coppa; creste di gallo, garlic, seasoning pepper, red kale

It was the day after a feast. It may have still been some people’s holiday, but we went easy on December 26.

There was a beautiful first course of an excellent salume.

  • slices of copa DOC Piacentini from Flatiron Eataly drizzled with Greek olive oil, ‘Demi’, produced in Laconia, Velles, in the Peloponnese, and bought from John, a member of the family that produced it, at the 23rd Street Greenmarket last summer
  • slices from one of She Wolf Bakery’s wonderful baguettes

The main course was a fairly simple pasta dish, but it too scored in both color and taste departments.

  • two rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm heated in a little olive oil inside a large antique heavy copper pot until beginning to soften, followed by one thinly sliced small, rather hot yellow Marzano seasoning pepper from Windfall Farms, and after it, a bit of Redbor kale from Oak Grove Plantation stirred in, sautéed until it was partly wilted, 12 ounces of Eataly’s fresh creste di gallo pasta (durum flour, eggs) that had been allowed to boil only until the moment when it was not fully cooked, tossed in, along with some of the pasta water, the mix stirred over high heat until the liquid had emulsified, then arranged inside 2 shallow bowls and scattered with some scissored Brooklyn chives from West Side Market (Square Roots, “hand-harvested in Brooklyn”), a little more olive oil drizzled around the edges