Chicory; tomatoes and eggs

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, October 28, 2009—

OH BOY, THAT WAS a fabulous dinner tonight. To begin with, cicory. The other day at the farm stand (Tierra Vegetables) the counterwoman smiled brightly as we were leaving: Oh! Did you know we have pane di zucchero today, too?
Immediately I saw Mrs. Bertolli in front of me. She was our back neighbor on Curtis Street in Berkeley when we moved in there in 1973, certainly at least eighty years old at that time, thin as a rail, always wearing a sober print dress, a cardigan, long grey stockings and sensible shoes, spending virtually the entire day in her huge vegetable garden that occupied a double lot: favas, cabbages, broccoli, leeks, onions, tomatoes, peppers, with a few scrawny trees — lemons, figs, an apple I think. A typical ancient Italian immigrant.
One day I asked her about some strange lettuces she had, huge oval leaves. Pane di zucchero, she said, try it. I soon discovered the leaves were all that was missing from the sandwich I had until then thought completely perfect: mortadella, galantina, butter, bread. No: you need also a leaf of pane di zucchero.
It isn't lettuce, it's chicory. The Tierra lady warned us of its bitterness: It took me a while to get used to that, she said. But I knew about that. While it's delicious with lunch meat — the mortadella's sweetness offsets it — it's even better as Lindsey served it tonight: chopped, sautéed in olive oil, flavored with lots of crushed garlic. A glass of red wine perfected it.
Afterward, a recipe from the September issue of Sunset: Paprika tomatoes with poached eggs. She ground coriander, cumin, paprika, garlic, and salt in a mortar; browned a chopped, seeded, and skinned poblano on some oil; added the spices and some tomato paste, then water and halved Roma tomatoes; then poached four eggs in the mixture, and served the whole with some bread to sop it up. Absolutely delicious. (The recipe is here.)

Tempranillo, as yesterday; cheap Pinot grigio