This isn’t my regular lunch, but I would like to make it pretty regular, especially because both the ‘bread’ and the green were celebrating spring foraging by including 2 different wild green things.

• one delicious individual ramp and Asiago cheese focaccia from a wonderful bakery institution with wonderful breads reflecting many different cultural traditions, Hot Bread Kitchen
• a handful of wild dandelion from Berried Treasures dressed with some Frankies Sicilian olive oil, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• the music was Counterstream radio/New Music USA, streaming

I was about to write that this quick pasta dish with many local ingredients also happens to be vegan, but then I remembered that the excellent NYC spaccatelli around which it was assembled included an unusual, local, ingredient, Asbury NJ buffalo milk.

The other remarkable thing about this dish is what appears, from the picture, to be a very generous amount of toasted pine nuts; their numbers are actually something of an optical illusion, and they’re only lying on the very top.  I can’t deny however, since the market price for this delicious Italian ingredient varies a great deal, that I’ve always been at least a little sensitive to those fluctuations when I’m deciding whether I’m going to use them in a dish, and how many.

• two sliced spring garlic stems from John D. Madura Farm on Long Island and 2 whole dried peperoncini Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia heated in a tablespoon or so of Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil inside a large, heavy, antique high-sided copper pan over moderate heat, stirring, until the garlic had softened, the zest from a whole organic California lemon from Whole Foods Market mixed in, followed by stirring in half of a one-pound package of New York City pasta, Sfoglini‘s spaccatelli (local organic durum semolina and organic hard red wheat flour, New Jersey Riverine Ranch water buffalo milk, local water), picked up at the water buffalo farmer’s stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, that had just finished cooking until barely al dente, before 1/4 of a cup of reserved pasta cooking water was added to the pan and cooked over moderately low heat, tossing until combined well and the sauce had emulsified, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, then, after the heat was turned off, most of 2 handfuls of tender red baby mustard from Lani’s Farm in New Jersey tossed in and around at the last moment, just before the pasta left the pan and was arranged in shallow bowls, where the remaining mustard was added around the edges, some toasted pine nuts, or pinoli [I’ve always thought they were from northern Italy, from a weather-vulnerable monoculture, which allowed me to understand the wild price changes, and for the purpose of this post, I’m going to assume these were, although I don’t really know, and now it seems unlikely to me] tossed on top, finished with a bit of olive oil drizzled around the outside of the pasta
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, Dory Branco 2016, from Garnet Wines    
• the music was the Anna Thorvaldsdottir album, ‘In the Light of Air’, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)

Fortunately the outside temperature was in the low 50’s all evening, because everything in this meal was cooked inside a pretty hot oven.

The more ecocentric part was that all 3 were inside the stove at the same time, cooking at exactly the same temperature.

The steak was delicious, juicy, and of a good modest portion; the potato cultivar potatoes was new to us, and a real treat; the asparagus was, well.., asparagus, especially as it was keeping company with ramps and thyme.

• two 100% grass-fed 6-ounce tri-tip steaks from Greg and Mike at the Sun Fed Beef/Maple Avenue Farms stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, brought to room temperature, dried, seasoned with freshly-ground black pepper, seared on both sides inside a smaller oval enameled cast iron pan, sprinkled with sea salt, then roasted in a 425-450º oven for 6 or 7 minutes, or, advisedly, until just beyond medium-rare with this cut, removed to 2 plates, where they were allowed to rest for a few minutes after a bit of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon had been squeezed over the top, plus some sliced spring garlic from from Norwich Meadows Farm and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, ending with a drizzle of olive oil

• a few ‘pink pearl potatoes’ (10 ounces) from Berried Treasures Farm, halved lengthwise, tossed with a little olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, fresh pineapple sage (salvia elegans) leaves from Stokes Farm, and a small amount of crushed golden/orange home-dried habanada pepper, arranged cut side down on a medium Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted inside the same 425-450º oven for 20-25 minutes, arranged on the plates accompanied by some beautiful micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• eighteen or so fairly thick asparagus spears from John D. Madura Farm, plus the white sections (the green leaves were removed) of 10 or so young ramps from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, a handful of thyme branches from Stokes Farm, a little more than a tablespoon of olive oil, a little sea salt, and a bit of freshly-ground black pepper, all rolled along the surface of a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, which was placed at the bottom of the hot oven for about 20 to 25 minutes, with, near the end of that time, the reserved green ramp leaves, roughly-sliced, thrown onto the top and, with a wooden spatula, pushed around the asparagus and ramp bulbs a little before they had quite finished cooking, the vegetables removed to the plates and drizzled with a bit of lemon juice
• the wine was a California (Los Carneros) red, Sin Fronteras Los Primos Red Wine California 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Charles Wuorinen: Chamber Music For Violin, Piano And Harpsichord’ 

Yesterday I had come across a particularly fetching photograph of a Strammer Max (if you’re fond of eggs, there are actually many fetching photographs), so today I decided to essay this German breakfast classic for the first time, substituting its ham and eggs approach for our usual Sunday bacon and eggs (which always boasts a number of extras, both rotating and new). Both versions include toast, but the German tradition is much more straightforward (or ‘plain’? I promised myself not to say more bland) than my own embellishment of the classic American formula, meaning it eschews almost all of the varying herbs, spices, and seasonings that I usually add to the basic bacon and eggs thing, to keep it exciting week after week.

I still couldn’t just leave it alone, so today I added some chopped Frühlings-Knoblauch (Eng. spring garlic), and wilder Löwenzahn (Eng. wild dandelion), neither unknown in German lands, but perhaps not normally a part of Strammer Max, in addition to the very German Petersilien (Eng. parsley).

Even though I expect to be manipulating this simple Rezept beyond recognition on future Sundays, when it’s likely to evolve into something neither German nor American, but certainly at least a little ‘brown’, I’m going to remember the original inspiration.

Note: this Sunday mid-day meal is almost always both breakfast and lunch for us, and it’s followed only by dinner.

• four thick slices of Twelve Grain & Seed bread from Bread Alone, fried on both sides in several tablespoons of butter inside a large (13 1/4″) seasoned, cast iron pan and removed to a warm oven, a little more butter added to the pan and 6 Americauna chicken eggs from Millport Dairy Farm cracked into it and fried until their whites had almost not set, while at the same time 6 thin slices of smoked Whole Foods Market ham, that had first been brought to room temperature, were placed on top of the browned bread (2 ham slices on 2 of the bread slices, and one laid across half of each of the 2 other pieces), some torn wild cress arranged on top of the other halves of those pieces, the cooked eggs arranged on top of the ham, 2 eggs on each of 2 of the pieces, one on each of the other 2
• there were small cups of horseradish pickles from Millport Dairy Farm at the sides of the plates, a touch that was definitely more German than American – or even Wagnerian.
• the music was Francesco Feo’s 1734 (ca.) oratorio, ‘San Francesco di Sales’, Fabio Biondi conducting the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester

It was a pink interlude between a meal of white fish and one of red meat (to come on Sunday). I would have prepared a pasta dish on Saturday, except that I’ve managed to accumulate a few green vegetables that really would work better with a fish or meat entrée than with a pasta.

• one fifteen-ounce fillet of previously-frozen Pacific coho salmon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, rinsed, the skin removed by the cook, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, the former flesh side [CORRECTION: this should have read “the former skin side”, and in fact this time I incorrectly pressed the mixture on the flesh side] pressed with a mixture of ground coriander seeds, ground cloves, ground cumin, and grated nutmeg, sautéed in a little olive oil over a medium-high flame inside an heavy antique oval tin-lined copper pan over medium-high heat, the spice-coated side down, for 2 minutes or so, then turned over and cooked for another minute or 2, finished on the plate with a little squeeze of organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and a drizzle of a good olive oil, garnished with micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• sixteen or so very small unpeeled Norland Red potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled with a generous amount of salt inside a large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot until barely cooked through, drained, dried inside the large still-warm vessel in which they had cooked, tossed with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, some sliced spring red onion, also from Norwich Meadows farm, and garnished with those farmers’ bronze fennel
• one bunch of tender early broccoli rabe, or rapini, from Migliorelli Farm, washed and drained several times, trimmed and very roughly chopped, and, with much of the water still clinging to the greens, wilted with olive oil inside a large enameled cast iron pot in which one large spring garlic stem had been heated in a little olive oil until softened, finished with sea salt, freshly-ground pepper, arranged on the plates and drizzled with more olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Alentejo) white, Aiesoporão Reserva White 2105, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Eastern European piano music’, with Alexei Lubimov playing piano concertos by Gubaidulina, Ustvolskaya, Górecki, and Pelécis, Heinrich Schiff conducting the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie