They seem to almost always weigh the same, and that means about three ounces (at least when they come from Eastern Long Island), and every one is as beautiful as the other, with a silvery skin without scales, and fresh pinkish-white flesh.  Handily, they are virtually without bones.  What’s not to like?  Because of their subtle flavor and delicate texture, fillets of John Dory (aka le Poisson de St.Pierre, Pesce San Pietro, Petersfisch, Heringskőnig, Zeus Faber, or the-funny-shiny-one with-the-sourpuss-face) are probably best served very simply.  That is pretty much how I handled these, even if I indulged myself by using two herbs.

• John Dory fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries, arranged in a lightly-oiled baking dish, sprinkled with lemon juice, seasoned with salt, and pepper, brushed with a mixture of olive oil, chopped parsley from Manhattan Fruit Exchange and scissored chives from Whole Foods, baked in a 350º oven, skin-side down for 5 minutes, turned over, the other side brushed with the same mixture and the pan returned to the oven for another 10 minutes, served with parsley sprigs (this is the recipe, except that I substituted olive oil for the butter indicated, mostly out of respect for the very-Mediterranean vegetables that accompanied the fish)
• a compote of fennel from Norwich Meadows Farm, thyme from Manhattan Fruit Exchange, garlic from Migliorelli Farm, a small can of ‘Muti’ Baby Roma tomatoes, a melange of olives (from Whole Foods) and a small handful of capers, served with chopped parsley from Manhattan Fruit Exchange  (the recipe is mostly the creation of Mark Bittman)
• the wine was an American white, Buried Cane Middleton Family Columbia Valley Chardonnay 2013

We never tire of this recipe .  It’s ‘La Gricia’, generally described as a traditional dish of the shepherds in the hills of Lazio, the province of which Rome is the center.   The name comes from the name of a valley which is no longer inhabited, perhaps by either sheep or shepherds.  I first came across this regional classic when the amazing inimitable Fred Plotkin once described it in the New York Times many years ago (in fact almost 26 years to the day before I prepared it last night).  In 1989, fascinated by its simplicity and apparent authenticity, I immediately cut the recipe out of the page and put it into my file, but I don’t think that I actually used it until years later, after we found ourselves dining at the Trastevere restaurant featured in Fred’s article.

That means that we first enjoyed it in 1996, in the form of Spaghetti alla Gricia, although we did not know its association with the clipping back at home, while sitting at a table in the little street outside Piccola Trattoria da Lucia.  We went back to the address in the Vicolo del Mattonato two days later, and at least once again the next time we were in Rome a year after that.  The founder, Lucia Antonangeli, had served ”la cucina de na vorta” [the cooking of once upon a time] at her eponymous trattoria from 1939 until she died in 1967.  Her grandson, Renato Bizzarri, who had himself succeeded his mother Silvana Cestier in running the restaurant, recognized us as soon as we sat down.  Now that’s a civilization!

Some time after we had returned to New York I found the old clipping in my ‘pasta’ file, amazed at the coincidence of our two encounters with La Gricia.  The recipe had come home to stay.

Since then the dish has become a standard – and a great favorite – in our own kitchen; I make sure that I always have the ingredients on hand, including, most essentially, a chunk of guanciale in the freezer.  If you don’t have access to guanciale, pancetta is almost as good, but it must be in chunk form.  I also prefer to use penne rigate, although a reasonably thick long pasta is probably just as correct, and perhaps as good, as the short, ridged form.

• the Afeltra Pasta di Gragnano penne liscia from Eatlay was boiled until barely al dente, some of the liquid reserved and the pasta drained and mixed into a large pot in which 8 ounces of guanciale from Buon Italia, cut in 1/2 to 1 inch square pieces, had been heated with 4 tablespoons of olive oil for about a minute, a bit of pasta water then added to the pot, everything stirred for a minute to emulsify the sauce; several tablespoons of freshly-ground black pepper added and stirred into the mix, which was then removed from the heat and about 3 or 4 tablespoons of roughly-shredded pecorino, also from Buon Italia, tossed in, the pot left standing for 30 seconds or so, the dish then served in shallow bowls, with more cheese and black pepper on the side
• the wine was an Italian white, Le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2013

The recipe is basically a (very basic) Thomas Keller formula.  I added some halved cherry tomatoes, both to introduce a bit of color, and to save the fruit from advancing beyond its prime sweetness.

• cod fillets from American Seafood (two, which I cut into two and one half pieces for each portion), brought to room temperature and seasoned with salt, the top of each piece brushed with dijon mustard mixed with a little water, dipped in a mixture of homemade breadcrumbs and finely-chopped parsley from Eataly, browned briefly, crumb side down, in a heavy iron pan with olive oil, then transferred to a 325º oven and cooked until the fish begins to flake; near the end of the cooking time I added halved cherry tomatoes from Shushan Hydro Farm, arranging them on the fish sections after they were plated
• small Brussels sprouts from from John D. Maderna Farms (yes, in January!), tossed with salt, pepper, and some olive oil, roasted in a 400º oven for twenty minutes or so
• the wine was a French white, Vin Passion Château du Champ des Treilles Sainte-Foy Bordeaux 2012

Still trying to address my stash of root vegetables,  I feel that I made some progress with this meal, whose whole was even greater than the sum of its parts, even as the parts were pretty terrific.  I would be happy to take credit any day of the year for a dinner that tasted this good, but certainly much of its success was purely chance.  The three major elements and the treatment of each, except perhaps for the duck breast, to which I was committed as soon as I decided to defrost it last night, were pretty much cobbled together at the last minute.

• a small (11 ounces for the two of us) duck breast from Pat laFrieda, purchased at Eataly, its fatty side scored with hash marks and brushed with a mix of salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar, and allowed to rest for about half an hour before being pan-fried, finished (four minutes or so on each side) with a squeeze of lemon, some chopped rosemary from Queens County Farm, and a drizzle of olive oil
• small golden beets from Eataly, trimmed and scrubbed, the stem end then peeled, the roots cut into thirds (yeah, ‘thirds’, just to make it difficult, but mostly because of their middling size), tossed with olive oil and fennel, then spread, rounded side down, onto an oven pan on a surface of kosher salt, and roasted at 450º for about 45 minutes, sprinkled with freshly-ground black pepper, served with shavings of a good Parmesan cheese
• Savoy cabbage  from Hoeffner Farms, outer leaves only (in order to preserve the remainder of the cabbage for another day), sliced very thinly, seasoned with salt and pepper and sautéed in butter over medium high heat for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until tender and the leaves had begun to brown and crisp slightly at the edges
• the wine was a Spanish red, Vivanco Crianza Rioja 2010
• the happy, generous music was Mozart and Da Ponte’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’, with René Jacobs conducting Concerto Köln and Collegium Vocale Köln

Although they start out in in the northeastern part of the great “Southern Sea”, and not the Atlantic, Salmon fillets, (usually previously-frozen, from Whole Foods) are a reliable alternative when I’m unable to bring home fresh local seafood from the Greenmarket.  I missed my fish monger both on Saturday and today, presumably because the weather over the last few days meant fishing was pretty much out of the question, at least if you weren’t operating from large trawlers.

In picking salmon, I had also decided that it would offer one of the best excuses for serving some of the sturdy root vegetables I’ve been accumulating lately.  Unfortunately there’s a limit to how many I can incorporate in one dish, and tonight I was more interested in using whatever vegetable I had in the crisper that was most likely to spoil soonest.  The pairing of salmon, with a spicy coating, and fennel (which is not even a root), roasted slowly with nothing more than garlic, turned out to be inspired even if it had been determined largely by necessity.

• a five-ounce fillet of wild Sockeye salmon from Whole Foods, seasoned with salt and pepper, rubbed with a mixture of ground coriander seeds, ground cloves, ground cumin, and grated nutmeg, fried over medium-high heat for a few minutes on each side in an enameled, cast iron pan
• a generous-sized bulb of fennel from Manhattan Fruit Exchange, split into twelve wedges, sautéed in a large iron pan over medium high heat with chiles and fennel seeds until the fennel began to color, then, with garlic added, the heat lowered and the pan covered, cooked for about ten minutes more, stirring occasionally, a generous amount of chopped fennel fronds added at the end [recipe from “Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe”]
• the wine was a California red, Meiomi Pinot Noir 2012 Santa Barbara/Sonoma/Monterey