This entrée would have been totally familiar on our table, and so also here on this blog, if it weren’t for two of its elements: the herb that garnished the tuna, and the unusual form of some otherwise common green vegetable.

• 15-ounces of yellowfin tuna steak from Pura Vida Seafood, rinsed, dried, halved, tops and bottoms seasoned with local sea salt processed by the fisherman, Phil Karlin of P.E & D.D. Seafood, on the grounds of his Riverside home, and freshly-ground black pepper, then ‘paved’ with a mixture of less than a tablespoon of some incredibly pungent dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo [wild Sicilian fennel seed] harvested in the Iblei Mountains, purchased from Eataly Flatiron, and a little dried Calabrian peperoncino from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market] (both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle), plus a very small amount of dried aji dulce pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, the steak halves pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of lemon juice, garnished with chopped payqu (aka epazote) from Lani’s Farm and finished with a drizzle of Chelsea Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil
• two Italian heirloom tomatoes from from Shushan Hydroponic Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, sautéed briefly in a little olive oil, sprinkled with torn basil from a live plant from Central Valley Farm
• a small basket of what appeared to me to be immature, open-bud Brussels sprouts that I found at Lani’s Farm (I did not ask at the farm stall, because of the awkwardness of the  current distancing arrangements within the Union Square Greenmarket, and I can’t find anything that resembles them on line), sautéed very gently in a little olive oil, tossing in some chopped spring garlic, also from Lani’s Farm, and the tiniest amount of balsamic vinegar, and they were delicious
• the wine was an Italian (Sicily) white, Stefano di Blasi Sicilia Zibibbo Catarratto 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was a brilliant performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, followed by his Seventh Symphony, with Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

It was a steak, and while it looks like beef in the light recorded by the photograph above, it was tuna, and it tasted like tuna, which is to say, very good.

Looking for music to accompany the meal, Barry turned up 2 very interesting composers totally unfamiliar to either of us until that night.

• 15-ounces of yellowfin tuna steak (in 2 pieces) from Pura Vida Seafood, rinsed, dried, tops and bottoms seasoned with local sea salt processed by the fisherman, Phil Karlin of P.E & D.D. Seafood, on the grounds of his Riverside home, and freshly-ground black pepper, then ‘paved’ with a mixture of less than a tablespoon of some incredibly pungent dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo [wild Sicilian fennel seed] harvested in the Iblei Mountains, purchased from Eataly Flatiron, and a little dried Itria-Sirissi chili, pepperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market (both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle), plus a very small amount of dried habanada pepper, the steaks pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic California lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, garnished with micro ruby red chard from Windfall Farms, finished with a drizzle of Chelsea Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil
• some purple viking potatoes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in a generous amount of generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with a little olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and sprinkled with scissored Brooklyn chives (Square Roots) from the 23rd Street West Side Market  
• one windowsill-ripened late season orange heirloom tomato from Eckerton Hill Farm, halved horizontally, the cut sides sprinkled sea salt, black pepper, a bit of chopped fresh marjoram from Willow Wisp Farm, sautéed on both sides, then arranged on the plates, garnished with more of the herb and small drizzle of olive oil 
• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Tenuta Ugolino, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Piaole 2018, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Britta Byström’s ’10 Secret doors’, Johannes Gustavsson conducting the Vasteras Sinfonietta, but later we listened to work by Anders Erik Birger Eliasson, which sent both of us looking for more information on both, quickly turning up a nugget from Eliasson, writing about Stockholm’s “modernist fortress” during the period of his musical studies, and citing an example of a composer whose work has been under-appreciated (almost painfully so, for me), both during and after his early death*

 

*”It was a time of unbearable self-denial. Metrical rhythms, melodies, even particular intervals were all taboo in contemporary music. This was a catastrophe for the human voice and the human ear – was then, and still is.” Anyone stepping out of line, he said, was immediately banished. He mentioned an example from Sweden, Allan Pettersson.” – Anders Erik Birger Eliasson (1947-2013) [from his Wikipedia entry]

 

[the image of Allan Pettersson, via my blog, from a site that no longer exists]

This tuna dish is incredibly easy to assemble, and it’s always a huge treat, but this time it was heaven.

• two 7 or 8-ounce yellowfin tuna steaks from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, rinsed, dried, tops and bottoms seasoned with local sea salt produced by the fisherman himself and freshly-ground black pepper, ‘paved’ with a mixture of less than a tablespoon of some incredibly pungent dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo [wild Sicilian fennel seed] harvested in the Iblei Mountains, from Eataly Flatiron, and a little dried Itria-Sirissi chili, pepperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market [both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle], plus a very small amount of dried golden habanada pepper, the steaks pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic California lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, garnished with micro red-vein sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge, finished with a drizzle of Chelsea Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil

• a mix of subtly different tones of small cherry tomatoes (14 ounces) from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed, dried, each punctured at least once with a steel trussing pin, heated in a little olive oil inside a small copper skillet, seasoned with salt and Pepper, and mixed with a little chopped fresh oregano from Rise & Root Farm

• a bouquet of beautiful red frill mustard from Norwich Meadows Farm washed and drained in several changes of water, wilted in a little olive oil in which several cloves of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm had been allowed to sweat a bit, seasoned with salt and pepper and finished on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon
• the mix of sauces on the plates called for some bread, in this case thin slices of a Lost Bread Co. loaf of Buck Honey Rye (rye, malted buckwheat groats, honey, water, and salt)
• the wine was a New York (Hudson River/Pine Bush) rosé, the unfiltered Wild Arc Farm Cabernet Franc Rosé 2017, Bruynswick Vineyard, which we had purchased from the vintners themselves last weekend

• DJing these meals (almost entirely Barry’s responsibilty) isn’t always as easy as we make it look; on this particular evening we began and stopped 5 different recordings before we came up with this incredible winner: a remastered 1961 recording of a magnificent performance of Gustav Mahler’s symphony, No. 1 in D Major, the Columbia Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer’s friend and champion Bruno Walter, who was at the composer’s deathbed in Vienna 1911 [and that’s right, a world class symphony orchestra endowed by a corporate radio and TV station; European nations still have them, and Germany has a total of 14]

[image of Mahler and Walter from the Mahler Foundation achive]

I was still recovering from a bug, and hadn’t been doing much real cooking for a few days. Although during that period we had only ordered one Mexican takeout and one pizza (both really good), by Saturday I was more interested in preparing a real grownup meal myself than coming up with another food delivery choice, no matter how basic the preparation would be or how good the takeout could be.

I walked one block west to the 23rd Street greenmarket that afternoon and selected what was probably the most easily prepared entrée, and a vegetable that would be even more easy to put on the table.

• one modest 11.5-ounce tuna steak from American Seafood Company in the Saturday Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market on 23rd Street, rinsed, dried, halved, tops and bottoms seasoned with local P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, ‘paved’ with almost 2 tablespoons of a mix of some incredibly pungent dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo [wild Sicilian fennel seed], harvested in the Iblei Mountains, from Eataly Flatiron and a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market [both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle], plus one finely chopped small aji dulce seasoning  pepper (no real heat) from Eckerton Hill Farm, the steaks pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, scissored garlic chive seeds from Space on Ryder Farm, and a drizzle of Chelsea Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil
• one medium red/orange-veined/striped heirloom tomato from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the same Saturday market, halved crosswise, the cut sides seasoned with salt and pepper, placed inside a small copper skillet in a little olive oil over a medium flame until softened, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with some chopped green sections of baby French leeks from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, drizzled with a small amount of olive oil
• one large bunch of cavolo nero (aka lacinato, Tuscan kale, or black kale, among other names as well) from Alex’s Tomato Farm, also in the Saturday Market, the leaves stripped from their stems, wilted briefly inside a large heavy antique tin-lined copper pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil after several cloves of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm had first been heated inside it until fragrant and softened, the greens seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a little more oil
• the wine was a French/Touraine/Loire) white, Francois Chidaine Clos de la Grange Touraine Sauvignon 2018, from Chambers Street Wines
• the music was the Neos label album, ‘Musica viva, Vol. 33: Peter Ruzicka’, with works performed by the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Vocalconsort Berlin

He was visiting New York from London so we were delighted to be able to invite him to dinner last night. Until then, while we had only known John through Twitter, we had come to feel of him as a friend.

On occasions like this I usually try to serve something I can prepare almost entirely ahead of time, but last night I relied on the fact that the tuna steaks I’d chosen as the entrée would be so simple and quick that it’d be almost the same thing. There would probably be some particularly good greens (there were so many kinds in the Greenmarket that day, and I saw and tasted some great September broccoli rabe) or some other vegetable that could be cooked in advance, and I had decided I could avoid the complications a first course would present by accompanying the tuna with a second vegetable.

Well, then I spotted the puntarelle, and I couldn’t focus on anything else. While the dish I had in mind, repeating my Puntarelle alla Romana, can mostly be done ahead of time, it needs a number of processes, and a certain amount of space, and it really should be assembled at the last moment. It also seemed to rule out including anything else on the plate, which meant there would now be 2 courses.

I wanted to include in the meal some very sweet tiny cherry tomatoes that had been camping out on the windowsill for a while, because they were now really at their peak, and because they were beautiful. The problem was that there weren’t really that many of them, and they’d be difficult to arrange on the plates in a way they could easily be picked up, so I brought 3 modest size zucchini home from the market, 2 yellow, one green, with the idea of scattering tomato halves among thin slices of summer squash near the end of the time they’d both spend on a large cast iron grill pan, tossing everything with some torn peppermint leaves when they were done, but then I noticed our guest was expected in a short while and there wouldn’t be time.

Now I had to reinvent the appetizer, but I hadn’t really come up with concept until I had already begun assembling it, so there was some stress involved in the process while at the same time I was trying to engage in the conversation; the result may have had something of an improvisational aspect to it, but it was delicious. Thank goodness for the young trailblazers of the new charcuterie [Walnut Hill Farm in this particular case], and the welcome the Union Square Greenmarket/GrowNYC people have been giving them.

It was a great evening on every count, the credit for which goes to the good Barry and John.

We began with a sparkling rosé while we nibbled on breadsticks and taralli.

• the wine was a Portuguese (Biera) rosé, Beira Extra Brut Rosé “3B,” Filipa Pato 2017, from Astor Wines

The first course:

• half of a pint of ‘Super sweet 100’ cherry tomatoes from Keith’s Farm, halved, mixed with a bit of finely sliced tropea (sweet Italian red) onion from Alewife Farm, sea salt, black pepper, a bit of chopped fresh habanada pepper from Campo Rosso Farm, and a bit of Columela Rioja 30 Year Reserva sherry vinegar, arrange on a small mound of red watercress from Dave’s Max Creek Hatchery

• slices from a loaf of ‘Table Bread’, described as half organic bread flour, half fresh milled whole grain (wheat, spelt, rye, malted barley), water, salt, from Philadelphia’s Lost Bread Co.
• rich Vermont Creamery butter from Chelsea Whole Foods [unfortunately they don’t carry the unsalted version – yet, I hope I can add here], for speading on the bead
• most of a 4-ounce package of Saucisson (‘French style salami’) crafted by Jacüterie with pasture raised pork raised by Walnut Hill Farm, sliced
• the wine was an Italian (Tuscany) white, San Felice Vermentino Toscana 2017, from Philippe Wines

The main course.

• three thick 10 or 11-ounce yellowfin tuna steaks from American Seafood Company [much larger than I normally select, but the problem was getting 3 that looked similar, and were close to the same size], rinsed, dried, tops and bottoms seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, brushed or ‘paved’ with almost 2 tablespoons of a mix of a generous amount of incredibly wonderful dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo (wild Sicilian fennel seed harvested in the Iblei Mountains), from Eataly Flatiron and a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market, both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle, the tuna pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic California lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, a scattering of scissored bronze fennel buds and flowers from Rise & Root Farm, and  a drizzle of Whole Foods Portuguese house olive oil

• two ‘heads’ of Puntarelle [cicoria di catalogna], an Italian chicory (about 32 ounces), from Tamarack Hill Farm, the outer straight leaves removed for another time, the remainder cooked pretty much as described on this site; I used ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm, local sea salt, 4 or 5 rinsed and filleted salted Sicilian anchovies from Buon Italia, a little chopped fresh habanada pepper, one and a half tablespoons or more of Aceto Cesare Bianco white wine vinegar from Buon Italia (a mix of Langhe white wines), 3 tablespoons or more of Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil, and Whole Foods Market house whole pepper
• the wine was a Portuguese (Vinho Verde) white, Vinho Verde Loureiro, Aphros 2018, from Astor Wines

The dessert.

• instead of cheese, fruit, or a sweet, the dessert was a selection of very good artisanal liquors, 2 clear, ALB, a 100% neutral corn spirits vodka from Albany; St. George Terroir Gin, “a profoundly aromatic gin with a real sense of place”, from Alameda, California; and one Chicago bourbon, with millet instead of rye or wheat as the secondary component of the mash bill, Koval Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey
• raw almonds from Chelsea Whole Foods Market

 

 

 

• the music throughout the meal was from a Spotify playlist Barry had put together

 

 

 

puntarelle 34 ounces,  > 26, the even less