While I was putting this dish together I imagined it as a simple pasta with a Mexican touch, or at least a West Coast touch, for the very specific herb, the hot pepper, and the two sweet vegetables.

• one whole dried Cayenne pepper from Oak Grove Plantation, stirred over low to medium heat for a minute or two in a tablespoon or so of olive oil inside a heavy enameled cast iron pot, followed by 2 fairly-thinly-sliced medium-size Walla Walla onions, including most of their stems, from Windfall Farms, which were sautéed until beginning to soften, after which 8 ounces of Afeltra linguine from Eataly, cooked in a large pot of salted water until barely al dente, then drained (reserving 1 cup of the cooking water), was added to the pot and mixed in, the reserved cooking water also added as needed to emulsify the liquid, a generous amount of chopped epazote from Windfall Farms tossed in, served in shallow bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkled with homemade breadcrumbs which had first been browned in a little olive oil with a pinch of sea salt
• the wine was an excellent Italian (Campania) white, Fiano Kràtos “Paestum” Maffini 2016, from Astor Wines & Spirits
• the music was the album, ‘Le Journal Du Printemps’, music of Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer performed by the Freiburger Barockorchester [Fischer (c. 1656 – 27 August 1746) was a German (Bohemia) baroque composer, “responsible for bringing the French influence to German music”, although his work is little known today