The meat course preceded the somewhat-fish course last night.

• three ounces of some really good La Quercia Ridgetop Prosciutto, from Whole Foods Market, drizzled with a bit of Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil, the gift of  a friend
• arugula from Norwich Meadows Farm, dressed with the same oil, a bit of organic Whole Foods Market lemon juice, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• slices of a She Wolf Bakery sourdough bâtard

The pasta, a squid ink spaghetti, contained no other reference to seafood, except in the kind of ingredients that went into its simple sauce.

• two slightly-squished Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic cloves heated in a little Portuguese olive oil inside an antique, high-sided tin-lined copper pot until they had begun to color, a bit of crushed dried pepperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia added, plus slices of one spring garlic from John D. Madura Farm and half a dozen sliced Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, the contents stirred a little before half a pound of squid ink pasta (Neapolitan Pastificio F.lli Setaro spaghetti al nero di seppia) that had just finished cooking was added, the mix stirred again, with some reserved pasta cooking water, until the liquids had emulsified, sprinkled with fresh chopped oregano from Stokes Farm, and arranged inside 2 shallow bowls, where some olive oil was poured around the edges, finished with micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was an Italian (Lazio) white, Monastero Suore Cistercensi (Bea), Lazio Bianco ‘Coenobium’ 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was by the Finnish composer Väinö Raitio (1891-1945), an early-20th-century pioneer composer of Finnish modernism, although still almost unpublished and unrecorded even today, his Piano Quintet in C sharp minor, op. 16, heard streaming on Yle Klassinen