Two parties

Lunch: bread; cheeses; salad; fruit
Piña Cabernet sauvignon 2005 d'Adamo vineyard
Dinner: rib-eye steak with marrow; creamed spinach
Ghemme Ioppa 2001

TWO PARTIES TODAY: lunch at home with an old friend, a simple matter of bread, cheeses (Brie, bleu, petit marcel, gruyère), a good green salad partly from the garden, and a nice bottle of Napa county wine. Dessert: apricots and cherries from this morning's market.


Then dinner at a local steakhouse to celebrate another couple of friends' 50th anniversary. After an opening Martini, the four of us shared a cheese fondue served with little roasted potato pieces. We went on to various steaks: mine was ordered quite rare and arrived nicely done to that stipulation; with it, a half marrow-bone.
I spread the marrow on the steak and let it glisten, then set to — politically perhaps not quite correct (since finished on corn, not grass) but, oh well, you can't be virtuous ten days a week.

The beefsteak was quite nice, fairly tender without being soft, and the creamed spinach nicely flavored with nutmeg but the spinach itself still persisting. French fries with a hint of truffle oil were tasty; also the corn-and-peas-and-favas flavored with butter and salt. A proper steakhouse, not cheap, but suitable to a golden anniversary...

Stark's Steakhouse, 521 Adams St., Santa Rosa, CA; tel. 707.546.5100