Padrones

Eastside Road, September 4, 2011—

SUNDAY: SOFT-BOILED eggs for breakfast, with English muffins from the Downtown Bakery, and butter, because you might as well start the week out right.

Lunch: toast with peanut butter; fruit; orange juice.

Dinner: these fine tomatoes from nearby, with tiny basil leaves strewn over them, and padrones on the side. They're the hit of the market this year, of course; you just rinse them, dry them with a towel, and fry them quickly in a very hot black iron skillet with a little olive oil, then rub sea-salt between thumb and fingers over them.

Afterward, fusilli with pesto, and then mulberries, blackberries, and raspberries, all as local as can be.

Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, Armento, 2009; Cabernet sauvignon, Mayacamas, 1983. (An open bottle, only a glass or two missing, was thrust into my willing hand at the Chez Panisse party last Sunday; tonight I finally got around to tasting it. Wonderful to taste a wine like this, old enough to drink, full, rich, completely mature, still vivacious — and only 12% alcohol!)