Dinner concert

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, October 4, 2009—

TO DINNER TONIGHT in Sebastopol, at the French Garden Restaurant, because a benefit dinner had been scheduled to raise some money for a production a friend is working on — John Duykers, opera tenor and market gardener. The FGR gets most of its produce from a local market garden; Duykers works it, between opera gigs. (You can hear part of the result here.)

I had the house Caesar salad, in fact a small Caesar salad next to a small garden salad; then a nice pork loin stuffed with apple and accompanied by green beans, broccoli, and carrots, with two symmetrically placed cherry tomatoes to soften the triangular presentation. Oh: and some delicious little cubes of sautéed potatoes. Dessert was a New York style cheesecake, something I rarely eat but enjoy when I do.

Seghesio Zinfandel, 2007

French Garden, 8050 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol, tel. (707) 824-2030