The meal was just about as simple as anything I’d ever served, although there was a certain amount of labor involved for both of us, in what I will call the process which brought it to the table.

The most fun of those labors brought Barry and I out of the rain yesterday, once again, for a journey to the Village rooftop where we met our contact, and shared a few oysters, beer, and wine.

Less fun, but with the pleasure and reward of work done well, was the job of opening the 4 dozen bivalves once we got home.

Enjoying them at leisure brought us back to the real fun.

• a first course of 50 Rhode Island oysters from Walrus and Carpenters Oysters, served raw on the half shell over ice, accompanied only by two halves of one very small, exotic, not-very-acidic small citrus thingy from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island (the grower, Dave Tifford, has so far not been unable to identify it by name), which I had added to the place settings, mostly as a palate cleanser, since we generally prefer our oysters very straight

• a second course of 8 ounces of Afeltra linguina, from Eataly, boiled, but only until pretty firmly al dente, then tossed in a bowl with a sauce made of 2 minced rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, roughly chopped and half of one dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia cooked in three tablespoons of olive oil over low-to-medium heat for about 2 minutes, or until the garlic had barely begun to color
• the wine was a wonderful French (Burgundy) white, Saint-Véran Domaine des Vielles Pierres, ‘Vielles Vignes’ 2013, from Flatiron Wines & Spirits
• the music was from WQXR‘s annual 10-day, year-end Bach Festival, streaming