I’m regularly reminded of how delicious this fish is, and last night I also re-learned how easy it is to prepare well.

The vegetables were equally delicious, and just as easy to cook; I simply boiled 2 kinds of potatoes:

And wilted some tender cavolo nero, every leaf I found in the farmer’s wicker basket that afternoon:

• two 6-ounce John Dory Fillets from American Seafood Company, the last of them to be found inside the fisher’s bucket, earlier that afternoon in the Union Square Greenmarket, marinated inside the refrigerator for about 25 minutes in a mix of one clove of Rocambole crushed garlic from Keith’s Farm, more than a teaspoon of chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm, the juice and zest from roughly a quarter of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, more than half a teaspoon of good walnut oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, removed from the refrigerator and allowed to come to room temperature for about 15 minutes or more, placed skin-side down inside a large antique, heavy, tin-lined oval copper skillet that had been heated over medium-high heat with enough olive oil to coat the surface, the heat immediately reduced slightly, flipped after 2 -3 minutes and cooked for just about 2 minutes more, removed and arranged on warm plates, whatever juices remained in the pan poured over the fillets, and sprinkled with a bit of micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• two kinds of potatoes, 3 ‘Peter Wilcox’ cultivars (purple skin, golden flesh) from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and 2 ‘Ruby Cresent’ fingerlings (waxy) from Rick Bishop’s Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, scrubbed, boiled together, unpeeled, in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed there with a bit of Portuguese olive oil from Whole Foods Market, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with  scissored fresh chives from Phillips Farm
• tender small leaves of cavolo nero, lacinato, Tuscan kale, or black kale, their stems left intact because of their size and youth, from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sautéed until wilted inside a large high-sided antique tin-lined copper pot in which 2 halved Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic cloves had first been heated in a tablespoon or so of Portuguese olive oil until beginning to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• slices of an organic multigrain baguette from Bread Alone
• the wine was a Spanish (Valencia) white, Celler del Roure ‘Cullerot’ Blanco 2016, amphora aged, from Astor Wines
• the music was an album of Leopold Koželuch symphonies from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Marek Štilec conducting the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Pardubice  (more here)