Eastside Road, April 11, 2012—

WHAT HAVE WE GOT to lose, I'm tempted to ask. And then I think of the café near a friend's house in London: it's called Toulouse, and why? Because it's installed in a building which a hundred years ago housed a couple of public toilets, get it? But tonight we feasted on Toulouse sausages made by Franco Dunn. We bought them a few weeks ago in the Healdsburg market, thinking we'd surely be making cassoulet this year, but you see how it is, we went away for a month instead, and now it's too warm to make cassoulet; we'll have to wait until next year. The sausage won't wait, of course. So we invited a couple of neighbors from down the hill to dinner, and broiled the sausages, and Lindsey cooked leeks and carrots her way, and roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic; and stewed up a bunch of chard from the garden. Green salad; then Beaufort, and Gruyère, and Mount Tam. Delicous.

Barbera d'Alba, La Loggia, 2010; Vin de Savoie, Les Abymes, 2010