This was the very best artichoke-filled pasta I’ve ever had. Among its other virtues, there was no ‘ricotta extender’, so the artichoke flavors were not watered down – or buried by the heirloom tomato sauce.

The quality of those tomatoes was also a big factor in the dish’s success.

• two sliced garlic cloves from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, heated in a little olive oil over medium heat inside a large tin-lined high-sided copper pot until the garlic was pungent, joined just before that moment by part of a dried Habanada pepper, crushed, which was stirred for a minute inside the pot, followed by 2 heirloom tomatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm (one a deep red, the other a mottled orange), roughly chopped, and some chopped fresh oregano flower buds, also from Norwich Meadows Farm, the mix stirred a little before 10 or 12 ounces of house-made carciofi-filled ravioli, boiled for barely 3 minutes before being drained, were tossed into the pot with some reserved pasta cooking water, the pasta carefully stirred with the sauce over medium heat for a while to emulsify it, and when ready, served inside 2 shallow bowls, a bit of olive oil drizzled around the edges [the pasta filling was composed of artichokes; olive oil; cacio de roma, a semi-soft sheep’s milk cheese made in the Roman countryside; parmigiano; anchovy; tomato; parsley; and basil]
• the wine was a California (Clarksburg) white, Richard Bruno Clarksburg Chenin Blanc 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was from the Deutsche Grammophon/DGG album, ‘haydn, “sturm” und “drang”, paris & london symphonies’, the pieces performed by the  Orchestra Of The Age Of the Enlightenment, and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Frans Brüggen conducting both