I had a little bit of fresh tuna in the freezer, from the time I had to buy a steak too large for a meal for the 2 of us.

The plan had been to include it in a pasta some day, since it was too small to be an entrée. I’ve often used good canned tuna in a pasta dish and they’re terrific. Last night it all worked out perfectly, after I’d cruised around the internet for a few minutes and landed on a page headed, “Fresh Tuna Pasta all’eoliana”.

The recipe was so familiar, it felt like a homecoming. The only thing new was the idea of fresh tuna. I had all the ingredients on hand, it would basically take only minutes to prepare, and the cook would have to work pretty hard to make it feel even the least bit stressful.

I translated some of the names of the ingredients into their American equivalents, and the metric measures into our primitive pre-metric nonsense. Since we normally eat only 8 ounces or so of dry pasta when there are only the 2 of us, I halved the amounts. Although I had less than the 8 ounces of tuna that would then be indicated, it did not seem underrepresented.

Since it’s included on this site, I don’t have to write out the recipe here, but the sources I used on Thursday were:

• Afeltra spaghettone from Eataly Flatiron; 5 ounces of fresh tuna from Pura Vida Seafood; 10 small grape tomatoes grown by R&R Flaim in Vineland, N.J., from Chelsea Whole Foods Market; 8 Gaeta olives and a handful of Sicilian salted capers in a jar, both also from Eataly; a handful of parsley from Phillips Farms; one large garlic clove from Chelsea Foragers Market; a couple pinches of peperoncini Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market; Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil; sea salt; and freshly ground black pepper
• in keeping with the Greek origins and continuing culture of the Aeolian islands, the wine was Greek (Arcadia), Troupis, Moschofilero ‘Fteri’ 2017, from Flatiron Wines
•  the music was the album, ‘Fodor, Schmitt & Wilms: Concertos hollandais pour piano’