Alsace (Wales)

Eastside Road, September 22, 2012—

RED, ISN'T IT? It's a trick of photography. In fact I think of this menu as white. The sausage is from Franco Dunn, by way of the Healdsburg Farm Market, but it's a new one, at least to us: he called it "Welsh Pork and Leek," and it was his take on a banger — but by far better than anything we've tasted in our admittedly small experience in the United Kingdom.

With it, steamed fingerling potatoes from the neighbors' farm, and red sauerkraut from Lou Preston up in Dry Creek. All adding up, I thought, to a sort of Alsatian dinner. Not German. Not, Bacchus save us, Brit. Not even Welsh, though my own ancestry is probably as much Celtic as Anglo-Saxon; more, I should think.

In any case, delicious. Did I mention that Franco added some Gravenstein apple juice to the mix when he made this delicious sausage? And that the leek flavor actually comes through, even when the sausage is cooked?

A bit of butter in the potatoes. A green salad afterward. And dessert! Strawberries, blackberries, mulberries!

Vin d'Alsace (60% Sylvaner, 15% Muscat, 15% Auxerrois, 10% Chasselas), Kuentz-Bas, 2009 (clean, clear, pointed)