It was summer, and the vegetables were easy.

• feta cheese, an excellent ‘Valbreso’ from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, in the Aveyron department in the south of France from Whole Foods, served with strips of poblano peppers from a friend’s rural Garrison garden upstate, which had been charred over an open flame on my 1931 Magic Chef while being turned on an expanded metal grate, placed in a bag for 20 minutes, the skin, the seeds, and the veins then removed, covered with some good olive oil and garlic chive flowers from Paffenroth Farms, served with slices of ‘rustic classic’ bread from Eataly

 

• spinach and ricotta-filled demi-lunes from Eataly, served with a sliced dark red heirloom tomato from our friend’s Garrison garden, and a small yellow tomato from Berried Treasures, also sliced, scattered with ramp fruit from Berried Treasures, and summer savory from Keith’s Farm, drizzled with olive oil
• the wine was a Catalan white, Domaine Lafage Côté Est Catalan 2014
• the music was various works by the Neapolitan composer, Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), and some of his contemporaries