Perhaps it is climate change, or perhaps the normal vagaries of the weather.  But October 11 featured a 76 degree afternoon, and at 5:30 six guests gathered for the final al fresco roof top garden dinner of the season.  The sunset was obscured by the approaching storm, but we enjoyed cocktails on the roof featuring freshly picked carrots, remarkably sweet at the end of the season, and artisanal farm cheddar with lemon basil from the roof.   The meal, harvested by Annie Novak and cooked by Jordan Colon (see, “The Team”), consisted of the following:

• First course was a hot carrot soup, with freshly harvested sweet carrots from the roof, thickened with squash from Eagle Street farm rooftop, and seasoned with herbs from the roof.
• Second course was a tasting salad, featuring a tasting of Malabar spinach, dark purple lettuce and speckled lettuce from the roof.
• This was followed by potatoes from the roof (supplemented by some additional potatoes from Eagle Street), roasted, and accompanied from roasted beet greens from my roof.
• The next course featured a baked green tomato (like a fried green tomato, but less oily) from the roof, garnished with sweet cocktail tomatoes from the roof.
• This was followed by a thyme-infused polenta topped with tender sole (an off-roof ingredient), garnished with a selection of cocktail tomatoes.
• The final salad course was a rockett (arugula) salad (from the roof) supporting yellow and purple beets (also from the roof), which had been roasted.
• Dessert consisted of a pear sauce made form a monumental european pear from the roof (the sole fruit produced from the tree form European pear in the orchard, pictured in the main tab page, “Financial District Fruit”), a savory biscuit with sage from the roof, and slices of Asian pear and apple from the roof. 

The al fresco dinner was interrupted close to the end by a dramatic lightning storm and moved indoors, but all guests interpreted the theophanous display as an indication of divine approval of the meal.