Chicken sandwich; boeuf daube

Eastside Road, November 29, 2012—

LUNCH TODAY: cold chicken sliced off the Thanksgiving carcass (the rest of which went into a soup pot), on toasted Como bread from the bakery. Nothing else: no butter; no watercress; no parsley. Just toasted white bread and cold chicken, a marriage made in heaven.

Then dinner at a Breton-oriented bistro in town, where the prix fixe menu was a bargain: a "shot" of good hot hearty mushroom soup; a green salad whose beets weren't all that bad; a piece of beef brisket stewed en daube accompanied by decent mashed potatoes; a small chocolate profiterole. The beef was Spartan, I thought, innocent of carrot and turnip — I'll have to make a real Provençal version one of these nights soon.

Picpoul De Pinet, 2011 (soft and engaging); Bordeaux, Alexandre Sirech, 2008 (a little austere and wooden)

• Bistro 29, 620 Fifth Street, Santa Rosa, California; (707) 546-2929