Toulouse

Eastside Road, June 20, 2012—

YOU'VE MET HIM HERE before: Franco Dunn, one of my favorite fellows here in Healdsburg. We see him nearly every Saturday, in season, at the Farmers' Market, where he sits majestically behind a container of packaged sausages of his own production, with perhaps if you're lucky some pancetta and patés as well.

I won't write about him here; I'll just refer you to an article from the local rag that ran three months ago: a good introduction, a fabulous photo, a curious misprint. ("Faux gras" for what must have been meant to be "foie gras," unless the PETA police somehow got into the production.)

What we had tonight was his Toulouse sausage. Most Saturdays he has a selection of three or four different sausages: Toulouse, Merguez, Greek, Napolitano, sometimes even Kielbasa or something close to a classic New York frankfurter. Franco's a man who knows and respects genius locii, and if he attaches a geographical descriptor to a sausage, it's as authentic as it can be.

Those are favas next to the sausage, of course, extracted from their late-season shells with care and devotion by our cook, and prepared with butter and love. Afterward, the green salad, tonight with lemon juice instead of vinegar, and then… root beer floats! Hooray for summer!

Cheap Primitivo (Grifone, Puglia, nv; decent character, sound)