Hot dog

Eastside Road, August 10, 2010—

FIRST, A FEW MORE WORDS about yesterday's soupe au pistou, because it was so damn good. Curt made it the way he always works: attentively, quietly, efficiently. We roasted a couple of red peppers in the flame of the stove, charring the skins; then I put them in a paper bag to loosen the skins, and then scraped them off.
Meanwhile he blanched some green beans he'd methodically cut into square pieces, and some shell beans — green, not dry — in another little pot. He chopped a leek and an onion and sweated them slowly in olive oil; then added water and the blanching water and the chopped peppers and a couple of potatoes, I believe.
We stripped basil leaves from the stalks and pounded them up with salt and garlic and a few pine nuts, then stirred in enough oil for the pesto sauce. The soup simmered away while we had our aperitif. Then, as we sipped it (or slurped it), Lindsey said it was definitely one of the Hundred Plates. There's no reason to make vegetable soup any other way.Tonight we watched the Cubs beat the Giants (yay!) on television, and it seemed appropriate to dine on hot dogs. Lindsey broils them in the oven, where she also heats the buns (Downtown Bakery, of course). I sliced up some onion nice and thin, and we had some of Lou Preston's marvelous sauerkraut in the fridge. Mustard, relish. Green salad afterward. And later, I'm sure, some of our nectarines…

Cariñena, Monte Ducay, Reserva 2005