"Good butter served at room temperature / Maldon sea salt in a small dish / Tough, tattoo-ed, secretly-sweet butchers that nod knowingly when you bring them your husband's recherche meat request / Ramps — if it's on a menu, I trust the kitchen / Handwritten menus / Any time a server tells me: "Excellent order" / The evocative names on heirloom-variety seed packets: "Grandma Hadley's lettuce;" "Jimmy Nardello peppers" / The butcher's blocky Sharpie handwriting on the brown paper parcel containing our lamp chops / A French market basket laden with the day's provisions: baguette, fromage, fruits de mer / The term fruits de mer / My husband's potager garden, and the way he ministers to it year-round / Candlelight and table linens / The sizzle of butter in a well-seasoned skillet, and the maillard that results / The bald love that goes into preparing a meal