Sometimes the most spectacular meals arrive without any fanfare at all. Such was the case tonight. My wife had prepared a rice and black beans casserole last night for dinner. It was very good. It was with just those two elements and breadcrumbs, tomato, probably some onion.  I was planning on having the leftovers tonight for supper, given that we were on different schedules this evening for meetings. I warmed up the casserole under the broiler, and that worked fine as the first course.

However, I had two other fortunate circumstances that combined to make a really great meal. One is that I removed an old French wine from the wine cellar. It was a 1998 Bernard Chave Crozes-Hermitage. I had taken it out of the cellar so it could come up to room temperature and be available for a meal. The other thing I had done yesterday was to buy some fish. And I decided I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I bought scallops, which I like but are expensive, and I planned to buy just a small quantity, about a pound, of monkfish.

Well, the monkfish got delivered to me at the store, and the price on their price sheet was $16/pound. But they charged me $18/pound, which was more than I was willing to pay. I pointed out the error; they were willing to re-price and repackage the food. Then I said I really don’t need a whole pound, how about just one fillet, which turned out to be a little over half a pound. Thus, they repackaged that, priced it at $16 a pound, and so for $8 and change, I was able to make a fish second course for tonight. The recipe I chose was monkfish with caper butter from NY Times/Florence Fabricant. It was terrific. Simple, flavorful, easy to do, and produced outstanding results.

The capers were not as salty as I expected. The remedy was also delightful: a few sprinkles of Slovenian fine sea salt.