Harvest Day

I dug all of the potatoes today. The haul was about sixteen pounds worth, which was a little disappointing. The French fingerlings had a better yield than the Yellow Finns, some of which I impaled on the pitchfork and hence became squirrel food. I may need to rethink having potatoes next year. They are unbelievably delicious, but they take up a lot of room. I have given up a lot of other crops for my spuds.

The fingerlings did contribute to a very tasty dinner, though. I simmered several of them until they were just tender, and then I sliced them and placed them in a baking dish, forming a bed. After drizzling olive oil over them and seasoning with salt and pepper, I added a halibut fillet and put the whole thing in my little convection oven, set to 450 degrees. (I had also drizzled the fish with some oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.) Thirteen minutes was about right. If the fish had contact with the pan, rather than resting on the potatoes, I think that ten minutes in the oven would probably be sufficient. I had the fish and potatoes along with some beets (a dark red and a salmon-colored) that I had diced small, tossed with chopped oil-cured olives, some julienned basil, and a few minced anchovies, all dressed with olive oil and sherry vinegar. This beet relish was the highlight of the meal. The combination of sweet beets, bitter olives, fragrant basil, and salty anchovies really did it for me, and it married extremely well with the fish and potatoes.

I paired the food with an albariño, a very pleasant white wine from Spain that I had heard about recently on "The Splendid Table." I thought that this quaffable wine would work well because of the Spanish feel of the food, and I wasn't disappointed.