I had all this spring stuff, and I thought I shouldn’t really let it just lie around any longer, so I found a way to put it all together with some great pasta.

• six or 7 ounces of fiddlehead ferns from Tamarack Hollow Farm, washed vigorously in several changes of water until the brown chaff had been removed [this entertaining, slightly droll video, ‘How to quickly clean fiddleheads‘, could be pretty useful useful if you have a lot of fiddleheads – and more outdoor space than indoor running water], blanched for 2 or 3 minutes, drained, dried, added to a large antique high-sided copper pot in which 3 stems of thin spring ‘Magic’ garlic from Windfall Farms had been heated in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, the fiddleheads sautéed briefly before 6 ounces of sliced chestnut mushrooms from the Union Square Greenmarket stand of Gail’s Farm in Vineland, New Jersey were added and themselves sautéed until they were tender (3-5 minutes), a bit of both crushed dried habanada pepper and dried smoked serrano pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm added along with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, before 10 ounces of pasta from a one kilogram package of Afeltra 100% Pasta di Gragnano I.G.P. rigatone from Flatiron Eataly, cooked al dente and drained, were added and stirred in along with some reserved pasta water, over high heat, until the liquid had emulsifeid, arranged in shallow bowls and topped with some shaved Parmigiano Reggiano (aged 24 months) from Chelsea Whole Foods Market
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont) red, Oddero, Barbera d’Alba Superiore, 2015, form Flatiron Wines
• the music was Handel’s more-or-less-1732 opera- ‘Acis and Galatea’, performed by The Sixteen

I’m still not used to my forays with some of the finer kinds of white fish ending up as splendidly as lately they sometimes have. This was one of the very best.

It all started in the Union Square Greenmarket, as always.

That image is of only one of the 3 or 4 reservoirs of iced seafood that I faced when I arrived.

I through up my hands looking in frustration looking at the huge variety, so I texted Barry a list of just some of what was at the fish monger’s stall that morning, and asked, “skatefish, monkfish, tuna, swordfish, small bluefish, scallops, pollock, cod, black sea bass, squid, lemon sole, or flounder?”

He decided on the bass.

I also picked up some of the most beautiful mushrooms and kale I had ever seen.

• two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from Pura Vida Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature), otherwise covered at least a little to retain their warmth, then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 4 ounces of chestnut mushrooms [“Chestnut mushrooms are the mushroom everyone wants, they just don’t know it yet.“] from Ramble Creek Farm‘s stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, that had been cut up, mostly just into 2 pieces (just detaching the lobes from the stems), sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, adding a pinch each of 2 crushed dried peppers, one hot and one with no heat whatsoever (hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet from Eckerton Hill Farm, and home dried habanada pepper), a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley from Phillips Farms, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates at one end of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)
• some 5 ounces of purple winterbor kale from from Central Valley Farm, the leaves stripped from their stems, washed in several changes of water, chopped roughly, wilted in a little with olive oil in which 2 garlic cloves from Chelsea’s 8th Avenue Foragers Market, flattened then sliced in half, were allowed to heat until pungent, the greens seasoned with salt, black pepper, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil

• there was otherwise no reason to include bread in this meal, but near the end of the meal the juices, mostly from the mushrooms, that hadn’t been soaked up by the fish, were asking for it, and I don’t need any excuse for the chance to enjoy a slice of my current favorite bread, ‘Pane da Tavola’, from Lost Bread Co.
• the wine was a French (Burgundy/Macon) white, Domaine Michel Barraud, Macon-Villages ‘Les Pierres’ 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Night Songs’, by Helen Grimes 

It started with two paper baskets of local foraged chestnuts, the very last remaining on the farmer’s table in the Union Square Greenmarket. I had hoped to find some kind of game, or game-ish bird which they might accompany on a cool autumn evening, but then we were away for 5 days, and since my prize Asian-American hybrid nuts were getting a bit long in the tooth, I convinced myself that some very good pork chops would be able to stand in for the game I had not bagged.

I was encouraged in my illusion of a game dinner by memories from years ago of preparing and serving faux-marcassin, many times, using a white wine marinade described by Julia Child.

The process of chestnut preparation preceded everything else in assembling this meal; it began of course with roasting chestnuts over an open fire. In this case “over an open fire” meant over a perforated chestnut roasting pan above the gas flame on the top of our 1931 Magic Chef. When I was living in Providence I actually did roast chestnuts over an open wood fire on the keeping room hearth of my 1760s house.

It was great fun, and a few chestnuts exploded into the air (I may have neglected to slit those all through the outer shell beforehand) but the excitement was over in less than 10 minutes.

• two 9-ounce bone-in loin pork chops (not really very thick this time) from Flying Pig Farm, thoroughly dried, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a bit of crushed dried habanada pepper, seared quickly in a heavy enameled cast-iron pan before half of a large organic Whole Foods Market lemon was squeezed over the top (which was then left in the pan between them, cut side down), the chops placed in a 400º oven for about 13 minutes altogether (flipped halfway through, the lemon squeezed over them once again and replaced), removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, some of the juices that remained in the pan poured over them, some poured over the accompanying chestnuts, and the remainder transferred to a glass sauce boat
• fifteen ounces of fresh chestnuts foraged from a hybrid Asian and American tree on Keith’s Farm, above the City in Orange County, roasted inside a traditional chestnut pan on top of a gas range, sprinkled with a few drops of what was to be that night’s red dinner wine* (we had to open a fresh bottle for the purpose, so we decided to accompany the meal with a red wine rather than a white), wrapped inside an old cotton shirt, squeezed until they crackled, allowed to sit on top of the hinged cover above the range burners and oven pilot light for 5 minutes, the nutmeat then extracted from the shells and placed inside a heavy antique medium size copper pot, sprinkled with olive oil, a pinch of sea salt, a bit of freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for a few minutes, a generous number of rosemary leaves from Stokes Farm, half a cup or more of a chicken broth made with Better Than Bullion chicken base added gradually while simmering above a low to medium flame, stirring occasionally, until the chestnuts are as tender as desired (I like them a little firm) and the liquid had emulsified into a sauce, a tablespoon or so of maple syrup from Roxbury Mountain Maple Farm in the Catskills stirred in, followed by a tablespoon of chopped fennel fronds, from a bunch of flowering fennel from Lani’s Farm, arranged next to the chops on the plates, garnished with more fennel

• the head of Treviso radicchio I had picked up at the Greenmarket from Tamarack Farms was far to large to be grilled or roasted for just the 2 of us, so I stripped off 10 or 12 of the large outer leaves, washed, drained, and dried them as thoroughly as I could, tied them into 2 bundles, arranged them on a medium Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan covered them with lots of thyme branches from thyme from Keith’s Farm, seasoned the treviso generously with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, and drizzled them with a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil; they were then baked in a pre-heated 400º oven for 8 or 10 minutes or so, turned to the other cut side and returned to the oven for around 8 or 10 minutes, then arranged on the plates and drizzled with a very small amount of balsamic vinegar
• *the wine was a French (Burgundy) red, Bourgogne Rouge, Dom. des Meix Poron 2015, from Astor Wines

• the music was our third eighteenth-century Olimpiade in almost as few days, Josef Myslivecek’s 1778 opera, ‘L’olimpiade’, performed by Oliver Dohnányi  directing the Bologna Teatro Comunale Orchestra and the Bologna Teatro Comunale Chorus

Yoeman service.

Because of our schedules lately, all of the meals I’ve recently prepared have had to be somewhat improvised, even a bit sketchy, and often involved leftovers, and what I call ‘hangers on’ (ingredients that have been around for a while and which I judge really should make it into a meal soon).

This time there was a fresh, unplanned guest: the beautiful contents of a ‘goody bag’ from our previous night’s outing at Untitled, the restaurant that’s a part of the new Whitney Museum.  The farmers around whose produce last night’s dinner was built, Chris Field and Jessi Okamoto, gave each of the dinner guests a selection of chicories and other greens from their vast lands (8 acres in eastern Pennsylvania) as each of us was leaving. We got 2 of them, so we will all be seeing some of their work on this site for a little while.

These meals at home have all been yeoman service, and are appreciated, but I’m actually getting physically and emotionally anxious after being absent so long from my other safe place, the Union Square Greenmarket, and from the pleasures of real cooking.

I’ll be visiting both tomorrow.

• two ounces of La Quercia Lomo, in thin slices (this cured pork tenderloin turns out to be more than just a Spanish thing, viz. lonza di maiale stagionata) from Whole Foods, drizzled with a very small amount of a very good olive oil, Campania D.O.P. Penisola Sorrentina ‘Syrenum’
• served with a colorful mixture of various chicories and tender greens, a gift from the people of Campo Rosso Farm, dressed with Maldon salt, freshly ground pepper, the Campania olive oil, and a small drizzle of white balsamic vinegar
• slices of Orwasher’s ‘Righteous Corn Rye’ boule ((here the word, ‘corn’ derived from ‘korn’, means grains or kernels, and it has usually meant rye grain in Jewish Eastern Europe), from Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market

The main course really was a straight leftover, and needed no updating; the pasta and its sauce having retained the sturdiness and rich savoriness that had not asked for anything extra a few nights before.

• leftover Sfoglini chestnut fusilli and its sauce, of red onion from Stokes Farm, rosemary branches from Stokes Farm, red cabbage from Tamarack Hollow Farm, a little balsamic vinegar, and a heatless Habanada pepper form Norwich Meadows Farm (I forgot to serve it with the freshly-grated Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse from Buon Italia I had sprinkled on top the first time around

There was cheese.

• 3 Consider Bardwell Farm selections, ‘Manchester’, a medium-hard goat cheese‘, Experience’, a pasteurized, somewhat soft cow cheese, and ‘Pawlet’, a medium-hard cow cheese, served with toasts made from an Orwasher’s multigrain, seeded baguette

 

• the wine throughout was an Italian (Marche) white, Saladini Pilastri Falerio 2015, from Phillippe Wines
• the music throughout was Puccini’s ‘Turandot’, a performance of Francesco Molinari-Pradelli conducting the Rome Opera House Orchestra and Rome Opera House Chorus, with  Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Ida Farina, Renata Scotto, and others

Wintry and earthy, but first a little sun and sea.

Chestnuts and red cabbage, or more precisely, chestnut pasta and red cabbage. But first there was octopus. I’ve served both of these dishes before, but never anywhere near each other. Last night however, looking around for something to lighten a sturdy pasta, at least with some proximity in time, I pulled a thin package of sliced octopus carpaccio out of the refrigerator and went on to wash, try, and tear the bit of arugula I found inside the crisper.

I had first decided it would be a pasta meal, and had almost immediately zeroed in on one of the several earthy Sfoglini varieties sitting in the larder closet. Unusually for me, I had very few vegetables to go with any of them. I did have one very small red cabbage, and while it’s not the first thing that comes to mind when anyone thinks of pasta, one of the Sfoglini available was a chestnut fusilli, and I had combined the 2 ingredients once before.

After a modest serving, we decided we wanted to go on to a third course, knowing the remaining pasta would be just as good reheated on another day, and aware that we had some great cheeses, and some especially attractive bread for toast to accompany them

The meal went this way.

• octopus carpaccio (sliced, pressed octopus), less than 3 ounces altogether, from The Lobster Place, drizzled with a little juice from a tiny lemon grown locally by David of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and a little drizzle of a very good olive oil
• delicious arugula from Keith’s Organic Farm, washed, trimmed, dried, dressed with Moaldon salt, freshly-ground pepper and the same lemon and oil poured over the octopus
• an Orwasher’s multigrain, seeded baguette (it may be a new product) purchased that afternoon at Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market

 

• eight ounces of Sfoglini chestnut fusilli (organic semolina flour, chestnut flour, water) cooked until al dente in a large pot of salted water, some of the water reserved near the end before it was drained, added to a large enameled cast iron pot in which earlier one thinly-sliced red onion from Stokes Farm had been softened in a couple tablespoons of ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, to be followed by one large minced garlic clove from Stokes Farm, stirred until fragrant, 3 or 4 rosemary branches from Stokes Farm tossed in and heated for a minute or so, more butter added at that point, followed by about half a pound of cored and thinly-sliced red cabbage from Tamarack Hollow Farm, all stirred well then cooked, covered, for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender, with a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar poured in near the end of the cooking, followed by the addition of one chopped heatless Habanada pepper form Norwich Meadows Farm, everything stirred again, the pasta now added to the cabbage, and some of the reserved pasta water introduced into the sauce in stages while the mix was stirred above a low flame to keep it moist, then portions transferred to shallow bowls and served with freshly-grated Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse from Buon Italia sprinkled on top

 

• a cheese course of 3 Consider Bardwell Farm selections, ‘Manchester’, a medium-hard goat cheese‘, Experience’, a pasteurized, somewhat soft cow cheese, and ‘Pawlet’, a medium-hard cow cheese, served with toasts made from the same Orwasher’s multigrain, seeded baguette served with the first course

 

 

• the wine throughout was an Italian (Toscana) white, Prelius Vermentino Toscana 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was Wagner’s ‘Das Rheingold’, a 1967 performance with Herbert von Karayan, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and an amazing cast: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Wotan), Robert Kerns (Donner), Donald Grobe (Frohe), Gerhard Stolze (Loge), Zoltán Kelemen (Alberich), Erwin Wohlfahrt (Mime), Martti Talvela (Fasolt), Karl Ridderbusch (Fafner), Josephine Veasey (Fricka), Simone Mangelsdorff (Freia), Oralia Dominguez (Erda), Helen Donath (Woglinde), Edda Moser (Wellgunde), Anna Reynolds (Floßhilde)