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There was a lot of red, and off-red, but, in our defense, it was Valentine’s Day.
The color began, even before any of the food had arrived, when I put this Transvaal native Gerbera daisy and its red-painted ancient iron cachepot on the table (like almost everything else connected to the meal, the plant had come from the Union Square Greenmarket).
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The first course was arranged around some very fine locally-produced dried beef.
- slices of a really extraordinary deep red-colored local bresaola from a 94-year-old business in our neighborhood, Salumeria Biellese (4 ounces), purchased from Flatiron Eataly, drizzled with a small amount of Trader Joe’s excellent Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil described as “unfiltered, unrefined, and cold pressed”
- arugula from Phillips Farms and wild cress from Lani’s Farm (I didn’t have quite enough of either alone, so I used all that I had remaining of each, allowing necessity to improve the the salume’s compliment), drizzled with the same olive oil, seasoned with Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- slices from a loaf of Philadelphia’s Lost Bread Company’s ‘Seedy Grains’ (wheat, spelt, rye, and barley organic bread flours; buckwheat; oats; flax, sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds; water, and salt)
- the wine was a California (Sonoma), sparkling rosé, W. Donaldson Rosé 2015, from Naked Wines
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With at least one eye on the holiday, the idea for the main course had begun with a pair of pink smoked pork chops, also locally-sourced.
- chopped sections of one celery stalk from from Phillips Farms, some of the tender leaves reserved for the end of the warming-up process, softened over a low to moderate flame in a tablespoon or so of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ that had been heated inside a heavy medium size tin-lined copper skillet, two 8-and-a half-ounce smoked loin pork chops from Flying Pigs Farm added, the pot covered with a universal copper lid and kept above a very low flame (just enough to warm the chops through, as they were already fully-cooked), turning the meat once, then, near the end of the cooking time (about 7 minutes, I would say), a few more thin slices of celery added for a minute or so, the chops arranged on the 2 plates and the celery leaves that had been set aside earlier, now chopped, sprinkled on top, finished with a topping of a bit of horseradish jelly from Berkshire Berries [I got too excited at this point and added more jelly than I should have]
- micro red chard from Windfall Farms, arranged near the chops as a garnish for the plate
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- fifteen ounces of red turnips from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, peeled, and cut into half-inch-thick slices, tossed with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a generous amount of fresh rosemary leaves from Phillips Farms, roasted inside a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan for about 30 minutes at 425º
- sunflower sprouts from Windfall Farms
- the wine was an Australian (South Australia/Mount Lofty Ranges/Adelaide Hills) red, Lucy Margaux Pinot Merlot (PM*) 2017, from Copake Wine Works
*referring to the unusual Pinot Noir and Merlot blend
- the music throughout the meal was the 1856-1858 Berlioz epic opera, ‘Les Troyens’, John Nelson conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, with Hanna Hipp, Cyrille Dubois, Frédéric Caton, Jérôme Varnier, Joyce DiDonato, Stèphane Degout, Agnieszka Slawinska, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Richard Rittelmann, Michael Spyres, Bertrand Grunenwald, Philippe Sly, and Jean Teitgen