Eastside Road, September 7, 2010—
MY FATHER DISLIKED ONLY two foods that I can recall: lamb and tapioca pudding. (Well, I wouldn't cotton to lamb served with tapioca pudding, either: but what I mean is, he would eat neither of them separately.) Alas I am not as perfect as my father in this respect; there is a fair number of food I dislike eating. Beets. Turnips. Parsnips and rutabagas. Yams and sweet potatoes. Okra. And squash. I will not eat winter squash of any sort, in any preparation, unless perhaps in ravioli. And I am not fond of summer squash. Not yellow crookneck; not patty-pan; not even zucchini.
Don't get me wrong: in a restaurant, if I find beets on my plate, I'll eat them, rise though may the gorge. Those other things I'll try to hide under the flatware, exactly as I did as a child, when I'd hope they'd escape notice, so intent were my parents on arguing about something else. Zucchini I will eat, but never with pleasure. I suppose if you'd quarter them lengthwise, brush them with olive oil, grind some black pepper and salt onto them, and grill them — then maybe I'd eat them more willingly.
But generally they seem to be sliced crosswise and boiled or steamed in water. Even salted and buttered, maybe garlicked a bit, they seem to me to have only the faintest taste of grass-clippings, and a dreadful texture, let's not even think about the texture.
Still I try to be grateful for what I get, and tonight it was zucchini. With it, providentially, boiled potatoes and the last of yesterday's aïoli. Afterward, green salad.
Cheap Pinot grigio
LUNCH WAS A SANDWICH from a promising little place behind the Old Mint in San Francisco, where we'd gone to visit the Museum of Modern Art. Two guys were sitting out in front of the place at an umbrella'd terrace table talking in Italian: when we stepped into the empty restaurant one jumped up and followed us in, asking how he might help us. We looked at the menu and asked if we might have a couple of sandwiches to go. We don't do that, he said, but of course you can. We settled on a sausage sandwich and talked a little while the kitchen prepared them — a nice cased sweet Italian sausage, grilled, and set in a good ciabatta bun with some sautéed broccoli rabe, giving it a nice peppery accompaniment.
They're from Umbria, the team running this place. I eyed the back bar and wondered if I might have a little sip of carciofo: "Cynar? Of course!" and an inch or so was poured into a tumbler — I stopped him there — and savored it while the sandwiches were constructed. With them, a decent green salad. Next time we'll eat in house; I think I'll like this place.
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