Café lunch

Berkeley, May 10, 2012—

BACK TO THE CAFÉ for lunch today: delicious, of course. I began with this salad: frisée and cardoons with bits of sautéed pancetta, half a barely hard-cooked egg on the side — an interesting variation on a Salade lyonnaise, the added cardoon a welcome note. (And an instructive one, as we've cardoons in the garden to eat, and now I know what to do with them: strip the stems, strip the fibers, blanche them half an hour or so in well salted boiling water, slice them against the grain. I'll let you know how it works out.)

Afterward, bucatini — hollow small-bore spaghetti, I guess you'd call it — dressed with cauliflower, currants, pine nuts, hot pepper, pecorino, and saffron. A very Sicilian dish, seems to me, and a delicious one, which kept changing with every bite, first one note in the complex of ingredients taking precedence, then another.

For dessert, Pixie tangerines and Medjool dates. I do love a cappuccino with dates: Elective Affinity!

Sauvignon blanc, Cep Hopkins Ranch (Russian River Valley, and Hopkins a neighbor of ours), 2011 (very nice varietal characteristic, well balanced and fresh); Chardonnay, Domaine de Mouscaillo (Limoux), 2008

• Café Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley; 510.548.5525