We decided to have a picnic [Ger. ‘Picknick‘], a very simple picnic, for several reasons: 1. It wasn’t a Union Square Greenmarket day, so it couldn’t be seafood; 2. It was going to be very warm in the evening and we didn’t want to challenge the air conditioner; 3. We had originally thought we’d be busy much of the evening, which meant there wouldn’t be a lot of time to cook a real meal.

• there was a delicious ‘Pâté with Goose’ from Schaller & Weber, and a little German mustard [Semf] on the side, which really wasn’t needed at all; a ‘Strauß‘ of upland cress from Two Guys from Woodbridge, dressed with a good Campania olive oil (Lamparelli O.R.O.) and a squeeze of an orange-colored sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, Maldon salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper; 4 halved Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, dressed with more good olive oil, salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of chopped garlic mustard from Windfall Farms; 3 cheeses: a raw cow’s milk cheese, from Isny, in the south German Allgäu, ‘Adel Egger’; a ewe’s milk cheese, ‘Gutshöfer Ziegenkäse’, from Twenteland, a green region of in the eastern Netherlands closely bordering Germany’s Münsterland; and a Harvati, a semisoft Danish washed-curd cow’s milk cheese; all of them from Schaller & Weber; slices of Tribeca Oven ‘Seeded Jewish Rye’ from Whole Foods Market [there were second servings of pâte and cheese]
• the wine was a German (Mosel) white, Weingut Axel Pauly Riesling Trinkfluss Trocken Mosel 2014, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 1693 opera, ‘Médée’, with a libretto by Thomas Corneille, William Christie directing Les Arts Florissants