scallops, lemon, spicy parsley; red napa, spring red onion

Pretty simple.

  • thirteen Hampton Bays sea scallops (15 ounces total) from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried very thoroughly with paper towels then placed in a paper plate to prevent condensation, seasoned with local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood and freshly-ground black pepper, grilled briefly (90 seconds on each side) in a very hot enameled cast iron pan, finished with a squeeze of juice from a Gristedes Supermarket Mexican lemon and a drizzle of Cretan olive oil, Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal), of Hania, from Whole Foods Market, arranged on the plates with a sprinkling of some very special slightly peppery parsley, chopped, torn from a few stems that JoAnna of the Windfall Farms stand had shared with me that day at the Union Square Greenmarket

  • the thinly sliced pink/white and lighter green parts of 2 red spring onions from Norwich Meadows Farm heated, along with a tablespoon of dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo (a wild Sicilian fennel seed harvested in the Iblei Mountains in the southeast), in one tablespoon of olive oil inside a small antique heavy tin-lined copper pot until the onion had softened and the fennel had become quite pungent, then set aside, while another tablespoon of oil, or a little more, was heated inside a much larger copper pot of the same description, and 2 beautiful small heads (11 ounces) of a hybrid Napa cabbage, called ‘Red Dragon‘, from northern Vermont’s Tamarack Hollow Farm, roughly chopped, was gradually added and stirred until all of it was slightly wilted, the pot removed from the heat, the reserved scallion-fennel seed mixture, some sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper added to its contents, and the cabbage stirred some more, finished by tossing on some more chopped spring onion