We were back from Germany but a day or two, and I was already homesick for a German meal. Not quite echt German, what I put together was more like ‘creative German’.

 

• one young, or spring, red onion from Bodhitree Farm, white portion only (some of the better green leaves reserved), chopped and swirled around for a minute in a small amount of equal parts of bacon fat, duck fat, and butter which had been heated inside an oval copper au gratin before adding 2 smoked loin pork chops [‘Kassler‘], from the Amish family farm in Pennsylvania which offers excellent produce at the Union Square Greenmarket under the name Millport Dairy, a Pyrex glass cover added immediately, the chops kept above a very low flame (just enough to warm them, as they were already fully-cooked), turning the meat once, and, near the end of the cooking time, the green parts of the onion set aside earlier added and stirred about, the pork removed, plated, brushed with a horseradish jelly from Berkshire Berries, the pork then sprinkled with both the white and green onion segments
• two handfuls of washed red amaranth from Bodhitree Farm, wilted in a little olive oil in which 6 tiny organic garlic cloves from Trader Joe’s had slowly cooked until they were beginning to brown
• small purple-top turnips from Norwich Meadows Farm, cooked along the lines of this simple and delicious recipe, using local honey (the extraordinarily rich Apple State Hilltop Family Farm pure buckwheat honey) and dill from Bodhitree Farm rather than the chives specified in the recipe
• the wine was a German (Mosel) white, Urban Riesling 2011 from das Weingut St. Urbans-Hof
• the music was Phillip Glass, ‘In the Summer House’ and ‘Mad Rush’, and Nico Muhly, ‘4 Studies’ and ‘Honest Music’