We weren’t interested in a big deal meal, so I thought I’d put together a pasta.

Barry said he would like one with which we could enjoy a red wine, so I gathered some ingredients that would please that choice. It was far more interesting, and delicious, than we had expected, and a second helping was even better, which is always the case with a good pasta.

• a little chopped garlic and chopped shallot heated until fragrant inside a large antique tin-lined copper pot, some small chopped sections of very small celery stems added and also heated briefly before the introduction of a few small pieces of dried habanada, a handful of pitted black oil-cured olives and a small amount of chopped celery leaves, then 9 ounces of Setaro Torre Annunziata Napoli Penne Rigatoni from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market, cooked al dente, mixed in, and almost a cup of the reserved cooking water added and stirred until the liquid had emulsified, the sauced pasta placed in shallow bowls, sprinkled with lovage, finished with a sprinkling of pine nuts (accidentally toasted beyond the stage I had  intended, but the carbonization seemed perfect for this dish), garnished with c from Two Guys from Woodbridge, with a bit of olive oil drizzled around the edges
• the wine was an Italian (Pedmont/Alba) red, Barbera d’Alba, Produttori di Govone 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was Mendelssohn’s, his 1837 Piano Concerto No. 2  and the 1824 Symphony No. 1, Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano, and the Freiburger Barockorchester, Pablo Heras-Cas directing