The idea was to go easy after a string of some pretty rich meals, and to serve an entrée early enough in the evening, and also light enough, for us to enjoy a really great new cheese I had bought in the Greenmarket the day before. For Barry it would be his first taste.

• while the water was boiling for cooking 8 ounces of Afeltra sphagetto from Eataly in a very large vintage (providence: the Providence Biltmore Hotel 1975 closing sale) stainless pasta pot, 3 large garlic cloves, coarsely-chopped, were heated over a low-medium flame inside a large antique high-sided enameled copper pot until they had begun to soften and turn golden, 3 salted anchovies, rinsed thoroughly, filleted, and roughly chopped, added and stirred until they had broken up, followed by part of a dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, crushed, a tablespoon or two of roughly-chopped parsley from Salinas, California, via Eataly, and about a quarter cup of the pasta cooking water (while it was still boiling), the mix then allowed to simmer and reduce slightly while the pasta finished cooking (to be removed from the large pot before it had quite reached the point of al dente, drained, tossed into the copper pot with the sauce, and, the heat turned up slightly, its contents cooked, stirring, for another minute or two, the spaghetto arranged in 2 shallow bowls and another tablespoon or two of parsley sprinkled on top of each

A great cheese.

The cheese course was even more minimal, but also more of a revelation, since we’ve often enjoyed this simple emergency pasta, spaghettata di mezzanotte, or ‘bachelor’s salvation’, but we had never had this local cheese. We both agreed it was one of the best we’d ever had, anywhere.

• a brand new creation from Courtney and Brian Foley of Riverine Ranch (Brian’s the cheesemaker) a treasure of a semi-hard water buffalo cheese they’ve named, ‘Buvarti’, (a composite of ‘buffalo’ and the appellation of a certain great Danish cow’s milk cheese); the ranch is located in the Musconetcong River Valley, in Asbury, New Jersey, straight west of us, east of the Pennsylvania border
• slices from a loaf of She Wolf Bakery‘s fabulous great miche [great bakery pix here]

 

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Marche) white, Le Salse, Verdicchio di Matelica, 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music throughout the meal was the album, ‘Mosaic’: piano concertos by Galina Ustvolskaya, Henryk Górecki, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Georges Pelecis, with Heinrich Schiff conducting the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and pianist Alexei Lubimov