Winter night, before the snow

Saturday supper. In cold weather we eat at the kitchen counter. So, all winter. And last night it was covered substantially in the loot we had gathered in a giddy half-day of shopping at the Union Square greenmarket and Eataly (downtown). Inbetween food-buying stops we walked up and down the Arctic length of the winter High Line. The sky was blue, the sun shone, and we felt like visitors in our own city.

My guiltiest pleasure was a potful of New Zealand cockles. I love them. Just some garlic, finely chopped in butter, an overly-generous dash (meaning about one-third of a cup) of dry vermouth, cooked till boiling, and then the shellfish, steamed until open. 

After those we moved on to a smoked trout pâté (made by whipping flaked trout with cream cheese and Meyer lemon juice), unapologetic, oil-cured anchovies, smoked oysters (part of our early pandemic stash), green Italian olives marinated for an hour with blood orange zest in good olive oil, nine-minute eggs topped with bottarga, cucumbers washed in tulip poplar honey (a summer find at the greenmarket) and white wine vinegar and...a couple of rich slices of wild smoked salmon, each. 

The radishes were crunched as palate cleansers.

There is the out-of-focus Frenchman with an in-focus potful of cockles. With last week's tulips, our much-delayed bottle of New Year's Eve Champagne, and hot sourdough toast under the red napkin.

It is snowing, now.

And January has come to an end. We thought it never would. 

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