It felt pretty wintry on Friday, so, yeah, fish and potatoes.
But, hedging our bets on the season, there were also yellow pole beans.
- twelve or 14 ounces of scrubbed, dried, and thinly sliced red potatoes from Willow Wisp Farm, arranged, overlapping, on the bottom of a glazed earthenware oven pan, covered with 3 tablespoons, or slightly more, of a Chelsea Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a pinch of an Eckerton Hill Farm crushed dried hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper and the same amount of a dried habanada pepper, 9 whole Italian bay leaves from Buon Italia scattered on top, and then more oil (another 2 tablespoons or so) poured over everything, the pan placed inside a 400º oven for about 20 or 25 minutes, or until the potatoes had begun to brown on the edges, when almost two thirds of a cup of pitted Sicilian black oil-cured olives from Buon Italia [fewer olives would definitely also work, this amount is luscious] were scattered about them, followed by one 15-ounce monkfish tail [Fr. Lotte de Mer] from Pura Vida Seafood, cut into 4 pieces, placed on top of everything, the fish sprinkled with salt and pepper, and the pan returned to the oven for roughly another 15 minutes, or until the monkfish was tender but not overcooked (I used an instant thermometer and 140º as the final say), everything arranged on the plates
- eleven ounces of sweet flat yellow pole beans from Norwich Meadows Farm, blanched and drained, then dried over a medium flame in the same, emptied pot, shaking it up and down, set aside until the fish and potatoes were done, reheated in olive oil inside a cast iron skillet, seasoned with salt and pepper, and tossed with chopped thyme leaves from Quarton Farm, garnished with a little micro red amaranth from Norwich Meadows Farm
- the wine was an Oregon (Northern Willamette Valley and Umpqua Valley) white, Scott Kelley Oregon Chardonnay 2018, from Naked Wines
- the music was Rossini’s 1817 operatic dramma giocoso, ‘La Cenerentola’, in a classic 1999 recording, Claudio Abbado conducting theLondon Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish Opera Chorus, with Margherita Guglielmi, Renato Capecchi, Luigi Alva, Teresa Berganza, Paolo Montarsolo, Laura Zannini, and Ugo Trama