Both surprised and delighted to spot white asparagus in Union Square on Monday (I think it may even have been a first for the Greenmarket), I immediately picked out a small bundle to take home. The spears were small, each had a tinge of green toward the top, and it was no longer spring. These are all attributes not found with Spargel in the land whose people are obsessed with it to the point that when green asparagus appears on a menu in Germany, it has to be so described as grüner Spargel, to avoid both misunderstanding and disappointment.

They were delicious, and, although I think it’s still a work in progress, I will be looking out for more, maybe come spring next time.

I served the asparagus as a separate course, as much for aesthetic reasons as anything else, but I also wanted to pay a lot of attention to the preparation of a rare find, one I was doing for the first time.

• approximately 8 ounces of white asparagus from Lani’s Farm, trimmed and peeled, gently boiled until cooked through in a generous amount of water along with salt, a pinch of turbinado sugar, fresh organic lemon juice from Whole Foods, a bit of ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, and a small piece of dried white bread, drained, dried on the top of a towel, removed to 2 plates and drizzled with lemon juice, a good Campania olive oil, D.O.P. Penisola Sorrentina “Syrenum”, and some chopped lovage from Campo Rosso Farm
• served with slices of Grandaisy ‘Sette Grani‘

 

• the main course was salmon, prepared in a way slightly modified from a very good Melissa Clark recipe, using one fresh, wild 12-ounce sockeye salmon fillet from Whole Foods, marinated in the refrigerator in a covered dish for about 2-3 hours while coated on both sides with a mix of light brown turbinado sugar, sea salt, freshly ground tellicherry pepper, freshly ground allspice, freshly ground nutmeg, and the zest of half of an organic lemon from Whole Foods, after which the fish was rinsed, patted dry, brought to room temperature, oiled generously, and cooked on an enameled grill pan, first flesh side down, then turned, cooked for another minute, removed, drizzled with a little juice from an organic lemon from Whole Foods and some olive oil, and served with wedges of the same lemon
• three different varieties of yellow summer squash (from Norwich Meadows Farm and Lani’s Farm, cut into 1/4″ diagonal slices, tossed in olive oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, pan-grilled, removed to a bowl where the squash was tossed with a few thinly-sliced Kalamata olives, olive oil, organic lemon juice, and a combination of chopped calamint and chopped wild mint, both from Berried Treasures
• the wine was an Austrian (Wagram) rosé, Fritsch Rosé Zweigelt vom Donaulöss 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault

• the dessert course was simply 2 perfect peaches from Tree-Licious Orchards
• the wine before and during the fruit course was an Oregon (Willamette) white, Kings Ridge Pinot Gris 2014

• the music througout the dinner was the entirety of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s gorgeous, ‘Persée‘, in a great performance by Les Talens Lyriques, conducted by Christophe Rousset

I’ve only gradually come to realize that the flatfish with which I am most familiar personally, having actually caught a few by rod and reel while drifting in a boat off Long Island (yup, I actually did that), is not merely a fluke; it’s also a summer flounder.

I cooked the fluke I had caught way back then, in the late 1980s, but I don’t remember the details.  I do know it was the first time, but it wasn’t to be the last. It’s a very fine fish, and we’re very fortunate to be living so close to the home waters of one whose numbers, I believe, are not threatened, at least so far.

Persian, or Middle Eastern cucumbers are definitely not threatened, and in fact I think they’re just beginning to be noticed by most home cooks. I expect they’ll soon be very popular.

 

• one 14-ounce flounder fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, seasoned with salt and pepper, sautéed in olive oil and butter over high heat until golden brown (2-3 minutes on the first side, 1-2 minutes on the other), divided into 2 portions and served with a tomato butter composed a few minutes earlier by melting some ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, then adding one fresh shallot from Lani’s farm, cooking it until softened and fragrant, removing it from the heat, allowing it to cool for 2 or 3 minutes, then tossing it with half a dozen sliced Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, earlier seasoned with salt and tossed with a mixture of chopped pipicha [Porophyllum Linaria], a native Mexican herb, with a taste similar to cilantro, but with a hint of lemon and anise) from Lani’s Farm and chopped summer savory from Stokes Farm, a few drops of red wine (Chianti) vinegar stirred into the mix at the end
• a handful of small Persian cucumbers from Stokes Farm, cut into 2 to 3 cm segments, sautéed in olive oil until lightly browned, seasoned with sea salt, and tossed with chopped calamint (aka mentuccia, nipitella or nepitella, which tastes like a cross between mint and oregano) from Berried Treasures Farm
• the wine was a California (Lodi) rosé, Karen Birmingham Rosé Lodi 2015
• the music was from various streaming online stations

This is a formula for an almost an instant dinner, and it never has to be an exact repeat, thanks to the availability of one or another form of good fresh pasta (frozen, handily little more than an arms distance from the pot), a few fantastic cherry tomatoes (which aren’t fussy/time sensitive), and the possibility of drawing from a healthy variety of herbs or other oddments which can be found in a well-frequented larder.

The bit about the larder is pretty key in any cooking done at home. It really, really helps (makes it far easier, and more exciting) if you cook regularly, because, among so many other reasons, it means you don’t have to shop for as many ingredients to prepare a single meal, and because having stuff on hand pretty much compels improvisation.

• Rana artichoke- and ricotta-filled ravioli, from Eataly, with a sauce which began with sliced organic garlic cloves from Whole Foods warmed inside a good-sized cast iron enameled pot in a little olive oil, followed by the addition of 10 of ‘The Best Cherry Tomatoes’ from Stokes Farm, whole, but slightly punctured, which were heated until almost breaking down, with freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper added before the drained ravioli was added to the pot, some pasta cooking water introduced to the mix to emulsify the sauce while it and the ravioli were stirred up on top of the stove, the finished pasta served sprinkled with a generous amount of fresh milkweed buds from Down Home Acres
• slices from a fresh loaf Sullivan Street Bakery Trucio weren’t really necessary, but how else to be sure none of the savory sauce would be wasted?
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2014
• the music was Jean-Philippe Rameau, ‘Concerts en Sextuor‘

Hyperbole.  Yes, this will sound like hyperbole, but, supported by the fallibility of memory, I mean it: This was the best fish I have ever tasted.

Note: along with everything else it had going for it, there was just the right amount of crustiness to the bass when it arrived on the plates.

The meal began with what I had assumed would be a pretty ordinary mix of tomato and a bitter green, and in fact I had decided to add it to the meal mostly because I had one special yellow heirloom tomato that had been a little bruised on the way home from the Greenmarket the day before. It didn’t make sense to include it on the entrée plate with another yellow vegetable I was anxious to serve with the fish, so I called up some arugula and some spicy basil and made room for a starter (the two red cherry tomatoes were an indulgence on the side of more color).  That course too turned out far more delicious than I could have imagined. The colors were great fun, but the taste was pretty marvelous.

In each case it was the quality of the ingredients that did it, but in the case of the bass, there was an extraordinary novelty this time, buds of the common milkweed. Beyond that, it was certainly also about the very simple Mark Bittman classic sautéed white fish fillet recipe, one with which I have become increasingly familiar and, I guess, judging from the results this time, somewhat proficient.

 

• a handful of arugula from from John D. Madura Farms and 2 leaves of radicchio from Hawthorne Valley Farm, both torn into fork-size pieces and arranged on 2 plates, topped with wedges of a single Striped German heirloom tomato and halves of 4  of ‘The Best Cherry Tomatoes’ from Stokes Farm, drizzled with a fine Campania olive oil, D.O.P. Penisola Sorrentina “Syrenum”, Maldon sea salt (our table salt and my normal finishing salt), freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, and a white balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with chopped Thai basil from Norwich Meadows Farm
• slices of a rustic, 7-grain bread, Grandaisy ‘Sette Grani‘

 

• two 6-ounce sea bass fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries, dredged in seasoned coarse stone-ground flour which had been spread across a plate, then dipped in a mixture of one egg from Millport Dairy Farm whipped with a few tablespoons of chopped parsley from Stokes Farm, sautéed for a couple minutes in a mixture of butter and olive oil, skin side down, inside a heavy long copper pan, then turned, sautéed for little more than another minute (until the fish was cooked through; the time will vary each time with the size of the fillets and the height of the flame), removed from the pan, the heat now turned off, sprinkled with what there was of the juices remaining there, into which I had first scattered some oxalis aka ‘wood sorrel’, stems removed, from Alewife Farm, followed by a squeeze of an organic lemon from Whole Foods, the fillets finally dressed with more (fresh) oxalis leaves
• two small yellow summer squash from Norwich Meadows Farm, tossed in olive oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, pan-grilled, removed, sprinkled with chopped milkweed buds from Down Home Acres
• a small bunch of agretti (grows near the sea, and is a great accompaniment for seafood) from Hawthorne Valley Farm, washed, trimmed, the larger portion of the stems removed, heated in olive oil and arranged on plates, where it was squeezed with lemon juice and given a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Mendocino) white, Elizabeth Spencer Sauvignon Blanc Mendocino 2015
• the music was a portion of, ‘The Music Of The Habsburg Empire‘, which is a 10-disc set [well, it was a very big empire]

These steamed mussels are perfect for a hot evening, since the entire process requires less than 5 minutes above a flame. I found the recipe in the New York Times, where it was described as adapted by Sara Dickerman from “The Herbal Kitchen,” by Jerry Traunfeld.

There are also few ingredients, with little preparation needed (what there is to do is very easy and can be done leisurely), and everything goes into the pot at once.

It’s also a just plain perfect meal, especially if the ingredients are really, really good, as they all were here.

[oddly, while the image above doesn’t show it, but there was plenty of luscious broth, which is pretty much what this dish is all about]

• two pounds of mostly-small Long Island mussels purchased that day in the Union Square Greenmarket from Pura Vida Fisheries, lightly-scrubbed and de-bearded where necessary, then combined in a large heavy enameled cast iron pot with two cups of Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, halved, half of a cup of good white wine (a good Vinho Verde), a few tablespoons of chopped fresh shallot from Lani’s Farm, 3 tablespoons of rich ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, a generous amount of freshly-ground Telicherry pepper, and 2 or 3 tablespoons of coarsely-chopped lovage from Campo Rosso Farm, everything steamed over high heat for a very few minutes, served in shallow bowls with a sprinkling of more chopped lovage and accompanied by an Eric Kayser ‘baguette monge’
• the wine was a French (Loire) white,  Jean Pascal Aubron Folle Blanche Gros Plant Du Pays Nantais 2014 (more here on the wine and the vigneron)
• the music was Pietro Locatelli, Concerti Grossi, the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Hartmut Haenchen, via Spotify

 

 

We occasionally enjoy what we call ‘picnics’ at home (a table laden with assembled foods, not cooked, or at least not cooked by me that evening), on particularly warm evenings or on any other occasion when it makes sense and the concept feels particularly enticing.  I can normally assemble this sort of thing without planning ahead, since we always have on hand most of what I would want to include in such a meal; it’s just normally just a matter of deciding to put it together, and that adds to the appeal of the arrangement.

 

 

• this picnic spread included 3 ounces of Principe Prosciutto di San Daniele from Whole Foods; mixed olives from Buon Italia (in a small black bowl almost out of the picture above); parti-colored radishes (‘easter radishes’) which I had picked up from Willow Wisp Organic Farm on their first day at the Union Square Greenmarket; a few Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods sprinkled with calamint, aka nepitella; 4 cheeses (Consider Bardwell Farm‘s goat cheese, ‘Manchester’, their cow pasteurized cow cheese, ‘Experience’, and their raw milk cow cheese, ‘Dorset’, as well as a somewhat funky ‘Jean-Louis’ semisoft cow milk cheese from Bobolink Dairy); some ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, a salad composed of arugula from John D. Madura Farms, radicchio from Hawthorne Valley Farm, sliced spring shallots from Lani’s Farm, wild mint from Berried Treasures Farm, parsley from Stokes Farm; and slices of a very rich, moist, and very sturdy rustic bread, the fantastic 7-grain ‘Sette Grani‘ of Grandaisy
• the wine was a French (Provence) rosé, Famille Sumeire Château Coussin Le Rosé de S. Méditerranée 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was from Counterstream radio, streaming

Once again, a great fish, and a superb recipe, this pan-grilled mackerel manages to taste a little different each time I prepare it, and this one may have been the most delicious ever. The only substantive difference I brought to it was the late addition of milkweed buds.

 

I think the tomatoes really were ‘The Best Cherry Tomatoes’, at least among the crops available in the season so far.

 

The small early okra were also delicious, but, probably for the first time, without the slight crispiness that makes them really sing, since I had to crowd the pods in a pan a little smaller than ideal. The exigency of the 2-burner grill pan I used for the fish meant I didn’t have enough space for the 13″+ cast iron pan I would usually have used.

 

• five Spanish mackerel filets (totaling 13 or 14 ounces) from Blue Moon Fish Company, washed, dried, brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, pan grilled over high heat for a total of about 6 minutes, skin side down first, then turning once, transferred to plates, topped with a salsa of halved cherry tomatoes from Stokes Farm which had been tossed with olive oil, wild capers in brine which had been rinsed and drained, some organic lemon juice, salt, and pepper, some milkweed buds from Down Home Acres (in Unadilla, N.Y.) scattered on and around the fish and the salsa
• about half a pound of okra from Kernan Farms, sautéed in olive oil along with crushed dried chiles in a long oval copper pan over a high flame, then seasoned with salt
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, S + A Verdelho Calveras County 2014 [the link is to the 2014 vintage]
• the music was a beautiful performance of early eighteenth-century concerti, the album, ‘Concerts & Follies In Pergolesi’s Time‘

There were three courses, only because I had some vegetables (and one small basket of fruit) stacked up, waiting their turn at the table. The schnapps was, well, ..just because.

• the first course was a salad composed of arugula from John D, Madura Farms, sliced red-spring shallots from Lani’s Farm, and thick slices of Japanese Hinona Kabu turnips from Tamarack Hollow Farm, dressed with an olive oil from Campania, salt, pepper, and a drop or two of white balsamic vinegar, served with slices of a fantastic rustic 7-grain loaf of bread from Grandaisy, their ‘Sette Grani‘.

 

• the main course was a light pasta, 10 ounces of Afeltra spaghetti chitarra from Eataly, cooked al dente, served with a simple fresh sauce which began with 3 minced cloves of garlic from Whole Foods and at least 2 cups of tender garlic scapes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, cut into 2-inch lengths, sautéed in olive oil for 3-4 minutes, then a little butter and most of the juice of one organic lemon from Whole Foods added to the pan, the drained pasta added once the butter had melted, along with the zest from that same lemon, the mix stirred over low heat, during which time some reserved cooking water was added to help emulsify it, then seasoned with salt and pepper, and scattered with purple micro radish sprouts from Windfall Farms
• the wine was an Italian (Veneto) white, Alpha Zeta S Soave 2014
• the music was the conclusion of our 4th of July Spotify playlist

 

• there was a dessert of a handful of blueberries from Kernan Farms, topped with a scoop of Madagascar Vanilla Ciao Bello gelato, with a sauce composed of some of the berries macerated a bit with Toschi Orzata Orgeat syrup, garnished with chopped wild mint from Berried Treasures

 

• Finally, and mostly because neither of us could wait to learn what it tasted like, a tiny sip of an Oregon Douglas Fir Eau de Vie, from Clear Creek Distillery (see the Chartreuse-like color inside the ancient glass in the picture above); it was fantastic!

It was breakfast on the Fourth, but, like all worthy things American, it was a healthy mix.

It was basically classic American fried eggs and bacon, but the eggs and the small pieces of bacon both came from an Amish farm, as did the single link of ‘Polish’ kielbasa; the toast was from a heal of a rustic French-style loaf, a Balthazar rye boule; the herbs were both traditional English (lovage and parsley) and very Italian (calamint); there were cuttings from spring red-skin shallots, arguably pretty much a [new] American thing; finally, and probably the most exotic, an absolutely wonderful aromatic Middle-Eastern-style seasoning blend, ‘L’eKama‘.

There was excellent coffee: for me, espresso as usual, after an iced milk (very American), an iced Americano with milk for Barry.

Not a fully traditional 4th of July dinner, but then it was actually only the 3rd of July.

It wasn’t even a particularly German meal.

Yes, I knew that kielbasa was not the American hot dog, or German in its origin, even if most versions actually are more yummy than a hot dog, and perhaps at least as good as some German sausage; the mustard I used wasn’t yellow American, but it was whole-grain and German in style, and very tasty; the potato salad was nothing like most ‘creamier’ versions that are being enjoyed this weekend, but the formula I went with gave me an excuse to use some unusual spring alliums and herbs I had on hand, and it was pretty light (clearly not an adjective usually associated with this dish); finally, the idea of braised greens as an aside, especially if they belonged to a somewhat exotic Japanese turnip, would likely be anathema to most Americans.

• four small-diameter Kielbasa sausages from Millport Dairy Farm, boiled and served with a German-style mustard
• small red new potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, prepared along the lines of this 2004 Melissa Clark recipe, with some modifications; I used potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, baby (thin) red-skin shallots (thin) from Lani’s Farm rather than red onion, local apple cider vinegar from Race Farm, bacon from Millport Dairy Farm, fresh garlic cloves from Stokes Farm, whole-grain German mustard from Whole Foods, the lovage was from Campo Rosso Farm, parsley from Phillips Farm, and, instead of chives, I used the green parts of the red-skin shallots
• Japanese Hinona Kabu turnip greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed, wilted in olive oil in which several chopped fresh garlic cloves from Stokes Farm and a few chopped stems of cauliflower whose florets had been used in an earlier meal had been lightly-browned only just before, the vegetables seasoned and drizzled with olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Emilia-Romagna) sparkling red, Cantina di Sorbara Emma Lambrusco di Sorbara NV, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was the album, ‘Wizards & Wildmen‘, piano music by Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Lou Harrison, performed by Anthony de Mare