It was delicious, even if the photo reveals it was a little colorless. I’ve usually used tomatoes, in fact usually bright red tomatoes, when I’ve roasted whole skate wings, and I did bring home some small golden cherry tomatoes that afternoon, but in the evening I remembered that I’d been hoarding some tomatillos, which are nightshades, but not tomatoes, for a couple of weeks. I checked them out and found that they both looked and tasted as good as when I had worked with a few on the previous Sunday, so I decided the familiar recipe could handle a change in one of its major ingredients.

The tomatillos had been purchased at the Union Square Greenmarket on October 14, over 2 weeks before I finally incorporated them in this meal.  Until I looked into their storage life expectancy on line the next day I had thought my experience represented an extraordinary survival, but nature often knows how to pack her things, and in this case her design, the dry, leafy husk in which they are wrapped and to which they remain attached until ready to be used, did its job well; also, I had kept them in an open paper bag in the crisper, and I talked to them regularly.

The other novelty that was a part of this meal was the herb rue, today more celebrated in literature and scary medical accounts than found in actual food preparation. I’d seen it before in the Union Square Greenmarket but had always passed on it, but the little bunches I found at the Stokes Farm stand on Friday finally won me over, after briefly checking the internet information my phone to see if I would be likely to find something to do with it.

The results were conclusive: It was positively super on plain boiled potatoes, a very pungent, very unusual and tasty flavor I expect to enjoying more in the future.

• a generous number of small to medium tomatillos from Ecketon Hill Farm, halved, tossed gently inside a shallow bowl with less than a tablespoon of olive oil and less than a whole crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili, pepperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia, arranged, cut sides down, inside a large enameled cast iron oven pan and roasted at 400º for about 10 minutes, after which two 11.5-ounce whole skate wings (the cartilage and joint bone where they had been attached to the main body intact) from American Seafood Company, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, transferred to the pan, after moving the tomatillos to the edges, roasted for another 15 minutes or so, a whisked together mixture of one tablespoon of olive oil, half a tablespoon of lemon juice, half a teaspoon of a good Dijon mustard, and more than a half tablespoon of rinsed salted Sicilian capers poured over the fish and tomatillos before the pan was returned to the oven for 2 or 3 minutes, then removed, its contents arranged on 2 plates, the tomatillos next to or slightly covering the edges of the skate, both garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge, with lemon quarters placed to the side of the plates

• eleven or 12 ounces of medium red potatoes from Windfall Farms, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in generously-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, tossed with a little Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with local P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company sea salt and some ground pepper, tossed with some beautiful rue from Stokes Farm, chopped
• the wine was a New Zealand (Hawkes Bay) white, Rod Easthope Reserve Hawkes Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was Jordi Savall’s intense album, ‘Orient-Occident Vol 2 – Hommage a la Syrie‘

I didn’t get to the Union Square Greenmarket on Monday, so while I missed the P.E. & D.D. Seafood stall, that night I rewarded us both with a meal that included a pair of their crab cakes made inside their home by Delores Karlin, wife of fisherman Phil Karlin, that I’d defrosted earlier in the day.

• two frozen crab cakes from P.E. & D.D. Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a small perfectly seasoned ancient cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of one large ripe red heirloom tomato, chopped, from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. at the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market, plus much of a small scallion, finely chopped, from Alex’s Tomato Farm in the same market, some sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of scissored chives from Space at Ryder Farm, and a little olive oil, finished with a judicious amount of the cook’s own homemade Zhug spread on top of the cakes, the whole garnished with a sprinkling of micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge [this time there was a lot of salsa, but noting to self that it would be best to put the crispy cakes next to the colder, moist salsa, and not on it]
• the remainder of most of a very large bunch of a delicious unnamed green that I was told is a mix of kale and mustard, from Quarton Farm, washed several times and chopped very roughly, including the stems, wilted inside a large antique copper pot in a little olive oil in which several thinly sliced ‘Chesnok Red’ Red’ garlic cloves from Alewife Farm had been warmed and begun to color, the greens arranged on the plates, seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a little olive oil
• the wine for both courses was a Spanish (Catalonia/Tarragona/Monsant) white, Franck Massard Herbis Verdejo 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Játékok’ (Games), with works by György Kurtág alternating with Bach transcriptions, both being the creations of Kurtág himself and of his wife Márta Kurtág, in two and four handed piano accounts performed by the two of them

After last week’s detour through a one-stop condiment arrangement involving some homemade Zhug, today I went back to assembling a lot of separate things in little bowls for our traditional Sunday bacon and eggs early afternoon meal.

It was a lunch of consequence.

It included, not necessarily in any order:

• 6 fresh eggs from pastured chickens, John Stoltzfoos’ Millport Dairy Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket
• 4 slices of bacon from pastured pigs, John Stoltzfoos’ Millport Dairy Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket
• chives from Space at Ryder Farm (sprinkled on the eggs)
• a bit of spicy parsley, from JoAnna Kang, of Windfall Farms (sprinkled on the eggs)
• local sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company (finishing)
• La Baleine Sea Salt Coarse (cooking)
• freshly ground black pepper from Whole Foods, its store brand
• a small bottle of homemade olive oil-infused dried Brazilian wax peppers
• leaves from a head of dark purple lettuce (probably a romaine form) from Kelly Quarton’s Quarton Farm
• Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal) olive oil, Hania, Crete, Whole Foods Market (on the lettuce)
• 2 chopped tomatillos from Eckerton Hill Farm
• Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil (in the skillet with the tomatillos)
• 1 small scallion from Alex’s Tomato Farm in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market (with the tomatillo)
• 1 clove of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm (with the tomatillo)
• a chopped section from one green) jalapeño pepper from Alex’s Tomato Farm (with the tomatillo)
• one finely chopped aji dulce pepper (no real heat) from Eckerton Hill Farm (on the tomatillo)
• chopped fresh thyme from Quarton Farm (on the tomatillo)
• ‘Delitia’ Burro di Bufala, Caserta, Campania (total fat 12g, 83% butter fat) from Eataly (on the side)
• Vermont Creamery Butter (total fat 12g, 83% butter fat) from Eataly (added to the bacon fat for the eggs)
• Seedy Grains bread (wheat, spelt, rye, barley flours, plus buckwheat, oats, flax, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin seeds) from Lost Bread Co. (older, so it was toasted) [pictured]
• Homadama bread (wheat, corn, water, maple syrup, salt, slaked lime) from Lost Bread Co. (wasn’t toasted)

• the music was the album, ‘Inde du Nord’, with Partho Sarothy, sarod, and Prabhu Edouard, tabla, with Raga Bhairav, a sampurna raga traditionally performed in the morning (we rise late)

There was a somewhat meaty first course and a vegan main, although since the flavors were so rich,  Barry had to ask me whether meat had any part in the latter. It did not, so I think the suggestion of it came from the savoriness of the habanada pepper, the smokiness of the toasted pine nuts, and/or the earthiness of the micro kale finish.

The antipasto, or the appetizer course, was more southern Italian than the next one.

• slices from a 2-ounce package of la Quercia ‘Prosciutto Americano’ from Chelsea Whole Foods Market arranged beside some leaves of arugula from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market, that had been drizzled with olive oil (Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal), Hania, Crete, from Whole Foods Market, seasoned with local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood and freshly-ground black pepper, then one sliced ripe medium red heirloom tomato, its one overripe section first severed from the rest and discarded, placed on top of the arugula, also drizzled with a little of the oil, sprinkled with scissored chives from Space at Ryder Farm, and seasoned with salt and pepper too [the rosemary cracker in the picture to the right of the arugula is an errant part of the accompaniment to our drinks before dinner]
• slices of ‘Whole wheat Redeemer Bread’ (wheat, water, salt) from Lost Bread Co. (not in the picture)

The primi, or main, in this case, to the extent that it echoed Italy at all, was the more northern Italian of the two.

• one sliced red spring onion from Norwich Meadows Farm and one chopped clove of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm heated until both were fragrant in a couple tablespoons of Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil inside a large antique copper pot, followed by one thinly sliced habanada pepper from Alewife Farm stirred in, and then, as soon as it had finished cooking to an al dente state, 9 ounces from a one-pound box of Sfoglini Einkorn Macaroni, together with a cup of the cooking water, tossed in, the heat under the pan pushed to high and the mix cooked, stirring, until the liquid had emulsified, arranged in shallow bowls with a little olive oil drizzled around the edges, garnished with some micro kale from Norwich Meadows Farm 

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Puglia) white, Dominic Hentall Terra Bianca 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music throughout was an album of Dieterich Buxtehude’s Trio Sonatas, performed by harpsichordist Jonathan Cohen and three musicians from his ensemble Arcangelo

There was nothing new in this entrée, except, I believe, for the greens, which were some kind of kale/mustard combination of which I didn’t get any description from the farmer the day I picked them up.

They were quite sweet, and delicious, with much of the flavor of mustard, but with little of the bitterness (which I actually like). Barry described them as “the habanada of mustard greens; all the flavorful goodness, but without the bitterness.

We were happy that the swordfish steak was a little larger than our usual share, because it was really, really good, and so were the very ripe tomatoes from which I had trimmed some portions that had gotten a bit too ripe.

• one swordfish steak (17 ounces) from Pura Vida Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket, halved, marinated for more than half an hour in a mixture of one thinly sliced red spring onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, a teaspoon of pungent dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia, little more than a pinch of dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, and less than a couple tablespoons of olive oil, after which the steaks were drained and covered on both sides with a coating of homemade dried breadcrumbs (to help retain the moisture, and keep it from drying out), pan-grilled over medium-high heat for 4 minutes on each side, or until barely cooked all of the way through, removed, arranged on the plates, seasoned with a little local salt, Phil Karlin’s P.E. & D.D. Seafood Long Island Sound sea salt, a good amount of juice from an organic lemon from Westside Market squeezed on top, drizzled with olive oil, and garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• three small heirloom tomatoes from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market, sliced, seasoned with salt and pepper, heated over a low flame inside a copper skillet until softened, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with chopped thyme leaves from Quarton Farm

• most of a very large bunch of a delicious unnamed green that I was told is a mix of kale and mustard, from Quarton Farm, washed several times and chopped very roughly, including the stems, wilted inside a large antique copper pot in a little olive oil in which several crushed ‘Chesnok Red’ Red’ garlic cloves from Alewife Farm had been warmed and begun to color, arranged on the plates, seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a little olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Marche/Matelica) white, Verdicchio di Matelica D.O.C., from Philippe Wines
• the music was an album, first released in 1993, of Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto, and Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 5, in performances by Gidon Kremer, Rainer Keuschnig, the Wiener Philharmoniker, and Christoph von Dohnányi

Pretty simple.

• thirteen Hampton Bays sea scallops (15 ounces total) from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried very thoroughly with paper towels then placed in a paper plate to prevent condensation, seasoned with local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood and freshly-ground black pepper, grilled briefly (90 seconds on each side) in a very hot enameled cast iron pan, finished with a squeeze of juice from a Gristedes Supermarket Mexican lemon and a drizzle of Cretan olive oil, Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal), of Hania, from Whole Foods Market, arranged on the plates with a sprinkling of some very special slightly peppery parsley, chopped, torn from a few stems that JoAnna of the Windfall Farms stand had shared with me that day at the Union Square Greenmarket

• the thinly sliced pink/white and lighter green parts of 2 red spring onions from Norwich Meadows Farm heated, along with a tablespoon of dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo (a wild Sicilian fennel seed harvested in the Iblei Mountains in the southeast), in one tablespoon of olive oil inside a small antique heavy tin-lined copper pot until the onion had softened and the fennel had become quite pungent, then set aside, while another tablespoon of oil, or a little more, was heated inside a much larger copper pot of the same description, and 2 beautiful small heads (11 ounces) of a hybrid Napa cabbage, called ‘Red Dragon‘, from northern Vermont’s Tamarack Hollow Farm, roughly chopped, was gradually added and stirred until all of it was slightly wilted, the pot removed from the heat, the reserved scallion-fennel seed mixture, some sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper added to its contents, and the cabbage stirred some more, finished by tossing on some more chopped spring onion

• slices from a loaf of ‘Seedy Grains’ from Philadelphia’s Lost Bread Co., purchased at the Union Square Greenmarket
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) white, Scott Kelley Oregon Pinot Gris 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was Christopher Tignor’s album, ‘A Light Below’

Food is often about color, even when it’s not really about color.

But food photography, even casual food photography, is always about color.

Sometimes the colors change along the way, but that’s part of the story too.

This time it was the mushrooms that gave a show.

• five ounces of some very definitely pink oyster mushrooms (which change to a gold yellow when they begin sautéing, through to an orange brown or copper color once cooked) from Joe Rizzo of Blue Oyster Cultivation in the Union Square Greenmarket, sliced somewhat roughly, added to a heavy antique copper skillet in which one sliced red spring onion from Norwich Meadows Farm had first been softened in a tablespoon or so of butter, the mushrooms immediately salted, to encourage their moisture escaping, and gently sautéed for several minutes until brown, a splash of Lustau dry (fino) sherry from Philippe Wines stirred in, the mushrooms seasoned with freshly ground black pepper and kept warm while the fish, whose cooking process had just begun, was finished
• one very fresh 14 ounce flounder fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company (where I heard it also described as a winter fluke), carefully halved lengthwise, seasoned on both sides with the fisherman’s own local sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed fairly gently in a tablespoons and a half of butter inside a large (13-inch), thick-walled antique tin-lined copper pan, flesh side first, turned after about 2 minutes and the second side cooked for about the same length of time before the fish was removed and arranged on 2 plates, the mushrooms spooned onto the edge of and next to the fillets, micro kale from Norwich Meadows Farm strewn between fish and mushrooms

• small, sweet, late season yellow ‘filet beans’ (small yellow pole beans, or Haricots Jaunes) from Norwich Meadows Farm, trimmed, left whole, blanched, drained and dried, then reheated in a little olive oil inside a heavy well seasoned cast iron pan, finished with salt, pepper, and more olive oil, arranged on the plates and garnished with some fennel fronds from small bulbs purchased from Quarton Farm a while back
• the wine was a French (Burgundy) white, Joseph Droouhin Laforêt Bourgogne Chardonnay 2018, from Philippe Wines
• the music was a brilliant album, ‘Silencio’, Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica, performing music by Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Vladimir Martynov

The chops end up looking very different whenever I revisit this recipe, one of my favorites, period. This time it looks like they were trying to emulate a tomato that couldn’t decide what color it wanted to be.

• two 8-ounce boneless pork chops from Flying Pigs Farm, rinsed, thoroughly dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, before being seared quickly (above a medium high flame) in a heavy enameled cast-iron pan, after which half of a Chelsea Gristedes Supermarket Mexican lemon was squeezed over the top (the lemon then left in the pan between them, cut side down), the chops placed in a 400º oven for about 13 minutes altogether, flipped halfway through, when most of one finely chopped aji dulce pepper (heatless) was scattered on top and the lemon squeezed over the pork again before being replaced on the bottom of the pan, which was returned to the oven, but 3 minutes before the chops were finished, one halved medium red and orange striped heirloom tomato from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market, the cut sides seasoned with salt and pepper, was also placed on the bottom, until the chops were done, chops and tomato removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, some of the juices that remained in the pan (there were very few this time) poured over them, chopped garlic chive seed from Space on Ryder Farm sprinkled on top
• nine ounces of medium size Brussels sprouts  from Alex’s Tomato Farm in the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market tossed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, then roasted in a 400º oven until browned and crisp on the outside, or roughly 20 minutes (when they will taste surprisingly sweet and a bit nutty)
• the wine was a South African (Western Cape Province/Robertson Valley) white, Arabella Chenin Blanc 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was Christopher Tignor‘s album, ‘Thunder Lay Down In The Heart’  

‘Morgenblätter‘.

As someone keen on both journalism and food, I often think of that beautiful 19th century waltz at breakfast time, especially on Sundays. I don’t actually hum it, but I enjoy all the pleasant associations of the word, with the usual exception of the contents of the news itself.

Well, it wasn’t our usual morning papers-with-[b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶f̶a̶s̶t̶]-lunch Sunday: This one was attended by some Zhug.

As the citizen of a great European imperial capitol whose territories extended into the Balkans and nearly all the way to the Black Sea, Johann Strauss Jr. was able to know and appreciate more dishes than those we think of as belonging to German cuisine, but he may never have had Zhug.

I first found out about it last week.

Maybe it’s just me, and my basically Eurocentric kitchen orientation (which is driven by time and space considerations more than any immovable preference), but most of the time I find I can ignore the recipe pages of the New York Times Magazine. It seems like the editors’ choices are mostly about courting points, wherever, for their eccentricity or sensationalism, sometimes with a side trip to silly. Also for the parties.

The recipe featured this past week was an exception. The subject was Zhug, a rich green sauce from Yemen, and it included a recipe with a loving description of the somewhat laborious process involved in making it.

I don’t know what it was that kept me lingering on the pages of the article this time. It may have been the photograph that showed a rich sauce getting friendly with, among other delicacies, a simple fried egg (Barry and I both love fried eggs). In any event, when I remembered Sunday was almost upon us, and once I realized I already had or could quickly gather together all of the ingredients (note: they aren’t really exotic at all), I was on my way.

But that would be only after a quick stop to search on line whether the sauce could be stored for any length of time, since it didn’t seem worth the trouble to make some if it wasn’t to be in the quantity described by the recipe: The answer was a definite yes, and one account, spotted on Serious Eats, was pretty specific: “It should last a few weeks in the fridge (though I’ve never had a jar linger long enough to actually find out)”.

Another reason for my interest in the recipe: I can spend a lot of time (and go through a lot of little bowls) assembling a lot of condiments for our traditional Sunday bacon and eggs early afternoon meals, and I thought this rich spicy sauce could be an interesting, if probably only occasional, alternative, and a big time saver too (as if that should ever be an operating principal for such meals).

The bottom line: The sauce is pretty complex, and really delicious, and a little goes a long way. It’s also really beautiful, if you’ve managed to include some red peppers. It would be a significant addition, more than just an accent, and just very comfortable with virtually any kind or form of Mediterranean dish. The world surrounding the Mediterranean on all side is one whose cultures were birthed in the civilizations of the Middle East, and Yemen’s is one of the richest of those.  It’s that Mediterranean that describes much of the eating preferences of Barry and myself.

In my own cooking I’ve hosted more extreme deviations from the European kitchen than that represented by this sauce, and increasingly so as the years go by and I become more comfortable in my skills and my tastes, but also as our local suppliers introduce us to more and more interesting alternatives to traditional European preparations.

Did I mention that I tweaked the recipe published in the Times, even on this, my first outing? It was mostly about playing with the kinds of chilis used, because of what I had on hand, because I wanted color, and because I was looking for as much complexity of flavor as possible. Also, I didn’t have the amounts of parsley and cilantro prescribed (so much!); I used only about half the volume, but some of my mix of chilis had no heat at all, so it may have evened out in the end.

Is it European?

Gabrielle Hamilton, the author of the article in which the Zhug recipe appears, and the chef/owner of New York’s Prune restaurant, includes this paragraph in her introduction:

For the entirety of Prune’s 20 years, I’ve confined myself — with pretty strict discipline — to cooking within a European-and-Mediterranean idiom. It has been two decades of salsa verde, gremolata, sauce gribiche and maître d’hôtel butter, with all the rest doused in olive oil. Of course, giving yourself the entire European-and-Mediterranean pantry is hardly a confinement. Somehow it has never even proved to be a monotony. It has just been a nonnegotiable outline of territory on a map, so that we all know how far we can go and what we are meant to be doing as we cook menu after menu after menu, season after season, six new menus a year, 20 solid years in a row. And that’s not counting desserts.

I think this is a fair evaluation of the material many Western cooks have to work with, although we are now blessed with farmers and fishers and bakers who encourage us to expand our comfort zones. Interestingly, in her next paragraph Hamilton goes on to add that, away from the restaurant, when cooking at home, she works with no such constraints.

Sigh. With more space, and more skill, and more self-confidence, I can imagine going there too.

One thing I am proud to say about my excursion into Yemen is that I prepared my Zhug entirely by hand, working with a wonderful antique vessel, an almost 12-pound, 6″ x 6″ cast iron mortar and its original pestle, with no discernible  maker’s mark, that I had long ago spent a week rescuing from its mid-career role, which was probably that of performing inside a machine shop.

• there were 6 fresh eggs from pastured chickens and 4 slices of bacon from pastured pigs, all from Pennsylvania’s Millport Dairy Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, the eggs, while they were being fried, seasoned with a local Long Island sea salt (P.E. & D.D. Seafood/Phil Karlin’s own), freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of dried fenugreek from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company (purchased at the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market), and accompanied by a dollop of Zhug, for which I had followed the recipe, and as I recall, virtually to the letter, with the exception of the makeup of the capsicum element (I used 4 kinds of peppers), and the addition of a few tablespoons of lemon juice stirred in at the very end; the sources of the fresh ingredients were: 6 cloves of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm; 2 jalapeño peppers, one red, one green, from Alex’s Tomato Farm in the Saturday Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market; 1 habanada pepper from Campo Rosso Farm; 2 tiny Brazil wax peppers (very hot) and 2 aji dulce peppers (no real heat), both from Eckerton Hill Farm; fresh parsley and coriander from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market; several tablespoons of juice of a Mexican lemon from the Chelsea Gristedes Supermarket; leaves from a head of a mini speckled romaine lettuce from Quarton Farm. dressed with good Cretan olive oil, Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal), Hania, Crete, from Whole Foods Market, salt, and pepper, and some torn leaves from a branch of peppermint from Keith’s Farm; everything accompanied by slices (some toasted, some not) from a quarter of a 6-pound loaf of Orwashers Levin Locale (locally grown and milled wheat, 100% natural fermentation, durum flour, wheat bran, biga, malt), also from the Saturday Chelsea Market
• the Sunday music was Messiaen’s ‘Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus‘, performed by Joanna MacGregor

I was still recovering from a bug, and hadn’t been doing much real cooking for a few days. Although during that period we had only ordered one Mexican takeout and one pizza (both really good), by Saturday I was more interested in preparing a real grownup meal myself than coming up with another food delivery choice, no matter how basic the preparation would be or how good the takeout could be.

I walked one block west to the 23rd Street greenmarket that afternoon and selected what was probably the most easily prepared entrée, and a vegetable that would be even more easy to put on the table.

• one modest 11.5-ounce tuna steak from American Seafood Company in the Saturday Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market on 23rd Street, rinsed, dried, halved, tops and bottoms seasoned with local P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company, sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, ‘paved’ with almost 2 tablespoons of a mix of some incredibly pungent dried Semi di Finocchietto Ibleo [wild Sicilian fennel seed], harvested in the Iblei Mountains, from Eataly Flatiron and a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market [both first crushed together in a porcelain mortar and pestle], plus one finely chopped small aji dulce seasoning  pepper (no real heat) from Eckerton Hill Farm, the steaks pan-grilled above a medium-high flame for little more than a minute or so on each side, finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, scissored garlic chive seeds from Space on Ryder Farm, and a drizzle of Chelsea Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil
• one medium red/orange-veined/striped heirloom tomato from Jersey Farm Produce Inc. in the same Saturday market, halved crosswise, the cut sides seasoned with salt and pepper, placed inside a small copper skillet in a little olive oil over a medium flame until softened, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with some chopped green sections of baby French leeks from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, drizzled with a small amount of olive oil
• one large bunch of cavolo nero (aka lacinato, Tuscan kale, or black kale, among other names as well) from Alex’s Tomato Farm, also in the Saturday Market, the leaves stripped from their stems, wilted briefly inside a large heavy antique tin-lined copper pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil after several cloves of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm had first been heated inside it until fragrant and softened, the greens seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a little more oil
• the wine was a French/Touraine/Loire) white, Francois Chidaine Clos de la Grange Touraine Sauvignon 2018, from Chambers Street Wines
• the music was the Neos label album, ‘Musica viva, Vol. 33: Peter Ruzicka’, with works performed by the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Vocalconsort Berlin