I’m regularly reminded of how delicious this fish is, and last night I also re-learned how easy it is to prepare well.

The vegetables were equally delicious, and just as easy to cook; I simply boiled 2 kinds of potatoes:

And wilted some tender cavolo nero, every leaf I found in the farmer’s wicker basket that afternoon:

• two 6-ounce John Dory Fillets from American Seafood Company, the last of them to be found inside the fisher’s bucket, earlier that afternoon in the Union Square Greenmarket, marinated inside the refrigerator for about 25 minutes in a mix of one clove of Rocambole crushed garlic from Keith’s Farm, more than a teaspoon of chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm, the juice and zest from roughly a quarter of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, more than half a teaspoon of good walnut oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, removed from the refrigerator and allowed to come to room temperature for about 15 minutes or more, placed skin-side down inside a large antique, heavy, tin-lined oval copper skillet that had been heated over medium-high heat with enough olive oil to coat the surface, the heat immediately reduced slightly, flipped after 2 -3 minutes and cooked for just about 2 minutes more, removed and arranged on warm plates, whatever juices remained in the pan poured over the fillets, and sprinkled with a bit of micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• two kinds of potatoes, 3 ‘Peter Wilcox’ cultivars (purple skin, golden flesh) from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and 2 ‘Ruby Cresent’ fingerlings (waxy) from Rick Bishop’s Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, scrubbed, boiled together, unpeeled, in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed there with a bit of Portuguese olive oil from Whole Foods Market, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with  scissored fresh chives from Phillips Farm
• tender small leaves of cavolo nero, lacinato, Tuscan kale, or black kale, their stems left intact because of their size and youth, from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sautéed until wilted inside a large high-sided antique tin-lined copper pot in which 2 halved Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic cloves had first been heated in a tablespoon or so of Portuguese olive oil until beginning to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• slices of an organic multigrain baguette from Bread Alone
• the wine was a Spanish (Valencia) white, Celler del Roure ‘Cullerot’ Blanco 2016, amphora aged, from Astor Wines
• the music was an album of Leopold Koželuch symphonies from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Marek Štilec conducting the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Pardubice  (more here)

It wasn’t a great meal, but it was pretty good, and it included 2 elements never before seen on these pages: Something called ‘duck rillettes sausage’ (the farm describes it as ‘shredded duck confit sausage’) and a balsamic dried cherry thyme compote.

Rather than pan-grilling the sausage, I should probably have fried the links in a heavy pan, at a lower flame. They were uncooked, but they weren’t pork, so I probably left them on the grill pan too long, compromising a full appreciation of the flavors, which included vegetables and spices.

• four duck rillettes sausages (17 ounces) from Hudson Valley Duck Farm, pan-grilled for a few minutes
• served with 2 condiments: a thick compote made by heating together an ounce of balsamic vinegar, and ounce of dried cherries, an ounce of turbinado sugar, and a sprig of thyme from Eataly, reduced until the cherries were plump and the liquid syrupy; and a Maille ‘Old Style’ whole-grain Dijon mustard, which arrived on the plate at the other end of the sausages in the image at the top, only after the photo was taken.
• wild cress from Lani’s Farm, dressed with Farnkies olive oil, a drizzle of Whoile Foods organic lemon, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper

There were also some over-wintered carrots, and it was now early spring. I had purchased them almost 2 weeks earlier, in fact; they had been waiting in the crisper. All of which meant that it was pretty remarkable that they were so tasty last night.

• Kyoto red carrots from Norwich Meadows Farm, well scrubbed and trimmed, dried, cut into bite-size pieces, tossed inside a bowl with a little Portuguese olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, plus one and a half teaspoons of crushed Sicilian fennel seed, placed, not touching, on a large ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan, roasted at 425º for half an hour, or until tender, arranged on the plates and garnished with micro kohlrabi from scissored chives from Phillips Farms [now, after seeing their color after cooking, we can understand why I didn’t want to serve these carrots with the salmon the other night]
• the wine was an Italian (Puglia) red, Cantele Salice Salentino Riserva 2014, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the second act of Mozart’s 1791 Singspiel (a proto-musical), ‘Die Zauberflöte, a 1996 recording by  John Eliot Gardner leading the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists, with Harry Peeters, Cyndia Sieden, Christiane Oelze, Michael Schade, Gerald Finley, Constanze Backes, Detlef Roth, Ewe Peper, Susan Roberts, Carola Guba, Maria Jonas, Andreas Dieterich, Jan Andreas

The entire meal was much more successful than I had expected while I was still putting it together in my head little than an hour earlier.

It all started with the salmon fillet, which I had bought that afternoon, and at a very good price. The mustard greens, picked up at the Greenmarket 3 days earlier, seemed a natural to go with the salmon.

I had several choices for a second vegetable, but I went with the celery root I’d been saving for a week or so, turning it into frites de céleri-rave (oven-roasted), whose sticks are shown below as they looked on the pan just before they went into the oven.

• *one 13-ounce previously-frozen wild Coho salmon fillet from Whole foods Market, cut into two pieces, placed skin side up inside an oval, tin-lined copper au gratin pan in which a little more than 2 tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ (with 12 grams total fat, more than the 11 in almost all other butter available in the U.S.) had been allowed to heat until the foam began to recede, placed in a 425º oven for about 8 minutes, or until barely cooked, flipped a little more than half way through, removed, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with Maldon salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and chopped lovage, garnished with micro scallions, the herb and the micro green both from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• *one 15-ounce celery root (celeriac) from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, peeled, and cut into the size and shape of potato frites, this time only about 1/4″ in cross section, thinner than I have cut them in the past, tossed inside a bowl with olive oil, a half teaspoon of Safinter Pimenton de la Vera smoked picante paprika, sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper, spread onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, and roasted at 425º until brown and cooked through, or about 30-35 minutes, removed to the plates, and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eataly [Note: they were pretty spicy]
• *a little more than 5 ounces of some very sweet (!) red mustard greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined antique copper pot in a little olive oil in which 2 cloves of Keiths’ Farm Rocambole garlic had been allowed to sweat, then seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Lodi) red, Jacqueline Bahue Cabernet Franc Lodi 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1791 Singspiel (a proto-musical), ‘Die Zauberflöte, a 1996 recording by  John Eliot Gardner leading the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists, with Harry Peeters, Cyndia Sieden, Christiane Oelze, Michael Schade, Gerald Finley, Constanze Backes, Detlef Roth, Ewe Peper, Susan Roberts, Carola Guba, Maria Jonas, Andreas Dieterich, Jan Andreas

It was Easter.

• four thick 7-ounce lamb rib chips from Greg and Mike of Sun Fed Beef/Maple Avenue Farms in the Union Square Greenmarket, brought to room temperature, dried thoroughly, cooked on a very hot enameled cast iron grill pan for a total of 12 or 13 minutes, turning them over twice, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper after the first time, finished with a squeeze of juice from an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market, scattered with some chopped thyme from Phillip’s Farm and some thinly-sliced green garlic from John D. Madura Farm, and drizzled with a little olive oil

• about 13 ounces of waxy ruby crescent potatoes from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, halved lengthwise, tossed with a bit of olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, crumbled dried darker gold/orange habanada pepper, and rosemary leaves from Citarella, roasted at 450º for about 25 minutes, arranged on 2 plates and garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• a few handfuls of fava greens from Campo Rosso Farm, washed in several changes of water, tossed into a large antique high-sided tin-lined copper pot over high heat in a tablespoon of hot olive oil, stirred until they had quickly wilted, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, mixed with some chopped peppermint from Phillips Farms, drizzled with a bit of organic lemon juice from Whole Foods Market and some olive oil
• the wine was a French (Rhône) red, Domaine Des Causses Syrah Reserve 2014, from Landmark Wines
• the music was the re-engineered recording of Hans Knappertsbusch’s 1951 Bayreuth ‘Parsifal’, which was the opera and the Wieland Wagner production that reopened the Festspielhaus that summer after the war

Easter eggs.

• for breakfast today, there were naturally-light blue-colored Americauna eggs from Millport Dairy Farm, topped with very-thinly-sliced green sections of green garlic from John D. Madura Farm, a piece of crushed dried darker gold/yellow habanada pepper, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, and garnished with micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge; some awesome smoked bacon from Flying Pigs Farm; 3 Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Eataly, topped with salt and pepper, and garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge; fresh or toasted slices of 2 different breads, a French sourdough levain from Bread Alone in the Union Square Greenmarket and a Bien Cuit ‘Campagne’ traditional sour dough from Foragers Market
• the music was Heinrich Schütz, his ‘Matthäus Passion’ (St. Matthew Passion), a 1973 recording of Martin Flämig directing the Dresdner Kreuzchor, from this 10-CD set 

It was the Saturday before the feast of Easter, the middle of the Easter Triduum. Although we don’t observe the religious parts of any religious holidays, we usually enjoy the celebrations, and especially the feasting.

Last night, more or less unwittingly, we almost honored the Catholic tradition of a restrained ‘Paschal feast’: The main course was vegetarian, but the antipasto definitely was not.

• three ounces of fresh Salumeria Biellese finocchiona salame from Eataly, drizzled with some  Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil, the gift of  a friend
• some wonderful ‘wild arugula’ from Lani’s Farm, dressed with more of the olive oil, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• slices of French sourdough levain from Bread Alone

• one 10-ounce package of Rana portobello-mushroom-and-ricotta-filled ravioli rounds from Eataly, boiled inside a large pot of well-salted water for 2 minutes and drained, slipped into a large vintage tin-lined copper pan in which two sliced Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s farm, a sliced section of green garlic from John D. Madura Farm, one small sliced red shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm, some crushed dried orange/gold habanada, and a handful of pitted Kalamata olives from Whole Foods Market, otherwise left whole, had been briefly sautéed in olive oil, then a bit of reserved pasta water added and the liquids emulsified, the mix placed in shallow bowls, finished with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts, and garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Umbria) red, Falesco Vitiano Rosso 2014, from Landmark Wines
• the music was Carl Heinrich Graun’s ‘Osteroratorium’ (Easter Oratorio) (composed late 1720s-early 1730s), performed by Michael Alexander Willens conducting the Cologne Academy

This meal would be impossible to put on the table on a late March day in Manhattan without the incredible exertions and creativity of our local farmers (the tomatoes are almost local since they come from Maine, near Skowhegan, so they’re at least fairly ‘green’) – and the modest heroics of our fishers too, working on wave- and windswept boats in the icy waters off eastern Long Island.

In fact, all winter long we’ve been enjoying fresh vegetables from the Union Square Greenmarket, and our neighbors in Maine.

• *one 21-ounce lemon sole fillet from Pure Vida Seafood. which is a much larger piece than I usually bring home, but we deserved it last night, cut into 8 sections (for convenience in turning and to arrange 2 equal servings of an oddly-shaped flat fish fillet), cooked inside a heavy enameled rectangular cast iron oven pan over medium-to-high heat for a couple minutes, turned and cooked for another minute, or until done, arranged on warm-ish plates, and some ‘tomato butter’ ladled between the fillets
• *the butter salsa had been assembled a few minutes earlier by melting 3 tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, adding one small finely-diced shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm, finely diced, cooking the onion until softened and fragrant, removing the shallot butter from the heat and allowing it to cool for 2 or 3 minutes, then tossing it with half a dozen or so cut up Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods that had earlier been tossed with almost a teaspoon of torn Gotham Greens Rooftop packaged basil from Whole Foods), the tomatoes stirred gently in the pungent oil, the salsa seasoned with sea salt, a few drops of red wine (Chianti) vinegar stirred into the mix at the end, both fish and tomato butter garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• *5 or 6 ounces of spinach from John D. Madura Farms, washed in several changes of water, drained, very gently wilted (that is, not reduced too far) inside a large, very heavy, antique, high-sided tin-lined copper pot in a little olive oil in which 2 quartered cloves of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm had first been allowed to sweat, the spinach seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, finished on the plates drizzled with a little organic lemon and a bit more of the olive oil
• *slices of an organic multigrain baguette from Bread Alonü
• *the wine was a Spanish (Bierzo) white, Palacio de Canedo Godello 2012, from Garnet Wines
• *the music was the awesome, revolutionary 1956-1959 Bohuslav Martinů opera,’Řecké pašije’ (The Greek Passion),  Libor Pešek conducting the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Radio Chorus, and the Prague Radio Children’s Chorus

For weeks I’d been saving a recipe I’d recently found, ‘Poussin with quince and myrtle’, only because I had become interested in the use of myrtle in Mediterranean food recipes. I had even managed to accumulate a decent stash of it. Poussin may be even more difficult to find than myrtle, even in cosmopolitan New York, so when I spotted some good local candidates at Eataly Flatiron recently, I jumped on them.

Having concentrated so much on the myrtle, I had forgotten that one of the other somewhat scarce ingredients in the formula was “1 quince”, a wonderful fruit, but one which can only be found in this area in the fall.

I had to start over. Apparently I don’t have enough French, or French-oriented cookbooks, because I couldn’t find any recipes for poussin in my bookshelves, even in Julia Child’s 2 fussy volumes. It was back to the internet, and there I found a recipe after my own heart: It was simple, virtually foolproof, required no attention once it was slipped into the oven, it asked for no ingredients other than those that I already had, and those it did specify were among of my favorites.

The recipe was from Nigella Lawson, and it became the basis for what I cooked last night. Oddly, I thought it was actually a little too simple, and, either intentionally or not, too abbreviated: one or more errors in its transfer to that web site may have been the source of my confounding.

In any event, my adjustments at home included seasoning the cavities of the birds and including thyme sprigs and a lemon wedge in each, and cutting the potatoes into slightly smaller sizes. I did rest the poussin on thick pieces of bread, as she wrote she had done in the past, and I roasted both birds and sweet potatoes in the same oven pan. I forgot about Lawson’s suggestion of serving the dish with English mustard (had I included it, I would have added grated fresh horseradish to a Dijon), but I think, in the end, the herb and the lemon was just the right amount of excitement.

The meal was terrific, and the wine a perfect pairing.

• two 20-ounce local poussin (Griggstown Quali Farm, Inc., Princeton, NJ) from Eataly, seasoned inside and out with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, with one bruised Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic clove, a sprig of thyme, and an organic Whole Foods Market lemon wedge placed in the cavity of each, arranged on top of a thick piece of a French sourdough levain from Bread Alone inside a large rectangular enameled cast iron oven pan, roughly one tablespoon of olive oil poured over the 2 birds, which were then surrounded by just under a pound of Japanese sweet potatoes from Lani’s Farm, that had been scrubbed, left unpeeled, cut into pieces about one and a half inches in size, and tossed in a bowl with a little olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of hand-ground cumin and cinnamon, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, the pan placed inside a 425º oven for 50 to 55 minutes or so, removed, the poussin sprinkled with a bit of Maldon salt and drizzled with a little lemon juice, potatoes and bird arranged on 2 plates with a tangle of wild watercress from Lani’s Farm
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont) red, Barbera d’Alba, Oddero 2014, from Astor Wines
• the music was Handel’s ‘Ariodante’,  Alan Curtis conducting Il Complesso Barocco

There are a few things I prepare at home for which I have make almost no apologies when I slip from the locavore thing. One of them is octopus, and if we could find this cephalopod on the east coast I’d be happy to stop raiding Spanish or Moroccan waters for one of my favorite sea creatures.

The picture below is of the bucket of cooked octopus at Eataly on Monday; we enjoyed a section of it in an appetizer in this meal.

• four ounces of cooked octopus from Eataly Flatiron, sliced in small sections, tossed with a little Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil, Maldon salt, freshly-ground black pepper, Safinter La Vera region smoked Spanish paprika, and cut chives from Phillips Farms
• wild arugula from Lani’s Farm, dressed with more of Frankies oil, Maldon salt, and pepper
•  slices of a a demi-baguette from Eataly
• the wine was an Italian (Molise) white, L’Indovino Bianco, Salvatore 2015, from Astor Wines

The ingredients of the main course were pretty much determined by the sauce that remained from  our Sunday meal of braised lamb: A lamb sausage seemed a perfect, and a perfectly-simple choice for a reprise, although it took some looking before I actually found some.

This is Eataly’s house-made sausage lying on our kitchen counter before it was cooked.

• an 11-ounce ring of a merguez-like ‘housemade lamb sausage’ from Eataly (the lamb came from Van Wells Family Farms, Watertown, SD, fried slowly, ring intact, inside a heavy tin-lined copper skillet
• ten or so pinto potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, boiled, unpeeled, boiled in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed there with a bit of Portuguese olive oil Whole Foods Market, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eataly
• a rich, red-onion-based sauce remaining from an earlier meal of Sicilian stew of lamb, saffron, and mint, heated and arranged over the sausage and the some of the potatoes
• wild cress from Lani’s Farm, dressed with Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• the wine was a French (Rhône) red, E. Guigal Côtes-du-Rhône Rouge 2014, from Landmark Wine & Spirits

• the music throughout the meal was John Cage’s ‘Music of Changes’, from the album, ‘Cage: Music of Changes; Scarlatti: Sonatas’

Roasted whole squid: It’s pretty awesome, every time, and the recipe asks for very little oil. It comes from ‘Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe‘, the most dog-eared of the 3 great cookbooks written by the owners of London’s River Cafe that I own. For convenience, I call it ‘the silver book’; the others are ‘the blue book’ and ‘the white book’, the appellations corresponding to the colors of their dust jackets. They’re all terrific.

• one large rectangular enameled cast iron pan heated on top of the stove until quite hot, its cooking surface then brushed with a thin coating of olive oil, and once the oil had also become quite hot, one pound of rinsed and carefully dried squid from P.E. & D.D. Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket, both bodies and tentacles, arranged inside the pans without touching, if possible, and immediately sprinkled with some super-pungent dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia, one small crushed dried pepperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, and a section of a home-dried heatless, darker-orange/gold Habanada pepper (from my purchase of a number of the peppers from Norwich Meadows Farm last fall), some sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, followed by a drizzle of a few tablespoons of Whole Foods Market organic lemon and some olive oil, the pan placed inside a pre-heated 400º oven, roasted for 5 minutes, removed, the squid distributed onto 2 plates and ladled with a bit of their cooking juices that had been transferred into a class sauce boat, garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• slices of a French-style sourdough Levain from Bread Alone Bakery in the Union Square Greenmarket
• eight Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, halved, combined inside a small black La Chamba Colombian baking dish with a a bit of some very-thinly-sliced green leek ends from Phillips Farm, a little olive oil, half of a teaspoon of chopped thyme from Citarella, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, placed almost half an hour ahead of the squid in the same 400º oven for about 20 minutes, removed and arranged on the plates, their own juices drizzled on top
• a small bunch of collard greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed 3 times, drained, some of the water retained and held aside, to be added as the greens cooked, if necessary, the stems removed and the leaves cut roughly, then braised until gently wilted inside a heavy medium-size vintage, high-sided, tin-lined copper pot in which 2 halved Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm had been allowed to sweat over a low flame with some olive oil, finished with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a small drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a Spanish (Bierzo) white, Cobertizo ‘El Blanco’ Bierzo 2014, from Astor Wines
• the music was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 1, in C Minor, (1891 Vienna Version), Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducting the Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal