The tautog, or blackfish. It’s one of my favorites. It doesn’t show up often in the fish market, but I can rarely keep from bringing some home when it does.

• a single 14-ounce fillet of Blackfish/Tautog from Pura Vida Seafood Company , prepared mostly as described in this recipe by Melissa Clark, laying the fish skinned side down and kept there without turning, and then, to be specific about the other ingredients I used, the fresh sage was from Phillips Farm; the olives were kalamata, from Whole Foods Market, and the lemon juice was squeezed from a Whole Foods Market organic fruit, and although for the first time ever when cooking this recipe I would have been able to include the elusive ‘Aleppo Syrian red pepper’ [I found some from Morton & Bassett at the Westside Market] that it specifies, but I rushed through the preparation and totally forgot the last step, in which the fish would be dusted with “Urfa or Aleppo red pepper”, but I did toss some finely chopped small (sweet) yellow Grenada seasoning peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm, and garnished the plate with some purple micro radish from Windfall Farms, and the results were terrific!

I guess we know why they’re called ‘blue eyes’.

• a pound of ‘blue eyes’ potatoes from Berried Treasures Farm, boiled with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried while still inside the large still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with some good Portuguese olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and 3 garlic scapes from Berried Treasures Farm, cut into short sections, that had been softened by heating them in olive oil inside a smaller Pyrex pan
• the wine was a California (Napa Valley) white, Alex and Ryan Present: Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2017, from Naked Wines
• the music was the album. ‘L’esprit d’Armenie’, with Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion XXI