It was like the night before Christmas, or any number of other Catholic feast days, where there is fasting on the eve of the big event, and a big feast the next day: Tonight we enjoyed a little tuna, simply prepared, and a green which also could hardly have been more simple.

Tomorrow it will be Thanksgiving.

• one 12-ounce Yellowfin tuna steak from Blue Moon Seafood, cut into two sections, rubbed, tops and bottoms, with a mixture of a dry Sicilian fennel seed from Buon Italia that had been crushed in a mortar and pestle along with a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, then seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, pan-grilled above a medium-high flame (for only a 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 Whole Food Market and some olive oil, served with micro chervilfrom Two Guys from Woodbridge
• red kale from Campo Rosso farm, washed, drained, wilted inside a large enameled cast iron pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil in which 2 bruised and halved cloves of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and arranged on the plates and a little more olive oil drizzled on top
• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Passerina, Tenuta Santori 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was Carl Nielsen’s very moving 1914-1916 war symphony [my description), his No, 4, ‘Inextinguishable’, with Neeme Järvi conducing the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra