Our dinner Thursday night turned out looking fairly wintry, given its many shades of brown, and the fact that each of its 3 parts included a different allium. In fact however most of the meal was determined by my wanting to include several ingredients that I’d been shifting around the kitchen for a while.

The steak however was new, purchased after we had returned from a trip up the Hudson on Monday, although it was from a steer that was 4 years old, meaning that it was wonderfully sturdy, and absolutely delicious.

• one 12-ounce water buffalo New York strip steak from Riverine Ranch in the Union Square Greenmarket , brought to room temperature, halved crosswise (the cut is unevenly shaped, but somehow I came out with two pieces weighing precisely 6 ounces each) seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared briefly on the top, thick fat-covered side inside an oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, and then the 2 long sides cooked for 3 or 4 minutes each, or until just under medium, and, at about the same time the steak was removed from the pan, the pieces of a thinly sliced section of stem from a flowering spring shallot from Keith’s Farm were tossed into it to be briefly heated and softened before they were scattered on top of the meat, which was then drizzled with juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon and some Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil, and allowed to rest for a couple more minutes
• two kinds of potatoes, ‘Peter Wilcox’ cultivars (purple skin, golden flesh) from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and red fingerlings from Norwich Meadows 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 Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a bit of dried habanada pepper, arranged on the plates and garnished with micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• one small head of radicchio from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sliced broadly, sautéed until barely wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which 3 sliced spring red onions from Berried Treasures Farm had already been heated until they had softened, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, finished with a dash of balsamic vinegar, arranged on the plates, and drizzled with a little olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Dão) red, Quinta da Pellada Dac Red Blend 2014, from Garnet Wines
• the music was Jordi Savall’s ‘Mare Nostrum’ (because it was time to hear it again, since it had been 2 years since we last played the recording), with music of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures which were in dialog across the Mediterranean from the middle ages into the early modern era