A Simple Autumn Dinner with Friends

(a title Richard Olney might have used and quite possibly did--with recipes)

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There were just four of us around the table that Saturday evening, the first cold evening of the fall. This was to be a night of serious if entirely friendly talk so I wanted a menu that would not require a lot of last-minute attention from the cook. In the end, that happily proved the case. Everything was made ahead except the dessert, and that, an apple tart, was ready to slide into the oven as we sat down so it would be ready and still warm when it was time to serve it.

For the first time this season, autumn’s chill had breached the night air so a fire in the woodstove warmed the room and lent that coziness that only a live fire can give. (How many long millennia have we humans met together around the fireside as the cold begins to gather? Surely, it’s what marks us as civilized mammals. Out of all the rest, only those we’ve brought into our campsites, dogs and cats, have learned the considerable advantages of a warm bed by the hearth.).

Autumn fruits at Beth’s FarmMarket

The menu was a simple reflection of the season: a bright-colored soup to start with, pureed squash and carrots with the last jar of last year’s tomato sauce (pomarola), the one I made with yellow tomatoes. I served that with what my family calls “Peg Shea’s cheese biscuits,” mementoes of a beloved friend who died many years ago and left this now famous recipe for crisp and buttery cheese crackers, perfect with the vegetable puree. I followed that with a braised Maine rabbit that I’d bought in the farmer’s market from the man who raised it. Kept in the freezer for exactly the right occasion, it was combined with plenty of herbs, white wine, garlic, and black olives. That was served with little new Yellow Finn potatoes, roasted in garlic and olive oil, nothing more because the rabbit with its sauce was abundant. Then came a fine salad brought by a guest from her window-box salad garden, complete with a scattering of sweet yellow ground cherries. And finally, the apple tart (open-faced so you could call it a galette aux pommes if you wanted to be frenchily fancy or fancily French) with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

Another guest brought the wine. He started us off with an aperitif, a very dry Fino Jarana sherry from Lustau, served with roasted, salted almonds, a memory of long-ago times in Madrid when a glass of chilled fino and a handful of almonds was the preamble to almost anything from a bullfight to an evening of tapas and flamenco. I don’t understand why these dry sherries have never caught on in North America—or just about anywhere outside of Spain for that matter. The astringency of the drink, bone dry, chalky, with that haunting dry-straw nose the Spanish call esparto, makes it almost perfect as an opener for the evening. I’m ready to bring it back, especially when complemented by a handful of freshly roasted almonds.

The soup was served hot (of course!), a brilliant golden orb in the bowl, with a dollop of sour cream (might have been better with yogurt) which was unnecessary but added to the visual pleasure. (“L’occhio ha la sua parte,” Italians say, “the eye plays a role” in enjoying the dish.) John’s selection of a Principe Pallavicini Frascati from the Castelli Romani, just southeast of Rome, was a delicious fruity match for the soup’s complex aromatics, ginger, cardamom, and cumin. And then the rabbit which called for a red—here John had selected a 2021 Médoc from Chateau Potensac (Domaines Delon), a wine both richly aromatic and fresh, again a perfect foil. (With the rabbit and the wine, I could imagine myself in the French countryside, somewhere down in the southwest, maybe next door to Kate Hill.) I should add that John and I did not consult on the menu ahead of time. All he knew was that we were having rabbit but he came prepared, well prepared I must say.

I’m happy to report that most, but not all, of this bounty was sourced locally, not far from my home kitchen on the coast of Maine. All of the vegetables—the squash, the carrots, the tomatoes, the onions, and of course the window-box salad greens—were local; the hefty 3 ½ pound rabbit came from a local chicken farmer who keeps a small flock (herd? collective?) of rabbits on the side. And the apples were bright, crisp Macouns from a Maine orchard

.Why do I think that’s such an important point? Well, obviously, an uppermost consideration is the freshness of flavors in produce that’s grown close to home, that doesn’t require long hours in a refrigerated van to reach my kitchen. Then there’s the relief in knowing food was grown in wholesome conditions, without heavy inputs of pesticides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers. And beyond that, with local harvests, I can be pretty certain the people who actually went out into the fields and pulled the onions or picked the apples were treated humanely and paid accordingly—and that rabbit, bless his heart, was slaughtered with equal benevolence.

I make an excuse for wine, as I do for olive oil. We just haven’t got around to producing very interesting wine in Maine although there are many who have tried. And I hope we will never be able to produce olive oil—that would be a serious development for global warming, one I hesitate even to contemplate.

The recipes for all these dishes are below and I’m happy to share them with paid subscribers. A friend recently pleaded with me to make the entire post, including recipes, free to all. I can’t do that, as I explained to her. I earn my living from writing. When I write books, they are not given away, to friends or anyone else. And when I work hard to develop recipes, it costs me both money and time. Not to be churlish, but I need at least to be reimbursed. If you disagree, I’d be happy to discuss it with you. All opinions are valued, even if we don’t concur.