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It was so good, yet only an hour before I had begun to assemble this meal I wasn’t into cooking anything. It’s typical for me that once I had an idea, even if it was about a single ingredient, any reluctance vanished. This time it was remembering that I had some Mexican sour gherkins in the…

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At the fish stand on Friday, Paul had the very tip of a shark fin in his hand, but I went with the steaks. two thick 9-ounce alopias vulpinus (thresher shark) steaks, from Pura Vida Seafood Company, rubbed on both sides with most of a mixture of fresh herbs (lovage and winter savory from Keith’s Farm,…

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A friend visiting from Los Angeles joined us for dinner on Wednesday. She had last been here in January, when we enjoyed a very middle-of-winter meal, (as in, duck, cabbage, sweet potatoes), so there was little chance of repeating anything this time. That afternoon I brought home three beautiful striped bass fillets from the Union…

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Both were definitely local, but If the ‘wild tomatoes’ were not, technically wild anymore, the seafood really was, even if it had been domesticated by the fisherman (by bringing it home) and the fisherman’s wife (by preparing the salad at home). eight ounces of a squid and conch salad (including olive oil, parsley, red pepper,…

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A tough one. Somehow I must have persuaded myself that the tougher parts of the agretti branches I had picked up at the Greenmarket would miraculously soften once they had been parboiled. I was wrong, and now it was getting pretty late for any major change in the menu. I had suspected I might have…

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It may be looking a bit less like summer around here, but nothing in the image above is really not a summer thing. Sunday night we were able to enjoy, for the first time, a fresh sausage created by some venders new to the Union Square this year. I also managed to have come up…

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(I turned the plate 90° clockwise after the photo) I know it looks maximal, especially after the last few Sunday lunches, when I’d been reducing the number of things I’ve been tossing into our breakfast/lunch plates, but I guess I got carried away with the current bounty of the kitchen’s larder. Once we had sat…

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Only a few hours before I began to prepare it, I hadn’t thought I’d be making dinner at all Saturday night, but by the middle of the evening it seemed like it would be the most comfortable way to satisfy our hunger, better than a restaurant, and also better than ordering even a very good…

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I think it all looks very light, in both senses, and it was. Also surprisingly luscious. four 3 1/2-ounce trimmed skate wings from P.E. & D.D. Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket that day, coated all over with a local coarse polenta (‘Stone-Ground Polenta’ from Wild Hive Farm Community Grain Project), seasoned with local P.E.…

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I bought more swordfish than I really should have, because, while the individual steaks at the fishers’ stall yesterday were really too large for one, they would have been even less satisfactory for two, especially for two of us who really love swordfish. Warren, who works the stall and is also one of the fishermen,…

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