This meal anticipated summer by a bit, as nothing required cooking at home, and everything was served at room temperature.  We would have continued with a third course of two great, and possibly Germanic-y, artisanal cows-milk cheeses I’d picked up at the Bobolink Dairy stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, if we hadn’t already been pretty satisfied with the two we had already enjoyed.

• thin slices of some awesome, slightly-smokey cooked beef tongue purchased from Dickson’s Farm Stand Meats in Chelsea Market, served with “Cold Horseradish sauce à la Dresden” [image of the horseradish at the top], a simple recipe culled from the copy of Craig Claiborne’s “New York Times Cookbook” [the revised edition here] which I’d snatched up almost half a century back, and slices of rye bread from Balthazar Bakery, purchased at Garden of Eden
• raw red cabbage salad, using Kurt Gutenbrunner‘s luscious recipe, the small tight super-dark cabbage, garnished with thin slices of golden delicious apples (both cabbage and apples purchased at Garden of Eden), also served with slices of the round rye loaf, here with sweet butter on the side
• wine:  a Gruner Veltliner from Lower Austria, Kremser Weinzierl Gruner Veltliner 2008 (very inexpensive, and a generous full liter) from Phillipe Wine