It’s like game. It’s very much like game, both footed and winged. For most people however, it’s far more accessible. Very easy to find, it’s also very easy to prepare.

We love duck.

We also love roots and greens – and offbeat micro flavorings too.

I’ve now introduced the meal we enjoyed last night.

• one 12-ounce duck breast from Hudson Valley Duck Farm, the fatty side scored in tight cross hatching with a very sharp knife, the entire breast then sprinkled top and bottom with a mixture of sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a little turbinado sugar (in our sugar bowl, infused over a very long time with a whole vanilla bean), the duck left standing for 30 or 45 minutes before it was pan-fried over medium heat, first the fatty side down, in a tiny bit of olive oil, draining the oil part of the way through [to be strained and used in cooking later, if desired], turned over half way through, removed when medium rare (cut into 2 portions to check that the center is of the right doneness, which means no more than medium rare), left to sit for several minutes before finishing it with a drizzle of sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island and drops of a very good Campania olive oil, Lamparelli O.R.O., then scattered with some red wasabi micro radish from two Guys from Woodbridge [NOTE: the tenderloin would normally have been removed from the breast before it was marinated, but seasoned as the rest of the breast, and fried very briefly near the end of the time the bulk of the meat was cooking, dividing it into two parts and tucking them under the rest of the breast on the plates, but this time I could not find a tenderloin to remove]
• banana fingerling potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm and ‘Magic Molly‘ purple fingerlings from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm (I wanted to use the purple potatoes but didn’t have enough, so I added the golden ones, and it worked out perfectly, for the aesthetic and the taste), tossed in a bowl with one sliced smallish red onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, a little olive oil, a generous amount of rosemary leaves from Eataly, more than a pinch of dark home-dried Habanada pepper, salt, and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, then spread onto a large well-seasoned Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan, roasted at 374-400º for about 20-25 minutes, or until the potatoes were cooked through and the onion a little crispy
• spinach from John D Madura Farm, washed in several changes of water, drained, gently wilted (that is, not reduced too far) inside a large enameled cast iron pot in a little olive oil in which one two cloves of garlic from John D. Madura Farm, halved or quartered, had first been allowed to sweat, then seasoned with salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a little crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, drizzled with olive oil and a little sweet loca lemon juice from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island

This is the duck breast just before it went into the hot pan.

And this is the pan of seasoned and herbed potatoes and onion just before it went into the hot oven.

• the wine was a California (Lodi) red, Sharon Weeks Cattoo Lodi Malbec 2015
• the music was a CD album of Lorenzo Ferrero‘s music which we had purchased blind (probably at Tower Records, sometime in the early 90s), because we had never heard of the composer (always a plus), and also because of the cover.

[the CD cover art is ‘La mano ubbidisce all’intelletto‘ [the hand obeys the intellect] (1983) oil on canvas, by Carlo Maria Mariani, an Italian exponent of Anacronismo and Pittura Colta]

The Bach cantata we’d picked first didn’t quite have the zip we were looking for in our usual sacred early Sunday music, so we switched to a Heinichen mass.

I also introduced something fairly new to the usual Sunday egg formula, sorrel.

Otherwise the ingredients, described pretty much willy-nilly, were:

• six eggs and 4 slices of thick bacon from Millport Dairy Farm; 4 Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ and some New York Rooftop basil, both from Whole Foods; Greek olive oil, Tellicherry pepper; sea salt; one Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm; a little dried Itria-Sirissi chili, peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia (mixed with the tomato and scallion); the fresh red sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge; a pinch of dark home-dried Habanada pepper (on the eggs); a garnish of red wasabi micro radish from two Guys from Woodbridge; and the toast was both Bien Cuit ‘Campagne’ traditional sour dough, from Foragers Market, and Sullivan Street Bakery’s ‘Trucio’
• the music was Johann David Heinichen’s Mass No. 9, Hans-Christoph Rademann directing the Dresden Baroque Orchestra and the Dresden Chamber Choir

It’s sometimes called ‘midnight pasta’. I’ve cooked this simple dish many times, and it’s shown up on this blog four times before. I wrote last time, “It never fails to satisfy whatever either of us was looking for in a meal at the moment; usually it was when we didn’t have the time or patience to come up with something more complicated.”

It’s a great dish.

And so simple.

• approximately 8 ounces of Afeltra spaghetto, from Eataly, boiled, but only until still pretty firmly al dente, tossed inside the same pot in which it had cooked with a very savory sauce (created with 4 garlic cloves from Trader Joe’s, roughly chopped, cooked in about a third of a cup of olive oil over low-medium heat until softened and beginning to brown, then 4 salted anchovies, well-rinsed, added to the pan and mashed with a wooden spoon, a tablespoon of Mediterranean organic wild capers in brine (from a Providence, RI distributor), rinsed and drained, half of one dried Itria-Sirissi chili, peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia), along with several tablespoons of chopped parsley from Eataly, and a little of the reserved pasta water, then simmered for another minute or so while the sauce was both emulsified and slightly reduced, the mix distributed in two bowls and sprinkled with a little more parsley
• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Saladini Pilastri Falerio 2015, from Philippe Wines
• the music was Lorenzo Ferrero‘s 1985 comic opera, ‘Mare nostro‘

We ate in a modest Paris bistro last night.

The trip started when I spotted John Dory at the Greenmarket, earlier in the day.

After selecting 2 of the fillets in that picture, I turned around to find that another stall was displaying the last of its farmer’s ‘bouquets’ of beautiful red sorrel, very much alive, their roots still intact. Minutes later, remembering that I had some boiling potatoes at home and also one small Napa cabbage. I had already composed a meal which gradually looked more and more French, but it was only when we had sat down to it that I realized we were inside a French bistro, about to enjoy Filets de St-Pierre à l’oseille.

In between, the kitchen had managed to look more serious than usual, with a number of pans in the fire at the same time.

The cabbage is in the large deep pot; the scallions and fennel seed in the small copper skillet in front of it; the sorrel sauce was being prepared in the deeper copper pan to the top right; the potatoes were boiling in the clear glass antique Pyrex pan; the small early-19th-century enameled cast iron porringer on the electric hot plate was melting butter in which the fillets would soon be dipped, inside the shallow white bowl on the far right; and at this moment that bowl was resting on top of the glazed ceramic baking pan in which they were shortly to be roasted. The fish is waiting out of the camera frame, on the counter to the right of the stove and the sink.

Note: I would never have been able to juggle this kitchen army only a few years ago, but practice makes courage.

This is a picture of the John Dory fillets as they emerged from the oven.

Fortunately this fish is a little firmer than some, because I had already placed the John Dory on the 2 plates before I realized that, to do it properly, it should rest on a pool of sauce. This meant that I now had to arrange the sauce to the right of each fillet, then gingerly lift the fish – turn it 180 degrees (to achieve a relatively aesthetic posture) – and bring it back down on top of its condiment.

The vegetables then followed. They were easy.

• two 6-ounce fillets of John Dory (aka le Poisson de St.Pierre, Pesce San Pietro, Petersfisch, Heringskőnig, Zeus Faber [yeah.], or, funny-shiny-one with-the-sourpuss-face) from Pura Vida Seafood, washed, dried, seasoned with good sea salt and freshly-ground pepper on both sides, dipped in a tablespoon of melted butter (here it’s always ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘), arranged inside a glazed ceramic oven pan just large enough to accommodate them without crowding, roasted in a 425º oven for about 8 minutes, removed and arranged on the top of a pool of sorrel sauce which had been prepared just before
• one decent-size shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm, minced, cooked with a tablespoon or less of butter melted inside a tin-lined copper pan until soft, followed by a handful of red sorrel (whose red veins account for the pink tone of the sauce) from Two Guys from Woodbridge, their stems removed and the leaves scissored into roughly one-inch lengths, stirred and cooked until the sorrel ‘melted’, then one fourth of a cup of a good Sauvignon Blanc (Rumpus 2015) added and cooked until reduced by a fourth, 4 ounces of Ronnybrook Farm crème fraîche introduced and cooked gently for a few minutes, stirring, until it was able to coat a spoon, the seasoning corrected, and the sauce removed from the heat
• four small Carola potatoes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, boiled, drained, dried in the pan, halved, reserved until the fish had been arranged on the plates, when they were scattered with chopped lovage from two Guys from Woodbridge
• the white and lighter green parts of a Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, sliced, heated along with a tablespoon of fennel seed in one tablespoon of butter inside a tin-lined copper skillet until the scallion had softened and the fennel become pungent, then set aside while another tablespoon of butter, or a little more, was melted inside a large enameled cast iron pot and one 8-ounce Napa cabbage, also from Norwich Meadows Farm, roughly chopped, was added and stirred until wilted, after which the reserved scallion-fennel mixture, some sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper were added, and the cabbage stirred some more, finished by tossing in the green tops of the scallions, chopped
• the wine was a California (Carneros) white, La Tapatia Chardonnay Carneros 2015, form Naked Wines
• the music was 2 very different, very rich new works, Andris Dzenītis, ‘E(GO)’, and Lorenzo Ferrero, his string quartet cycle ‘Tempi di Quartetto’

Years ago we used to enjoy this, what I will call ‘perfect meal’, very often, but, maybe because it’s been so long since we were in Italy, or maybe because I’ve become obsessed with cooking local fish, La Gricia seems to have made only one appearance on this blog before tonight.

It’s usually described as a traditional dish of the shepherds in the hills of Lazio. We first enjoyed it in 1996 while sitting at a table in the little street outside Piccola Trattoria da Lucia, in Trastevere, served by the founder’s grandson, Renato Bizzarri (the address of the restaurant is Vicolo del Mattonato 2).

This is Fred’s recipe. Note that the proportions are for only one serving, I assume in tribute to the setting in which the dish was traditionally prepared, that is, solitary, by one shepherd, for one shepherd.

• 500 grams (eight+ ounces) of Rigorosa di Gragnano Penne Rigate from Eataly, boiled until barely al dente, some of the liquid reserved and the pasta drained and tossed into a large enameled cast iron pot in which 4 ounces of guanciale from Buon Italia, cut in 1/4 to 1/2 inch square pieces, had been heated with 2 tablespoons of olive oil for about a minute, a bit of reserved 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 allowed to cool just a bit before 3 or 4 tablespoons of roughly-shredded pecorino, also from Buon Italia, was 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 (Umbria) white, Arnaldo Caprai Grecante Grechetto dei Colli Martani 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault

We finished the meal with two ‘Pixie tangerines’ from Whole Foods.

• the music throughout was Beethoven’s 1804-1814 opera, ‘Fidelio’, a 1981 (before the fall of the wall) performance, Kurt Masur conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with Theo Adam, Siegfried Jerusalem, Carola Nossek, Jeanine Altmeyer, Rüdiger Wohlers, Siegmund Nimsgern, and Peter Meven