This will be the very last appearance here of the three ‘heads’ of puntarelle that I purchased last Wednesday exactly one week ago as I write this, and which I eventually included in 4 nights of meals (9 servings) before exhausting its wonderful bounty with 2 different recipes.

A great vegetable.

• two or three roughly chopped cloves of ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic from Alewife Farm heated inside a large antique copper pot in a few tablespoons of olive oil until softened and fragrant, seasoned with local sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, a couple of rinsed, dried, and filleted Sicilian anchovies from Buon Italia, and a bit of crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili, pepperoncino di Sardegna intero, also from Buon Italia, followed by the addition of roughly 9 ounces of the external leaves of several heads of puntarelle from Tamarack Hollow Farm, trimmed of any wilted portions at the bottom, and washed very well in several changes of water (the base of this plant often has sand), parboiled inside a tall stainless steel pot in a large amount of well salted water until just tender, removed with a broad vintage slotted spoon, drained, and cut up very roughly, stirred into and mixed well with the contents of the pot with the puntarelle, then adding 9 ounces of Afeltra penne rigate, cooked until barely al dente in the same water in which the greens had been parboiled, along with almost a full cup of the pasta-vegetable water, mixed well over high heat, allowing the pasta to absorb the flavors and the liquid to have emulsified, when the puntarelle will have partially ‘melted’ into a kind of sauce for the pasta
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) rosé, Chris Baker Willamette Valley Rose of Pinot Noir 2018, from Naked Wines
• the music was an album of Sinfonie Concertanti by Mozart, Holxbauer, and Pleyel, performed by the Kammerorchester Basel