After a rather tough week at work, I felt that I had earned a little blowout for our Friday night dinner. My husband aided and abetted by driving up to Taylor Shellfish after work and picking up a bag of fresh oysters, then compounding his wonderfulness by also stopping by Slough Food for manchego and sopressata. I came home on a sultry afternoon to a cold flute of muscadet and good cheese and salumi. The perfect antidote to a long, mostly booze-free week.

After soaking in the fragrance of the lilacs and daphnes on the porch, we moved inside and had a “counter dinner”. I laid out everything we needed on the kitchen island, we pulled up stools and poured fresh glasses of wine, and began.

Jon used our mandoline to shave the manchego into feather-thin slices, then did the same with the fennel. I whisked together a dressing of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, mayonnaise, salt, pepper and some chopped fennel fronds, and tossed it into the fennel and cheese.

We (or rather, Jon) shucked the oysters, eating as we went, alternating with bites of fennel salad directly out of the bowl, and occasionally chasing an oyster with a slice of sopressata or a piece of buttered bread. The wine went down easily. It felt like Friday.