It was a straightforward version of my usual treatment of sea scallops, and the vegetables were also pretty simply cooked.

• eighteen Hampton Bays sea scallops (14 ounces total) from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried very thoroughly with paper towels then placed in a paper plate to prevent condensation, seasoned with local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood and freshly-ground black pepper, grilled briefly (90 seconds on each side) in a very hot enameled cast iron pan, finished with a squeeze of juice from a Whole Foods Market organic California lemon, and a drizzle of Greek olive oil, ‘Demi’, produced in Laconia, Velles, in the Peloponnese, purchased from John at the 23rd Street Greenmarket last summer, arranged on the plates with a sprinkling of micro scallion from Two Guys from Woodbridge of Windfall Farms
• half a pound, maybe more, of scrubbed unpeeled Chieftain potatoes from Keith’s Farm, boiled, drained, dried inside the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, halved, rolled inside the pan with a little olive oil and one very finely chopped fresh Brazilian yellow wax pepper, further seasoned with salt and pepper, tossed with a little fresh thyme from Keith’s Farm
• some Winterbor kale from Savoie Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, the leaves stripped from their stems, washed in several changes of water, chopped roughly, wilted in a little with olive oil in which 2 garlic cloves from Chelsea’s 8th Avenue Foragers Market, flattened, then sliced in half, were allowed to heat until pungent, the greens seasoned with salt and a pinch or so of dried Itria-Sirissi chili, pepperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia, drizzled in the plates with fresh olive oil
• the wine was a California (Dry Creek Valley/Sonoma) white, Ferrari-Carano 2018 Fumé Blanc from Philippe Wines
• the music was Jordi Savall’s ‘Mare Nostrum’ (time to hear it again, since we’d last heard the recording in 2018), with music of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures which were in dialog across the Mediterranean from the middle ages into the early modern era