Three days

Eastside Road, March 28, 2015
—

PASTA WITH TUNA. That was my response when Cook asked for a suggestion today — a warm day that left little appetite for, say, liver and onions, at least not on Cook's part.

The pasta are the organic penne we buy at Trader Joe's. There was a recent scare on Facebook; a "friend" who lives in Los Angeles posted a query: what to use for pasta, now that TJ has dropped its organic pasta? But a recent shopping trip proved that our local TJ, at any rate, had no intention of dropping it.

I'm not sure, but my guess is that Cook browned some prosciutto in a little oil in the stainless-steel skillet, added chopped onions, then when all that was browned sufficiently stirred in a can of tomatoes. She always uses whole organic tomatoes, canned with no flavorings — no basil or anything else. She squeezes the tomatoes between her fingers into the skillet, presses in a clove or two of garlic, and lets things cook. Oh: and then a can of good tuna chunks, broken up a bit into bite-size pieces.

The penne are cooked al dente, of course, drained, and added to the sauce. The servings are garnished, as you see, with chopped parsley — fortunately the "Italian" broadleaf parsley has naturalized itself in many places next to the patio. Green salad; fruit.

Cheap Pinot grigio, Primosole (Puglia), 2013: serviceable

---

photo: Jim Shere

Eastside Road, March 29, 2015
—

DINNER ON THE PATIO: Well, first lunch on the patio: cold cuts and a good loaf of bread with our son, his wife, their youngest son. And then my brother and his wife arrive, and we continue — why not? — with dinner. I lit a wood fire in one of the grills, and when the coals began to burn down proceeded with:

Potatoes: small German butterball potatoes, halved, with unpeeled cloves of garlic and a dozen small young spring onions, in the grill basket, as you see

Asparagus: thin green stalks, peeled with a potato peeler, laid right on the grill

Sausages: the package said simply "Best Wurst," and had been brought a few days ago by a chef friend from Berkeley — Weisswurst, I suppose, and really delicious.

Green salad afterward, and chocolates for dessert (Thanks, Jim and Maria)

Rosé, Home Farm Lipton Daniel Vineyard (Dry Creek Valley), 2013; Zinfandel, Eric Ross Old Vines (Dry Creek), 2012; both true to type and terroir and really quite good (Thanks, Paolo)

---

Eastside Road, March 30, 2015
—

TONIGHT A REPRISE of that pasta with tuna. It was fusilli tonight, not penne; and frankly I much prefer the fusilli, I think they take and hold sauce better than penne do, and are not so heavy in the mouth.

The sauce was just as two nights ago, of course, except for having deepened a bit in flavor in the intervening time, as sauces will do. Tonight I was more struck by the taste of the capers. Is lemon somewhere in the background? Wouldn't be surprised; the little Meyer tree is doing its springtime thing…

Rosé, Grifone (Italy), nv: really not disgusting