Offal

Eastside Road, October 11, 2012—

THAT INDISPENSABLE FELLOW the pig made his appearance today both at lunch and at dinner; on both occasions after trips to local salumieri. And we have wonderful salumeficii hereabouts — Healdsburg is soon likely to be as well known (and much visited) for its meat products, I venture to say, as for its wines.

Let's start with dinner, at home: Franco Dunn's "Chorizo Verde" combines pork, spinach, onion, salt, ground-up pumpkin seeds, serrano chilis and oregano to a sophisticated but spicy conclusion. Lindsey broiled four of them — we had a hungry winemaking grandson to dinner — and she cooked up some canned hominy with chopped onion and Habañera pepper to go with them. As you see, sliced local tomatoes on the side; afterward, green salad.

And apple pie. Lindsey's pie crust is the best there is, but she doesn't have to make it any more; we just get a couple of frozen ones from the bakery — after all, it's her recipe, more or less. The apples are ours, though, just now a combination of Calville blancs and Sierra Beauties. With a scoop of Twin Girls ice cream on the side, all you need afterward is a dram or two of slivovitz.

Cheap Pinot grigio; Tempranillo Barrica, Albero, 2009

---

WE'D GONE INTO TOWN for lunch, taken there by an old friend we hadn't seen in years until Lindsey ran into him a couple of weeks ago. We were happy to show him a newish restaurant in town, where we've only been once before — a restaurant that knows how to make a sandwich.

I had this "Il Nonno," being a nonno* myself: delicious soppressata, headcheese, with salsa verde, chopped hardboiled egg, arugula, Calabrian chili peppers, and pickled zucchini on ciabatta, a favorite bread of mine. Very spicy; quite delicious.

Il Nonno, garnished with pickle, caper, and arugula, at Campo Fina

Vermentino, Seghesio (Healdsburg), 2011: crisp, sound, refreshing

*nonno: Italian for "grandfather"

• Campo Fina, 330 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg; 707-395-4640