Sausage and potato salad

Eastside Road, August 15, 2011—

THE SAUSAGE WAS SWEET Italian, and nothing exceptional except that it came from Franco, so it was very good indeed. Lindsey simply grilled it in a heavy iron skillet on top of the stove.

With it, tonight, an exercise in nostalgia, and in retrouver les temps passées: a combination of potatoes, onion, tarragon and vinegar that Lindsey's mother Agnes used to come up with. We don't know where she got the idea; perhaps it was traditional in her Wisconsin Bavarian-and-Alsatian family. Lindsey cubed the potatoes and steamed them, then tossed them with sliced sweet white onions, letting the heat of the potatoes pretend to cook them ever so gently. Tarragon-infused white vinegar, salt, maybe a little pepper. Delicious. A few green beans on the side.

The green salad was different tonight: walnut oil, not olive oil; and so a minced raw shallot, not garlic, in the vinaigrette. We'll have some fruit a little later…

Nero d'Avola, Epicurio, 2009