Ham food (reprise)

Eastside Road, December 30, 2011—

WELL, HERE WE ARE again, the ghost of Christmas past: a good-sized slab of that processed ham food, as I call it; a baked potato with a good amount of olive oil on it (no butter, sour cream, or chives in this household!), and one of the crabapples I pickled two or three years ago. Gosh, those are good, and they set off ham perfectly, processed or not.

Cheap Nero d'Avola

Steak-frites

Lafayette, California, December 29, 2011—

THIS IS THE FIRST town I remember living in, but it's changed considerably since 1940. I doubt there was a bistro in town in those days, but of course we weren't a restaurant-going family, so I wouldn't have known.

After a doughy Starbuck's croissant for breakfast and an enjoyable stroll in the Ruth Bancroft Garden I was hungry. We met an old friend from Chez P. in the 1980s at the place of her choice, also recommended by others. I had standbys: an almost authentic but not really Caesar salad (no anchovies, fluffy croutons, cut-up romaine) and a quite nice steak-frites made with hanger steak correctly grilled rare and served in a wine-flavored reduction. Nice frenchfries, too.

Pinot grigio, Scarpetta (Veneto), 2010; Malbec, Level (Languedoc), 2010

• Chow Lafayette, 53 Lafayette Circle, Lafayette; 925.962.2469

Dinner at Chez Panisse

Concord, December 28, 2011—

DON'T ASK WHAT we're doing here; it's a stupid mistake. Mine, of course. But since we are here, why not stop off in Berkeley en route, for dinner downstairs?

It was delicious, of course, and the dining room looks so festive and inviting. We began with tasty green olives marinated with just the right amount of lemon zest, then went on to the table d'hôte menu:

Warm chicory salad with pancetta, farm egg and toasted hazelnuts
Steamed local ling cod and shellfish brodo
Spit-roasted Riverdog Farm chicken stuffed with herbs, ragoût of wild mushrooms
and roasted potatoes with green garlic
Apple and candied Meyer lemon galette à la mode

The whole meal was beautiful. The dining room was full; everyone seemed relaxed and enjoying the evening. I don't see how you can do any better than this, but then, I suppose I'm biased.

Vouvray, Le Mont, Sec, Gaston Huet, 2007; Sauvignon blanc, Ojai, 2010; Santenay, Lucien Muzard, Champs Claude "Vielles Vines", 2009

• Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley; (510) 548-5525

Let's take the day off

Eastside Road, December 27, 2011—

TIME WE FASTED, I think, and the bathroom scale nods in agreement. So it was a piece of toast with the cappuccinos, three or four dried figs, and that handful of almonds and cashews with the evening tea. Basta così. We'll dine well tomorrow, just you wait and see…

Boxing Day

Eastside Road, December 26, 2011—

NO SURPRISE HERE: as predicted yesterday, tonight reprised last night. Baccalà, ham, roasted root vegetables, green salad, pumpkin pie. And tonight I gave that delicious baccalà mantecato a little more attention. Dio mio; che una cosa bella! Definitely one of the Hundred Plates. It even has its own website, where we learn that it dates back to 1432, when Venetian navigator and merchant was shipwrecked above the Arctic Circle, and survived on little more than dried salt cod. And so the Italians have awarded it its own Confraternity,

Perchè il baccalà mantecato non è semplice cibo. É storia, religione, avventura, segreto tramandato di cuoco in cuoco, di madre in figlia: piacere del palato, della mente, del cuore.

Because baccalà mantecato isn't simply food: it's history, religion, adventure, and secret, handed down from cook to cook, mother to daughter: a pleasure of the palate, the mind, the heart.

Well, this particular baccalà was handed up from daughter to mother, and to father too, and we're both grateful for it, from the heart.

Prosecco

Christmas dinner

Eastside Road, December 25, 2011—

ROAST GOOSE, FOLLOWED closely by a prime rib beef roast, are my candidates for Christmas dinner. But when the cook suggested ham instead I didn't hesitate. Whether my advancing age, or the nature of the season, I find nostalgia creeps in at such moments, and I thought of the feast-day hams my mother used to cook, with the delicious marrowbone, and the outside scored in diamond patterns, and coated with brown sugar, and perhaps rings of pineapple, and cloves.

So we went to one of the local upscale supermarkets in search of a decent natural ham. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to find no hams in the butcher case. There was one pork leg roast: Is that what you mean? the "butcher" asked; No, it isn't, I want a cured ham, bone in, fat on, that we can cook for Christmas dinner.

We were directed to the refrigerated help-yourself case, and there they were: precooked hams, spiral-sliced hams, curious compressed hams, none of them with fat, or skin, or bones. We chose one of the compressed jobs: it looked like an old-fashioned beehive, those hemispherical ring-marked basket-weave beehives.

Well, it was okay. It wasn't ham, I said; Yes it is, said Cook. It's ham food, I countered — a little bit sullenly, I'm sorry to say.

Other things had gone wrong. The 1984 Joseph Swan Chardonnay was past drinking — we stuck the bottle in the fridge, corked, to use in risotto next month. My pickled carrots lacked bite and salt.

But mostly things went just fine. Our guests from down the hill brought spoon bread fixings (and cooked it for us in our kitchen) and a lovely baccalà mantecato to have with a bottle of Frexeinet as an appetizer. Cook made a fine roast vegetable
dish with carrots, parsnips, Delicata squash, celery root, garlic, marjoram and thyme. I dressed the green salad with shallots and a marvelous new olive oil from Les Baux (thanks, Michael!). And there was pumpkin pie with hard sauce for dessert. Oh: and, again from down the hill, made from David Lebovitz's recipe, a little tower of chocolate macarons.

Good thing it was all so good, as there was plenty left over, and we'll be eating Christmas dinner all Christmas week…

Zinfandel, Ridge (Lytton Springs), 1988: a little past its prime, but fragrant and delicious

Christmas Eve

Eastside Road, December 24, 2011—

WE TURNED TO Franco for our vigil supper: a sausage hot enough to be chorizo, I think, sure to keep us awake even through most of that hokiest of musicals The Music Man, a curious choice for Christmas Eve entertainment. (I'm not ready to see It's a Wonderful Life again, thank you; but I'd rather see it twice than ever return to Meredith Willson's excursion.) With the sausage, some red rice from the Camargue, dark and nutty, easily up to Franco's spices; and then the green salad; and as a special treat a slice or two of a very nice light fruitcake from J'amie Patisserie, whose first-rate macaroons and panettone we've found at the Santa Rosa farm market. A quiet evening: we'll feast tomorrow.

Cheap Nero d'Avola

• J'amie Patisserie, 706.767.5027; jamiepatisserieatgmaildotcom

A day.

Eastside Road, December 23, 2011—

Chicken soup

Eastside Road, December 22, 2011—

EVERYONE KNOWS IT as the cure-all, the family comfort, the perfect combination of nourishment, sympathy, and reassurance. Chicken soup. A dead bird in a hot bath, with a few aromatic vegetables to make it palatable.

Turns out a plastic container at the back of the freezer was filled with chicken meat, shredded from who knows what bird, on who knows what date. A box of organic chicken broth, a few carrots, a potato, the tops of the leeks we had, let's see, when, thirteen days ago.

But we'd begun with pork rillettes on toast, and ended with mâche in a shallot-and-sherry-vinegar vinaigrette. You can do worse than this.

Cheap Pinot grigio; Barbera d'Alba, La Loggia, 2010

Osso buco

Eastside Road, December 21, 2011—

WE LOOKED AT THE MENU yesterday, and I thought about it from time to time today, and when we sat down in the restaurant and looked at the menu again there was no doubt. I mean, it's been twenty degrees Fahrenheit at our front door every morning for a week. This is osso buco season.

Wikipedia sums it up neatly:

a Milanese specialty of cross-cut veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine and broth. It is often garnished with gremolata and traditionally served with risotto alla milanese.

There are two types of ossobuco: a modern version that has tomatoes and the original version which does not. The older version, ossobuco in bianco, is flavored with cinnamon, bay leaf and gremolata. The modern and more popular recipe includes tomatoes, carrots, celery and onions. Gremolata is optional.

Tonight's version was nothing if not revisionist. Read the menu description, which I overlooked on first viewing:

HERITAGE PORK OSSO BUCCO
ACE Hard Cider braised pork, fennel seed gremolata, red cabbage & apples, crème fraiche spaetzle

Pork, not veal. Cider, not white wine. Red cabbage and apples. Why call it osso buco?
Still, it wasn't unpleasant, and the spaetzle were a nice touch. But you know? I think I'll make osso buco one of these days soon…

Zinfandel, Hawley "Ponzo Vineyard," 2010

• Zin Restaurant, 344 Center Street, Healdsburg; (707) 473-0946

"Sole almondine"

Eastside Road, December 20, 2011—

I DON'T KNOW WHY I ordered it. Years ago I heard someone refer to me, not knowing I could hear, as a francophile: perhaps I am. I do think Sole almondine is one of the great dishes, though not perhaps one of the Hundred Plates. Essentially it's just sole fillets, floured, dipped in beaten eggs, cooked in butter, and sauced with almonds that have been toasted in the pan drippings, which are then combined with lemon juice and white wine.

I expected something along those lines, though I knew it would be Petrale sole, not the Dover sole this quintessentially Parisian dish really requires. What arrived, though, was a Provençal take, heavy on the lemon, even heavier on vinegary capers. The almonds were not slivered but halved, and there were too many of them. The fish was a bit dried out.

Let's not be overhasty in blaming the restaurant: I ordered badly. I knew I was ordering badly when I did it. I should have had the fish tacos. Next time I will. I did like the buttery spinach, though, and the French fries. And the flourless chocolate cake, with a couple of ice creams, was marvelous.

Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina, 2010

• Willi's Seafood and Raw Bar, 403 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg; 707.433.9191

Another birthday

Eastside Road, December 19, 2011—

THEY SEEM TO COME thick and fast, these birthdays; one year the girl's in her teens, before you know it she's a grandmother. Oh well: sweet memories; good dinners.

Tuna grilled in the fireplace tonight, with a quinoa salad, and cauliflower florets braised with olives, aïoli on the side. Interesting, enterprising, grounded, and nourishing: just like the birthday girl herself.

Oh: and dessert: Linzer torte, with a syllabub on the side. Why only once a year?

Sparkling wine, Gloria Ferrer; Sauvignon blanc, Chapelle Ste. Marie, 2010; Zinfandel, Lodi, 2008

Arugula

Eastside Road, December 18, 2011—

A LONG DRIVE today, and the sort of dining, to give it too fancy a name, that seems to go with that. Breakfast at Porto in Glendale: croissant, caffelatte. Bread and cheese at a rest stop on Highway 5, with a little bottle of spicy V-8. A cup of delicious ice cream at Ici in Berkeley: Candied blood orange; Panforte.
Once home, a salad of arugula, dressed simply with lemon juice, salt, and a delicious new olive oil from Les Baux (thank you, Michael); and a fried egg sandwich.

Cheap Pinot grigio

Bolognese

Pasadena, Dec. 17, 2011—

WHERE TO EAT tonight; always the same question; where to eat tonight. Five of us, varying demands and desires, Saturday night, eight o'clock theater curtain.

The old friend who is coincidentally a food professional who we'd met for brunch thought it over and finally recommended a chain restaurant. Apparently Pasadena really does have a dearth of good restaurants. (I have my favorite, but the rest of the party won't agree; besides, Tre Venezie takes time; it's not best for a theater night.)

So we wound up at Il Fornaio. I had a decent small green salad with a simple balsamic vinaigrette; then a plate of tagliatelle in Bolognese. Or so promised the menu. Lindsey thought the sauce acceptable, though in need of the promised Parmagiano that never appeared. I thought it quite lacking in depth.

Bolognese requires beef, beef stock, and flavorings: carrot, thyme, wine, onion — I list these in random order, as they occur to me. Olive oil, of course. This Bolognese may have had many of these things, but it had another thing no Bolognese should know: water. It was thin and lackluster, and, sorry Lindsey, I don't think the addition of grated Parmesan would have offset its basic blandness.

Nero d'Avola

•Il Fornaio, 24 West Union Street, Pasadena; 626.683.9797

Noir

Pasadena, December 16—

WHERE TO EAT tonight, five of us, early, on short notice, on a Friday night, in front of an eight o'clock theater curtain?

We looked at Zagat, and consulted Open Table, and settled on a place not too far away with a curious name and a reputation for good food. I had a sliced grilled hanger steak, rare, flageolets with shallots on the side. 

The steak was covered with a sort of  tomato-modulated reduction, rather nice, and came with a square of gratinéed potatoes. The green beans were a tad undercooked and salty, like the steak, but pleasant enough. Only the casual service detracted from a competent meal out. 

Tempranillo

Noir Food and Wine Bar, 40 N Mentor Avenue, Pasadena

Poached chicken

Ojai, December 15, 2011—

OUR DEAR FRIENDS Jim and Lisa are putting us up tonight, and acquainted us with this provocative, truly clever main course: a whole chicken, flash-poached, then flamed with lemon-based spirits. We've never tasted anything quite like it.

Berkeley sans Panisse

Berkeley, December 14, 2011—

LUNCH AT A PLACE new to us, down on San Pablo Avenue: for me, Minestrone soup, then Spaghettini alla Carbonara. The soup was vegetable soup in a water base, not stock; it was not hearty enough to be called a minestrone (that "one" suffix is an augmentative, and this was a lean soup); but it was flavorful and pleasant and at the price I didn't complain. The carbonara was made with pancetta, thankfully, not bacon: but it tasted a little smoky nonetheless — domestic pancetta, I would say. Still, this was a pleasant enough lunch. No complaints.

Sangiovese by the glass, 2010

•Luca Cucina Italiana, 2057 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley; (510) 649-9718
Dinner at a new restaurant on Telegraph Avenue in a location that's housed at least five restaurants in the last dozen years. We wish this place well; it shows promise and deserves its chance to make its way. We opened with a plate of patatas braves, nicely roasted potato wedges served with aïoli and a tomato confiture; then I went on to rather too complicated a dish: steamed ling cod (very nicely done) which had been battered, in a sense, with shoestring potatoes and served with kale and crisply steamed snap peas. Dessert was a delicious Seckel pear, poached, with honey and an over-acidulated whipped gastrique, a bit too recherché for my taste.

A decent Martini; then a nice Albariño, 2010; later, a surprisingly good house-made approach to an authentic Spanish anis

•Origen, 2826 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley; (510) 848-9200

Chicken soup

Eastside Road, December 13, 2011—

A TOUGH DAY, beginning with a root canal job and ending with helping friends move. Well, no, thankfully, it didn't end with helping them move, it ended with helping them with Martinis and chicken soup.
Ironically, she'd made the soup for an ailing friend. But said friend was taken off to hospital before the soup could be delivered, so it served as our reward — I'm pretty sure another pot of soup will be in the works by the time friend is discharged from hospital.

After the soup, a nice green salad; before and after the soup, that delicious cheese I mentioned the other day — Joe Matos's St. George, named for the Azores island he's from, and made as it's made there, I'm told. Oh: and a bait of Dreyer's Rocky Road ice cream. A nice supper.

Sauvignon blanc, Geyser Peak, 2010 (grassy, fresh, clean, tasty); Vinho verde, Gazela (characteristic, pleasant, good acid balance); Merlot, Tony and Lorraine Vicini, 2008 (one of the best Merlots I've ever tasted, with the true varietal presence but with body and breeding as well)

Green salad

Eastside Road, December 12, 2011—

IT'S JUST SO good, the mixed green salad is. Reds and greens, sweets and bitters, softs and brittles: lettuce leaves — and those of a few other herbs sometimes — combine so nicely. I made the usual vinaigrette: a fair-sized clove of garlic, crushed, then mashed with a judicious amount of salt. A generous splash of olive oil to cover the garlic; let stand for ten or fifteen minutes. Then a careful amount of vinegar. These days we're using our own, made from Zinfandel we crushed last year — strong and full of character: I might have diluted it, but, like Bartleby, I prefer not. Oh: that's Acme walnut levain on the side: I love it.

Otherwise it's a fast day, so no wine tonight: water.

Frisée aux lardons (reprise)

Eastside Road, December 11, 2011—

ONE SUCCESS DESERVES another, I think, so today we repeated last Saturday's salad. Same type of frisée, from the same farm, bought at the same market; same bacon, shallots, olive oil. Two changes: a splash of sherry vinegar in the skillet after cooking the shallots; a guest to dinner.

Well, lunch: we sat down to eat about 1:30, got up maybe three hours later. Leek-and-potato soup; the salad Lyonnaise, cheeses and rillettes, lemon pie. I doubt we'll need supper tonight!

Cheap Pinot grigio

Odds and ends

Eastside Road, December 10, 2011—

DOLDRUMS TODAY, with one exception. The normal breakfast: toast (though buttered this morning, which is unusual) and cappuccinos. An apple for lunch. The last of that rescued-cassoulet soup and the usual green salad for dinner, with an ice cream sundae for dessert.

The one exception was a delicious Portuguese-style cheese nibbled at a friend's house: Joe Matos's St. George cheese, which Gaye likes enough to buy a wheel at a time, and I could imagine doing the same. Delicious.

Martinis tonight

leek-and-potato soup

Eastside Road, December 9, 2011—

WHEN IS IT, WHEN is it not, Vichyssoise? As is often the case, Wikipedia helps out, quoting Louis Diat, the famous chef of the Ritz-Carlton:

In the summer of 1917, when I had been at the Ritz seven years, I reflected upon the potato and leek soup of my childhood which my mother and grandmother used to make. I recalled how during the summer my older brother and I used to cool it off by pouring in cold milk and how delicious it was. I resolved to make something of the sort for the patrons of the Ritz.

Aha: it's the addition of milk — or, better, cream — that turns good old peasant leek-and-potato into uptown Vichyssoise. And the whole point, originally, apparently, was to cool it.

Well, it's winter here with a vengeance, 22° every morning for the last week; the fire's been burning nonstop, and I want my soup hot. We took our principal meal at midday today, and it began with leek-and-potato soup, maigre for lacking chicken stock as well as cream, and hot, and with a toast fried in butter floating on top. Delicious. Also a plate of cheeses — Stilton, Affinois, Gruyère; with some really amazingly deep and delicious Damson jelly. And "wild" arugula dressed with olive oil and Champagne vinegar.

And dessert! Lemon pie! Meyer lemon pie, made in the manner of a Key lime pie, with Graham-cracker crust and softly whipped cream… You can't do much better than this…

Cheap Pinot grigio

Croque baton

Petaluma, California, December 8, 2011—

WE ALL HAVE GUILTY pleasures. Among mine: the Croque-monsieur, which I would nominate to the Hundred Plates except that among the many variations there are too many that seem to me not to measure up. Besides, I think I've already promoted the (generic) Grilled Ham and Cheese. (One of these days I'll have to bring some order to these matters.)

The best one I've ever eaten, I think, was served to me in the bar down at the Square St. Médard in Paris, where Les Caves de Bourgogne is now. Thirty years ago this was a rougher area; the bar was more ordinary. Still, the sandwich was on good bread, Poilâne in fact.

A true croque-monsieur requires really good bread. Also four other things: decent boiled ham; decent Gruyère cheese; Béchamel sauce; and that hyphen in its name. Don't ask how it got its name; no one seems to know. The earliest mention in the literature seems to be Proust, according to the French-language Wikipedia; but in this Internet epoch all such research seems circular at best, unverifiable in general.

Now today's question is, what the hell is a "croque baton"? I'd never seen the term before today, when it showed up (as seen here, no circumflex on "bâton") on the lunch menu at this bakery we like in Petaluma. Googling suggests it's a yuppieish word referring to a pressed grilled sandwich. The Dutch make pressed grilled ham-and-cheese, and call them Tosti's (Dutch nouns ending in vowels adding the apostrophe "s" to denote plural); the Italians of course call them panini.

But baton? Why "baton"? No idea. In any case, it tasted good. It was made with chopped ham and Gruyère — the cheese had been diced, I'm pretty sure — combined with a Mornay-type sauce, put between slices of bread, buttered, and grilled. The green salad with it was clean and flavorful and nicely dressed with good olive oil and salt. No complaints.

wine

• Della Fattoria, 141 Petaluma Boulevard North, Petaluma; (707) 763-0161

The very last of the cassoulet

Eastside Road, December 7, 2011—

YES, I KNOW, I've already told you about the last of last year's cassoulet. Fact is, Lindsey found a little something in the freezer and, thinking it was bean soup, thawed it, and lo and behold.

But there wasn't really enough of it, nor was it (probably: I haven't inquired too closely) in good enough shape, to serve as a main course, even for just the two of us. So she turned it into soup, and it was delicious, and recalled pleasant evenings gone by.

Then on to Franco's sausages — tonight, a fine, redolent cotecchino, which always makes me think of Paolo, so dearly does he love it — and, of course, a green salad, dressed with oil and lemon juice. A simple supper, welcome after yesterday's fast.

Cabernet sauvignon, Hamilton Block (Coonawarra), 2009

Cannellini and salmon

Eastside Road, December 5, 2011—

TIME TO BEGIN CLEANING out the garden, getting ready for next year. I picked the last of the cannellini the other day; Lindsey cooked them tonight, with thyme, marjoram, and savory. These herbs are subtle. I thought I detected sage, but it was the savory that had thrown me off. The summer savory, true friend of the bean, is long gone, but Lindsey has a little garden-variety savory tucked away in a border somewhere, and that did the trick, lifting these fresh dried beans very far indeed out of the ordinary.

With them, as you see, broiled salmon, one of the last pieces of the season, from out of the freezer and so a little dry but delicious nonetheless. We dressed it with salt pepper and lime juice, not lemon, as we'd warmed up with guacamole and tequila, and had a little of the lime left.

Green salad, of course; fruit, of course.

Cabernet sauvignon, Hamilton Block (Coonawarra), 2009: serviceable, friendly, screwtop

Soup and salad

Eastside Road, December 4, 2011—

LUNCH TODAY as usual, peanut butter on toast and some fruit; then a late-afternoon party catered by Berkeley's Le Poulet, with deviled eggs, cold cuts, roast potatoes and aïoli, cheeses, and desserts. So we were content with the standby soup, sandwich, and salad for dinner: yesterday's pea soup; toast and nagelkaas; green salad with that delicious Eastside Zinfandel vinegar. Fruit, of course.

Yesterday's rosé

Salade Lyonnaise

Eastside Road, December 3, 2011—

FRISÉE AUX LARDONS : clearly one of the Hundred Plates. I can't imagine when I first tasted this absolutely perfect dish. I must have known immediately that it was perfect. Bistrot cooking at its most soigné; French cuisine at its most characteristic.

We were at the Farm Market in Santa Rosa today — in winter it's the nearest fairly complete market, with produce, bakery goods, fish and shellfish, a band that sounded like the Hot Club of San Francisco. Yael Bernier was there: we buy garlic and peppers from her at the Healdsburg market, and it's nice to know we can stay in touch out of season.

She had a beautiful head of frisée, and seeing it I was immediately struck with a strong desire for a Salade Lyonnaise. I looked it up online, to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, and then made the dish you see here:

A little olive oil in the black iron skillet, got good and hot. Throw in some bacon you've cut into cubes: I used maybe three ounces altogether. When that's crisp, or as crisp as it can get in all that oil and bacon fat, throw in a couple of shallots chopped not too fine.

Oh! I forgot croutons! Oh well: cut a couple of thick slices of French bread, stale is better, into cubes, and toast them in a dry iron skillet with a little salt.

Meanwhile, boil some salted water; then turn it down and slide a couple of eggs into it to poach.

You've washed the frisée, yes? Then tear it apart, put it in a mixing bowl with the croutons, pour the bacon-shallot mixture over and toss, adjust for salt, distribute among the serving plates, and put a poached egg atop each one.

Afterward we had a baked potato, nothing more.

Rosé de soignée, Bergerie l'Hortus (Languedoc), 2010: crisp, fresh, clean, tasty

Fast; Erwtensoep

Eastside Road, November 30-December 2, 2011—

WEDNESDAY, AFTER TWO WEEKS of indiscretion partly excused by the national feast season that is Thanksgiving, and after having gained a number of pounds, it was time to fast, of course.

Then came two days of erwtensoep. I have to admit that much as I love The Netherlands, its culture and its people, its landscapes and its landscape, and as attracted as I am, even, to its language, I find erwtensoep an impossible word to pronounce. You leave out the "w," of course; but I think you sort of hint at it. "Air-ten-soup" doesn't quite do it justice. That "w" is a palimpsest of Proto-Germanic*, I find after a Google search, and it should be honored though not lingered over.

In any case, it's good old split pea soup. Lindsey fried up a little bit of bacon, then fried onions in it; then made the split pea soup in the usual way — but she'd found some leftover cooked kale in the freezer, and added it in: that, I think, made it Dutch. It was delicious last night, and it was just as delicious again tonight, always with a slice of toasted bread rubbed with un-Dutch garlic floating on top.

Cairanne (Côtes du Rhône), Domaine Catherine le Goeuil, 2009 (a little dull and unforthcoming)

*Proto-Germanic: *arwait=, *arwīt=
Meaning: pea
IE etymology: IE etymology
Old Norse: pl. ert-r f.
Norwegian: ert
Swedish: ärt
Danish: ert
Old Saxon: eriwit, erit f.
Middle Dutch: erwete, aerwete, arwete
Dutch: erwt f.
Middle Low German: erwete, ērt f.
Low German: pl. erwten
Old High German: arawīʒ f. (9./10.Jh.), bair. araweiʒ (10.Jh.) `Erbse, Kichererbse'
Middle High German: arwīʒ, ar(e)weiʒ, er(e)weiʒ, (spät) erbeiʒ st. f. 'erbse'
German: Erbse f.

Road food; Piperade

The road, then San Francisco, November 28-29, 2011—

IT'S DIFFICULT, these reconstructions of dinings past, even when only at the distance of two or three days. Still, one musters on.

Monday we drove a long way, leaving Portland about eleven in the morning, spending a short hour in Eugene with Penny and Gary and a slice of pizza and a salad, then driving on to Emeryville and a cheap motel. On such a day one's grateful for anything of flavor and substance, and the pizza margherita, with a Caesar salad on the side, qualified. I looked longingly at the wines available by the glass, thought about the five hundred twenty miles left to drive, and forgoddabouddit.
• Marché Provisions, 296 E 5th Avenue, Eugene, OR; 541.743.0660
Then it was on to Ashland, where we stopped for a coffee from Mix. Somewhere along the way we ate the ham sandwich we'd bought in Portland at Ken's Artisan Bakery. At our motel I settled into a glass of Cutty Sark, and so to bed.

Next day, Tuesday, we enjoyed a fish sandwich as a delayed lunch at Oakland's Sidebar, with a glass of fine white Rioja (Ostatu, Cosecha 2010, very delicious); and a dinner with friends at Piperade, where I feasted on a curious but delicious plate of local cod turned into bacalao on a bed of crème frâiche with a few oysters on top, then the piperade, sautéed Serrano ham with a poached egg atop the obligatory peppers and onions. Authentic, crisp and pointed flavors, refreshing, with a glass or two of Lagar de Cervera Albariño, 2009, and then a glass of Tempranillo, Baron de Ley (Rioja), 2004 (!), a deep, serious pleasure.
• Sidebar, 542 Grand Avenue, Oakland; (510) 452-9500
• Piperade, 1015 Battery St, San Francisco; 415.391.2555

Strozzapreti

NE 8th Avenue, Portland, November 27, 2011—

GUYS SHOP WELL for groceries, so think I. Tonight, our last night in Portland for a while, the thinking had been to order a delivery of noodles from a Korean takeout the family thinks highly of. I was in a minority when we discovered it was closed on Sundays.

Let's just go to the store and cook something, I said, and Pavel and I drove to the supermarket, where we bought an already-prepped boneless pork roast, a couple of packages of padrones, a couple of packages of pasta, and a supply of arugula. Oh: and a lemon or two.

The roast — actually, I'd call it a rollito — took a short hour to cook and needed no attention at all. Simon washed the arugula. We dressed the strozzapreti, once cooked and drained, with olive oil, lemon juice and minced garlic; I sliced up the roast; the arugula was dressed just like the pasta; and Bob's your uncle.

But what was the wine? Red, after a preliminary bottle of very nice Verdicchio…

Thanksgiving

NE Eighth St., Portland, November 24-26, 2011

A fine dry-brined roasted turkey has been at the center of our eating every one of the last three days. His companions have been all but totally consumed: the mashed potatoes and gravy, the Brussels sprouts and chestnuts, the cranberry sauce; even the yams and beets have met their fates (though I assure you I did my best to spare them).

Thursday was complicated by having been a birthday here as well, so after the obligatory apple, mince, and pumpkin pies, and a visit to a nearby friend's party for even more pie, we went home to a Lane cake, and they don't get much richer and delicious than that.

The last two days were given over, as you might imagine, to leftovers. No complaints. Cold roast turkey on buttered bread — who'd complain?

Wines: Dolcetto d'Alba, for the most part…

Revisionist Italian

Portland, Oregon, November 23, 2011—

DINNER OUT TONIGHT, all eight of us, at a neighborhood gem (to use Zagatspeak) new to me, a serious but comfortable place with a thoughtful kitchen, kind service, and an interesting wine list.

I chose one of the vegetable side dishes for a first course: kale with bagna cauda, an idea that had never occurred to me before, but one that makes perfect sense — the lacinato kale has that deep, chthonic quality that marries anchovy so well. Afterward I was less enterprising and settled on flank steak, nicely grilled and accompanied by a huge serving of onion rings, battered with coarse cornmeal and deep-fried.

Dessert was almost too enterprising: Brutto ma buoni, it was called, but instead of the delicious bitter-almond macaroons I so like it was a kind of flip or fool or trifle. Revisionist for sure, but, again, delicious, and nothing to complain about.

Cortese, Tenuta Maiola (Lugana), 2009 (minerals, delicious with the bagna cauda); Galliopo, Ippolito Ciro "Liber Pater", 2007 (fruity but serious)

• Lincoln, 3808 N. Williams Street, Portland; 503-288-6200

Minestrone

Portland, Oregon, November 22, 2011—

NOT YOUR TRADITIONAL minestrone, I suppose, but a minestrone nonetheless, and a particularly delicious one: beans, hominy, kale, stock. That had been at home, with

Fabla (Tempranillo/Garnacha) (Catalunya), 2010

Lunch had been downtown, in a "fast slow food" place: a codfish-cake sandwich on a sesame bun with crisp-fried potatoes, butter lettuce, dill relish and tartar sauce, gloppy and tasty, and a couple of fine beignets for dessert.

Pinot grigio, 2010

• Violetta, 877 SW Taylor @ SW Park, Portland, Oregon

Sausage-cabbage hash

Portland, Oregon, November 21, 2011—

LEFTOVERS AT HOME TONIGHT, delicious ones: a couple of those sausages from yesterday, sliced up, and combined with leftover roast potatoes, carrot, and Jerusalem artichoke, with a blanched chopped cabbage folded in, the whole then baked in the oven.

And, later, ice cream from Alma, one of Portland's finest shops, a chocolatier making better Bicerins than, even, Bicerin, in Torino. And a little glass of Clear Creek eau-de-vie de poire, to make today uniquely Portland.

Beaujolais nouveau, Georges Duboeuf, 2011

• Alma Chocolate, 140 NE 28th Ave., Portland, Oregon; (503) 517-0262

Sausage and potatoes

Portland, November 20, 2011—

THE TITLE TELLS the story: sausage and potatoes, potatoes and sausage. Of those sausages, half came up from Berkeley's Local Butcher, the others are Portland natives. They were quite different, both pork; I wouldn't set one above the other.

The potatoes: well, there's some Jerusalem artichoke in there too, and some carrot, as you see. Roasted in olive oil in the oven, one of our favorite dishes. Thanks, Giovanna!

Rosso da Monferrato, Tenuta la Pergola, 2009; Fabla (Tempranillo/Garnacha) (Catalunya), 2010

Polenta

Portland, November 19, 2011—

HOW LONG IS IT since last we had polenta for dinner? Way too long: so it was particularly pleasant to find it waiting for us when we finally rolled into Portland after fighting traffic for hours. On it, a nice smooth supple tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan and good fresh-ground black pepper of course. Afterward, green salad.

Red wine

Lamb chops

Ashland, Oregon, November 18, 2011—

SNOW ON THE PASS — just enough to make us take it slow and easy on the way down; then an hour or two of rest in the cheap motel; then the fabulous dinner. I've written many times before about Charlene Rollins and New Sammy's: it's one of the Five Restaurants; she's a genius of the kitchen. (Vern, her husband, has mellowed into a fine host; the restaurant bears his stamp as much as hers.)

Tonight, though, I realized at the end of the evening that she is not only peerless as a maîtresse de la braise, not only impeccable as a chooser of ingredients; she is something even more rare, a chef as perfectly suited to pastry as she is to savory. Intelligence, a subtle but fully trained hand, a gifted sense of taste both physical and imaginative, and a keen interest in research unite in this woman, one of the most well-balanced, enthusiastic, and egoless geniuses I've met anywhere.

Well, shucks, she might well say at this point, and what did she do for us tonight? We started with the green salad energized with broccoli flowerets, then went on to Anaheim peppers filled with salt cod brandade and served on a bed of pumpkin purée, lifted with discreet pimenton.

From there Lindsey moved on to quail, but I couldn't resist the local lamb chops, succulent, cooked just to the rare degree I wanted, again lifted with a generous but not overwhelming touch of smoky pimento, and surrounded by a bed of braised vegetables: carrot, sweet potato, onion, kale. I could have sworn I was in Spain. ¡Sabroso!

We had desserts, of course: gingerbread with apples and chestnut-honey ice cream for Lindsey, pecan torte served in thin slices, a sort of Spanish twist on panforte da Siena, with salt-caramel ice cream for me — a truly delicious, memorable dessert.

Champagne: Drappier, nonvintage (creamy bubbles, nicely dry); Bordeaux, Chateaux Chabiran,2008 (modest but fully achieved, opening well with the food); Zinfandel, Sausal Creek (Alexander Valley)

• New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, 2210 South Pacific Highway, Talent, Oregon; (541) 535-2779

Coq au vin

Oakland, November 17, 2011—

A PERFECT DINNER for a vertical tasting of Rhone wines and surely one of the Hundred Plates: coq au vin, rooster in wine. These days of course it's never a rooster, not unless you've been either farming or foraging. And come to think of it it's a long time since I've had capon, a favorite dish of mine. Ah well: we're lucky to get one of the sixty billion chickens they say occupy this planet at any given moment.

In any case, coq au vin it was, rich and succulent, preceded by a fine green salad with pecans, and followed by, first, four delicious cheeses, and then apple crisp with heavy cream; and it doesn't get much better. Thanks, John and Susan

Vieux Télégraph, 1985, 1989, 1995, 1999

Eggplant

Eastside Road, November 16, 2011—

TODAY SHOULD HAVE BEEN a fast day, but a few things needed to be eaten, otherwise wasted; and people our age, born during the Great Depression, don't waste food if they can help it.

And, anyhow, it gives me a chance to report on one more recipe from My Calabria, by Rosetta Costantino, which I mentioned here two days ago. I set out one little eggplant too late last summer, and finally picked a half dozen fruits from it the other day; Costantino's book told me what to do with them: slice them lengthwise from the cap, left on to keep things together; blanch them quickly; then marinate them in wine vinegar and olive oil with mint, garlic, and red pepper.

I'm still learning this year's vinegar. It's quite powerful; I should really dilute it a bit, but I'm not sure how to go about that in a stable way. So this dish was pretty vinegary, but the flavor was good. Next time I'll use a little more mint, too.

The tomatoes were from Nancy Skall's garden. It's nearly Thanksgiving; it's odd to be eating tomatoes and eggplant; we don't complain.

Arneis, Tintero (Langhe), 2009

Supper in the café

Eastside Road, November 15, 2011—

AN EARLY SUPPER in the café tonight, as we'd driven down to Berkeley to see a performance of Stravinsky's Histoire du sold at.
There I ate:

Roman-style endive with anchovy, garlic, and egg
Liberty Farm duck leg braised with prunes and red wine; with turnip purée,
carrots, and rosemary

After yesterday's fantasy on Calabrian themes it felt like we'd driven north: first to Rome, as the menu stated, for that delicious salad, whose anchovy was just the right balance — and recalled yesterday's anchovy-stuffed peppers. And then up toward Austria, perhaps, for a braise that nodded toward winter but recalled that it was still, after all, a pleasantly warm day. The rosemary kept the dish grounded in das Land, wo die citrönen blühen, but the prunes, the duck, the turnips suggested Austria. (And by the way the purée was potatoes, not turnips; the turnips were slices of small roots, thankfully, and on the side.)

Chinon, a little tight and somewhat drab

• Café Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley; 510.848.5525

Calabria

Eastside Road, November 14, 2011—

I AM ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT a cookbook I bought last week: My Calabria, by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher. Of course I'm completely programmed to like it: it's by an Italian-born woman who grew up in Oakland, where her parents had settled after World War II, having brought not only their cuisine but their vegetable seeds with them. The family reminds me of Lindsey's father's family. It's about cooking from the garden, and from a peasant past.

Then too, the book's co-written by a woman I like a lot who worked her shifts at Chez Panisse. I think I recognize some of her input, but the book's more than that: the principal author's voice is present in every sentence.

I could hardly wait to cook from it, but I waited until today, when I tried four recipes. The heart of the meal was pasta, home-made pasta — nothing could have been easier: a cup of flour, a little more than a quarter-cup of water, some time, my two hands, and a rolling pin. Oh: and a sharp knife and a straightedge: you see the result at the left.

The vegetable was sweet Italian peppers, cooked so easily, but with such an interesting and delicious twist: you cut the stem and core out of the pepper, leave it whole, ribs and seeds still inside, put an anchovy inside, and fry it in olive oil, over high heat.

I strayed from Costantino's recipe for Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, adapting it to the meal that was taking shape, and using the lagani I'd just made — a sort of fettucine — instead of spaghetti. No point in cleaning out the skillet I've just used for the peppers, I thought, and sliced a couple of cloves of garlic thin, and a couple of tiny sweet tomatoes, and the stipulated hot peppers into the same, sweet-pepper-and-anchovy flavored skillet, cooked them just a minute or two, and then put the cooked, drained lagani in the skillet.

Meanwhile Lindsey had cooked up some little carrots and spring onions (spring, in November?) that had from a neighbor's truck garden; that's what you see at the bottom of the plate. It was a delicious dinner, and the salad matched it: wild arugula from my garden, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Oh yes: I said I tried four recipes. The fourth was marinated eggplants. They're still marinating; maybe I can describe them tomorrow or next day…

Arneis, Tintero (Langhe), 2009 (a very favorite white, fresh, crisp, light-bodied but full of flavor)

Barley

Eastside Road, November 13, 2011—

HULLED BARLEY with Brown Butter and Scallions, is what you see over there on the left; a recipe Lindsey clipped from the paper three years ago and has served before — a Marion Cunningham recipe, so it's double a favorite.

When I was a boy we bought rolled barley in 75-pound sacks. It looked very much like rolled oats, the sort you used to cook for oatmeal — Quaker Oats. It has quite a different taste and texture. We bought it for the pigs; it was my job to dump the barley into a big vat into which we also poured the surplus skim milk. (We sold the cream.) I never tasted the result, which we always referred to as "pig slop," but I did eat the occasional handful of barley, and always rather liked it.

Pearl barley goes into various soups. Beef and barley soup is a favorite of mine. But this is made with whole-grain barley, which also goes into our old dependable Bog-Man Cereal. Tonight's recipe makes a sort of barley pilaf, and the lightly browned butter gives it a nutty flavor that nicely complements the chopped scallions, which aren't cooked at all except by the retained heat of the barley, into which they're dumped — like barley into pig slop — just before serving. Delicious.

Before the barley, as a first course, we had the very last, I'm sure of it this time, of Nancy Skall's lima beans, for this year I mean; I'm sure they'll be back in the market next year. Some pods have two or three rather huge beans inside, some only a couple of tiny ones, barely big enough to notice. They all cook together, so there's a nice range of textures. Even the big ones are delicate and tender. I'll miss them, these next few months…

Rosso da Monferrato, Tenuta la Pergola, 2009

Salmon; frisée

Eastside Road, November 12, 2011—

PROBABLY THE NEXT-LAST salmon of the year — Lindsey bought two this morning; one's in the freezer. It was our last Farm Market in Healdsburg for the year; we'll be away next Saturday; then the market closes for the winter. Dave's salmon; Nancy's lima beans; the neighbor's tomatoes — we'll miss them; but we look forward to them next season.

It was one of the last of our Meyer lemons, too — only three or four left on the tree; but lots of green ones for the next cycle. And the radishes are coming up; the new lettuces won't be far behind. Kale, too, and broccoli. And after our salmon we had a really delicious salad of frisée from a nearby farm, dressed with olive oil, garlic, salt, and lemon juice. Tomorrow we'll have arugula, and the puntarelle are flourishing…

Zinfandel, Sky Vineyards, 2007

Stuffed cabbage

Eastside Road, November 11, 2011—

WHAT, STUFFED CABBAGE again? Didn't we just have that?

Well, yes, just a couple of weeks ago. But it's such a delicious thing, I thought I'd revisit it. This one was different, better in some respects, lesser in others. Here's how I made it: I browned some sausage and ground veal in goose fat, removed it, and browned chopped celery, carrots and leeks; then I combined all that with cooked short-grain rice, the core and some inner leaves of the cabbage, and a few leaves of chard, all chopped fine. I added an egg for the fun of it. Alas, I did not salt this sufficiently; nor did I flavor it with any herbs — next time I won't fail to add thyme.

I'd blanched the cabbage and deconstructed it; then, starting with the outside leaves, put it back together again, in a stainless-steel mixing bowl, interleaving the cabbage leaves with the stuffing mixture. (In the photo above, the operation isn't yet quite completed.) The finished cabbage — which I neglected to photograph, alas — completely filled the bowl, and I added veal stock up to its rim, then covered it with aluminum foil and baked it in the oven, not too hot, for an hour or so.


The finished cabbage turned out easily onto a platter and looked very nice indeed — I'm sorry I didn't think to take its picture; we just wanted to get on with our dinner. All it needed was a slice or two of bread on the side, but there was a little ice cream for a sundae afterward.

Zinfandel, Sky Vineyards (Napa), 2007: as definitive and true to varietal as Napa county can provide

Baked potato

Eastside Road, November 10, 2011—

WELL, ALMOST EVERY day; we skipped yesterday except for the coffee, toast, tea, and nuts. Maybe a little fruit: someone has to eat it.

And tonight we feasted on a baked potato. When we first started this fasting business, nearly a year ago, we ate a baked potato for dinner on the fast day: now we're happy to go without it when fasting, and feast on it the next day — especially when it's a 560-gram beauty like this one, bought Saturday at the Healdsburg Farm Market. The flesh was that perfect russet texture, not too mealy, and the flavor went deep.

I like my baked potato with just olive oil, salt, and pepper. Add beefsteak and lemon and you'd have Bistecca fiorentina with a potato on the side. Even without the beefsteak it's a meal, one of the Hundred Plates; and the green salad, with good old Eastside Zinfandel vinegar again, followed by a Bosc pear and a few figs from our trees, finished it off nicely.

Brouilly, Château Thivin, 2010 (soft, fruity, easy)

Baker's Dozen

Eastside Road, November 8, 2011—

I'VE PROBABLY WRITTEN here before about Bakers Dozen — yes, here it is, just a year ago. The group comprises professional and amateur bakers, who meet to share ideas, resources, and enthusiasm about the various dimensions of baking. I always enjoy these meetings, partly for the information they offer — I always learn something — and even more for the reassurance they offer about the basic goodness and generosity of these women (and they are mostly women, though a number of men are just as committed to the organization.

The meetings are held at a favorite restaurant of ours, too, and lunch is always delicious. Today we had a mixed chicory salad with lemon-anchovy vinaigrette, a crisp pappadum, and grated Piave; then sesame-coated crisp-fried chicken with a cheddar biscuit and spiced kale set off by Moroccan honey. Dessert: a little chocolate pot de crème with a discreet pâte sablée cookie.

All around us dedicated professional and amateur cooks were polishing off their lunches; every plate I saw was perfectly bare when the meal was over. Everyone knew this was delicious. And what bravery, serving a biscuit to a company of bakers! (And it was as tender and perfect a biscuit as I've ever seen.)

• Foreign Cinema, 2534 Mission Street, San Francisco; tel. 415-648-7600

Minestrone

Eastside Road, November 7, 2011—

IT'S GONNA BE COLD tonight; there's a fire in the stove; let's have soup.

I minced a little bit of chorizo and browned it in olive oil in the stainless-steel pot, added an onion, a stalk of celery, and a couple of small carrots, all chopped up; browned them; then added a box of store-bought organic beef stock — later this winter I'll begin making my own. A handful of our own cannellini went in, too; they take a long time to cook, but they're so sweet and nutty. Then I chopped the stalks of eight or ten leaves of chard and threw them in, and added the chopped leaves late in the game, along with a tomato chopped up. Toast rubbed with raw garlic and drizzled with olive oil: a complete meal in a bowl.

Barbera d'Alba, La Loggia, 2010: smooth, too young, delicious.

Huevos rancheros

Eastside Road, November 6, 2011—

OUT, UNCHARACTERISTICALLY, to brunch this morning, since sisters-in-law were visiting. A double cappuccino with a tablespoon of brandy in it, since there was no grappa at this bar; then a very fine version of a dish I particularly like: huevos rancheros. If the Hundred Plates were a hundred ten, it would be there. Maybe it should be anyhow.

In this version the beans and rice formed a base for the slightly crisp tortillas; the poached eggs rested on top of those, with a tomato concassée, cilantro leaves — not chopped! — on top, and a spoonful of sour cream. The whole affair was pretty, nicely balanced, and delicious.

Dinner at home: salmon from yesterday's market, with the usual lima beans — I think there will be only one more market this year, and then we will look back fondly on these limas with a certain amount of regret. Sliced tomatoes, as you see; the green salad afterward.

Salice Salentino, Epicuro, 2007

• French Garden Restaurant & Bistro, 8050 Bodega Avenue Sebastopol; (707) 824-2030

Birthday party

Coleman Valley Road, Occidental, November 5, 2011—

A BIG PARTY for a special birthday of an old friend and colleague tonight, a blustery cold rainy night in the dark countryside, with a very warm assembly of friends in a barn out toward the coast. Since the venue was the Occidental Art and Ecology Center, you can be sure the food was tasty, nourishing, and politically correct — and local. We had: Spitfire roasted pork with applesauce from Llano Seco Ranch; Petaluma gold bean with rosemary from Tierra Vegetables; Roasted Hubbard and Kobocha squash with maple garden, Kale with olive oil, and mixed green salad with Meyer lemon vinaigrette, from the OAEC garden; and blue green cornbread with Spring Hill butter, from Tierra. This was after the appetizers: deep-fried potato croquettes; prosciutto, apple and soft cheese on toast; radishes; canapés; with a glass of sparkling wine with a spoonful of elderberry syrup — delicious.

Had I given a toast I'd have said this: the other day someone asked me point-blank to list the three most important values to me: answer quick. Attentiveness, reflection, enjoyment, I responded, perhaps because subconsciously I was already thinking about the qualities this remarkable woman embodies. And she expresses those values in the Two Humble Virtues: generosity and gratitude. She'd invited eighty or so of us, and we ate and drank, talked and sang, danced and celebrated; for Community is at the heart of her great gifts to her world.

White, rosé, and red wines, mostly French and Spanish — too much going on to take notes!

Cheese sandwiches

Eastside Road, November 4, 2011—

THAT SANDWICH YESTERDAY was so tasty; why not have the same thing for dinner tonight?

This time I set the cast-iron griddle on the kitchen stove, straddling two burners. A few raw peppers, those little spherical ones, went on first, to roast and blister; and I laid out two or three Nardini we'd prepared a few days ago and had left over in the icebox, to let them warm up.

Lindsey shaved the last of the Gruyère and sliced some more onion to fill the sandwiches, and after putting a tiny bit of butter on the griddle they went on next. As you see, we had some radishes ready to go too.

After the sandwiches were done and the peppers ready and the griddle empty, I threw on a few little cubes of bacon and diced leftover stale bread, figuring they'd add nicely to the green salad. They did.

Vermentino, Epicuro (Lazio), 2010 (fruity, minerals, nice acid, refreshing)

Grilled cheese; roast chicken

Eastside Road, November 3, 2011—

IT'S FEAST OR FAST around here, and since yesterday was fast, this must be feast. No fewer than two of the Hundred Plates today: for lunch, grilled cheese and onion sandwiches — Piave and Gruyère, on Como bread from Downtown, grilled on the griddle on the wood stove: for today was cold enough to light the first fire of the season. (It went down to 26° last night.)

Then a nice roast chicken for dinner. Friends arrived with armloads of vegetables, so we had oven-roasted potatoes — cut 'em up, put them in a roasting pan with a little olive oil in it, shake them around, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, rosemary. A garlic clove or two won't hurt.

And leeks and carrots, diced and cooked in a little butter and olive oil.

I salted the chicken, let it stand a few hours, then stabbed a lemon a few times and put it in the cavity, put rosemary branches and thyme branches under the skin on the breast and between the legs and wings and the body, sprinkled it with a little olive oil, and roasted it at about 400° for forty minutes or so. Delicious.

Dessert: ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce, chopped nuts, whipped cream, and a maraschino cherry. Who could complain?

Rosé, Château du Rouet (Provence), 2010; Vermentino, Epicuro (Lazio), 2010; Côtes de Bordeaux, Château Grand Claret, 2009 (we had guests helping)

Nearly Nothing

Eastside Road, November 2, 2012–

Two cups of coffee and a buttered English muffin this morning at the motel. Later, a macchiato at the Palo Alto café that no longer, alas, serves my favorite, Caffe il Doge. A small handful of nuts with the tea. Three small figs at bedtime.

Nearly

Cassoulet (revisionist)

Sunnyvale, November 1, 2011—

THAT SPLENDID WEATHER we've been having these last couple of weeks has turned chilly today, at least down here on the Peninsula, where a cool wind was blowing as we walked a block or so to dinner. So when the waiter mentioned a cassoulet among the daily specials my ears perked up. The Caesar salad I had as a first course was barely tolerable: tired pre-cut romaine, a little browned at some of the edges, and the faintest hint of anchovy — I think some folks wave an anchovy can in the general direction of salad, as others make a game of displaying the label of the Vermouth bottle to the Martini pitcher.

The cassoulet was off-standard, too, but not really substandard, just a little revisionist. In the first place, you can't really make a satisfactory cassoulet as a single serving — though I imagine this is ladled out of a big pot and finished, in its little ramekin, under the salamander.

The beans were good, if a tiny bit undercooked; I liked the addition of tomato coulis, accepted in some traditional quarters; the duck confit was pleasant if a little dry. It was odd to find chopped fennel in the dish, but it was fairly discreet. Chives, though, have no place at all in cassoulet. (Or in much else from the kitchen, far as I'm concerned.) Still, cassoulet is like baseball: bad cassoulet is better than no cassoulet at all. And this, don't get me wrong, wasn't really bad, not at all.

Cabernet Franc, 2009

•Saint Michael's Alley, 140 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto; (650) 326 2530

Salmon from the grill

Eastside Road, October 31, 2011—

WHAT SPLENDID WEATHER we've been having these last couple of weeks, sorry about that, East Coast…

So, another salmon "steak" out of the freezer and onto the grill, over charcoal this time. I brushed it with olive oil with chopped shallots in it, and salted and peppered it; it's a nice preparation. Six or eight of those delicious Nardini peppers had already roasted, whole, over the charcoal; I split and seeded them while the salmon was cooking. Lindsey'd cooked up another mess of Nancy Skall's peerless lima beans and sliced up a couple of tomatoes; and then we had green salad of course, and the last of yesterday's apple pie and Mary Jo's crisp — life is good…

Salice Salentino, 2009

Boudin blanc

Eastside Road, October 30, 2011—

A COUPLE OF FRIENDS, cooks and caterers, arrived about two o'clock with leftovers from a recent job: time for a late October party.

We began with a big plate of padrones peppers, toasted in the black iron skillet with a little olive oil and salt; and went on to the delicious main course:

salad, grilled Boudin blanc, and a poached egg; mustard vinaigrette. Truly Curt — you see him above, leaning in from the right, a cap on his head — is a generous man and a genial one, and a damned good cook. From there, on to dessert: Lindsey's apple pie, Mary Jo's apple-quince crisp; ice cream.


Is anything better than a supper like this with friends and family? I doubt it.

Rosé: Cheverny, Domaine du Salvard, 2010; Château Lascaux, Coteaux du Languedoc, 2010; Barbera, Preston of Dry Creek, 2009; Riesling, Josef Rosch Kabinett, 2000; Muscat, Beaumes de Vénise, Domaine de Durban, 2005

Chou farci

Eastside Road, October 29, 2011—

STUFFED CABBAGE, in plain English: but it's not quite that simple. You don't just hollow out a cabbage and fill it with something. Here's what you do — and basically I follow the recipe in Julia Child's second book, adapting it to what's available:

First you need a good sound cabbage, Savoy for preference, though today's was simply a big Dutch slightly curled one. You blanche it in a big pot of boiling water and, running a sharp knife down around the core, remove the leaves, one by one, setting them aside.

Then I browned a pound of ground veal and set it aside, then four Italian sausages which I'd liberated from their casings and crumbled up and set that aside, then a carrot, two leeks, a half-inch slice of Virginia ham, and the chopped core of the cabbage, with some thyme and sage. I combined all that with half a cup or so of cooked rice.

Then you lay out the outside leaves of the cabbage inside a stainless-steel bowl about the size and shape of the original cabbage, and sprinkle them with the meat-vegetable mixture. More leaves; more stuffing; etcetera, until all the leaves are in place.

You then fill up the bowl with beef or veal stock and put it in the oven at 350° or so and cook it until the cabbage is tender, and there you have it. What a fine meal it is!

Petite Syrah, Preston of Dry Creek, 2008

Alla Romana

San Francisco, October 28, 2011—

THE ETERNAL CITY — Rome — is among my very favorite cities for dining. There's nothing really like it, and most Italian restaurants in our country certainly fall short. But Locanda, in San Francisco's Mission district, makes a plausible attempt at Rome's inimitably simple-but-sophisticated cuisine.

Not that I really know: I only hazarded three courses. But the carciofa alla giudia was pretty authentic, and made memorable by the chiffonade of mint flavoring the soft, delectable artichoke. My pasta caccio e pepe was dressed with a pungent Pecorino and nicely peppered, though I did think the pepper unnecessarily exotic and single-varietal in flavor (a nit-picker's complaint, I admit). Dessert was a fine pine-nut tart with fior di latte gelato on the side, my favorite; and afterward I had a small chunk of perfect robiola with carta da musica bread, brown-buttered, and blackberry marmelade on the side. Delizioso.

A good Martini; then Malvasia, Carso, Edi Kante, 2008

• Locanda, 557 Valencia St., San Francisco, (415) 863-6800

On dine en rouge

Eastside Road, October 27, 2011—

WE DINE IN RED tonight, and drink rosé. Here's the setup: On Saturday we bought our weekly salmon, but knowing we wouldn't have a chance to cook it for a few days Lindsey stuck it in the freezer.

Then, Sunday, we visited Bob Cannard's farm for a Chez Panisse party, and of course we came home with an armload of vegetables — a handsome Savoy cabbage, some carrots, peppers, an onion, eggplants, tomatoes. I was thinking of stuffing the cabbage, and I probably will, Saturday morning. It's a favorite recipe of mine, and I'll be glad to share it with you.

But Monday we had leftover Bolognese to eat, and Tuesday we didn't eat, and yesterday, well, still a bit of Bolognese. And the vegetables were waiting. So tonight Lindsey sliced up the peppers and eggplants and a nice big spring onion, sprinkled them with olive oil and salt, and set them on sheet pans to roast in the oven.

Meanwhile I built a wood fire outside, with grapevine cuttings and a bit of old oak barrel, and I sprinkled the salmon with salt and pepper and a little olive oil and a handful of coriander stalks Bob had sent along with the vegetables, and grilled it over the fire, along with a couple of slices of bread.

The tomato was absolutely delicious, but then so was the rest of the dinner. Green salad, of course; maybe a pear a little later.

Rosé: "El Solà d'en Pol," Celler Xavier Clua Coma (Catalonia), 2010: fruity, substantial, easy.

The last of the Bolognese

Eastside Road, October 26, 2011—

ACTUALLY, FOR ALL THE TIME we've spent in Italy, and considering how attractive we find the pastimes of the table, we've hardly set foot in Bologna, which offers what many think to be the pinnacle of Italian cuisine. I don't know why that is, exactly: probably because we've been too busy elsewhere. Our first allegiance is to Piemonte, the province of half of Lindsey's heritage. Then there's the attraction of Milan, with its trattorie and central location.

Venice, goes without saying. Verona, where our dear friends live. Rome, as we learned in a fine week back in 1988, and then for two wonderful months in 2004. (Buy the book!) Sardinia. Sicily.

We did have a splendid dinner in Emilia-Romagna a little over a year ago: that's as close as we've come to eating in Bologna. Otherwise, what we know first-hand about Bologna is the sausage, and Bologna ain't baloney, and the sauce. I wrote enough about it day before yesterday; there's no point adding more today.

Leftover rosés

Double Bolognese

Eastside Road, October 24, 2011—

OTHERWISE KNOWN AS "meat sauce," I suppose, Bolognese is one of my favorite things. Basically simply ground beef, tomato, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, salt, and pepper, with fat of course to bind everything together. There's a good history and recipe on Wikipedia. We often have a shorthand version, made simply all at once in the skillet by making the soffritto with either olive oil or some form of pork and chopped onion, usually omitting the celery and carrot (a mistake, in my opinion), then squeezing tomatoes in: this is the "red sauce" we so often have on pasta.

But the true Bolognese is a much subtler, richer, more highly evolved thing. I can well believe it dates back to the Sixth Century: or, rather, I can't believe it waited until then to be perfected. (And the addition of chicken livers is brilliant: I've never much liked chicken livers, but they'd be perfect in a Bolognese.)

Well: Lindsey made lasagna alla Bolognese last week, with the true recipe, and we had the last teeny little corner of it as a first course tonight. Then came
the dish you see above, fusilli with the extra ragù Bolognese she had cunningly set aside, and a little Parmesan cheese grated on top. Rich, profound, nourishing, totally satisfying. A little chard from the garden, with garlic crushed in. Later some fruit, no doubt, and we'll be ready for tomorrow's fast.

Cinsault, Preston of Dry Creek, 2008

Dinner on the farm

Glen Ellen, October 23, 2011—

SUNDAY SUPPER on the farm today: twenty or so of us, gathered for a farewell meal with David Tanis, who's leaving Chez Panisse after many years as downstairs co-chef. We were at Bob Cannard's farm, which supplies by far the lion's share of produce served at the restaurant, and the late afternoon light over the Valley of the Moon hills was strikingly beautiful.

The menu seemed to me the perfect expression of Californio cooking: ranch-style cooking drawing directly from what's available, pointed up with discreet use of exotic spices. It centered on a spit-roasted pig, a wild one Angelo had shot for the occasion — succulent, lean, full of flavor, healthy. The table was laden with salads and vegetables: slaw, poblanos stuffed with corn and cheese, sliced tomatoes, roasted beets, shell beans, onion salad, crudités. There were delicious sardines with lemon zest, peppers, and olive oil; there were olives of course, and grilled bread; there was sliced tongue with chimichurri.

For dessert there was an apple tart with figs cooked in red wine and whipped cream. And best of all, throughout, there was the company of cooks and diners, people who knew why they were so happy with what they were confronting; and good conversation; and memories and good wishes for the future; and generosity and gratitude.

Rosé, Domaine Tempier (Bandol), 2008; Zinfandel, Skye Vineyards (Napa); Syrah and Pinot noir, noncommercial (Sonoma and Napa counties) (true to varietals, sound and delicious)