These crab cakes never fail to please, and last night they also looked pretty spectacular.

When I think about preparing crab cakes, specifically the ones made by Dolores, the wife of local fisherman Phil Karlin, of P.E. & D.D. Seafood, I often forget just how delicious they are. That changes each time, with the first bite.

On Wednesday evening, there was an additional treat, some New Jersey leeks, which I served grilled.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the day, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a heavy vintage seasoned cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 8 or so chopped Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of a bit of a homemade Basque  piment d’Espellate we had purchased in a small town north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec from the French producer’s daughter, the chopped white section of a scallion from Phillips Farms, much of one small dried pepperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, and some chopped mint from Windfall Farms
• a wreath of baby mizuna from Norwich Meadows Farm, arranged around the salsa, dressed with Portuguese olive oil from Whole Foods Market, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
• four medium leeks from Phillips Farm, trimmed of their darkest green ends sections, cut in half lengthwise, washed vigorously in cold water to remove any earth while carefully holding the white ends together to keep them from falling apart (this could have been done more easily by cutting only part of the way down through their length), dried, rolled in a little olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a tiny bit of dried darker golden habanada pepper, pan-grilled over a medium-hot flame for a few minutes, turning until all sides had been scored with grill marks and the leeks softened all the way through, returned to the platter in which they had rolled before grilling and sprinkled with more of the habanada, arranged on the plates, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with a mix of chopped herbs (parsley from Eataly and rosemary, thyme, and sage from Citarella)
• the wine was an Italian (Campania) white, Greco ‘Giano’, Ocone 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was Jordi Savall’s album, ‘The Borgia Dynasty: Church and Power in the Renaissance’,
  with Jordi Savall, Montserrat Figueras, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and Hespèrion XXI, produced by Alia Vox [a sample here]

Crab cakes from the Union Square Greenmarket: They’re an invitation to improvise, incredibly simple to ‘cook’, and always delicious.

The fishers were unable to bring anything to the market on Monday, because the intense cold had meant they wouldn’t be able to go out on the ocean, so I reached into the freezer for my small reserve stock of crab cakes.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the evening, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 8 or so chopped Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of a powdered proprietary seasoning blend, L’eKama, a small bit of dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm, and a number of really tiny chopped scallions from Willow Wisp Farm, garnished with a sprinkling of micro amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge, the salsa itself arranged on the plates partially on top of some leaves torn from a live hydroponic plant from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• small ‘Peter Wilcox’ purple-skinned white flesh potatoes, boiled inside a large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot, along with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried inside the still warm pot, tossed with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and one chopped Japanese scallion (a bit like a leek) from Norwich Meadows Farm, sprinkled with a little sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and chopped lovage, again from Two Guys from Woodbridge, arranged on the plates and garnished with homemade breadcrumbs which had first been browned in a little olive oil with a pinch of sea salt

There was a cheese course, and this time it included both fruit and toasts, plus one extra tidbit.

• Consider Bardwell ‘Rupert’ goat cheese and a soft goat, a chevre, from Ardith Mae that our neglect since purchasing it farther back than I can recall, had inadvertently – and pretty surprisingly – allowed to mature beautifully
• one Seckel pear from Caradonna Farms in the Union Square Greenmarket
• toasts from a She Wolf Bakery polenta boule
• beet chips’ (thin slices of oven-dried beet) from Lani’s Farm

• the wine throughout the meal was a California (Clarksburg) white, Richard Bruno Clarksburg Chenin Blanc 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was an album of Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony in Wagner’s overture to ‘Tannhäuser’, and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D, opus 43

It’s the perfect fast food. And you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home, especially when Dolores, the wife of the fisherman Phil Karlin, has made the crab cakes.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the evening, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of chopped mixed heirloom tomatoes (including one tiny hard green one) from Berried Treasures Farm, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of a bit of a homemade French Basque  piment d’Espellate we had purchased in a small town north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec from the producer’s daughter, much of one small red Calabrian chili pepper from Alewife Farm, and some torn fresh basil pulled off of a very much alive plant from Stokes Farm, both crab cakes and salsa finished with a sprinkling of micro lemon peppercress from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a salad of arugula and fennel buds, both from Berried Treasures; thinly-sliced red radishes from Row By Row Farm; sliced Japanese scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm; chopped baby fennel fronds from Paffenroth Farms, all tossed together with a bit of sea salt; freshly-ground black pepper; Sicilian olive oil from Whole Foods Market; and organic lemon juice from Whole Foods Market

There was a small cheese course.

• portions of two cow cheeses, ‘Pawlet’ and ‘Rupert’, from Consider Bardwell Farm
• toasts from a Balthazar baguette
• some delicious Candice red seedless grapes from Troncillito Farms, their stand in the Union Square Greenmarket.

• the wine throughout was a Portuguese (Douro) white, Crasto Douro D.O.C. 2014, from Manley’s Wine & Spirits, 35 8th Avenue
• the music through the meal was from the album, ‘Live from Lugano Festival 2016‘, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, and his ‘Gaspard de la nuit‘

This meal is mostly a lesson in improvisation, born of the need to scour both a freezer and a refrigerator to come up with a meal almost at the last moment. We had expected to be out until very late on Friday night, so I had not purchased anything that could be used for an entrée, or even a fresh green vegetable. Still, when our plans changed at the last minute, meaning now we would be home, I was able to recover the field, thanks to electrical refrigeration.

The potatoes and the leeks were both a little long in the tooth, but they cleaned up nice, and neither had lost any of the goodness they’d originally promised.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the evening, heated inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 8 chopped Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods,c sea salt, freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, a bit of a powdered seasoning blend with the proprietary name, L’eKama, chopped thyme from Stokes Farm, 2 small chopped scallions from Tamarack Hollow Farm, both crab cakes and salsa finished with a sprinkling of chopped green stems from the scallion
• a small handful of baby arugula from Lani’s Farm, drizzled with a good olive oil, Alce Nero DOP ‘Terra di Bari Bitonto’, from Eataly
• eight small red potatoes from Phillips Farm, boiled in well-salted water, drained, dried in the still-warm vintage Pyrex glass pot in which they were cooked, rolled in a little olive oil, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, then introduced into a heavy tin-lined copper pan in which 3 leeks from Phillips Farm, cut into half-inch segments, had been sautéed in olive oil until tender, the mix tossed with some chopped parsley from Lani’s Farm
• the wine was a French (Loire) white, Château la Berrière Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu Sur Lie 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was Viktor Ullmann’s 1940 Concerto for Piano, composed in Prague, with soloist Moritz Ernst, Gabriel Feltz conducting the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, and his 1944 Piano Sonata, composed in Terezín, with Moritz Ernst the soloist in that piece as well

Mostly because we’ve been running around during New York art fair week, I haven’t been to the Greenmarket in 5 days. Also, I haven’t bought any fish in 8, but we’ve still had to eat, and we’ve done pretty well, with the help of a great pizza one night.

I had thought about going to Union Square on Friday, even if the time I’d spend would eat into our window for visiting NADA New York. Then, late the night before, I did some calculations and decided I still had enough good stuff on hand to put together decent meals on the 2 evenings I’d be able to cook at home before Monday, when I would definitely be able to make it to the market.

Last night we enjoyed one of the 2 packages of frozen crab cakes I had been keeping for such an eventuality, and, aside from some beautiful local (Maine) outsize cherry tomatoes with which I could assemble a salsa,  I also had a decent selection of root vegetables to choose from.

Fresh herbs are one of the things I miss most during the winter months, but there are a surprising number of opportunities to pick up some of them in the Union Square market. I found these beautiful thyme bunches, leaves with purple-red undersides, and definitely a sturdy feel to them, but no less pungent than their summer cousins.

I’m no botanist, so I can claim no authority on the designation, but I labeled my photograph of the thyme, ‘winter thyme’, because, well, who knew there was such a thing?

There’s a reason winter vegetables have always been so popular in the winter (well, aside from their virtues otherwise: Most roots (and brassica as well) are pretty sturdy, and they can be stored for longer periods than most people expect. I bought the radishes I roasted yesterday on the first of February, just over a month before.

• two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (the ingredients are crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), heated inside a oval heavy enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served inside a ring of salsa which was composed of 7 chopped Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, combined with salt, freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, a bit of a powdered seasoning blend with the proprietary name, L’eKama, a small amount of chopped celery heart from Foragers Market, chopped red thyme from Phillip’s Farm, chopped parsley from Eataly, one chopped scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, the crab cakes then finished with a sprinkling of the green stems of the scallion, chopped, with more chopped parsley sprinkled on the salsa
• black radishes from Norwich Meadow Farm, scrubbed, peeled, cut into wedges, tossed with a little olive oil, salt, freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, rosemary leaves from Whole Foods Market, separated from their stems, and one crushed piece of dark home-dried Habanada pepper, roasted inside a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, at 400º for 20 or 25 minutes
• the wine was a California (grapes from the Sacramento River Delta with a small amount of Viognier from Lodi) white, Miriam Alexander Chenin Blanc 2014
• music was selections from The Once Festival 1961-66, which included work by Robert Ashley, Roger Reynolds, and others