Sublime

STRIPED BASS À LA FIORENTINA Sauté fish fillets in butter and oil until golden. Set aside. In a saucepan, sauté whole peeled tomatoes, anchovies, chopped garlic, chopped cilantro, capers, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and thinly sliced potatoes until potatoes are soft and sauce is thickened. Serve fish on a bed of sauce.

linguine alla cecca, it’s a hot pasta with a cold tomato and basil sauce, and it’s so light and delicate that it’s almost like eating a salad. It has to be made in the summer, when tomatoes are fresh. Drop 5 large tomatoes into boiling water for one full minute. Peel and seed and chop. Put into a large bowl with ½ cup olive oil, a garlic clove slic

Red wine, beef, some button mushrooms and a few pearled onions, bouquet garni, maybe some broad noodles or a simple

baked tomatoes stuffed with mozzarella Baking tomatoes briefly brings out all their flavor while allowing them to keep their shape. A few drops of balsamic vinegar provide that full-summer tanginess. Serve these as a side dish or a light main course. 6 medium-to-large tomatoes Balsamic vinegar Salt and freshly ground black pepper 6 anchovy fillets,

Ernest ordered calves liver (fegato alla Veneziana), which he said was a restorative, and he ordered a bottle of Valpolicella Superiore, which he told the floor waiter to pour for us without waiting for the bottle to breathe. “Italian reds don’t need oxygen,” he said. “I got that bit of Bacchanalian wisdom from Fitzgerald.”

A wonderful, simple lunch. Nothing to it, really, apart from excellent ingredients and a chef with the confidence and good sense not to muffle their flavors with unnecessary sauces and trimmings. Leave well enough alone, serve plenty of it, and respect the seasons is his formula. When truffles are fresh, serve truffles; when strawberries are at the

Some of the best cuisine in the world — whole roasted fish, Tuscan-style, for instance — is a matter of three or four ingredients. Just make sure they're good ingredients, fresh ingredients, and then garnish them. How hard is that?