Bread, toasted, rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt

Eastside Road, July 12, 2010—

GRADUALLY THE APPETITE returns: we mortals are so persistent sometimes. Yesterday was such a fine feast-day, with lamb sausages Paolo had made, and delicious salads from Curt and Mary Jo, and bread and cheeses, tomato salad, and green salad of course, and a fine summer pudding for dessert; I forgot all about the recent travails.
Then today sweet Lindsey cooked some green beans and served them with the potato salad from yesterday, even better a day later in its mustard-cornichon dressing, and the above-mentioned toast, now one of the Hundred Plates. It'll be a while before I recover fully to the trencher, but the instincts have returned, the appetite's almost fully back; only the curious lingering aversion to coffee and wine to overcome. Slowly, slowly.

Sparkling pomegranate juice