I always find it a treat to return to a squid dinner, both for the fun of the preparation and the enjoyment of the meal. This time we were also able to enjoy one of the most luscious greens ever, and here I have to pinch myself, because it really is the middle of winter.

• a large rectangular enameled cast iron pan heated on top of the stove until hot, its cooking surface brushed with olive oil, and once the oil was also quite hot, one pound of rinsed and carefully dried one pound of cleaned squid, including many tentacles, from Pure Vida Seafood, quickly arranged inside and immediately sprinkled with a heaping teaspoon of super-pungent dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia, most of one crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino, also from Buon Italia, and one piece of dried orang/gold habanada pepper, crushed, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, followed by a drizzle of 3 tablespoons of organic juice from a Whole Foods lemon, and some olive oil, the pan placed inside a pre-heated 400º oven and roasted for only 5 minutes or a bit more, removed, the squid distributed onto 2 plates, ladled with a bit of their cooking juices, which had been transferred into a sauce pitcher
• pak choy (also called bok choy) from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed, sliced lengthwise, wilted in olive oil along with 2 Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm which had already been browned very lightly in the oil, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Campania) white, Feudi di San Gregorio Greco di Tufo 2015, from Garnet Wines & Liquors
• the music was Mozart’s ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir

This was a sublime winter meal, and almost embarrassingly easy to put together.

I used a recipe, with almost no deviations, from a specialty cookbook I bought in Brooklyn almost as soon as I had learned that I could buy local goat cuts in the Union Square Greenmarket. The title is ‘Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese‘ and the authors are Bruce Weinstein (he cooks) and Mark Scarbrough (he writes).

It was great fun, and even though our shanks were a little smaller than those described in the recipe, we were surprised to sit down to dinner roughly an hour and a half earlier than the recipe’s program had suggested: After quickly getting the braise together inside the pot I was looking forward to an interval during which I could catch up on writing or reading (about food, to be sure), but when I got up to check and stir the pot the second time, maybe 50 or 55 minutes into the 2 1/2 hours my guides had predicted it would take, I realized that the meat was nearly ready. I know it could have gone further, but not for an additional hour and a half, and the meat already offered no resistance when pierced with a metal tester.

I then worked rapidly on the rest of the meal, rushing the Brussels sprouts into the oven and quickly assembling the ingredients for the polenta, both of which might take 25 minutes. I knew the goat braise would be understanding, so there wasn’t any panic with the timing, and everything came together perfectly in the end.

The picture below shows what the shanks looked like just after I had replaced them in the pot in which they had earlier been browned then removed to the side, and after sautéing the vegetables, adding the chicken broth and white beans, and bringing the liquid to a simmer.

• for the goat braise, the only changes I made to the recipe, which I halved, were the addition of a medium-width 6-inch celery stalk, sliced, from Philipps Farms; a crushed piece of dark dried habanada pepper; and a reduction by roughly half in the cooking time it describes, so rather than re-enter the recipe text, I’ll only list the source of the ingredients I used: two goat shanks, weighing a total of 21 ounces, from Tony at Consider Bardwell Farm; 4 medium orange carrots from John D. Madura Farm; one small leek from Hawthorne Valley Farm; one mediium Rocambole garlic clove from Keith’s Farm; a tablespoon of fresh sage leaves from Philipps Farm; one teaspoon of zest from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon; 2 or 3 tablespoons of Few Spirits Breakfast Gin; one cup of low-sodium Better Than Bouillon chicken base; and almost one cup of Eden Foods organic cannellini beans
• polenta made using this excellent Mark Bittman recipe, ‘Polenta Without Fear‘, very gradually adding, while stirring, two thirds of a cup of coarsely-ground Iroquois White Corn Project white corn flour from the Greenmarket Regional Grains Project stall in the Union Square Greenmarket) to a pot in which 2 cups of water and 2/3 of a cup of excellent Trickling Springs Creamery milk from Whole Foods Market (the proportion always begins as 3 to 1, but additional fresh water will always have to be added along the way) had been brought to a boil, then stirred continually for about 15 or 20  minutes, and when the mixture was creamy and the cornmeal tasted cooked, seasoned with a pinch of salt, finished with several tablespoons of several 4  tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, and properly seasoned with sea salt, garnished with a few small fresh sage leaves from Philipps Farm
• four good-size Brussels sprouts from Phillips Farms, washed, trimmed, dried, tossed with olive oil, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, roasted in a 400º oven on a small unglazed Pampered Chef oven pan until they were browned and crisp on the outside, or for about 20 minutes,
• the wine was an Italian (Puglia) red, Aglianico Polvanera 2009, from Garnet Wines & Liquors
• the music was Wagner’s 185-1861 ‘Tannhäuser’, Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Chorus., with Agnes Baltsa, Andreas Schmidt, Placido Domingo, Matti Salminen, Kurt Rydl, Oskar Hillebrandt, Clemens Bieber, Cheryl Studer, Barbara Bonney, Margaret Stobart, Ingrid Baier, Jeanette Wilson, Karen Shelby, and William Pell

Yes, the meal began with a few oysters.

• eight oysters from the south shore of eastern Long Island, from American Seafood Company, described by the fish monger, when I asked for a name, as close to Blue Points, served on the half shell with nothing else but bread
• slices of a crusty mini baguette from Bread Alone

The images I took of the main course didn’t make the cut, so I’m only uploading some ‘before’ pictures of the sea bass, the garnish, and the vegetables, beginning with the sea bass as I found it in their bucket at the Union Square Greenmarket that afternoon, and then the two chosen ones resting on a platter before they were prepared for cooking.

The next images are of the egg used to coat the fillets, after it was whipped with some chopped parsley; the pea greens ,as they appeared in the market, that garnished the bass once it was on the plates; the halved potatoes, before they went into the oven; and the beautiful tender collards that accompanied the other ingredients.

• two 8-ounce fillets of black sea bass from Pura Vida Fisheries, dredged in some seasoned coarse stone-ground flour which had been spread across a plate, then dipped in a mixture of one Americauna chicken egg from Millport Dairy Farm which had been whipped with a few tablespoons of chopped parsley parsley from Westside Market, the fish sautéed for a couple of minutes in a mixture of butter and olive oil inside a vintage heavy, oval tin-lined copper pan, skin side down first, then turned, sautéed for another couple of minutes (until the fish was cooked through; the time will vary each time with the size of the fillets and the height of the flame), removed from the pan and the heat now turned off, placed on 2 warm plates, and what juices remained in the pan were scattered with some pea greens from Windfall Farms and pushed around with a wooden spatula for a moment, greens and juices then divided onto the top of the fillets, finishing with a squeeze of an organic lemon from Whole Foods, and dressed with more pea greens
• four oval medium Nicola potatoes from Hawthorne Valley Farm, scrubbed, halved unpeeled, tossed with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, a little picante Spanish paprika, a large pinch of dark home-dried habanada pepper, arranged cut side down on a small Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted at about 375º-400º for about 20 or 25 minutes, roasted at about 375º for about 20 or 25 minutes, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm
• one bunch/spray of tender collard greens from Eckerton Hill Farm that had been grown in their greenhouse (it was still January), washed twice, drained, some of the water retained and held aside, to be added as the greens cooked, if necessary (it wasn’t this time) cut roughly, braised until gently wilted inside a heavy vintage, high-sided, tin-lined copper pot in which one halved Rocambole garlic 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 French (Savoie) white, Denis & Didier Berthollier, Chignin Vieilles Vignes, 2015, from Flatiron Wines & Spirits
• the music was Helmut Lachenmann’s ‘Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied’, composed for string quartet and orchestra, performed by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Nott, and the Arditti Quartet

This is a delicious, very delicate dish, but from the evidence of my earlier posts on meals using this recipe it’s clear that I haven’t yet decided how it should end up on the plate, that is, the breaded side up or down. The recipe is clear about which side to cook, how and when, until just before the end, and then it goes silent when it’s time to arrange the cod on the plates.

Last night I went for the virginal look (coated side down), which is pretty cool, but the tastes and textures of the mustard, the parsley, and the crumbs, which coated the side resting on the plate, were still very much a part of the experience.

• one 16-ounce fresh cod fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, brought to room temperature, cut into 4 pieces of the same weight (I’ve gotten very  good at that), seasoned with salt on both sides, then only the top side (the former skin side) brushed with a little French dijon mustard which had been mixed with a very small amount of water to make it easier to spread, the two pieces dredged in a mixture of homemade breadcrumbs mixed with some finely-chopped parsley from Westside Market, browned briefly on side coated with the mustard and breadcrumb mix in a little olive oil inside a tin-lined copper au gratin pan, transferred to a 325º oven and cooked until the fish began to flake, or for about 10 or 11 minutes, although it would be best to stagger introducing the pieces to the pan if some are much thinner than others, arranged on the 2 plates and garnished with micro purple radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge [the recipe is based on Thomas Keller’s ‘Wild Cod en Persillade‘]
• one box of Romanesco broccoli from Philipps Farms, where it had been stored carefully inside a cold barn since last year, that had already been broken up into florets, washed and dried, tossed with a little olive oil (not too much, to ensure a slightly crispy, slightly carbonized side dish), sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and part of a dried orange/golden dried habanada pepper], finely crumbled, spread onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan and roasted at 400º for about 25 minutes
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Evangelos Bagias Lodi Chardonnay 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3, Andris Nelson conducting the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, recorded live

The Denver steak is a fairly-recent innovation, and this was probably the first time we had ever had it. I know it’s the first time I’ve cooked it, but it won’t be the last. The flavor is as good as beef gets; it’s surprisingly tender, especially for a piece cut from the chuck; it can be cooked as easily as more familiar steaks; it doesn’t have to be sliced before serving; and it’s relatively inexpensive.

In the picture above the steak pieces look well done, but they were actually medium rare, with a very slight emphasis on the medium, because I had read that this cut could be a little chewy if cooked any less.

• *a 17-ounce Denver steak from Greg and Mike of Sun Fed Beef (Maple Avenue Farms) in the Union Square Greenmarket, brought to room temperature, cut into 4 pieces (because of the slightly irregular shape, I wasn’t otherwise going to be able to divide it into 2 portions), dried very well, seasoned with a generous amount of freshly roughly-ground black pepper, placed on a very hot cast iron pan grill for just under 10 minutes, turning twice and salting each side after it had been seared, removed and arranged on the plates, a little juice from an organic Whole Food Market lemon squeezed on top, sprinkled with some chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm, drizzled with a little olive oil and garnished with purple micro radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• two Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, halved and placed inside a small tin-lined copper pan, turning once, until they had softened, arranged on the plates next to the steaks, seasoned with salt and pepper and garnished with chopped lovage from Stokes Farm
• *more than three quarters of a pound of Brussels sprouts from Phillips Farms, washed, trimmed, dried, tossed with olive oil, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, roasted in a 400º oven on a large unglazed Pampered Chef oven pan until they were browned and crisp on the outside, or for about 15 minutes, and finished with a small amount of balsamic vinegar flicked on them with a small brush
• the wine was an excellent California (Lodi) red, Karen Birmingham Reserve Zinfandel Lodi 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1781 opera, ‘Idomeneo’, John Eliot Gardner conducting the  English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Anne Sofie von Otter, Jonathan Peter Kenny, Sylvia McNair, Hillevi Martinpelto, Glenn Winslade, Cornelius Hauptmann, Peter Salmon, Stephen Charlesworth, Ruth Holton (Soprano), Carol Hall (Soprano), Angela Kazmimierczuk, Nicola Jenkin, and Nigel Robson

This concept is brilliant!

How about the possibility of  serving a delicious homemade-like pasta without boiling anything, meaning no waiting, no heating up the kitchen in summer. I picked up a single package of this gnocchi while at Eataly a few days ago, because I had been thinking about gnocchi, and the immediate selling point, at least as much as discovering the minimal and natural ingredients, was that its ‘use by’ date lay somewhere in March.

That was only my first surprise. When I was ready to serve it last night, of course I looked closely at the cooking  instructions on the package, and then I looked again, because I had read, “pour the gnocchi directly from the package to the pan with your favorite sauce…”.

Except for introducing a little ‘leftover’ cabbage and later some grated cheese, I basically I did just that, and then, continuing the directive, I added a half cup of water, gently stirred everything for about 2 or 3 minutes, and, ecco!

Of course I’m going back for more. It will become our go-to-returning-after-an-evening-out dinner, even quicker to the table even than ordering a pizza. I bought the classic, but there are several variations each with one additional ingredient or flavor.

Since it takes so little time to make, there’s little excuse for avoiding at least one additional course, an antipasto or a cheese or fruit course, or both. Last night we had cheese and toasts.

• 400g (14.1 ounces) of ‘mama gnocchi made with steamed fresh potatoes‘ from the Flatiron Eataly, stirred into a large vintage, high-sided, tin-lined copper pot in which 4 tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ and maybe 40 small stemmed fresh sage leaves from Philipps Farms had been heated until the butter had become light brown, after which a large handful of shredded Savoy cabbage from Norwich Meadows Farm that had not been used in the meal the night before tossed in and wilted, slightly, up to half of a cup of fresh water added, the heat turned up a bit and the gnocchi and butter mix stirred until most of the liquid had been absorbed, when a generous grating of Parmigiano Reggiano Hombre from Whole Foods Market was mixed in, the finished dish served in shallow bowls

There was a cheese course, dominated by 2 excellent blue cheeses.

 

• three Consider Bardwell Farm cheeses, a goat blue, unnamed; a cow blue, ‘Bardem Blue’; and, in the middle an ‘un-blue’, their goat milk ‘Manchester’, as something of a palate cleanser
• toast from a loaf of She Wolf Bakery sourdough bâtard

the wine through both courses was an Italian (Tuscany) white, Marchesi Antinori Vermentino 2016, from Flatiron WInes

After the cheese, and after the few dishes were washed, there was also a digestif

• the drink was a fairly rare Italian (Sardinia) digestif, Tremontis Mirto dell’Isola di Sardegna, from Eataly Vino, served in small 150-year-old sturdy pressed glasses I’ve had for almost 50 years [love them]

 

• the music throughout the meal was Gottfried von Einem’s 1944-1946 opera, ‘Danton”s Tod’, with Lothar Zagrosek conducting the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Austrian Radio Chorus, in a 1983 recording, with Theo Adam, Werner Hollweg, Horst Hiestermann, Kurt Rydl, Marjana Lipovsek, Krisztina Láki, Helmut Berger-Tuna, Wilfried Gahmlich, Franz Wyzner, Ingrid Mayr, Alfred Muff, and Karl Terkal

 

I’m not entirely happy with this meal, although I have to say it was actually pretty delicious. It’s not really my style, either in the preparation or the presentation, since, as it turned our, both seemed to make it more of a fish stew than a grill, a sautée or a bake, any of which I would prefer to work with when cooking a fairly delicate fish.

There’s actually an explanation for what I would call the raggedness of this dish. I had welcomed the chance to do something very different from the tilefish I had cooked before, and the Mark Bittman recipe I found on line seemed to fit that and several other parameters: It included white cabbage, and I had been looking for an entrée in which I might include the large head I was keeping in the crisper; it was essentially a one-dish meal, saving me the trouble of coming up with a vegetable accompaniment, and also the cooking of it; and it looked like it would be low stress, since among its other virtues, it wasn’t going to make me flip the fish half-way through the cooking process; plus, it seemed like it wouldn’t take much time to move it from refrigerator to table.

Yet what happened was that I became seriously distracted by a loss of hot water in the apartment just as I was beginning to put the meal together. It came back less than an hour later, but by then both my concentration and my mood had been somewhat fouled. I’m not even sure how I was able to bring it about in the end.

I can’t say it was a failure, but I may not try to repeat it, if only for its aesthetic inadequacies. I have a problem with what it looked like on the plates, but I have to admit that I did forget to add the prescribed garnish of a chopped herb. There was also my discomfort with what seemed to me an unwieldy process: Because of the difficulty of cooking such a large amount of cabbage, and the fact that one of the ingredients was acidic, I found it necessary to use 2 pans for what should have been an operation requiring only one.

ADDENDUM: Now that I’ve gotten all the way through a description of this meal, I’m thinking the recipe could be saved, and I might do it again, making certain adjustments to allow for my sensibilities.

The pictures below are of the two main ingredients as they appeared at the Union Square Greenmarket.

• two 8-ounce tilefish fillets from Pura Vida Seafood, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, their skin sides dredged with corn flour (alternatively, wheat flour), sautéed, breaded side down, in a third of a cup of olive oil over a medium-high flame inside a large,  -inch seasoned cast iron pan until they had become crisp on that surface, removed and set aside on a warm platter, and 3 quarters of a pound or more of leaves peeled off from a washed head of a one-pound Savoy cabbage from Norwich Meadows Farm, gathered, stacked, and shredded, added to the pan in which the pollock had been seared, and cooked, stirring occasionally until the cabbage had wilted, then, with the cabbage now wilted and occupying a much smaller volume, it could now be placed inside a large heavy, vintage, oval tin-lined copper fish pan, and 8 halved Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market partially  embedded in the cabbage, followed by a third to a half cup of pitted Gaeta olives and a tablespoon of rinsed salted Sicilian capers, both from Buon Italia, and about half a cup of white wine, stirred together over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes had softened and the cabbage had become tender, at which point the pollock fillets were placed, skin, or dredged side up, on top of the cooked vegetables and the contents of the pan cooked over a medium flame, undisturbed, until the fish had cooked through, or 5 to 10 minutes more, served on 2 plates with the vegetables surrounding the fillets, everything drizzled with the small amount of  pan juices that remained, garnished with chopped lovage from Two Guys From Woodbridge (although in the end I completely forgot the lovage part)
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont) white, Banfi Piemonte Principessa Gavia Gavi 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1779-1780 opera, ‘Zaide’, Ian Page conducting the Orchestra of Classical Opera

Sfoglini makes great pasta, and they use local grains and local vegetables with the flavored varieties. The beet fusilli is among our favorites. Last night I was very happy to find inspiration for another way to serve it, on line. The site I found provided merely the sketchiest of recipes and no quantities were cited, so I’ll outline here what I did with [most of] the elements that it included. Since I had no fresh goat cheese to stir into the mix, as suggested by the recipe, I used a little Parmesan, at the very end.

• eight ounces of boiled Sfolini Beet fusilli pasta, some of the cooking water reserved (by the way, this pasta only takes about 5 or 6 minutes to cook, and it goes to al dente with no warning), drained and stirred into a large heavy antique tin-lined copper pan in which about a tablespoon of juice from a Whole Foods organic lemon had been briefly stirred over low heat with 2 tablespoons of heated olive oil, about a tablespoon of zest from the same lemon and couple handfuls of baby arugula from Eckerton Hill Farm added to the mix and gently stirred in, along with a ladle or more of the reserved pasta cooking liquid, then a small handful of toasted pine nuts tossed in, the pasta served in 2 shallow bowls, with a little Parmigiano Reggiano Hombre from Whole Foods Market grated on top, and a bit of olive oil drizzled around the edges
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) red, Scott Kelley Pinot Noir Willamette 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Mahan Esfahani performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, on harpsichord

There were no smaller pieces, like those I would usually buy, inside the fisherman’s bucket when I stopped by yesterday, but since the swordfish looked so good (and Warren indicated it was a cut close to the belly), and the price was also very good, I didn’t feel guilty about coming home with a pound and a quarter of such goodness.

Fortunately, that evening I was able to prepare the steaks suitably and grill them à point, but then, unless you fall asleep in the middle of the process, it’s really hard to mess up a swordfish steak.

• two thick 10-ounce swordfish steaks off of Scott Rucky’s fishing vessel, ‘Dakota’, from American Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket, marinated for more than half an hour in a mixture of olive oil, maybe half a teaspoon of super-pungent dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia, a small amount of crushed dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, and a chopped section of a Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, drained well, covered on both sides with a coating of homemade dried breadcrumbs, pan-grilled over medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side, removed, seasoned with a little sea salt, a little juice from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon squeezed on top, garnished with purple micro radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge [although they were not drizzled with a little olive oil this time, out of consideration for thos beautiful crusty breadcrumbs, I think I really should have]
• one 5 or 6-inch ‘sugar dumpling’ squash from Tamarack Hollow Farm, scrubbed, halved horizontally, the seeds removed, divided into one-inch wedges, tossed lightly in a bowl 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/an other side and allowed to roast for 15 more minutes, removed from both the oven and the pan, once they had softened inside and the edges of the skin somewhat carbonized and crunchy, stirred inside a large heavy tin0lined copper sauté pan in which 2 whole bruised cloves of Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic had been gently heated in a bit of olive oil before joined by some roughly-chopped sage, also from Phillips Farms
• hothouse-grown local baby arugula from Eckerton Hill Farm, sprinkled with a tiny bit of Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper, drizzled with a bit of a very good Sicilian olive oil, from Agrigento, Azienda Agricola Mandranova
• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Fontezoppa Verdicchio di Matelica 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1772 opera, ‘Lucio Silla’, Leopold Hager conducting the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Salzburg Radio Chorus, and the Salzburg Mozarteum Chorus., with an amazing cast, Edith Mathis, Helen Donath, Arleen Augér, Werner Krenn, Julia Varády, and Peter Schreier

The pasta part of this dinner of 3 small courses was another opportunity to show what a real difference a very good artisanal pasta can make.

The antipasto that precede it was identical to one we had enjoyed 2 days earlier, except that there was a different bread this time.

While I’m looking at the image above, of the pasta, I’m reminded of how much I like what happens to the whole little peperoncini after they mix with some warm oil: they assume a luscious candy apple metallic red surface and color I’ve always associated with vintage 50s hot rods..

The course was almost as simple as it gets: Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino, but, as I’ve written before, the ingredients have to be the very best available or the dish won’t be what it’s supposed to be, which is, really really great.

• three minced Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm heated gently over medium-low heat  inside a large antique tin-lined copper pot until softened and beginning to turn golden, 2 salted Italian anchovies from Buon Italia, thoroughly rinsed, filleted, and chopped, added, stirred in and mashed with a wooden spoon, followed by 2 whole dried peperoncino Calabresi secchia, along with one crushed section, from Buon Italia, and one half of a quarter cup of chopped parsley from Westside Market plus a few ounces of the pasta cooking water, the sauce allowed to simmer for a minute or two before 8 ounces of boiled Setaro spaghetti from Buon Italia, drained while it was still a little chewy in the center, was introduced into the pot, the heat turned up and the mix stirred over the flame for a minute or so, or until done to taste (maybe forget the “to taste” part, as that might be impossible to determine at this juncture), arranged in shallow bowls and the remainder of the chopped parsley sprinkled over the top

There was a third, simple cheese course to match the minimalism of the first two.

• two cheeses from Consider Bardwell Farm, ‘Danby’, a goat milk cheese, and  ‘Pawlet Reconsidered’, from cow’s milk
• toasts from the last of a loaf of 12 Grain & Seed bread from Bread Alone

 

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Lombardy) white, Bruno Verdi, Pinot Grigio, 2016, from Flatiron Wines & Spirits
• the music was Mozart’s ‘ Mitridate, rè di Ponto’, Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques