“la cucina de na vorta”

 

We’ve been enjoying this simple pasta from Lazio for decades, and I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a delicious, genuinely honest dish, dalla cucina dei poveri, with a surprising sophistication but a simplicity that allows it to be fully assembled and on the table in only about 15 minutes.

There are only 6 ingredients (4 if you discount salt and pepper), and the only one most people may not have lying around at home might be pancetta or, better, guanciale, to which I’d add for those who aren’t vegetarian, ‘and why isn’t it there’?  It’s so easy to keep a chunk of guanciale in the freezer, and if it’s hard to find, pancetta is almost as good, but it must be in chunk form. On Sunday I had some ‘pancetta pepato‘ for the first time ever; I don’t know where it fits on the beautiful scale that stretches between regular pancetta and guanciale, but it was pretty awesome,

My relationship with this dish started in 1989, with a newspaper article by Fred Plotkin published in the New York Times, and Barry and I have shared it many times since, both at home in New York, and in Rome, dining outside the piccola trattoria, ‘da Lucia‘, the Trastevere restaurant featured in Fred’s article, where Lucia Antonangeli began serving “la cucina de na vorta” (the cooking of once upon a time) at her family’s restaurant in 1938.

It’s one of the very few recipes I use to which I never add or subtract a thing; it’s perfect, and it’s a classic in the classic sense.  The only variation that will ever be found in our home is the type of pasta used: Will it be long or short, and which long, which short? From what I have learned the choice seems to be debatable anyway.

• last night I cooked 10 ounces of Setaro spaghetti from Buon Italia in a large stainless steel pot of water, to which almost 2 tablespoons of sea salt had first been added, until the pasta was barely al dente, reserving some of the liquid, drained it and and tossed it into a large enameled cast iron pot in which (while the spaghetti was boiling) 5 ounces of ‘pancetta pepato’ from Buon Italia, cut in 1/2 to 1 inch square pieces, had been heated and stirred with 2 tablespoons of Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil for only about a minute, then, once guanciale and pasta had been mixed together, a bit of pasta water added to the pot and  everything stirred for a minute to emulsify the sauce; several tablespoons [yes!] of very good freshly-ground Whole Foods house black pepper added and stirred into the mix, which was then removed from the heat and about 3 or 4 tablespoons of roughly-shredded pecorino Romano Sini Fulvi, also from Buon Italia, tossed into the pot and stirred, the pasta left standing for 30 seconds or so before it was served in shallow bowls, with more cheese and black pepper on the side
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, F. Stephen Millier Angels Reserve White Blend Lodi 2016 (“..insane amounts of peach and ripe apricot flavors inside thanks [to] Stephen’s Pinot Grigio, Moscato, Chard, Viognier and Symphony grapes..”), from Naked Wines
• the music was Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 2 ‘Lobgesang’, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting the London Symphony Orchestra

(it really does look like eggs in purgatory)

 

I got so excited about this egg dish early this afternoon, that I forgot to photograph it once it had been arranged in shallow bowls. Fortunately  I had sneaked a shot of my ‘eggs in purgatory’ while they were still inside the heavy antique French copper pot.

As we sat down to ours, we were thinking of the increasingly hallowed Berlin tradition of Sunday brunch, even if at that moment most Berliners were thinking about their supper.

The recipe is from Italy (‘eggs in purgatory’ in English), via Melissa Clark, and I almost ran through it without any alterations. I did add some dried habanada pepper, a bit of adobo I had in the refrigerator, and also chopped winter savory instead of basil or parsley, as a garnish.

• I’ve just linked above to my source recipe, so I don’t have to repeat it here, but I’ll list the sources for the ingredients I used today: Whole Foods Market’s excellent (and excellent value) house brand olive oil from Portugal, garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, salted Sicilian anchovies from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market, dried peperoncino from Calabria, Mutti tomatoes, fresh rosemary sprigs from Stokes Farm, Parmigiano Reggiano Hombre from Whole Foods Market, rich Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods again, blue-green Ameraucana chicken eggs from Millport Dairy Farm, winer savory from Stokes Farm, and, for the garlic toast, thick slices of a polenta boule from She Wold Bakery
• the music was the album, ‘Santiago a cappella‘, with music by Lobo, Guerrero, Victoria, John IV of Portugal, Cardoso, Rogier, and from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir

The mutton was delicious, but cook should have used a recipe more suited to its slightly idiosyncratic properties. The ribs were finished exactly as as I hoped they would be, that is, medium-rare, but they were very chewy. I don’t believe that had to follow from using either this of meat variety or this cut: I think a more enclosed or moist cooking process would have worked better than what I have to say was basically a simple dry roasting.

I had only cooked ribs, of any kind, once before, and that was more than 6 years ago. Then they had been goat, almost the same size as these, and they were both delicious and tender. I cooked them on top of the stove, on a grill pan, but I had covered the ribs with aluminum foil and regularly basted them, at which time the foil had to be briefly pulled aside.

Last night I seared the ribs and them placed them, uncovered, in an oven for about 10-12 minutes, but I wouldn’t recommend using this process, and I wouldn’t repeat it myself, at least not without some amendment. I’m including it here mostly as a kitchen document, and as a record of the market sources I used.

(note: there were 4 double chops; only one, an outside piece, is seen in the top image)

• one 22-ounce, 9-rib section of spare rib of young mutton from Lowland Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared on both sides in a little olive oil inside a large, heavy, tin-lined oval copper skillet for about 4 minutes, the fatty side then brushed with dijon mustard before the fatty side was covered and patted down with a mixture of almost a cup of crumbs from a day-old polenta boule from She Wolf Bakery, a generous amount of finely-chopped fresh thyme and winter savory leaves from Stokes Farm, a little peppermint from Phillips Farm, parsley from S. & S.O. Produce, salt, and pepper, placed, the fatty and breaded side up, inside a rectangular glazed ceramic baking pan just large enough to hold the rack, removed when a thermometer read 120º and allowed to sit for almost 10 minutes, covered in foil, during which time the temperature had gone up to over 125º, indicating medium-rare, cut into 4 double chops, only one at a time arranged on each of 2 plates

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• ‘dragon carrots’ (red, or deep purple outside, more orange inside, looking a bit like sliced pickled eggs, once cut open) from Tamarack Hollow Farm, scrubbed, dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a teaspoon of ground Italian fennel seed, a bit of a crushed section of orange/gold dried habanada pepper, arranged, not touching, on a medium ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan, roasted at 400º for half an hour, or until tender, arranged on the plates and garnished with micro kohlrabi from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• cavolo nero, aka black kale, lacinato, or Tuscan kale, from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sautéed until wilted inside a large enameled cast iron pot with olive oil in which 2 halved garlic cloves from Healthway Farms & CSA had first been heated until beginning to color, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little olive oil
• the wine was an excellent California (Lodi) red, Karen Birmingham Reserve Zinfandel Lodi 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was Lully’s 1686 tragédie en musique, ‘Acis Et Galatée’, Marc Minkowski conducting Les Musiciens du Louvre

I had picked up the duck sausage at Hudson River Duck Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesday, along with what has become a regular choice, one fresh duck breast. Both were part of what I had thought of as a catalog of the makings of good sturdy meals for the duration of our current cold snap. We had enjoyed another the breast fairly recently, so on Thursday I decided it was the sausage that I’d prepare for dinner.

I also had a supply of roots, and other vegetable fare on the heavy side. The season (January), and this year’s unusually severe arctic weather in particular, meant that local green vegetables were going to be difficult to include in these meals, although I do have one or 2 possibilities. T hen I remembered the jar of couscous that had been sitting on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard, and the significant participation by green vegetables suddenly seemed less critical: A garnish of fresh parsley might actually be enough this time.

Having decided that the sausage and the couscous would make a great pair, I had to figure out how I was going to cook these tiny pasta beads, essentially what couscous is. I looked into my own small file and spent some time on line, but I hadn’t quite resolved anything before the deadline that I had assigned myself to begin cooking had arrived.

I ended up winging it, and spending more time stirring the couscous than I had expected, while regularly adding more water.  But it was delicious in the end. I can’t give a fully useful account of my process this time as I would like, but I promise something better when I next undertake cooking this wonderful side dish.

• three quarters of a cup of hand-rolled, sun-dried M’hamsa Couscous, with a little sun-dried peppers, from Tunisia (purchased at Whole Foods), first sautéed, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes, or until the couscous started to brown, inside a large, heavy tin-lined copper pot in a little olive oil, with 2 chopped Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, a part of one small dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italian, crushed; the same amount of a crushed dark dried habanada; a teaspoon of ground cumin, and sea salt, more than a dozen sultana raisins added near the end, followed by about 12 ounces of some superb canned tiny Muti plum tomatoes with their juices, and some water, brought to a simmer and stirred, adding more water as needed, until the couscous was tender, but, l’ll say it, still al dente, divided into 2 shallow pasta bowl, and 4 duck sausages (duck meat, duck fat, duck gizzards, dried bing cherries, sea salt, sage, black pepper, five spice powder of cinnamon, fennel, cloves, star anise, white pepper, stuffed in pork casings) from Hudson River Duck Farm, which had been cooked slowly, sautéed over a low flame inside a seasoned cast iron pan, while the couscous was cooking, garnished with chopped parsley from Chelsea’s  Westside Market
• the wine was a California (Lodi) red, Karen Birmingham Malbec Lodi 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was two 1730s Pergolesi operas, ‘Livietta E Tracollo’ and ‘ La serva padrona’,  Sigiswald Kuijken conducting La Petite Bande

The first course was only a matter of assembly some good ingredients.

• a little over 3 ounces of bresoala Bielese salumeria from Eataly, arranged with a spray of a few live hydroponic dandelion greens from Two Guys from Ridgefield and some ‘baby Romano’ (oak leaf speckled lettuce) from Eckerton Hill Farm, drizzled with a very good Sicilian olive oil, from from Agricento, Azienda Agricola Mandranova, seasoned with sea salt and Freshly-ground black pepper, plus a bit of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon
• slices of a She Wolf Bakery polenta boule

The second course required actual cooking, but I’ve prepared the dish, or ones like it, so often that it could also be described as mostly a matter of assembling.

Fortunately, the cooking time (completely unattended) for the second course corresponded roughly to the time we needed to enjoy the first.

• two 7.5-ounce cod fillets from American Seafood Company in the Union Square greenmarket, prepared more or less from a recipe from Mark Bittman which I had originally come across years ago: the cod washed and rinsed, placed in a platter on a bed of coarse sea salt, with more salt added on top until the pieces were completely covered, then set aside while a bed of potatoes was prepared for them by slicing 12 ounces of Nicola potatoes from Tamarack Hollow Farm to a thickness of less than 1/4 inch, tossing the potatoes in a large bowl with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a large pinch of orange/gold home-dried Habanada pepper [acquired in the fall of 2016 from Norwich Meadows Farm], arranging the potatoes, overlapping, in a rectangular enameled cast iron oven pan, cooking them for 25 minutes or so in a 400º oven, or until they were tender when pierced, then, at some time before the potatoes had finished cooking, the cod was thoroughly immersed in many changes of water, to bring down the saltiness (incidentally, the soaking process somehow gives the fish more solidity, which can be easily felt while it’s being handled it at this point), draining and drying the two pieces before placing them inside on top of the potatoes, drizzling them with a little olive oil and scattering some freshly-ground pepper on top, returning the pan to the oven for about 9-10 minutes (the exact time depends on the thickness of their), removing the fish with a spatula (or, much better, two spatulas), along with as much of the potatoes as can be brought along with each piece, and arranging everything, intact if possible, onto 2 plates, returning to the pan for the remainder of the potatoes, the servings each scattered with chopped parsley from Norwich Meadows Farm and garnished with purple micro amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the tender greens cut from one bunch of white beets from Norwich Meadows Farm, gently wilted inside a heavy tin-lined medium copper pot with 2 quartered  garlic cloves (‘Calabrian Rose’ Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm), that had first been been allowed to sweat in a bit of olive oil until beginning to color, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates, and drizzled with fresh olive oil

 

• the wine through both courses was a California (grapes from the Sacramento River Delta with a small amount of Viognier from Lodi) white, Miriam Alexandra Chenin, from Naked Wines
• the music was the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn’s 1829 updated (or ‘modern’) version of Handel’s 1718 baroque opera, ‘Acis and Galatea’, Nicholas McGegan directing the Göttingen Festival Orchestra and the North German Radio Chorus, with Julia Kleiter (Soprano), Michael Slattery  (Tenor), Christoph Prégardien (Tenor), and Friedrich Wolfe (Bass)

It seemed like it should be a Union Square Greenmarket day, but then I remembered that it was a Tuesday, and so it was not. While tossing about the possibilities for picking up something within our immediate area that would be other than meat, I suddenly remembered there was a pretty good source for wild salmon only a couple hundred feet from our door, and sometimes it’s on sale.

I already had some vegetables that would be really good accompaniments for salmon, so Tuesday’s dinner was taken care of.

• one fresh (unfrozen ) 8-ounce wild Coho salmon fillet from Whole Foods Market, the skin left on, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, the flesh side pressed with a mixture of ground coriander seeds, ground cloves, ground cumin, and grated nutmeg, sautéed inside an enameled, cast iron oval pan, flesh side down first, over medium-high heat for 3 minutes or so, turned over and cooked 3 or 4 minutes minutes more, finished on the plate with a little squeeze of organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and a drizzle of a good olive oil
• one 6-inch sugar dumpling squash from Tamarack Hollow Farm, scrubbed, halved horizontally, the seeds removed, divided into one-inch wedges, tossed lightly with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and one section of a golden dried habanada pepper, then arranged on a large, unglazed, well-seasoned ceramic Pampered Chef pan and roasted on one side at 450ª for 15 minutes, turned onto the other side and allowed to roast for 15 more minutes, removed from the oven, and the pan, once softened inside and the edges of the skin slightly carbonized and crunchy, and stirred inside a sauté pan in which 2 cloves of Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic had been gently heated in a bit of olive oil along with some roughly-chopped sage, also from Keith’s Farm
• two kinds of Savoy-type cabbage, one described as simply ‘Savoy’ from Norwich Meadows Farm, and a San Michelle from Tamarack Hollow Farm, each of which had remained from a head that had contributed to a different earlier meal, roughly sliced, added to a little olive oil inside a large, heavy, tin-lined copper pot already above a medium high flame, joining one halved Rocambole garlic clove from Keith’s Farm that had already been heated, over a lower flame, until fragrant, the cabbage sautéed, stirring, along with 4 flattened juniper berries, until the leaves were tender and had begun to brown and become (ideally) slightly crisp at the edges, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a few drops of balsamic vinegar added and stirred over the heat for a moment, arranged on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil

There was a small cheese course, mostly because we still had some good wine in our glasses, and I had good rustic bread for toasts, but also because I remembered that we had already been keeping a favorite soft cheese far longer than I could have thought would be good for it.  It turned out the cheese was in excellent condition, and if it was any different from what it had tasted like when fresh, I would say it might even have been for the better.

• a bit of a very well made chevre from Ardith Mae Farmstead, purchased weeks earlier, served with a pinch of fenugreek and a dusting of freshly-cracked black pepper
• thin toasts of a loaf of ‘rustic classic’ from Eataly

 

• the wine throughout was a California (Santa Rita Hills) red, Jacqueline Bahue Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Monteverdi’s 1643 opera, ‘L’incoronazione di Poppea’, John Elliott Garner conducting Sylvia McNair, Anne Sofie von Otter, Dana Hanchard, Michael Chance, and the English Baroque Soloists

While I was growing up, New Year’s Day was a pretty grand occasion at our home: There would be guests, always interesting family friends, but almost never relatives. We were family outliers in Detroit, hundreds of miles from eastern Wisconsin where most of the tribes of both our parents were still based, their ancestors having cleared the old-growth forests and settled down on large dairy farms over a hundred years before.

Our Christmas tree was always pushed out of the house 2 days before (having arrived only a couple days before Christmas), an important moment which may have been a disappointment but it was also a relief, even to the young ones. In the afternoon, as the light outside dimmed, there would a special meal, with all the best china and glass, and tall candles(!), arranged on the extended dining table around a green centerpiece now liberated from the attributes of the immediately preceding holiday. There would be a roast of some kind, usually roast beef or ham, as well as all of the accompaniments traditional in the 1940s and 50s. There would be a fire burning in the living room, both weather and Mother permitting (no romantic, she thought wood fires were just dirty).

The rooms would look nothing like ours did yesterday, and not merely because we needed fewer chairs at the table: Mackerel was unknown on Haverhill Road, and I don’t think we ever had lamb in all the time I was living at home. I know we never had goat, and even polenta wasn’t part of the heritage of our beautiful Italian-American neighbors and friends, whose families had likely come from areas south of Tuscany.

We were Midwestern American locals, and even the foods we enjoyed, because of the modesty of that era and class, might have been surprisingly local. Today, in a much more ‘connected’ world we have to make a conscious effort to be locavores.

Yesterday’s first course was almost as local as almost everything else that was a part of this meal, the fish and its processing being identified with Maine, a place and an idea to which I feel close.

• six ounces of Ducktrap River of Maine‘s  ‘smoked peppered’ wild mackerel fillets from Chelsea”s Westside Market, served with dollops of local Ronnybrook Farms crème fraîche, stirred with grated horseradish root from Norwich Meadows Farm and drops of organic Whole Foods Market lemon, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
• a few live hydroponic dandelion greens from Two Guys from Ridgefield, dressed with a good Sicilian olive oil, from from Agricento, Azienda Agricola Mandranova (using exclusively Nocellara olives), Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• toasts from a several-days-old buckwheat baguette from Runner & Stone Bakery
• the wine was a German (Mosel) white, Weingut Axel Pauly Trinkfluss 2014

The second course was more tricky, and the timing the completion of its 3 elements was not made easy by having the polenta milk/water mix boil over onto the surface of the range early in the polenta process, putting out the pilot light (at a moment when each of the 4 burners was covered with a pot that had to be removed for it to be re-lit), but I thought it was something of a triumph in the end.

It was my first goat neck, so I looked for recipes. Goat is little different from lamb in most respects, except perhaps for its normally smaller size or its reputed stringiness, so when I found this one, which addressed both, I jumped on it, and ended up working pretty closely with it.

The sauce produced by the braised goat may have been the best I had ever been able to ‘shepherd’ inside my kitchen, and yet all I did was boil it down for a while – while stirring the corn flour mix – after straining out the vegetables that had flavored it; because of the gelatin in this cut of meat, it needed no outside thickening agent.

• one 26-ounce goat neck purchased from Tony at the Consider Bardwell stand in the Union Square Greenmarket, seared on all sides over a medium-to-high flame until brown in 2 tablespoons of olive oil inside an oval enameled cast iron pot (with a cover to fit), removed from the pan and set aside, the heat reduced to medium and one chopped sweet yellow onion from Norwich Meadows Farm; a few ounces of a celery root, chopped, also from Norwich Meadows Farm; and one huge Rocambole garlic clove from Keith’s Farm added and cooked until colored, one branch of thyme from Stokes Farm and several interesting spices (1/2 tsp each of smoked piquante Spanish paprika, freshly-ground cumin, cinnamon, and coriander, plus a little less ground cardamom), cooked for 3 minutes, followed by over half a cup apple cider vinegar and a quarter of a cup of turbinado sugar, everything cooked until the liquid was reduced by half, 8 ounces of canned tiny Muti plum tomatoes with their juices, and a teaspoon of sea salt, brought to a boil,  topped with the lamb neck, water added until the lamb neck was a little more than half covered, the pot lid placed on top and the whole moved to a preheated slow-to-moderate* (300º) oven the oven and cook for approximately 2 hours, maybe a little longer, or until totally tender, the meat almost (or actually) falling from the bones, the pot removed from the oven, the the neck removed from the pot and allowed to cool until it could be handled enough to pick the meat from the bones,  then kept warm, while the cooking liquid with the vegetables and seasonings was passed through a strainer, the solids discarded, and the remaining liquid reduced until somewhat thickened (as they say, “able to coat a spoon”), the picked goat meat placed in the sauce and served

*I love to see the use of traditional measures of oven heat surviving beyond the age of solid fuel cookers; there’s also the holding-one’s-arm-in-the-oven-until-it-becomes-intolerable tip (if you can count to thirty it’s not hot enough for bread)

• coarsely-ground Iroquois White Corn Project white corn flour (hulled, ground, & roasted and hand crafted in Victor, New York as a program of the friends of Ganondagan, from the Greenmarket Regional Grains Project stall in the Union Square Greenmarket) cooked with water and whole milk (in a proportion of 3 to 1), finished with several tablespoons of several (4?) tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, seasoned with sea salt
• the white and lighter green parts of a Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, sliced, heated along with a tablespoon of fennel seed in one tablespoon of butter inside a small, heavy tin-lined copper pot until the scallion had softened and the fennel become pungent, then set aside while another tablespoon of butter, or a little more, was melted inside a larger heavy tin-lined copper pot and one 8-ounce Napa cabbage, also from Norwich Meadows Farm, roughly chopped, was added and stirred until wilted, after which the reserved scallion-fennel mixture, some sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper were added, and the cabbage stirred some more, finished by tossing in the green tops of the scallions, chopped
• the wine with the main course was a rally great California (Napa) red, ‘Declaration’ 1849 Wine Company Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2014, the generous gift from an artist acquaintance, Saber

We’re not ‘sweet-toothed’, so ‘treats’ usually last weeks in our apartment. I had been very excited about picking up what is essentially a German fruit cake in the Greenmarket a number of days before Christmas, but we hadn’t been interested in a sweet course since. We were being very well entertained with good holiday savories.  Last night might have been no exception, but as it was probably the last of the winter holidays, we decided to finally pay our little Hutselbrot the homage it had awaited.

• thin slices of a small (150g) Runner & Stone Hutselbrot (local organic all-purpose flour, almond paste, organic cane sugar, local butter, local eggs, oranges, 70% chocolate) from their stand in the Union Square Greenmarket
• the wine was a Portuguese (Porto) port, Porto Dalva 20 Years Old Dry White Port

 

• the music throughout the meal was a gorgeous brand-new recording of a newly-assembled pastiche representing Vivaldi’s 1726 melodramma eroico pastorale, ‘Dorilla in Tempe’, Diego Fasolis conductiing I Barrochisti (additional information on the piece here)

[most of the pictures above were taken while the food was still in the kitchen, since there isn’t enough light in the dining gallery for well-focused images]

I waited too long to head out to Eataly for some crabmeat, which I had thought would be the only possibility for an elegant New Years Eve dinner I had planned only at the last minute. They had totally run out of their supply.

Considering my options while standing near the glass display cases of the fresh pasta counter, I decided to pick up some Reginette, partly because of its entertaining shape.  Then I remembered seeing at least 4 different colored chicories when I had checked out the produce section, some of them even described as from USA farms.

The little meal had now been described almost entirely.

It had all the virtues of a meal for the occasion, including this time, since we normally stay home on this grand night, 2 we have almost never needed before: Simplicity of execution and quick disassembly afterwards.

• two tablespoons of olive oil inside a large high-sided tin-lined copper pot, adding one chopped red shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm until softened and pungent, followed by 2 beautiful  roughly-chopped small Treviso (they were the same size as, and looked very much like endive edged rose-red) which were stirred until themselves softened, half of a cup of an Italian (Marche) white, Saladini Pilastri Falerio 2015 added and boiled down until the liquid was mostly gone, 3 ‘nests’, or about 12 ounces, of mafaldine (semolina flour, water) from Flatiron Eataly, the cooked pasta added, stirred with some of the reserved pasta water until the liquid had emulsified, served in shallow bowls, a little olive oil poured around the edges, garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and sprinkled with Parmigiano Reggiano Hombre from Whole Foods Market
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2015
• the music was Vivaldi’s ‘Orlando’ (1714 Version), Federico Maria Sardelli conducting the  Modo Antiquo Ensemble

I had learned from the Union Square Greenmarket app that there would be no fish sellers there Saturday (almost certainly because of the extreme cold), but I figured if I got there early enough, I might still be able to buy some local (Newburgh, an indoor aquaculture farm) shrimp for dinner that day.  I also had to pick up some fresh vegetables for meals over the next 3 days, so the walk in the bitter cold and snow was going to be worth it anyway.

I was lucky with the entrée search, and came home with some”colossals”, just about the last of Jean Claude’s stock that day.

The first course, dominated by slices of an Italian smoked ham, made the meal something of an odd surf ‘n turf event, but the fact that there was also a strong smoky aroma and taste in the main course (a  smoked pepper) brought it all together.

• five or 6 ounces of thinly-sliced Recla Speck Alto Adige IGP, from Bolzano, purchased at Eataly, drizzled lightly with a very good Sicilian olive oil, from from Agricento, Azienda Agricola Mandranova (exclusively Nocellara olives)
• a few leaves of ‘baby Romano’ (oak leaf speckled lettuce) from Eckerton Hill Farm dressed with the same olive oil, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• slices of a buckwheat baguette from Runner & Stone Bakery

The Speck was followed by a plate of the shrimp and a side of tomatoes and baby leek.

I prepared the shrimp in the same way I had for the 2 years I’ve been enjoying ECO Shrimp Garden’s harvests.

• one teaspoon of chopped Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, heated inside a heavy (13 1/2″) cast iron pan over a very low flame until the garlic had colored nicely, a pinch of Spanish saffron, pieces of one dried chipotle pepper from Northshire Farms in the Union Square Greenmarket (I have always used a whole one, but this time tried the broken pieces of one of the peppers in the package), one crushed section of a dried orange-gold habanada pepper, and a teaspoon of freshly-ground dried cumin seed from Eataly added, all of it stirred for a minute or two, then 15 ounces (10 count) of Hudson Valley farmed ‘colossal’ shrimp from Eco Shrimp Garden (that I had cut the length of their backs, from head to tail, for ease of shelling later, added, seasoned with salt and pepper, the heat brought up a bit, and the shrimp cooked until firm while turned twice [they were delicious, but  slightly overcooked, probably because I had overcompensated for their larger-than-normal size], served with a generous squeeze of lemon, garnished on the plates with chopped parlsley from S. & S.O. Produce and micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge [the micro green touch was my own, after completing Mark Bittman’s terrific recipe, and may seem like overkill, but they worked with the other flavors, and look pretty good]

NOTE: There was more than enough sauce in the end, so I gathered what I wasn’t going to use, allowed it to cool a bit, and swirled it into a couple tablespoons of softened butter, to use as a flavored butter in some future meal.

• one Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed, dried, sliced lengthwise, then halved, cooked in heated olive oil until wilted, 6 Maine Backyard Farms ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, halved, slipped into the pan and heated briefly, then a generous amount of chopped thyme from Stoke’s Farm, some sea salt, and black pepper added and stirred into the vegetables, served with a little more of the chopped thyme

• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Karen Birmingham Sauvignon Blanc Lodi 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Pergolesi’s 1734 opera, ‘Adriano in Siria’, performed by Romina Basso (Mezzo Soprano), the unbelievably-beautiful voice of Franco Fagioli (Countertenor), Yuriy Mynenko (Countertenor), Juan Sancho (Tenor), Cigdem Soyarslan (Soprano), with Jan Tomasz Adamus conducting the Capella Cracoviensis

Today’s lunch was an ensemble of leftovers, easily thrown together minutes after I had returned from a wintry rendezvous with the Union Square Greenmarket.

I knew when I had asked for a pound of fresh tagliatelle earlier in the week that it would be too much for just the two of us, but it looked so good inside the glass case at Luca Donofrio’s pastificio inside the Flatiron Eataly, and it was so inexpensive, I decided it would just be rude to order less.

We enjoyed most of it on Wednesday, with some leftover pigeon sauce, when it had basically been the only part of a meal that wasn’t a leftover.

Today some of that same pasta became the central leftover feature of another meal. The amount not used 3 days ago today, tossed then in a bowl with olive oil, covered,  and placed in the refrigerator, became an almost instant lunch for the two of us, simply heated with a little olive oil and mixed or sprinkled with some more leftovers that had been hanging around the kitchen: one herb that had already been chopped, a bit of crushed dried heatless pepper, and some toasted homemade breadcrumbs (that had not been used on a smoked eel pasta)

Even the bread had been ‘leftover’ from earlier meals, but, while purchased days ago,  the Bread Alone sourdough miche was still fresh.

The whole meal was far more delicious than the negligible effort it required would have suggested.