Let's eat out!

the photo doesn't do it justice…

Berkeley, August 23, 2016—

OUT IN THE back yard, that is; and not ours, Curt and Mary Jo's, friends of ours Who Cook. Curt has just built himself a deck kitchen — you see one corner of it in the photo, at the left. It houses a Tuscan Grill on the right (the movable grate's wooden handles jut out discreetly in the photo and a ceramic egg-type smoker-oven on the left; both burn either wood or charcoal.

What a feast! We began with Prosecco Negronis, then moved on to a delicious baccalà mantecato, I would say, baked in the ceramic oven. He'd poached the salt cod in "milky water" (or was it "watery milk"? I forget now), then after lifting out the fish cooked potatoes in the same juice until tender, and then creamed the whole affair using, I suppose, an immersion blender. An herb was involved as well, but again I plead forgetfulness.

That was the primo: Curt, like me, was just back a couple of weeks ago from Torino. Next came the secondo: fine Italian-style sausages grilled over wood, served on a bed of long-cooked greens. With them, delicious white beans, and fresh corn, on the cob, roasted back in that ceramic oven and finished on the grill. Ingenious. Brilliant.

Rosé, Ermitage de Pic Saint Loup, 2015; Garnacha, Laya

baccalà	sausage, beans, greens, corn

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating:  2016   2015