Mexican

Bisbee, Arizona, May 28, 2014—

YOUR CONVENTIONAL GRINGO Mexican dinner, in this case with shredded-chicken enchilada in mole, quite chocolatey in this case and, I thought, not terribly complex – but then Monday's moles, at Comal, may have set too high a standard. Rice, beans, salad. No complaints. 

Margarita

•Contessa's Cantina,  202 Tombstone Canyon Roadj, Bisbee, Arizona; (520) 432-6711

Back south again

Pasadena, May 27, 2014—

WHAT A FINE PLACE this is. We were down here with friends last month, and wanted to try this new spot, but it was just too damn crowded and noisy that particular Saturday night. Much better tonight, at a nine o'clock seating. We had plenty of time and space for ourselves, after a long drive, and this proves to be a great place to take it easy and savor both cuisine and hospitality.

We began with bread, butter, and giardiniera — those pickled raw vegetables the Piemontese love so. Lindsey's Aunt Victoria used to make a huge supply every year, and we got the taste from her. The version here is just a tad sweeter and lacks the tuna, but is crisp and bracing and perfect with the house-made cultured butter, churned from cream and buttarmilk and carefully aged.

Then a salad: fine thin green asparagus, artichoke hearts and bottoms, on a bed of mesclun, with walnuts and a bit of pecorino, dressed with a coddled duck egg.  Delicious.

The main course — well, we'd smelled the heavenly fragrance of porchetta the moment we'd entered the room; what chooce did we have? It was rolled and stuffed with fennel, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper, with chile pepper as well, and perfectly roasted, unctuous and generous, with marvelous crisp crackling skin to it. Nicely roasted delicious little potatoes and salsa verde on the side. Too much, of course: but I ate every last morsel.

Desserts: a nive gianduja budino woth a bitter-chocolate wafer cap, the pudding exploding on the tongue with saltt crystals and a faint trace, just the right amount, of truffle-scented olive oil. Lindsey had the olive oil cake, served as a lightly toasted slice, with candied mandarinequat slices. A real find, this place; we'll certainly be back.

Pecorino/ Passerimo, Falerio, De Angelis (Marche), 2012; Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Marchione, 2010 (coarse, open, attractive)

• Union, 37 East Union Street, Pasadena, California; 626-795-5841

A day at the park…

Oakland, May 26 2014—

…WITH FRIENDS, watching our team — the Chicago Cubs — beat theirs, the San Francisco Giants. So lunch could be no other than a Polish-style hot dog with mustard, catsup, onions, sauerkraut, and pickle relish (for oneneeds one's vegetables), and a beer. Draft Stella Artois. This is San Francisco, after all.

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THEN DINNER IN A PLACE new to us, one we will certainly return to. For one thing, we could actually converse comfortably, thanks to ingenious acoustical engineering. More to the point, the food was absolutely delicious — Mexican cuisine, but attentive to the mysterious and elusive flavors and textures of Yucatàn, as I recall them — dimly, I grant you — from forty years ago at least, when we chanced on a restaurant called, I think, El Faisan, in Tijuana. 

The four of us shared many things, but I particularly enjoyed an item called De Ese: Hoja santa (Piper auritum), also known as "root beer plant" but tasting, at least in this version, nothing like root beer — a velvety heart-shaped leaf about the size of the palm of your hand, it was wrapped into an enchilada, with Anasazi bean purée and puya salsa and a scatter of grated cheese. Truly mysterious and memorable. 

I liked also a roast duck enchilada with mole coloradito and crème fraîche, and the "bitter greens" salad that was a version of Caesar salad but with grated Manchego, chopped almonds, and seived hard-boiled egg, and a roast-chicken tamal involving mole negro, rajas, corn, and nettles.

Dessert! Arroz con leche, smooth and surprising with cherries and toasted pistachios; and a deep, dark, so er chocolate pudding, quite dense, with just the right complement of whipped cream. Mexican with style and substance.

Mencia, Viña Reboreda, Ribeiro, 2011

• Comal, 2020 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley; 510-926-6300

Those penne again

Eastside Road, May 25, 2014—

THE RECIPE IS, again, from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, the first edition — we haven't got around to getting the new edition yet. There it is called Chickpeas with Pasta in Sizzling Sage and Garlic, and that pretty well sums it up. Brown some chopped onion in olive oil, sort of deep-fry a lot of sage, don't forget salt and pepper. Also add red pepper flakes and, of course, crushed garlic. Toss the result with the penne, and Bob's your uncle…

Cheap Pinot grigio

Salmon and favas

Eastside Road, May 24, 2014—

SATURDAY IS MARKET day, and market day this time of year is salmon day. Salmon and favas day. We've been doing this for years. The salmon runs off our coast, and Dave Legros goes out to sea to catch it. The favas grow over at Nancy Skall's garden, across the river from us. The tarragon came from our garden, and went on top of the salmon — along with a few chives, a bit of butter, and a sprinkling of vodka — before it was wrapped in foil and cooked under the broiler.

The favas are buttered a bit, of course; and a green salad with lemon-juice vinaigrette came afterward; and then Cook's old standby sliced bananas with cinnamon and a bit of sugar, on vanilla ice cream — she's been serving that up for nearly sixty years, and I never tire of it.

Cheap Pinot grigio

Penne with sage

Eastside Road, May 23, 2014—

I COULDN'T BELIEVE how many sage leaves went into the preparation of this dish — more perhaps than we generally eat in a year. And that's too bad, because I dearly love sage. I remember a time in Rome when I ran from shop to shop, all of them just closing, looking for a bunch of sage leaves so that we could make a proper saltimbocca, inconceivable without sage leaves; and finally scored a small handful at an obliging restaurant.

Tonight Cook chopped a big handful of sage leaves pretty fine and added them to the soffritto she always prepares to begin almost any kind of pasta sauce. What else? Dunno. You'd have to ask her. Whatever it was, it went well on these penne. Green salad afterward.

Rosé, Taft Street, 2012

Duck breast salad

Eastside Road, May 22, 2014—

LUNCH IN THE CITY today. Well, the local city. Well, lunch in town today, with the Neighbor Down the Hill; our regular monthly lunch, and that is a real pleasure.

I took her to the new place in town. We had breakfast there yesterday, her mother, her sister, and I; and the maître d' recognized me and welcomed me back. I had this salad: smoked duck breast, and a generous serving it was, with fresh asparagus garnished with hard-boiled egg. A very nice lunch.

Red Rhône blend, Preston of Dry Creek, 2012

• Healdsburg Shed, 25 North Street, Healdsburg, California; 707-431-7433