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of Rao’s chicken scarpariello for six, you will need two three-and-a-half-pound chickens, spines removed, cut into eight pieces each, each half-breast with the first wing joint attached and the ribs removed, legs and thighs separated. Wash and thoroughly dry the chicken pieces, preferably overnight in the refrigerator, or with a hair dryer. Heat a half-cup of extra-virgin olive oil in a heavy pan or cocotte, and brown the chicken over medium-high heat, but don’t cook it through. Remove the chicken, and drain it on paper towels. Cut two hot and two sweet Italian sausages into bite-size pieces, and brown these in the same oil. Remove them with a slotted spoon, and pile them up with the chicken. Then julienne two large bell peppers and a jalapeño (no seeds);halve and slice thin a medium-size sweet onion, and mince a teaspoon of garlic. Toss the vegetables in the oil, and cook them until they soften, adding more oil if needed. Remove the vegetables, drain the oil from the pan, and wipe it dry, then return the chicken, sausage, and softened vegetables to the pan. Add two hot, vinegared cherry peppers, a half-cup of red-wine vinegar, a half-cup of chicken stock, and a half-cup of dry white wine with a tablespoon of dried oregano. Cut three or four fingerling potatoes in half lengthwise, and put them in the pot. Cover the pot and cook gently until the chicken is just cooked through, five or six minutes. Do not overcook the chicken. Remove the chicken, sausage, and vegetables, except the potatoes, and reduce the sauce until it is slightly thickened and the potatoes are tender. Add salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste, and ladle the sauce over the chicken, sausage, and vegetables. The prep will take half an hour or so, but the dish itself could hardly be easier. Be sure to wash your hands after handling the jalapeños. You should be aware of but not overwhelmed by the heat from the jalapeños and cherry peppers.

RAO’S ORECCHIETTE

Rao’s orecchiette (little ears) pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage is as easy to make as its name suggests. Set a pot of salted water to boil. Cut two sweet and two hot Italian sausages into one-inch pieces, and brown them, along with a garlic clove, in a heavy pot filmed with olive oil, large enough to hold a pound of cooked orecchiette. When the water boils, add a bunch of broccoli rabe with the ends trimmed to about an inch, and as soon as the water begins to boil again, remove the rabe with tongs and plunge it into cold water. Then drain, squeezing out as much water as possible, and coarsely chop it. Toss it in with the sausage, and reheat it. Then add a pound of orecchiette to the boiling broccoli water, and when it is al dente, lift it out with a Chinese strainer and add it to the sausage and broccoli rabe. If you don’t plan to serve this at once, save the pasta water and use it to refresh the dish. Serve it with fresh-grated pecorino. It will be just as good as Rao’s, but not nearly as much fun as eating it at one of Rao’s tables in the old days, when Frankie would turn off the jukebox and a guy in the back of the room would get up to sing “Un Bel Di.”

TWO COUNTRY INNS

For several years in the 1980s, when I was Gore Vidal’s publisher and friend, we would meet in Paris, usually in the spring, and head south to tour the great restaurants of the provinces: Pyramide in Vienne, Pic in Valence, Troisgros in Roanne, Père Bis in Talloires on Lake Annecy, Moulin de Mougins, L’Oasis, and La Réserve on the Riviera, to mention only those that come first to mind after so many years. These were splendid trips. Gore was a fine companion—learned, stoic, easy, generous, incapable of low thoughts or motives, but with a cool wit and a sharp tongue. He was then at the height of his powers. I shared his pleasure. He had a gift for friendship but harbored no illusions about human nature. He had come of age in FDR’s Washington, amid the great nobles of the New Deal, and though he noticed the frailties of his distinguished elders, he regretted the long imperial decline from their Augustan moment.

Since neither