Old-Fashioned Italian

Lompoc, California, september 8, 2013—

WE LEFT LOS ANGELES a little after noon: where to spend the night? Off the highway, we decided, in back country. Would there be an interesting place to eat in, say, Lompoc, for example? Yelp, whom I never really trust, suggested there might. 

So we booked into the Day's Inn, after driving up the coast and across the unspoiled cattle country, and watched the news, and then walked a few blocks to La Botte, a family-owned place getting on toward 35 years old. Mom and Pop have retired back to natal Marsala, but daughter Francesca hosts and keeps an eye on things, and in fact her father was visiting. 

I could believe he might have made the Bolognese I had an my gnocchi: beef, tomatoes, none of that North Italian marrow or carrot, but a little oregano, a little pepper-flake. Bolognese alla Siciliana. Honest and, in its way, authentic; and generous to a fault, of course. 

Before it, a Caesar salad innocent of anchovy; afterward, a huge slice of torta siciliana, what I would have called a cassata. No complaints: we'll be back one day.

Barbera, Quattro Mani (Piemonte), 2010

• La Botte Italian Restaurant, 812 N H Sreet, Lompoc, California; (805) 736-8525