When I got home from a steak run to Dickson’s Farmstand in the Chelsea Market on March 12, our front doorknob was dripping wet. Creeped out, I rushed in and scrubbed my hands, stowed the meat safely away from Wyl-E The Cat and headed out to deliver the scones our friend/neighbor had requested from Las Delicias. Halfway down the 10 flights of back stairs to her apartment, I came across our super, looking ghostly if not Ghostbuster-y, spraying down the banisters with a bleach solution. And I realized that would be my last subway expedition for the foreseeable future. Everything was changing fast in this “end of the world as we know it.”
Dinner, though, still felt fine. The tri-tip steaks were worth the journey, so much so that, as always with stellar local beef, they needed no sauce, only salt, pepper and a couple of minutes on each side in a smoking-hot cast-iron skillet and five minutes’ rest on a cutting board. I roasted fingerling potatoes and cubed butternut squash with Aleppo pepper. We had salad, too, mesclun from Brian Gajeski, cuz we always have salad. After the steak, though, the way we learned to eat in Italy on our first trip, in 1990, when the awesome Massimo was our guide/fixer. To him house wine was “free wine,” farinata was “poor food” and a light salad was a “soft salad,” eaten last “as a scrub brush for your system.”
Next morning my consort and I would have a tiff because I had brought home only a quart of milk from Foragers in Chelsea. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you get more?” “That’s all they had!” Three days later we were investing in canned milk. Just in case. Cuz there is no president.
FITTOC 