On a hot August night, we joined Richmond and Annette at their beach cottage for a light dinner.

The weather had been threatening all day. It was a Saturday, and by rights Lorna and I should have been somewhere beyond Montpelier or Litchfield, but we stayed home and planned for a Sunday drive. That was very successful - details soon!

So we went out to the cottage for a light summer dinner:

•  Three cheeses from Spring Day Creamery, ME to start, then
• Shrimp Tahiti and garden-fresh tomatoes with Lemon-Walnut Mayonnaise for dinner, and
• Grilled white peaches to finish

We started with a nice French Chablis, but all good things come to an end. When the wine ran out we were forced to open up the Rangpur for Gin & Tonics.

I was lucky enough to get a bunch of fresh-cut asparagus at Verrill Farm  in the morning, and then lucked into a half a dozen farm-fresh egg yolks from a friend at work who eats only the whites.

From there it was easy to suggest some sole and Jonah crab meat for dinner, and the Filet of Sole Oscar was the obvious dinner:

1. Steam the asparagus a few minutes, then plunge it into ice-water to cool it and keep it bright green.  
2. Melt 1 cup butter.
3. Dip the sole in flour and then in egg and saute in 1/4 cup melted butter until golden. Set aside on a warm place.
4. Slowly whip the egg yolks in an electric mixer.
5. In a clean skillet, toss the asparagus in 1/4 cup melted butter to heat through, then lay the asparagus across the sole filets.
6. Saute the crabmeat in the same skillet, and lay it across the asparagus.
7. Squeeze half a large lemon into the yolks, then slowly pour in the remaining 1/2 cup melted butter. Add a pinch of cayenne, and salt and pepper if you think it needs it. This is the Hollandaise.
8. Drizzle the Hollandaise across the crab/asparagus/sole, or just face reality and dump it all on. It's so good you'll take no prisoners!

We served this with a chilled Pouilly-Fuisse white Burgundy, a classic accompaniment that suited the dinner perfectly.

From start to finish was less than 30 minutes, but they were not relaxing minutes. You can do this after work if you are not too tired. In my opinion, it is so good that it is motivation enough to put in the work.

We celebrated spring yet again with a fiddleheads feast.

As usual, our Saturday adventure to Maine produced a lot of great foodie loot and we had to do something with it. We had fiddleheads and diver scallops from Gurnet Trading Post, Jersey cow milk and fresh eggs from Two Coves Farm, spring onions and some mushrooms from Bow Street Market, so we went with an early-spring "fruits of the forest" fiddleheads and mushrooms theme.

We:

• Opened with a Lazy Lady cheese and some cob-smoked pepperoni (both from Vermont)
• Puff-pastry shells filled with a mushroom medley and each topped with a fiddlehead.
• A canape of medallions of shad roe poached in Fino sherry with a cider vinaigrette, and
• Some fresh green almonds with salt.

By a stroke of great good fortune, I finally found my long-sought Shad Roe on the same weekend that Richmond lucked into four fine halibut cheeks. Obviously we had to build a dinner around our acquisitions!

The shad roe recipe is my favorite from Jasper White's Cooking From New England. The rest of the recipes we just made up.

The Menu:

• We started, as we so often do, with a cheese discovery. In this case it was Three Cheeses from Narragansett Creamery.
• We had the shad roe for an opener. I poached it in butter, then browned the butter and added minced anchovies, capers, parsley, and ham for a sauce. 
• That was rich, so we sampled Three Dry Vermouths, which went very nicely with the fish. These were supplemented through the meal by Lillet Blanc and Cocchi Americano.
• We followed the shad roe with Annette's salad of arugula, pine nuts, and other goodies.

It's snowing this morning, so instead of being a hundred miles from home by breakfast time, we were snowbound. Fortunately we had laid in provisions for a nice, simple  brunch that took about 15 minutes of time in the kitchen:

• Bound for Glory Vermont Cheddar from  The Cheese Shop
• A Poached Salmon, served warm with
•  Jumbo Shrimp poached with the salmon, and
• A simple Dill-Boursin Cheese Sauce that I invented when I discovered I had no more heavy cream.
• For tea, Lorna had her favorite Anastasia Tea and I had a smoky Lapsang Souchong.

This simple brunch took almost no effort to prepare. I keep my clarified court-bouillon in the fridge, so the poaching the salmon and shrimp was a simple matter of putting it in a just-big-enough pot, covering with the cold court-bouillon, and bringing to just short of the boil. Instead of letting it cool all the way, I let it sit there while I made the sauce, a five-minute affair.

To make the sauce, I melted a tablespoon of butter and added as much flour to make a roux, added some milk to make a thin white sauce, added about a tablespoon of dried dill, then about a half of a small shallot-and-chive Boursin cheese. The cheese melted into the white sauce, thickening it nicely.

I love salmon, especially the milder Atlantic Salmon. We have salmon for dinner at least once a week, so I am always interested in finding new preparations.

I found this one in Favourite Irish Recipes. The Irish and salmon go way back. The "King of Fishes" figures prominently in Irish folklore, and in the cuisine of that island nation as well. This is a simple and delicious way to prepare it: in a buttered pan in a moderate oven for about 15-20 minutes for 3/4 of a pound, with a little sliced onion and parsley, and some cider and cream. I had Jersey Cow Cream from Vermont and some old-fashioned hard cider from a jug in the cellar. The fish was delicious, especially washed down with a little more of that cider.

The Poles have a saying that a fish should swim "once in water, once in butter, and once in wine", the last of which is in your belly. I humbly propose that an Irish-style salmon can do very well indeed if his last swim is in hard cider from the cellar!

For the last of our four Exploring Italy feasts, we discovered Naples and Campania. All three wines were traditional to Campania, based on the ancient and under-appreciated Aglianico grape.

Antipasti, with a Mastroberardino Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio:

• Polpo alla Luciana (marinated octopus)
• Marinated Olives
• Fritto di Mozzarella
• Wine Biscuits and Fennel Taralli
• Two pizzas: a Pizza alla Napolitana (tomatoes, mozzarella, anchovies) and a Pizza alla Gamberi (garlic,  shrimp, and bay scallops)

The Pasta, with a spicy, delicious Aglianico di Taburna 2008:

• Fusilli Aglio e Olio - a simple olive oil and garlic sauce for the pasta, with no tomatoes

The Main Course, with a fabulous Feudi di San Gregorio Taurasi 2004.

• Peperoni Ripieni (bell peppers stuffed with rice, mozzarella, and hard-cooked egg)
• The Porchetta! My all-time favorite dinner... courtesy of my brother Bill. Follow the link to see his excellent little treatise on Porchetta.

Dessert was not Italian - this being my birthday, Annette made her special mincemeat pie with her homemade green tomato mincemeat - my favorite!

WINE NOTES: It was something of an adventure getting the wines for this feast.

The Feast of Seven Fishes is a southern Italian tradition that is catching on again among the descendants of the Italian-American immigrant community. The basic idea is simple: while awaiting the birth of Jesus, we abstain from meat and dairy foods. Naturally for Italians this is an invitation to get creative with fish, so traditionally we prepare a feast featuring seven different seafood dishes and as many vegetarian dishes as you like.

It is also important to note that southern Italy has historically been very poor. It certainly was during the great waves of immigration from there in the early Twentieth Century. Many of the dishes passed down through family tradition reflect this: smelts, sardines, octopus, eel, baccala, and anchovies in pasta all are common foods in the feasts that strive for authenticity.

There's really no point in trying to get too authentic about the seven fishes, since many of the seafoods and other ingredients are not available in New England. A certain amount of substitution is unavoidable, which brings up the idea of following the tradition in spirit more than in substance: if my great-grandfather in Campania were to celebrate Christmas Eve in foodie style, how would he do it? If he immigrated to Plymouth, how then?