Roasted Chicken and Beets

Tuesday September 2

We were over at Antipastos again, and this time they had some fresh free-range chicken. It was a hot day, but when you've got a really top-class chicken, you roast it, in our case in the time-honored fashion, with rosemary and lemon thyme under the breast skin and a lemon up its butt.

Alongside it in the oven, we set a dish of tiny baby beets from the farmers' market, tossed with olive oil and salt.

I think we were so stunned by the heat that we forgot that there was a nice breeze outside on the patio. We ate in the sweltering kitchen, but the luscious chicken dinner made us forget our discomfort - or maybe it was the Vineland Estates St. Urban Riesling, which we'd been tasting as we cooked.