The rest of the lentils

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, February 26, 2009

THIS TIME WITHOUT the fried eggs, which changes the thing tremendously — but you can only eat so many eggs in a week. Instead, to fill out the dish, Lindsey cooked some small potatoes in the leftover lentils, otherwise treating them the same way: drizzling on a little expensive Balsamico we bought probably six or eight years ago at a Slow Food event in Torino, grating on a little of the delicious creamy Grana Padana we bought last November in Milan, then scattering on a few leaves of arugula.

I miss the runny egg-yolk from last night's version. It adds so much, in so many dimensions: richness and substance, color and focus. But this is just as nice, in a cucina povera version. Lentils: such generous, sustaining, warming, modest things.

Pinot nero, "Principato," provincia di Pavia, 2006