This is one of the most satisfying meals I can imagine, at any level and in every way. Barry calls it “comfort food’, and it certainly is that, in spite of the fact that it seems relatively exotic.

We enjoy it often.

• two large (roughly 13-ounce each) monkfish tails from American Seafood Company, prepared  prepared using a David Pasternak recipe, but  reducing the proportions, using three fourths of a cup of Tunisian M’hamsa Couscous and Portuguese olive oil, both from Whole Foods in Chelsea, sliced rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, one and a half 400-gram cans of really good Afeltra canned pomodorini from Eataly Flatiron, green olives from the Chelsea Whole Foods Market, pitted but otherwise kept whole, and 2 whole dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia

• several small bunches of the leaf mustard (Brassica juncea) ‘Gai Choy’, an Asian green also known as Asian mustard, Chinese mustard; or karashi-na, from Lani’s Farm, roughly sliced, wilted for only a minute or two in a little olive oil in which 2 small cloves of sliced rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm had been allowed to sweat before a teaspoon of crushed cumin was thrown in, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground pepper, and finished on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Napa Valley) white, Alex and Ryan Present: Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2017, from Naked Wines
• the music was Kyle Gann’s 2008 piece, ‘War Is Just a Racket’, performed by the pianist Sarah Cahill