Penne with broccoli and breadcrumbs

Eastside Road, October 8, 2012—

THE RECIPE CAME from Martha Stewart; everything else from the pantry, the garden, and the Farmers Market. It was time for pasta; we haven't had any in days, and of course penne are the pasta of choice around here, whole-wheat penne.

The bread crumbs have been in the freezer, left from who knows what occasion, who knows for how long. She toasted them a little in olive oil in a sauté pan, then set them aside, added a little more oil, and added three or four anchovies, sliced garlic, and capers; then halved cherry tomatoes and a few red-pepper flakes.

Then it's just a matter of cooking the penne in the normal way, adding chopped broccoli rabe to the pasta as it cooks. Drain it and add it to the sauté pan, tossing it al together, and a little of the pasta cooking water, and bring the whole mixture to temperature, letting it thicken a little; then strew the crumbs on top.

The result is a nice conjunction of textures, of course; and I liked the flavors too. Autumnal, somehow. Green salad afterward, and no doubt we'll have some fruit a little later.

Cabernet franc, Éric Chevalier (Val de Loire), 2010: woody around the edges, true to varietal

Another salmon dinner

Eastside Road, October 7, 2012—

MARKET THIS MORNING; ergo salmon tonight. Again, because the weather's so nice, and I don't like cleaning broiler pans, I cooked it outside over a small wood fire.

I cooked it, but Lindsey prepared it. She seasoned the salmon, laid split scallions atop each piece, and wrapped them in foil. Then she cooked a mess of Nancy's lima beans in the usual way, a little bit of water, a little bit of butter. Sliced tomatoes on the side, a green salad to follow, and a cantaloupe with raspberries from the garden for dessert. Simple; good.

Cheap Pinot grigio

Shakshouka

Eastside Road, October 6, 2012—

EVEN ON A BUSY DAY, sandwiched between a three-hour memorial observance an hour's drive north of here and a concert an hour's drive south, my personal chef manages to come up with a triumphal dinner. No one knows better than I how lucky I am to have her, and how sorry I am that from time to time — very rarely, in fact — she makes it clear that she sometimes finds this public record a little embarrassing. She has, lord knows, no reason for embarrassment. She's an inspiration, and not only to me.

Today she turned to her clipping file for this recipe from Sunset magazine. Shakshouka, sometimes spelled with C's in place of S's, is an eastern Mediterranean or north African dish involving lots of olive oil, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, seasoned with cumin, coriander seed, and paprika that have been ground together in the mortar, stewed on top of the stove, and served with eggs that have been poached in (and above) the resulting mixture at the last minute. The result is absolutely delicious and hereby promoted to the Hundred Plates. (I see I haven't updated that list in some time. One of these days.)

Cheap Pinot grigio

Quick and simple

Eastside Road, October 5, 2012—

LUNCH: AS USUAL these days: peanut butter on a piece of toast — today, Artisan's Seven-grain bread, a favorite of Lindsey's; I like it okay in spite of the birdseed. Especially when it comes with a delicious Bosc pear and a couple or three of those incomparable Golden Transparent plums, probably the last from this year's harvest.

DINNER: NO TIME for anything fancy, so Lindsey quickly fried some sliced shallot in butter and combined them with Blue Lake green beans from Nancy Skall's Middleton Farms, quickly steamed until tender; with them, toast and cheese (Piave, Gruyère); afterward, green salad.

Then we drove down to Oakland to a concert; then home again — 80 miles each way — and finished the evening with a Hanky Panky. I'm sure I've given you the recipe.

With supper, Tempranillo Barrica, Albero, 2009 (as two days ago)

Back to Peru

Eastside Road, October 5, 2012—

I MUST SAY, I really like this place: a small, very friendly, unassuming, authentically ethnic workingman's restaurant in a strip mall in not the best side of town, with a fascinating wine list and a very gratifying menu.

We were on our way to the theater with a couple of friends, and wouldn't have time for anything complicated, so we skipped first courses and cut to the chase. I had the lomo saltado: strips of beef tenderloin sautéed in a wok with cilantro, onion, tomato, and a hint of soy, served as you see with a generous handful of thick-cut French fries and a scoop of perfectly cooked white rice on the side. Some day I have to go to Peru, I guess; if this dish is authentic — and there's every reason to think it is — the cuisine's worth investigating in situ. Meanwhile, we'll be back here. Lord knows the price is right.

Torrontes, Santa Julia (Mendoza, Argentina), 2011: chalky, resiny, unctuous, delicious; Malbec, Terra Rosa: deep, full, soft

• Sazón Peruvian Cuisine, 1129 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa, California; (707) 523-4346

Corona beans

Eastside Road, October 3, 2012—

THESE MAY BE the last of the Corona beans for a while. We used to buy them dry in big plastic sacks, five pounds or so. (Not quite; they were imported from Italy and sold by metric measurements — perhaps two-kg packages; I'm not sure.)

Alas our friend retired from the import business, succumbing to a buyout offer no sane man would long resist. We have a couple of liters of olive oil left, half a dozen cans of tuna, probably some tapenade and such squirreled away out in the mud room or in various corners of the pantry, see below.

The beans are big, bigger than the end joint of my thumb, and it's a good-sized thumb. Meaty. Lindsey soaks them for a few hours, then cooks them up with, I'm guessing here, a bit of crushed garlic and salt. When they're tender she drains them and tosses them with good olive oil, sage or marjoram, more garlic and salt as needed. On a night like this they're the entire supper, followed of course by the green salad and later a couple of figs and maybe an apple.

Tempranillo Barrica, Albero, 2009: full and forthcoming

a corner of the pantry

Penne

Eastside Road, October 1, 2012—

PENNE; SAUCE; PARMIGIANA.

The sauce was garlic, onion, tomatoes, olive oil, cooked together slowly, tomatoes last I would guess (I wasn't there).

Green salad. Later we'll have some fruit. Che buona tavola; che una femmina straordinaria.

Cheap Pinot grigio