It may look pretty unsophisticated, and it was unsophisticated, but the meal was delicious, and surprisingly cosmopolitan: The sausage was spicy Iberian, but made by a legendary New York German butcher shop; the sauce had both American and German elements, but was made in the U.S.; except for the Italian olive oil, the potatoes were pretty German, even if they were called ‘Yukon; the greens, garlic, and peperoncino were totally Italian; the wine has to be described as both American and Portuguese; the music was at once Münchner und Wiener, and it gracefully straddled 3 different centuries (albeit just under 200 years).
Oh, and Barry and I both agree: One cannot serve potatoes too often.
- four Spanish Style Chorizo sausage links (1.1 lbs) from Shaller & Weber, pan grilled until they looked more than a little blistery
- served with Inglehoffer cranberry mustard (the absolute rightness of that sausage-condiment pairing was a surprise to both of us as well, when we had first tried it)
- small Yukon Gold potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, dried while still inside the large still-warm vintage 1930’s Corning Pyrex blue-glass ‘Flameware’ pot in which they had cooked, halved, tossed with a little very good Portuguese olive oil from Whole Foods Market, sprinkled with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, topped with scissored chives from Lucky Dog Organic Farm
- some rapini from Migliorelli Farm that had been washed the night before but not cooked as part of that meal, wilted in a large antique high-sided tin-lined copper pot in which a bit of dried pepperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia and 2 cloves of Keith’s Farm Rocambole garlic had been heated over a low flame in a tablespoon or so of Portuguese olive oil until the garlic had begun to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and drizzled with a little more olive oil
- the wine was a California (Amador County) medium-bodied red made with 2 Portuguese grapes, Touriga and Tempranillo, Ana Diogo-Draper Amador Touriga/Tempranillo 2016, from Naked Wines
- the music was Strauss’s 1909-1910 opera, ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, with Christa Ludwig, Lucia Popp, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Placido Domingo, Walter Berry, u.a.