I love cucumbers. And thanks to Martha Stewart I’ve now discovered the sautéed cucumber. I took some liberties with her recipe however, in consideration of the vegetable materials I had on hand, and my own taste: I had 3 small Korean cucumbers, I cooked the chunks until they had begun to brown, and I finished them with lovage.

The cabbage was left over from an earlier meal, and tasted even better than it had the first time.

The pork was from a new Greenmarket source, one which happened to have the smaller-size chops I’ve had difficulty finding lately. I used the same recipe I’ve used for years, but since my oven is currently unavailable, I cooked them on top of the stove in a heavy enameled cast iron pot. I think I should have seared them a little longer before squeezing the half lemon over them and covering it: They turned out less than brown, but the flavor was terrific.

Since I’ve just pointed to the recipes or procedures, now I only have to list the ingredients:

• the pork chops, from Sawkill Farm, weighed just under 14 ounces altogether
• the cabbage ingredients were described here
• the 3 Korean cucumbers (totally 8.5 ounces) were from Lani’s Farm, and they were sprinkled with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was roughly the firsthalf of an 1984 opera of Aulis Sallinen, ‘The King Goes Forth To France’, which begins, topically but with an entirely fantastical story, with the English royal court heading south to escape a future ice age (read the album notes!), Okko Kamu conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tapiola Chamber Choir, and the Finnish Philharmonic Choir, with the soloists Riikka Rantanen, Jyrki Korhonen, Lilli Paasikivi,
  Mari Palo, Laura Nykänen, Herman Wallen, and Tommi Hakala