Yet more Thanksgiving

Eastside Road, December 2, 2015—

NO DOUBT this is going on all across the land: leftover roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, the stuffing (or dressing, call it what you will), and tonight a few pickled onions on the side. Thanksgiving continues to give, and I continue to be thankful. It really is delicious, you know…

Green salad afterward, and then the pumpkin pie, with its superb hard sauce…

Viognier, Preston of Dry Creek, 2014

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

Another Eightieth

Here's to Andrew on his birthday — Four score years is a damn good age Think of all the things he's worked at Drawing, poetry, and the page Whose proportions he knows so well, (Editing too — though, truth to tell, His menu spells "Domaine" two ways, And both can't be right) — what the hell, Eighty syllables, yes, or years, By now, should move you beyond tears.

San Francisco, December 1, 2015—

ANOTHER OLD FRIEND turns eighty: this one with a marvelous dinner party, black tie, with speeches and tributes, tap dancing and harmonica playing. The menu:

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres
Spiced butternut squash salad
Braised beef shortribs
Mashed Jerusalem artichoke and Yukon potato
Lemon garlic Swiss chard

Sauvignon blanc, Domain [sic] du Salvard 2014
Beaumes-de-Venise rouge, Domaine de Durban, 2014

Birthday cake, coffee, tea

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

More Thanksgiving

Eastside Road, November 30, 2015—

ANOTHER LOOK at the Thanksgiving feast we enjoyed on Saturday, served up as welcome leftovers tonight. Startng at the top: Dark meat and light; bread-cube stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, pickled crabapple and a touch of cranberry.

Not seen: Green salad, mostly arugula, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice; and then pumpkin pie with hard sauce.

Viognier, Preston of Dry Creek, 2014

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

Turkey sandwich

Eastside Road, November 29, 2015—

A DAY AT THE OPERA: cheese plate and a glass of Chardonnay (I know, I know) at intermission, dessert afterward, turkey sandwich on getting home.

The opera was Il barbiere di Siviglia, in all its bel canto perfection; a matinée performance, inviting an ice cream treat afterward. There's a place we really like in San Francisco, so there we went. On the way, just for the fun of it, I asked my telephone: What should I order at the Ice Cream Bar?

I just feel like saying the word "tubers," she replied unhesitatingly. Sometimes I think Siri is Ouija's kid sister.

What I did have was something I invented myself, after glancing at the bottles behind the bar: a Gentian phosphate, light on the phosphate, with vanilla ice cream and a shot of lemon syrup. This turned out to be very tasty and I will keep it in mind.

• The Ice Cream Bar, 815 Cole Street, San Francisco; (415) 742-4932

Dinner, then, once home, about nine in the evening: a turkey sandwich. Sliced cold roast turkey on buttered Como bread. Very nice.
☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

Thanksgiving

Eastside Road, November 28, 2015—

IT'S A FUNNY photo, confused as to dimension — vertical? horizontal? raking? But if you look closely, you'll see Thanksgiving dinner and all its trimmings: sliced roast turkey, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, quinoa and Hubbard squash — and no, not a scoop of chocolate ice cream: a crabapple I pickled myself ten years ago, still meaty and fruity and deeply flavored with vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

I can't tell you much about the cooking: as you might suspect, I kept my distance. Cook brined the turkey for a couple of days; then roasted it to perfection. The potatoes were mashed and strengthened with butter and milk. The neighbor down the hill prepared the Brussels sprouts, halving them, laying them out on a sheet pan on a little olive oil, and roasting them: they were magnificent. She did the quinoa too.

Buttered rolls, of course, and green salad, with a lemon juice vinaigrette. Pumpkin pie, you bet; hard sauce, of course. A couple of days late, yes: but four generations at the table, and plenty of good cheer and conversation…

Zinfandel, Preston of Dry Creek, 2013: deep, fruity, full-bodied.

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

Thanksgiving week

Eastside Road, November 27, 2015—

YES: THANKSGIVING WEEK; and nothing recorded here since Sunday.

Monday, five days ago now, we drove down to Berkeley on business, and lunched in the café. Look at this Yellowtail "crudo"! It was a delicious piece of fish, dressed with olive oil and lemon jiuce flavored with mint, and came with a marvelous salad: I could eat this happily at the beginning of every meal except perhaps breakfast.

Chablis, Christophe et fils, 2014 (delicious)

• Café Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley; 510-548-5525

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THAT EVENING, dinner with a couple of dear old friends at a favorite place of theirs, though I've almost always found it a little stiff and slightly out of whack. The menu was vaguely Piemontese, and didn't at first seem to offer anything really attractive: most of the dishes were a little out of whack, with too many flavors or textures pulling at them.

Oh, but look: a simple plate of house-made pasts, tagliarini in fact, served simply with butter and white truffles. Can't go wrong there; and the gianduia afterward was very nice indeed.

white; but what?

• Oliveto Restaurant and Cafe, 5655 College Avenue, Oakland, California; 510-547-5356

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THE NEXT TWO DAYS, I'm sorry; they're a bit of a blur. One of them undoubtedly brought the last of that delicious chick-pea stew that first appeared last Friday; the next day, Wednesday, we had a decent hamburger with French fries and a glass of red at a pleasant local:
• Brody's Burger and Brews, 3135 Cleveland Avenue, Santa Rosa, California; 707-526-4878

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YESTERDAY, OF COURSE, was Thanksgiving, the day that turns all Facebookers into food bloggers. I didn't take a single photo. We were invited to a friend's house; there were eight of us at table; we began with Martinis and then sat down to a traditional table: roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts. Afterward, a green salad; then delicious pies, apple and pumpkin-caramel. To drink, Lou Preston's Red.

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WE COME NOW FINALLY up to date, with another of the "prefab" dinners we've been experimenting with, sent to us by Sun Basket. The neighbor down the hill introduced us to this concept: pre-prepared complete dinners sent in a box, nothing for us to do but the actual cooking and eating. It seems wasteful, somehow, all that packaging and shipping, but the containers are recycled, the shipping's not expensive, and the ingredients are organic and sustainable.

Tonight we had a fine-grained, quite tasty pork steak, with onion confit and an improbable but in the event delicious dish of kale and bosc pears. And why shouldn't pears be used, for example, in place of potatoes? I'll bet the long centuries before potatoes got to Europe saw many such dishes: I'm glad to have this one tonight.

Afterward, another helping of that delicious apple pie — hard to believe there was a little to bring home with us last night!

Garnacha/Monastrell, Laya (Almansa), Old Vines, 2013

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants

Home beats bistro

Eastside Road, November 21, 2015—

YESTERDAY, AFTER FINISHING the marmalade I told you about, and after finishing the Martinis, the three of us settled in to a bowl of one-dish meal, a chick-pea stew, rich and piquant with north African spices, and afterward a green salad: a perfect way to end a challenging day in the kitchen.

Garnacha/Monastrell, Laya (Almansa), Old Vines, 2013

TODAY, THOUGH, WE DINED with friends at a convenient middle point between our two homes: Petaluma. Petaluma, Inez said, has become a restaurant capital, and she'd mentioned three or four from which to choose.

One called itself a bistro, and recalling a small bistro on the main street I happily made a reservation for a one o'clock lunch. In the event, though, I can't really agree that it's a bistro. There was no steak-frites, no duck legs, no cassoulet. It is perhaps a brasserie at the most.

Oh well. I settled for a perfectly adequate croque-monsieur — well, in fact, too cheesy a Bechamel sauce —, which came in a hot little black iron skillet, with a bowl of green salad topped with pickled onions, a nice touch; and the small serving of French fries was quite good too.

Ca' Momi Bianco di Napa, 2014: vaguely a Rhône type, small but sound; Ca' Momi Rosso di Napa, 2014: rather deep, full-bodied, satisfactory but lacking acid

Dessert: Apple tart with pastry cream. This was nice. Routine, but nice.

   

• Bistro 100, 140 2nd Street, Petaluma; 707-981-8228
☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants