed with a small amount of good Greek olive oil, Demi, from the Peloponnese (Laconia, Velles), a 23rd Street Greenmarket purchase late last summer, from John, a member of the family that grows the olives and makes the oil, also some local (Long Island waters) P.E. & D.D. Seafood sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a squeeze of organic California lemon from the Chelsea Whole Foods Market
  • the bread was half of a rosemary ‘epi’ (pain d’epi, aka ‘wheat stalk bread’), remarkably evocative of good homemade bread, that I had bought from Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse on Friday

The simply grilled small mackerel fillets were terrific, especially with the salsa I could accompany it with, thanks to the some small grape tomatoes sitting on the windowsill that I had bought several days earlier.

  • eight small Boston mackerel fillets (16 ounces) from Pura Vida Seafood, washed, dried, brushed with olive oil, seasoned with local sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood and freshly-ground black pepper, pan grilled on a large, 2-burner cast iron grill pan over high heat for a total of about 5 minutes, skin side down first, turned over half way through, removed, arranged on the plates, where they were accompanied by/under a simple salsa, assembled just before grilling the mackerel, of 7 ounces of small halved heirloom golden cherry mid-December, mid-New Jersey farm tomatoes from Eckerton Hill Farm tossed into a small bowl with a teaspoon or more of rinsed and well drained Sicilian salted capers, half a tablespoon of juice from a Whole Foods Market organic California lemon, a pinch of sea salt, a bit of black pepper, the mackerel and the salsa garnished with micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • twelve ounces or so of red thumb potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed unpeeled, boiled, drained, dried inside the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, halved, then rolled inside the pan with a little olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, tossed with lovage, again from Two Guys from Woodbridge