Pasta for grown-ups. Also known as ‘midnight pasta’.

Pasta, lots of garlic, lots of anchovy, lots of capers, lots of olive oil: I’ve done this dish many times, sometimes offering a little variation. It’s a glorious treat, and it’s comfort food. Last night it was assembled strictly along the lines of the original David Tanis [version of a classic] recipe, except for one thing: Probably distracted by the excitement of my birthday lunch – and an edible – earlier in the day, I misread my own instructions, and proceeded to mix most of the parsley into the sauce before adding the pasta.

I also didn’t crush the peperoncini. I kept them whole, because this time I wanted to try for a different aesthetic (I love the casual look of a ruby-colored pepper on top of its ‘quarry’), and I was willing to accept some sacrifice in spiciness.

It wasn’t a disaster, but I want to say how much more satisfactory this so-much-more-than-just-satisfactory meal is if you toss the parsley in at the right moment (when there’s all that pungency, green and fresh makes for a good foil).

• the ingredients this time were 8 ounces of Afeltra 100% Italian grain pasta artigianale spaghetto from Eataly Flatiron, five rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, Whole Foods Market’s good house Portugese olive oil, 4 rinsed salted anchovies, more than a tablespoon of rinsed salted capers, 2 whole peperoncini Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia, and several tablespoons of chopped parsley from Paffenroth Farm
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, Dory Branco 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Il gioco Barocco del seicento italiano’, seventeenth-century Italian music performed by Ottavio Dantone, harpsichord and conductor, and the Accademia Bizantina

With a little extra help from the Greenmarket.

The first course required little more talent than an ability to open a container.

• eight ounces of a squid and conch salad, with olive oil, parsley, red pepper, lemon juice from P.E. & D.D. Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket, made by Delores Karlin, the wife of Phil Karlin, the fisherman, arranged on a thin bed of wild cress from Lani’s Farm
• slices of a levain (organic wheat, whole wheat, and whole spelt flours) from Bread Alone
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, Dory Branco 2016, from Garnet Wines

The second course was almost as easy, for several different reasons: The potatoes almost cooked themselves, as did the steak, whose sauce was simply resurrected from the freezer, and preparing the tomatoes, which didn’t require cooking, was simply a matter of cutting them up, mixing them with a few things I had on hand, and then letting them sit for a spell.

• two sirloin cap steaks (aka ‘culotte’ steak, ‘coulotte’ in France, or ‘picanha’ in Brazil) from Sun Fed Beef in the 23rd Street Market at Saturday’s Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market, one block away from us, weighing approximately 12 ounces together, each divided into 2 pieces because they were very different in weight, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered side inside a dry oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, the 2 long sides cooked for 3 or 4 minutes each, then removed from the pan at the moment they had become perfectly medium-rare and arranged on 2 warm plates, topped with a pat of a little toasted yellow mustard and Sicilian fennel seed butter (a leftover, frozen, that had originally been made for a rack of lamb meal 4 months earlier, the steaks allowed to rest for about 4 minutes before being served

• a few small red thumb fingerlings from Norwich Meadows Farm, halved lengthwise, tossed with a little oil, 4 or 5 unpeeled (to keep from burning) rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, a small amount of crushed dried habanada pepper, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, roasted inside a medium Pampered Chef ceramic oven pan, cut side down, in a 400º oven for less about 20 minutes

• three organic tomatoes, each of a different color, from Toigo Orchards, cut into relatively thin wedges, mixed gently inside a medium bowl with 2 thinly sliced fresh grenada verde peppers and one fresh habanada, pepper, a squeeze of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market Chelsea, and a little olive oil, allowed to rest until the steak and potatoes were ready to be served, at which time they were joined by a small mix of several chopped fresh herbs and a quite small drizzle of balsamic vinegar
• the wine was a Spanish (Rioja) red, CVNE (Cune), Rioja Crianza “Vina Real”, 2014, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Walter Braunfels, ‘Die Vogel’, in a performance with Lothar Zagrosek conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Berlin Radio Chorus heard on a CD recording we had purchased soon after it was released in 1997

Winter fish.

Although I’m the one who cooked this meal, I’m going to try to leave myself out of it as much as I can, because, while I’ve now prepared it 3 times, it’s not my own recipe (it’s Mark Bittman’s, and I simply clipped it from the Times 10 years ago).

There, now I feel that I can say this dinner was close to sublime.

The Brussels sprouts are of course very easy to prepare, but both the squash and the cod would also be very simple for anyone to reproduce, as they too involve very few ingredients, and require almost no skills other than the ability to judge when the fish has been cooked through.

• one black futsu squash from Norwich Meadows Farm, 5 or 6-inches in diameter, the outside crevices scrubbed with a brush, cut into 1/4″ slices, or segments that were arranged inside a large Pampered Chef ceramic oven pan on a couple tablespoons of melted butter, then almost as much more butter brushed over the top, baked at 400º without turning for about 30 minutes, or until tender, removed from the oven, placed on 2 serving plates and kept warm on top of the oven until finishing cooking the cod, for which the squash would serve as a base
• one 18-ounce cod fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company, cut into 2 pieces, dredged lightly in a local Union Square Greenmarket-purchased whole wheat flour from The Blew family of Oak Grove Plantation in Pittstown, N.J., sprinkled with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, quickly sautéed in a tablespoon and a half of butter inside a large heavy copper skillet over a pretty high flame, turning only once, until nicely browned on both sides and cooked through (the recipe suggests checking by inserting a thin-bladed knife, which should meet little or no resistance when the fish is done) removed and placed on the serving plates on top of the squash while another tablespoon and a half of butter was added to the pan, plus, once it had sizzled and browned, a little more than a tablespoon of decent sherry vinegar (I used a chianti vinegar last night), the sauce cooked for only 10 or 20 seconds more before it was poured over both the fish and the squash, both garnished with chopped parsley from from Paffenroth Farm
• ten or eleven ounces of Brussels sprouts from Lani’s Farm, washed and trimmed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, plus 2 whole hot dried Sicilian peperoncini from Buon Italia (one can be seen on the top of the sprouts in the picture at the top), roasted inside a medium size unglazed seasoned Pampered Chef pan until the sprouts were partly brown and crisp on the outside
• the wine was a Portuguese (Lisbon) white, Dory Branco 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was Vivaldi’s 1683 opera, ‘Il Giustino’, in a 2018 recording of Ottavio Dantone directing Accademia Bizantina and an amazing cast

It would be a simple pasta, so it seemed that an even simpler antipasto, but with the assertive nose and flavor of a good salume, might be appropriate.

• three ounces of Principe Prosciutto di San Daniele from Whole Foods Market, drizzled with a little Frankies 47 olive oil, also from Whole Foods
• stems of a wild cress plant from Lani’s Farm, drizzled with the same oil, plus a bit of organic Whole Foods Market lemon juice, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• slices of a flax seed armadillo (whole wheat and rye flour, flax seeds) from Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse

The main, pasta course was filled out with ‘ends’, things remaining in one of our kitchen larders or inside the refrigerator, inspired by an excellent fresh pasta I had picked up earlier in the day.

• two rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm heated in a little olive oil inside a large antique heavy copper pot until beginning to soften, followed by the remains of a small, very sweet ‘conehead’ cabbage from Alewife Farm (most of it having been included in this meal a few days earlier), sautéed until it was partly wilted, 2 thinly sliced grenada verde peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm stirred in, and 11 ounces of Eataly’s fresh creste di gallo pasta, boiled just until it was not fully cooked, tossed in, along with some of the pasta water, the mix stirred over high heat until the liquid had emulsified, arranged in 2 shallow bowls, scattered with small nasturtium leaves from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and drizzled around the edge with more olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Alentejano) white, Esporao Alandra Branco, from Garnet Wines
• the music was Walter Braunfels’ 1935 mystery opera (ein Mysterium) ‘Verkundigung’ [The Annunciation], Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Cologne Symphony Orchestra and the Cologne Symphony Chorus

I was going to write that these were the last of the fresh habanada peppers for the season, that when I saw that they had started to go pretty fast inside the refrigerator, I had decided to splurge at our breakfast on Sunday afternoon. And then today, on my very next trip back to the Union Square Greenmarket, I found a few more in the same stand where these had come from almost a full month before.

The tomatoes too may not have been the last of the summer’s treasures: Their farmers told me they had in fact been growing inside a covered space even during the warmer months, but there can’t be many more out there except for those raised hydroponically..

The eggs will be with us all winter, as will the bacon and the bread, but for the next few months I’ll have to work a little harder to keep these plates colorful.

• the meal, which was, as usual, more of a late lunch than a breakfast, at least by the clock, included very fresh eggs from pastured chickens and bacon from pastured pigs, both from Millport Dairy Farm; one organic red tomato from Toigo Orchards; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods Market; a small handful of fresh habanada peppers from Norwich Meadows Farm, minced; chopped fresh sorrel from Lani’s Farm on the eggs; green leek sections from Hawthorne Valley Farm, chopped, and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge on the tomatoes; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; and both fresh and lightly toasted slices of 2 different local breads (a
  levain (organic wheat, whole wheat, and whole spelt flours) from Bread Alone and a flax seed armadillo from Bobolink Dairy and Bakery
• the music was Claudio Monteverdi’s ‘Vespro Della Beata Vergine’. William Christie conducting the Choir and Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants and Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse