Larger-size sea scallops don’t show up that often at the fish stands in the Union Square Greenmarket, so I couldn’t pass these up on Wednesday. I found my vegetable a few minutes later, and I already had some very ripe tomatoes at home, so everything was set but the fixing of it.

• *8 large sea scallops (a pound) from American Seafood Company, washed, drained and very thoroughly dried on paper towels (twice), generously seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, pan grilled for about 90 seconds on each side, finished with a squeeze of organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and some Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil, the gift of  a friend, arranged on 2 plates and garnished with micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• five large Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, halved, the cut sides sprinkled with a small amount of sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, placed that side down in a little olive oil over a low flame inside a heavy tin-lined copper skillet until they had softened, turned over, the heat cut off a minute later, divided onto the plates where they were garnished with some bronze fennel from Norwich Meadows Farm, some of it left whole, some chopped

• *a bit more than half of a 14 or 15-ounce bag of absolutely delicious young spinach plants from Migliorelli Farm, the bottom of their root ends removed, washed in several changes of water, drained, very gently wilted (that is, not reduced too far) inside a large, very heavy, antique, high-sided tin-lined copper pot in a little olive oil in which 2  cut stems of spring garlic from John D. Madura Farm had first been allowed to soften, the spinach seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, finished on the plates drizzled with a little juice of a Whole Foods Market organic lemon and a bit more of the olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Minho) white, Quinta Do Regueiro Alvarinho 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the second disc of the album we had played yesterday,  Philip Corner’s 2014, ‘Satie Slowly’