Chicken; pot roast

Eastside Road, March 24, 2015—

YOU CAN'T ASK FOR a plainer, more conventionally middle-American pair of plates than these : Chicken breast; Pot roast. In both cases, with mashed potatoes. My Missouri-born grandmother would be pleased. My Indiana-born one, too.

The chicken breast, which you see here on the left, was a ridiculously big, meaty thing, nearly a pound I think. I smashed it flat with the black iron skillet, and then Cook fried it in a little olive oil I think, and deglazed the pan to make a nice glaze for the chicken, and served it with the thinnest, freshest possible garden asparagus and the mashed potatoes, delicious with butter.

But you know what? I've decided the hell with chicken. Roast chicken is okay, of course: it has time to stew in its own juices, and you can flavor it — herbs ; garlic ; lemon : take your pick. But even with the bone in — as was the case with this chicken breast (because I think boned chicken loses a lot of flavor and probably nutrition as well, and avoid buying it, and besides it's absurdly expensive) — the white meat of a chicken breast seems to me bland in flavor and unfortunately grainy in texture, and I'm not gonna eat it any more. Unless I have to.

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THAT WAS SUNDAY. Yesterday we took a little drive — it just felt like that kind of day — and wound up eating dinner out. I began with this very nice green salad with a few sliced radishes. The cozy restaurant was next to a creek, and it seemed appropriate that there was watercress in the salad, along with the obligatory "baby" lettuces; and the vinaigrette was nicely done.

My pot roast was an honest plain hunk of beef, absolutely devoid of fat, a little stringy, cooked in the sensible no-nonsense manner my grandmothers knew, flavored with a bit of clove, I think. Those are caramelized cipollini on the meat, and braised spinach I do love spinach on the side, and mashed potatoes flavored with garlic and horseradish. Suddenly the whole think looks like a gorilla's portrait : I'm sorry about that ; it's just the way things turned out.

Dessert: Ice cream sundae. This was vanilla ice cream, and quite good ice cream at that, with salt caramel sauce, and whipped cream, and brandied cherries, with a discreet dusting of powdered sugar. I must say, I think the combination of vanilla ice cream and unflavored whipped cream — particularly when it is good cream, as was the case here — is a wonderful thing. Elective affinities, for sure.

Marsanne, Wellington Vineyards, 2011; Mourvèdre, Cline Cellars, 2011 ;
both Sonoma county ; both true to varietal but the red a little sweet

• The Fig Cafe, 13690 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen, California; 707-938-2130
☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants