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)