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

“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