Sardines and such

Eastside Road, February 5, 2018—

YESTERDAY I MADE sandwiches for lunch — sounds unexceptional, but Constant Reader knows I’m rarely allowed to do the cooking. I found a decent-sized stalk of celery and half a white onion in the refrigerator, and chopped them up, along with a dill pickle. I washed four leaves of lettuce. I opened a can of sardines. I sliced four slices of that delicious Como bread from the Downtown Bakery, and threw everything together, and it was pretty good as I believe; Cook thought so too.

     🍷Cheap Pinot grigio

TODAY, on the other hand, it was lunch in the café, and what a delicious lunch. I started with a simple salad of butter lettuce, with a creamy Green Goddess-like dressing redolent with tarragon.

Afterward, roast pork loin, with leafy broccoli stalks — more leaf than stalk or flowerets — and a pungent tapenade. And remarkable french-fries, hand-cut, very thinly sliced, nicely cooked and salted. The pork was marvelous: tender, succulent, mature, perfectly roasted.

     🍷Arneis, Vietti, 2014
For supper we had a brandade and tomato pizzetta that we’d had the forsight to take home with us. This has to be among the best pizzas.

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

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