Last night, just after we had finished eating, and before writing this post, I followed up on a tweet and reply I had published earlier in the evening that had indicated, with no embellishments, what one of the major parts of this meal would be (I even included an image of the sauerkraut while it was cooking). That second tweet read,

not saying it just because there’s been a certain buildup to this meal, and some of us know not every meal coming out of this kitchen is even very good, but tonight’s (sauerkraut, smoked pork chops, Saltzkartoffeln with toasted rye bread crumbs, was sublime

The dinner really was very, very good, although I can’t explain why. In fact, just before I had begun to put it together I had thought about aborting it and coming back to it on another day: I had learned I didn’t have a couple of the ingredients for the particular sauerkraut I had hoped to serve with the Rauchbier I planned to serve with the meal. Instead I shifted gears and turned to another recipe, but keeping the Rauchbier.

I would say that nothing was really new in any of the 3 parts of the entrée, either the ingredients or the techniques used, except for caraway bread crumbs as the topping for the potatoes. I did accidentally reverse the order of the covered/uncovered sequence in the early cooking of the sauerkraut, but I had expected starting off uncovered would have had a negative effect on the texture, if not the flavor; it might actually have been a boon.

In any event, this meal made me very happy, also because I brought it in under our new mutually-agreed dinner deadline, making us both very happy.

• * one 16-ounce glass jar of sauerkraut (simply cabbage, water, sea salt) from Schaller & Weber [also here] drained and very well-rinsed in several changes of cold water, drained again and placed inside a large, heavy, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with 2 medium sweet yellow onions and one red onion (the red one to be a little perverse), both from Norwich Meadows Farm,  one ‘Newtown Pippin’ apple from Samascott Orchards, 8 or 9 whole juniper berries and about the same number of Whole Foods Market proprietary brand peppercorns, a little sea salt, 1 large Sicilian bay leaf from Buon Italia, enough fresh water to almost cover the sauerkraut, with more added later on as needed, all brought to a boil then merely simmered (uncovered at first, this time) over a low flame, stirring occasionally, for less than half an hour, and then covered (again, this time) for 20 or 30 minutes more, after which two 9-ounce smoked pork chops (in Germany usually called Kassler) from Schaller & Weber, that had first been dried and briefly seared on both sides inside a dry cast iron pan, were buried in the sauerkraut and heated for about 15 or 20 minutes, the chops and sauerkraut arranged on 2 plates
• * somewhat over a pound (we could have survived with less, but they were absolutely delicious) of medium-size Nicola potatoes from Tamarack Hollow Farm, scrubbed, boiled whole and unpeeled in heavily-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, a couple tablespoons of rich Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter [with 12 grams of fat per 14 grams, for each tablespoon of butter; American butter almost always has only 11 grams, which makes a surprising difference in both taste and texture], seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, after which the potatoes were arranged on the plates next to the chops and the sauerkraut and sprinkled with homemade breadcrumbs made from the heel of a loaf of Orwasher’s ‘Righteous Corn Rye’ which had first been browned in a little butter with a pinch of salt
• * we shared bottles of 2 different kinds of Bamberg Rauchbiere (more about both my own ancient and Barry’s more recent connection to that very special beer here, and here), Schlenkerla‘s ‘Fastenbier’ and ‘Urbock’, from Schaller & Weber
• * the music was Vicente Martin y Soler and Lorenzo da Ponte’s delightful 1786 opera, ‘Il Burbero Di Buon Cuore’, Christophe Rousset conducting the Madrid Teatro Real Orchestra

Last night’s dinner represented a return to Italy, or at least one interpretation of Italy. While there were no fish stalls in the Greenmarket on Monday, again because of the weekend’s bitter cold, but I did manage to put fish on the table.

Three years ago I wrote this about this terrific dish, and except for the fact that I actually haven’t served it since, for reasons I can’t explain even to myself, I stand by every word:

This simple meal became a standard in our kitchen from the day I first tried it.  It follows a classic and delicious Mark Bittman recipe which can be put together entirely with ingredients normally always on hand, meaning it’s perfect for those times when the cook has not had a chance to get to a market of any kind.  Bittman describes the parsley ‘garnish’ as optional, and so the dish maintains my boast, but I can’t imagine not including what is the most common herb in the kitchen, if at all possible.

• one medium roughly-chopped sweet yellow onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, stirred in a couple tablespoons of olive oil over a medium-high flame inside a large enameled cast iron pot until softened, followed there by a teaspoon of crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, a generous amount of freshly-ground black pepper, 2 tablespoons of salted Sicilian capers, rinsed, and the contents of one 14-ounce can of Simpson Brands domestic (San Marzano-type) plum tomatoes, the tomatoes themselves first roughly chopped, the mixture cooked, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes began to break up, the heat then lowered and the pot kept on the flame for 5 or 10 minutes more, then just before the pasta itself (8 ounces of Setaro spaghetti from Buon Italia), boiled barely al dente was added, 6 ounces of Portuguese Ás do Mar belly meat tuna in olive oil, already slightly flaked, slid into the sauce and mixed in, some reserved pasta water added and stirred in to ensure the pasta was not really dry, arranged in 2 shallow bowls, garnished with chopped parsley from Westside Market
• the wine was an Italian (Calabria) red, Scala, Ciro Rosso Superiore, 2013, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1772 ‘one-act dramatic serenade’, ‘Il sogno di scipione’, Ian Page condicting with the Classical Opera Company

I had only cooked goat ribs once before. It was early August, and I wanted to avoid turning on the oven, so I managed to devise a scheme that would allow be to cook them on top of the stove. They were delicious, and it was a very simple process, so I repeated it last night.

The ribs looked great on the plate, the aroma was wonderful, and they were very tasty, but we were both disappointed that they were quite chewy (the meat definitely did not ‘fall off the bone’). I might have had more success had I kept them on the grill pan even longer than I did, but I don’t know for certain. Even allowing for the fact that goat is nowhere near as fatty as pork, or even veal or beef, I think I could do better next time if I approached the cooking differently.

• one side of goat/cabrito riblets from Tony of Consider Bardwell Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, cut along the bone with a kitchen shears into 4 pieces, dried on paper towels and pan-grilled inside an enameled cast iron ribbed pan for a total of at least 20 minutes, basting all along with 2 long branches of rosemary, tied together and repeatedly dipped into a mixture of oil, red Rioja wine vinegar, crushed dried dark habanada pepper (from fresh ones purchased in the fall of 2016 from Norwich Meadows Farm), sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, replacing a very loose cover of tin foil between each sweep of the herb with its basting mixture, arranged on 2 plates, garnished with micro red amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• ten or 11 ounces of not-large white beets from Norwich Meadows Farm, trimmed, scrubbed, and cut into approximately 1-inch wedges, tossed in a bowl with 2 teaspoons of olive oil, more than 1 tablespoon of a mix of chopped herbs (fresh thyme and winter savory from Stokes Farm, sage from Keith’s Farm), more than half of a teaspoon of freshly-grated zest from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged one flat side down on a cured unglazed medium Pampered Chef oven pan, placed in the  lower third of an oven preheated to 450°F, roasted, turning once or twice, until tender and slightly browned, or 20 to 25 minutes, arranged on the plates and garnished with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the small amount of winter kale that remained from a large bunch from Hoeffner Farms we had enjoyed the night before, washed, drained, wilted inside a medium tin-lined antique copper pot in less than a tablespoon or so of olive oil in which 2 bruised and one halved clove of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and arranged on the plates, a little more olive oil drizzled on top
• the wine was a California (Lodi, I believe) red, F. Stephen Millier Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon California 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Wagner’s magnificent late (1887-1882) Bühnenweihfestspiel, ‘Parsifal’, a beautifully-engineered 1962 recording of a great performance, Hans Knappertsbusch conducting the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, with soloists Jess Thomas, Gustav Neidlinger, Niels Moller, Georg Paskuda, Gerhard Stolze, Dorothea Siebert, Irene Dalis, Martti Talvela, Gerd Nienstedt, Ursula Boese, Anja Silja, Gundula Janowitz, George London, Hans Hotter, and Sona Cervena

(sunlight reflected from the north on its rare stretch across an ancient table)

The Amish generally have a reputation for their traditional ways, and their reluctance to adopt modern conveniences, although this hasn’t always meant always abjuring actual modern technologies, and there are major variations in the practice of  their many communities.  Still, it’s interesting to find the Amish farm most familiar to this New Yorker, and perhaps most New Yorkers, introducing us to relatively innovative food products.

I’m no longer surprised to see John Stoltzfoos selling things like peppery cheeses and spicy sausages (all excellent, by the way), but I was recently surprised to  find him in his family’s Millport Dairy Farm stall at the Union Square Greenmarket, selling blue eggs that had been laid by the trendy Americauna chicken, which was first bred in the US in the 1970s.

I’ve been buying those eggs ever since. The color is only incidental for me: It’s the taste and those plump, deep-yellow yolks that are the attraction for both Barry and I now.

This morning afternoon they dominated a particularly beautiful breakfast table, a rather traditional American board whose ingredients were, except for the salt and pepper, and, probably, the butter, entirely of local origin.

• the makings of this meal included thick bacon from Millport Dairy Farm, Cultured Pastured Butter from Organic Valley, Japanese scallion greens from Norwich Meadows Farm (remarkable survivors, with some attention, in the crisper!), Ameraucana chicken eggs from Millport Dairy Farm, black pepper, sea salt, Maldon sea salt for finishing, crushed dried golden/orange habanada bought fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm, Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ (from Maine, near Skowhegan, and they are so pretty local, pretty green) via Whole Foods Market, winter savory (now half-dried from branches that were originally fresh) from Stokes Farm, fresh lovage from two Guys from Woodbridge, toasts of a day-old whole wheat baguette from Runner & Stone Bakery, and fresh slices of a Sullivan Street Stirato
• the music was an extraordinary performance of Beethoven’s 1823 ‘Missa Solemnis’ John Eliot Gardiner conducting l’Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, the Monteverdi Choir, and the solists Alastair Miles, Charlotte Margiono, Catherine Robbin, and William Kendall

I’m nursing myself back to health by continuing to cook every day, and last night I started to get back to serious start-from-scratch cooking with a really simple meal. Actually, the desire for simplicity was driven at least as much by a consideration of the short time I had for preparation, since we wouldn’t return from the theater (the Civilians’ ‘The Undertaking’) until after 9:30.

We were sitting down to this meal less than an hour later, even though I had taken my time putting it together, and we enjoyed a drink first, while talking about Steve Cossen‘s terrific play.

• one 11-ounce yellowfin tuna steak off of Scott Rucky’s fishing vessel, ‘Dakota’, from American Seafood Company, cut into 2 pieces, rubbed, tops and bottoms, with a mixture of a dry Sicilian fennel seed from Buon Italia that had been crushed in a mortar and pestle along with a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, then sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, pan-grilled above a brisk flame (for barely a minute on each side), finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and some olive oil, served with micro kohlrabi from Two Guys from Woodbridge

There were green vegetables at the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday – and this was near the end of January! I had already picked up both Savoy and red cabbage earlier in the week, but now I took home some Brussels sprouts, on the stalk, and a large bunch of kale.  I could probably make it through an entire week with these stocks, and then I could start dreaming of the earliest wild spring green stuff.

Because it would be slightly less time-consuming than roasting the sprouts, and probably a better match with the tuna, I decided it was to be the kale that would go into this meal.

• winter kale from Hoeffner Farms, washed, drained, wilted inside a large enameled cast iron pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil in which 2 bruised and halved cloves of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and arranged on the plates and a little more olive oil drizzled on top
• pieces of a whole wheat baguette from Runner & Stone Bakery
• the wine was a California (North Coast, Lodi and Clarksburg) rosé, Evangelos Bagias California Rose 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Handel’s gorgeous 1709 (Venice) opera, ‘Agrippina’, John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists, with Donna Brown, Anne Sofie von Otter, Julian Clarkson, Michael Chance, Derek Lee Ragin, Della Jones, Alastair Miles, George Mosley, and Jonathan Peter Kenny

On Friday I was down with a bad cold, or something like that, so I wasn’t up to a trip to the Greenmarket, and I also didn’t trust my ability to put together a meal from scratch, so I reached into the freezer where I can usually find a good filled pasta that would do very well in such a pinch, then looked around for some sympathetic additions I might assemble with it.

It was a pretty ordinary meal, and similar to many I’ve already included on this blog; I wouldn’t normally have bothered to enter it here, except that I saw it looks pretty interesting in the picture.

• between one and two tablespoons of olive oil heated slowly inside a large high-sided tin-lined heavy copper pan with a crushed piece of orange/gold habanada pepper, joined by 8 or so pitted Gaeta olives olives from Buon Italia and a handful of pine nuts, also from Buon Italia, slowly heated and browned earlier inside a small well-seasoned cast iron pan, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper then added just before a 10-ounce package of frozen Rana portobello-mushroom-and-ricotta-filled ravioli rounds from Eataly that had just been boiled inside a large pot of well-salted water for 2 minutes and drained was slipped into the copper pan and mixed well with the sauce, everything now stirred together over a low flame, along with some of the reserved pasta water (in order to emulsify the liquid), the mix arranged inside 2 shallow bowls, some olive oil drizzled on top and around the edges, finished with freshly-grated cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano Hombre from Whole Foods Market) and a scattering of micro kohlrabi from Two Guys from Woodbridge

There was a cheese course.

• a maturing Ardith Mae Chevre
• a couple pinches of crushed dried wild Italian myrtle [Mirto/Myrtus], berries and leaves, from Buon Italia (in Italy, sometimes used as an alternative to juniper berries, in pork dishes especially – including wild boar, or, in Sardinia and Corsica, in making a liqueur)
• a bit of micro red amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• thin toasts of a She Wolf Bakery polenta boule

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Tuscany) red, Lanciola Chianti Colli Fiorentini 2013, from Philippe Liquors
• the music was from the album, ‘Haydn: Complete Symphonies‘, including No. 104 (1762), and several that are un-numbered, all performed by Adám Fischer and the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra

We’ve been enjoying sugo all’amatriciana for decades, but I’m only now beginning to understand how many subtle variations there are to this classic Italian, or Lazio (Roman?) dish, in spite of the fact that its components can almost be counted with the fingers of one hand.

I went with Kyle Phillip’s recipe this time. He writes, “Roman versions tend to use bucatini..”, and that’s what I used, 10 ounces of Setaro Bucatini from Buon Italia, mostly because, of the pastas I had, it was the closest to spaghetti, which is probably the more usual choice. I used a ‘pancetta pepato‘, also from Buon Italia, substituting for the customary guanciale (cured pork cheek); a Sini Fulvi pecorino cheese from Romano, and not Amatrice, from Chelsea Whole Foods Market; true Italian San Marzano tomatoes, like the cheese, La Fede D.O.P. dell’Agro Sarnese, also from Chelsea Whole Foods Market*; whole black pepper, ground fresh; sea salt from the French Mediterranean coast,; and 2 small dried chili peppers, peperoncino Calabresi secchi, from Calabria via Buon Italia. I also used local garlic, Sicilian Rocambole, from Keith’s Farm, and a little local sweet yellow onion, from Norwich Meadows Farm, both of which which would apparently be condemned in Amatrice itself, and I didn’t use any white wine this time, an omission which it seems would also offend some purists.

*Ah, those tomatoes.

I’m going to try to remember to go with the classic formula next time (wine, but no garlic, and no onion), and I’ll compare the two, if I can remember well enough what this one tasted like.

It’s interesting that three of Rome’s classic pasta dishes, Gricia, Amatriciana, and Carbonara, are so closely related, despite being very distinctive in taste. I’ve prepared two of them recently; I expect to move to a Carbonara, the most modern of the 3, in the near future, to complete the trilogy.

• the wine was an Italian (Campania) red, Mastro Aglianico Campania IGT 2106, from Philippe Liquors
• the music was Monteverdi’s 1607 opera, ‘L’Orfeo’, John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir, and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, with the soloists Lynne Dawson, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Anne Sofie von Otter, and John Tomlinson

It was definitely winter (the parsnips we enjoyed were purchased from a stand in the greenmarket during a snowstorm), so last night’s meal wasn’t going to look like something from last July.

(the Berkshire Berries table on the afternoon when I bought the parsnips)

But many of the same fish we enjoy in the summer are still around, or around again, even when, because of the extreme cold, our local fishers sometimes can’t get out of the harbor to pull them in. Yesterday I did what I could to bring summer and winter together a bit, with the help of a bridge between the seasons assembled from fresh mushrooms and micro greens.

• two 8-ounce fluke fillet from American Seafood Company, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed skin-side down for 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, thick oval tin-lined copper pan, then turned and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed to plates resting on top of the 1934 Magic Chef oven when done (also covered at least a little to keep warm until the sauce was completed), a tablespoon or 2 of butter added to the pan, and 4 ounces or so of oyster mushrooms from Bulich Mushroom Farm, cut into medium-size pieces, added and sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with salt and pepper, stirred with a couple tablespoons of a mix of chopped parsley from Westside Market on 7th Avenue and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and a tablespoon or more of the juice of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market, arranged on the plates along the length of the warm fillets and garnished on the side with micro red amaranth, also from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• parsnips from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed thoroughly, sliced, mostly into 1/4-to-1/2″ discs, tossed with little more than a tablespoon of olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a small piece of crushed dried gold/orange habanada pepper, a quarter teaspoon or so of Spanish paprika picante,roasted inside a 425º oven for about 25 minutes, arranged on the plates on the other side of the line of micro amaranth
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Scott Peterson S.P. Drummer Napa Chardonnay 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1898 opera, ‘The Tsar’s Bride’, with Gergiev and the Kirov Opera, with Liubov Sokolov, Ludmila Kassianenko, Victor Vikhrov, Olga Markova-Mikhailenko, Olga Borodina, Sergei Alexashkin, Irina Loskutova, Nikolai Gassiev, Marina Shaguch, Genadij Bezzubenkov, Evgeny Akimov, Yuri Shkliar, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky

It’s possible my memory is blurred, but until I can be persuaded otherwise, I’m going to say this was the best steak I’d ever had.

The cut itself (called ‘culotte’ here, ‘coulotte’ in France, ‘picanha’ in Brazil) has become my favorite, certainly for its flavor but also for the kind of chewiness I enjoy in good beef; ‘melt in your mouth’ is not what I look for.

Adding to its attractions is the fact it seems to come with a consistency in size, and, because I’ve been instructed in a routine which brings it to our preferred degree of doneness (more medium than medium-rare, with this particularly lean cut), there’s little anxiety about the cooking process, since it seems to come our perfectly each time, letting me pay more attention preparing the side dishes, even shortly before serving.

• * one 20-ounce culotte steak from Gabe, of Sun Fed Beef (Maple Avenue Farms) in the Union Square Greenmarket, cut crosswise into 2 pieces, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with good sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared briefly on the top, the fat side (almost half of the fat will be rendered in the cooking, the rest will make it taste wonderful), then cooked for about 4 minutes on each side, before the bottom side was seared briefly, removed from the pan, and placed on warm plates, drizzled with juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon and some olive oil, sprinkled with chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm and allowed to rest for about 4 minutes, garnished with Micro red amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• * roughly 10 ounces of celery root from Norwich Meadows Farm, combined with 2 small ‘Peter Wilcox’ white-fleshed purple potatoes from Windfall Farms to make up about 3 quarters of a pound in total, since I had used a bit of the celeriac in an earlier meal, scrubbed, peeled, and cut into the size and shape of potato frites, tossed in a bowl with olive oil, a half teaspoon of Spanish paprika picante, a small crushed section of an orange/gold habanada pepper, sea salt, and freshly-ground pepper, spread out onto a medium-size Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted at 400º until brown, crispy on the edges, and cooked through
• one very small head of Savoy cabbage from Tamarack Hollow Farm, washed, quartered, cored, sliced into one-half-inch ribbons, sautéed in a scant tablespoon of olive oil inside a medium heavy, tin-lined copper pot until wilted but still crunchy, stirring occasionally,  seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, a little more than a teaspoon of toasted cumin seed, added to the cabbage and mixed in, finished with half a teaspoon of Columela Rioja 30 Year Reserva sherry vinegar, stirred and cooked another couple minutes
• the wine was a Spanish (Duero) red, Bodegas Gormaz Joven, Ribera del Duero 2013, from Philippe Liquors
• the music was Bohislav Martinü’s Symphony No. 4, Cornelius Meister conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Crab cakes from the Union Square Greenmarket: They’re an invitation to improvise, incredibly simple to ‘cook’, and always delicious.

The fishers were unable to bring anything to the market on Monday, because the intense cold had meant they wouldn’t be able to go out on the ocean, so I reached into the freezer for my small reserve stock of crab cakes.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the evening, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 8 or so chopped Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of a powdered proprietary seasoning blend, L’eKama, a small bit of dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm, and a number of really tiny chopped scallions from Willow Wisp Farm, garnished with a sprinkling of micro amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge, the salsa itself arranged on the plates partially on top of some leaves torn from a live hydroponic plant from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• small ‘Peter Wilcox’ purple-skinned white flesh potatoes, boiled inside a large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot, along with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried inside the still warm pot, tossed with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and one chopped Japanese scallion (a bit like a leek) from Norwich Meadows Farm, sprinkled with a little sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and chopped lovage, again from Two Guys from Woodbridge, arranged on the plates and garnished with homemade breadcrumbs which had first been browned in a little olive oil with a pinch of sea salt

There was a cheese course, and this time it included both fruit and toasts, plus one extra tidbit.

• Consider Bardwell ‘Rupert’ goat cheese and a soft goat, a chevre, from Ardith Mae that our neglect since purchasing it farther back than I can recall, had inadvertently – and pretty surprisingly – allowed to mature beautifully
• one Seckel pear from Caradonna Farms in the Union Square Greenmarket
• toasts from a She Wolf Bakery polenta boule
• beet chips’ (thin slices of oven-dried beet) from Lani’s Farm

• the wine throughout the meal was a California (Clarksburg) white, Richard Bruno Clarksburg Chenin Blanc 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was an album of Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony in Wagner’s overture to ‘Tannhäuser’, and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D, opus 43