Another reason to go to Temescal

Chris Lee and Samin Nosrat, formerly of the Italian restaurant Eccolo in Berkeley, have started the Pop-Up General Store. They make sausages, ravioli, and other good stuff and make them available, along with other artisanally made food products from their friends, by pre-order every week or so. You pick them up at the historic Temescal streetcar depot (Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 47th Street in Oakland).

I ordered their boudin blanc and butternut squash ravioi this week. The sausages are still sitting in my refrigerator, waiting for the right moment and the right friends to show up. The ravioli found both at JK's apartment last night. As my Piemontese friend Angelo would say: eccezionali! A creamy, luscious squash filling plays off perfect pasta. Samin emailed me cooking instructions, including a simple brown butter and sage sauce. Some Parmigiano Reggiano and black pepper sealed the deal. There is so much (appropriate) sweetness in the filling that these ravioli hover between dinner and dessert. I ate the remaining ones as a snack today, and my only thought was, "why aren't there more?!"

Samin suggested a southern Italian white, so I went for DeFalco's Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio ($16): body, freshness, volcanic minerality. It worked.

Click here for the Pop-Up General Store's January 20th offering.