I’m still not used to my forays with some of the finer kinds of white fish ending up as splendidly as lately they sometimes have. This was one of the very best.

It all started in the Union Square Greenmarket, as always.

That image is of only one of the 3 or 4 reservoirs of iced seafood that I faced when I arrived.

I through up my hands looking in frustration looking at the huge variety, so I texted Barry a list of just some of what was at the fish monger’s stall that morning, and asked, “skatefish, monkfish, tuna, swordfish, small bluefish, scallops, pollock, cod, black sea bass, squid, lemon sole, or flounder?”

He decided on the bass.

I also picked up some of the most beautiful mushrooms and kale I had ever seen.

• two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from Pura Vida Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature), otherwise covered at least a little to retain their warmth, then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 4 ounces of chestnut mushrooms [“Chestnut mushrooms are the mushroom everyone wants, they just don’t know it yet.“] from Ramble Creek Farm‘s stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, that had been cut up, mostly just into 2 pieces (just detaching the lobes from the stems), sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, adding a pinch each of 2 crushed dried peppers, one hot and one with no heat whatsoever (hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet from Eckerton Hill Farm, and home dried habanada pepper), a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley from Phillips Farms, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates at one end of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)
• some 5 ounces of purple winterbor kale from from Central Valley Farm, the leaves stripped from their stems, washed in several changes of water, chopped roughly, wilted in a little with olive oil in which 2 garlic cloves from Chelsea’s 8th Avenue Foragers Market, flattened then sliced in half, were allowed to heat until pungent, the greens seasoned with salt, black pepper, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil

• there was otherwise no reason to include bread in this meal, but near the end of the meal the juices, mostly from the mushrooms, that hadn’t been soaked up by the fish, were asking for it, and I don’t need any excuse for the chance to enjoy a slice of my current favorite bread, ‘Pane da Tavola’, from Lost Bread Co.
• the wine was a French (Burgundy/Macon) white, Domaine Michel Barraud, Macon-Villages ‘Les Pierres’ 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Night Songs’, by Helen Grimes 

I had a little bit of fresh tuna in the freezer, from the time I had to buy a steak too large for a meal for the 2 of us.

The plan had been to include it in a pasta some day, since it was too small to be an entrée. I’ve often used good canned tuna in a pasta dish and they’re terrific. Last night it all worked out perfectly, after I’d cruised around the internet for a few minutes and landed on a page headed, “Fresh Tuna Pasta all’eoliana”.

The recipe was so familiar, it felt like a homecoming. The only thing new was the idea of fresh tuna. I had all the ingredients on hand, it would basically take only minutes to prepare, and the cook would have to work pretty hard to make it feel even the least bit stressful.

I translated some of the names of the ingredients into their American equivalents, and the metric measures into our primitive pre-metric nonsense. Since we normally eat only 8 ounces or so of dry pasta when there are only the 2 of us, I halved the amounts. Although I had less than the 8 ounces of tuna that would then be indicated, it did not seem underrepresented.

Since it’s included on this site, I don’t have to write out the recipe here, but the sources I used on Thursday were:

• Afeltra spaghettone from Eataly Flatiron; 5 ounces of fresh tuna from Pura Vida Seafood; 10 small grape tomatoes grown by R&R Flaim in Vineland, N.J., from Chelsea Whole Foods Market; 8 Gaeta olives and a handful of Sicilian salted capers in a jar, both also from Eataly; a handful of parsley from Phillips Farms; one large garlic clove from Chelsea Foragers Market; a couple pinches of peperoncini Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market; Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil; sea salt; and freshly ground black pepper
• in keeping with the Greek origins and continuing culture of the Aeolian islands, the wine was Greek (Arcadia), Troupis, Moschofilero ‘Fteri’ 2017, from Flatiron Wines
•  the music was the album, ‘Fodor, Schmitt & Wilms: Concertos hollandais pour piano’  

With Tuesday’s dinner I was able to ratchet down the old German kitchen thing that had defined the meal the night before.

Pork, and in fact it was again smoked pork, was the major player in the first course, but this time, while I suppose it was German-ish, or actually, Austrian-ish (read Tirolean), it was an austere, thinly sliced Speck, and not some rich rillettes.

It’s interesting that the wines we enjoyed for both courses were from the same bottles we enjoyed the night before, with a new one opened near the end of the pasta.

• two ounces of La Quercia’s Ridgetop Speck (applewood smoked prosciutto from pastured pigs)
• wild dandelion fro Lani’s Farm, dressed with a little olive oil (Badia a Coltibuono, from Gaiole in Chianti, Siena, Italy), sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and juice from an organic Chelsea Whole Foods Market lemon
• slices of what really is a great classic Italian (Tuscan?) bread, ‘rustic classic’, or ‘rustico’, from Flatiron Eataly’s bakery
• the wine with the first course was an amazing, brilliant riesling, an Australian (Victoria/Great Western) white, Best’s ‘Great Western’ Riesling 2017, made by Best’s Wines, from Astor Wines

There was no pork in the main course this time. In fact there was no meat at all; instead there were some mushrooms, almost always a good alternative for enjoying an entrée’s vegetables and wine. There were no complaints.

It was going to be a light spring pasta until I remembered the paper bag with a few ounces of mushrooms sitting in the refrigerator. They had  been there for a few days, and had begun to desiccate on their outer surfaces, making them, as far as I was concerned, even more interesting than they’d normally be.

• twelve ounces of ravioli ai piselli (a filling of peas, mint, ricotta, pecorino romano from Luca Donofrio‘s fresh pasta shop inside Eataly’s Flatiron store, boiled carefully for only a couple of minutes, or until barely cooked through in a large amount of well-salted water, drained, some of the pasta water retained, the pasta slipped into a large antique high-sided tin-lined copper pot in which a simple sauce had been created, beginning with a tablespoon of melted Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ in which one ‘camelot’ Dutch red shallot from Quarton Farm had been briefly sautéed until softened,

• followed by 5 ounces of sliced shiitake mushrooms from the Union Square Greenmarket stand of Violet Hill Farm (where Patrick told me they were the first of the season, at least for their farm) had been tossed in, everything stirred over medium to high heat until the  mushrooms had properly cooked, salt, pepper, and spearmint from Stokes Farm added and the pasta arranged inside shallow bowls, micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge arranged as a garnish, finished with a drizzle of olive oil around the edges
• the wine with the main course was a the remainder of the previous day’s terrific German (Ahr) red, Meyer-Näkel Ahr Spätburgunder Pinot Noir 2014, from Gramercy Wine, and when that had disappeared, there was a California (Lodi) red, Jacqueline Bahue Lodi Cabernet Franc 2017, from Naked Wines

 

• the music throughout the meal was the album, ‘New York’, music composed by Matthias Pintscher, performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain

The concept, or description of this meal alone might almost be satisfaction enough for a food enthusiast, if it had not also been really delicious, with all of the unusually long history of its making able to be fully savored in the tasting of it; also, aural satisfaction would assume the listener wasn’t actually hungry to start with.

I was writing above about the main course, but the appetizer was no slouch in any long food preparation contest, except that somebodies else had done the work in its case, and spent the time, before I found their fabulous charcuterie selections in the Union Square Greenmarket.

The meat in the first course, while certainly related to the second in its origins (pork belly!), could not have been more different as served.

• the contents of a small 3-ounce jar of Hudson Vally Charcuterie at Raven & Boar farm Smoked Rillettes/pork belly confit from pastured heritage whey fed pigs spread on toasted slices of a buckwheat baguette from Runner & Stone Bakery
• dabs of a horseradish jelly from Berkshire Berries
• two small heads of Gem lettuce (a sturdy dwarf Romaine) from Tamarack Hollow Farm, their roots snipped off and the leaves pressed down to almost resemble rosettes, dressed with a good olive oil, Badia a Coltibuono, Monti del Chianti from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, Maldon sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a bit of plain white vinegar
• the wine with the first course, an amazing, brilliant riesling, was an Australian (Victoria/Great Western) white, Best’s ‘Great Western’ Riesling 2017, made by Best’s Wines, from Astor Wines

I used a Dan Barber recipe to prepare the main course of pork belly, although I had a much smaller piece of meat than he has/had.

I started exactly 4 days before we sat down to dinner

• On Friday night I prepared a spice rub, reducing Barber’s amounts to serve a piece of pork weighing little over a pound (I actually already had all of the ingredients): 2 tablespoon fennel seeds; 2 teaspoons cumin seeds; 1 teaspoon coriander seeds; 1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns; 1 small piece of star anise; 1 small piece of cinnamon stick [I think I forgot to add this]; 1/3 teaspoon of white peppercorns; 1 teaspoon of whole cloves; 2 teaspoons of ground coriander; 3 tablespoons of salt; and 3 tablespoons of sugar; I scored the narrow top layer of fat (which was the configuration of the piece I had), rubbed the spices into the meat, and left it covered inside the ‘ice box’ (refrigerator) until Monday morning, when I rinsed the pork belly, placed it inside the perfect size oval enameled cast iron pot that I’ve had for almost 50 years, and then covered it with a liquid composed of just under one cup of a good low-sodium Better Than Bullion chicken base, but adding roughly a third of a cup of an incredibly rich and very complex stock remaining from a January meal of braised smoked pork loin that I had been keeping in the freezer, covered the meat and the liquid with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit, and placed the pot inside a very ‘slow’, 200º oven, not touching it for exactly 7 hours, at which time I removed the pot from the oven, divided the belly into 2 pieces and let it come to room temperature in its liquid before removing it and placing it in the refrigerator until I was ready to heat it inside a small copper skillet with a tablespoon or more of butter, turning once, arranging the pork on 2 plates, not even thinking about adding a garnish, since they were clearly their own adornment
• just under a pound of pinto potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, scrubbed, boiled whole and unpeeled in heavily-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, a tablespoons of Organic Valley European-Style Cultured Butter added, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with homemade breadcrumbs that had first been browned in a little butter with a pinch of salt, garnished with chopped parsley from Phillips Farms
• a rather German salad, served in a shallow bowl to the side, composed of 6 quartered Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, tossed with one small sliced red onion from Kellie Quarton’s Quarton Farm, salt, black pepper, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and less than one tablespoon of plain vinegar, plus a mix of herbs (lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, spearmint from Stokes Farms, sage and thyme from Phillips Farms), and allowed to sit for 30 minutes before serving
• the wine with the main course was an extraordinary German (Ahr) red, and an extraordinary good pairing with the pork belly, Meyer-Näkel Ahr Spätburgunder Pinot Noir 2014, from Gramercy Wine

 

• the music throughout the meal was a beautiful recording of only some of Mendelssohn’s wonderful String Symphonies, performed by Concerto Köln