Flavor of Italy

Spaghetti with Gorgonzola Sage Sauce

2012-02-10T15:46:00.001+01:00

One of my favorite pasta dishes which, guess what, happens to be just about the easiest dishes to make is pasta with Gorgonzola sauce. And the quickest! Like all Italian dishes start with fresh, quality ingredients and you just can't go wrong, you really can't!

Here's what you need, to serve one person:

Spaghetti, 100 grams
Gorgonzola cheese, 60 grams
Butter, 20 grams
Sage leaves (fresh), 5 finely chopped
Parmesan cheese, grated

While your spaghetti is cooking in boiling, salted water prepare your sauce. Put the ingredients in a saucepan and cook until hot and sizzling. Done!
Drain the pasta and reserve some of the cooking water. Toss the spaghetti in the Gorgonzola sauce. If it's not creamy enough add a tiny amount of the cooking water.
If you wish you can sprinkle the pasta with grated Parmesan cheese. I don't as the sauce is so rich and tasty it really doesn't need it.
Note that there's no salt in the recipe. Gorgonzola is naturally salty so it's quite unnecessary.
Is there a rhyme or reason as to why spaghetti is used? Yes, actually. But first let me say this: go where your instincts take you in choosing the type of pasta you use. You may also be guided by what you have on hand!
A creamy sauce like this one adheres beautifully to a long, thin pasta. Other sauces work better with a short, tubular pasta variety (penne, rigatoni, etc.) when you need the pasta to hold the sauce.
One final note. Feel free to vary ingredient amounts to suit your individual taste. Really, you can't go wrong with this sauce. If you're a Gorgonzola lover use more of it! Same goes with the sage and butter. Buon appetito!

SensofWine

2012-01-29T12:42:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day with wine maven Robbin Gheesling of VineyardAdventures sampling some of Italy's fine wines at the Luca Marroni 2012 wine show. Each region was represented by about eight or ten wineries and we did our best to make the rounds of the wines that have been selected to appear in the Luca Marroni 2012 Annuario dei Migliori Vini in Italia.
The guide is a tome featuring hundreds of wines, written in Italian, and well worth the purchase. Among the local wineries, we enjoyed the Falesco wines the most. Located in southern Umbria / northern Lazio, Falesco (www.falesco.it) boasts an array of fine wines. I particularly enjoyed the Tellus and have for years, as did Robbin. The company recently changed the Tellus bottle to a shorter, stouter bottle...very appealing.
Another plus of this event was the tastings of local food products. The best by far was a panino made with pane casareccio and stuffed with crunchy, flavorful porchetta from nearby Ariccia. Porchetta is the true destiny of the pig; so simple but incredibly delicious. It was a divine accompaniment to quite a few of the wines we sampled. Try it out if you find yourself near Ariccia: www.laporchettadelponte.com

Osteria

2012-01-26T23:47:00.001+01:00

This centro storico restaurant's simple and spartan ambiance is what makes it elegant. For example the lighting: bulbs on wires hanging in staggered arrangement from the ceiling.
The food is tasty, mostly Roman fare, often classics revisited or with a simple variation. Galletto with red peppers...
Creamy carbonara with homemade tagliolini and shaved Parmesan. So creamy it seemed as if each serving was made with half a dozen yolks.
Our pecorino antipasto came with three different homemade jams: crunchy red onion and clove and persimmon were the tastiest.
Fruit & crostata for dessert.
The restaurant owner has opted to not have a website and as Osteria is always full, well, who needs one!

New Year's Eve Cenone

2012-01-01T20:09:00.001+01:00

The classic Italian New Year's Eve celebration is simple and mirrors how Italians celebrate everything: with great food. We ate well, very well, and sampled just about everything on the Cenone menu at Frantoio.

Cenone, from the word cena or dinner, simply means big dinner. It's a meal that can have as many as twelve courses although we stopped at eleven. We started off with grilled wild white shrimp with Castelfranco radicchio and a lemon vinaigrette and crispy prosciutto. Next we had an asparagus veloute' soup with Dungeness crab meat.

Soup was followed by an endive salad with pear, Toma Piemontese and roasted walnut vinaigrette.

Our first pasta dish was home made ravioli stuffed with Maine lobster and shrimp, and a lobster bisque sauce.

Our second pasta was strozzapreti with lamb ragu', artichoke and pecorino romano. We also sampled the risotto with butternut squash, fresh black truffle and Parmigiano.

We shared three main course dishes. First we had grilled American kobe beef flat-iron steak with brocolli rabe all'aglio e olio, truffle shoestring potatoes and beef jus.

My favorite dish was the roasted Petaluma duck breast with basmati rice, roasted baby beets and balsamic sauce.

Cotecchino and lenticchie are a must on New Year's eve so we also had the roasted organic pork loin with Italian cotecchino sausage, braised lentils with root vegetables and whole grain mustard sauce.

No Italian New Year's eve meal is complete without panettone so we had the panettone with warm marsala zabaglione. We also tried the home made vanilla bean gelato profiterole with banana and chocolate sauce.

Oysters at Nick's Cove, Tomales Bay - Marshall CA

2011-12-28T16:40:00.001+01:00

Oysters aside, the drive up to Marshall is enthralling; a stark and beautiful coastline with a back drop of mountains and blue skies. You occasionally pass through charming, yet humble towns that appear to have been untouched for decades: a small white clapboard church with its steeple reaching up to the sky, a general store, post office and little schoolhouse.
And then you arrive in Marshall: population 50. When we sought out a place to eat in Marshall last year most everything was closed. One place was being refurbished, another was for sale. This year nothing's changed. Nick's Cove is always opened and packed and along the road there are fisherman who are sorting through and packing oysters. In the area you will find the Hog Island Oyster Company, Drakes Bay Oyster Company and Tomales Bay Oyster Company.
Although oysters are the predominant business along the coast there are also many other small farms and cheese businesses speckled throughout the countryside: Cowgirl Creamery, Strauss Family Creamery, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., Petaluma Poultry, Fallen Hills Ranch, Clover Stornetta, Rossotti Ranch, Bellwether Farms and Larry Wagner Farms.

There is an inn across the street from Nick's Cove with 12 cottages (five on the property and 7 with water views across Highway 1; all bookable through nickscove.com) and then the restaurant and bar itself with seating indoors and outdoors all year round.

Nick's Cove has one quasi commercial vehicle parked outside, a fire engine red Willy's Jeepster from probably 1948 or 1949, that is more relic than utilitarian.

The central theme at Nick's is oysters, most of them locally harvested. In addition, oysters harvested in the morning on the east coast are flown in daily for lunch and dinner on the west coast.

We all had the mixed oyster platter of twelve local oysters: Hog Island Sweetwaters, Drakes Bay, and Preston Point, Bernal, TBOC.

We had another six barbecued Tomales Bay oysters apiece, made with homemade barbecue sauce and a garlic parsley butter.

We followed our oysters with a Tomales Bay clam chowder with applewood smoked bacon. This year there's been an excellent crab season so we also had Dungeness crab cakes with arugula, shaved fennel and a smoked paprika aioli.

It was gratuitous after all the oysters, but I couldn't resist dessert all the same: a prune tart with a caramel sauce and vanilla cream.

Before heading home we walked out to the Nick's Cove dock. Although the day was mostly sunny it was brisk, yet many diners chose to eat outside.

At the end of the dock there is a spectacular view of the bay. There are a few tables for diners who are willing to bring their meal out to the dock themselves.

There's a cabin with a wood burning stove, one dining table and music piped in from the restaurant.

It's the kind of place you can almost see yourself living in....at least for awhile. A nice toasty fire, a three-sided view of the bay and the water, food back at the restaurant.

The red, white and black of the marble table and weather-worn red chairs with black leather seats captured my eye and convinced me that next time I'll be having my oyster lunch right out there in the cabin at the end of the dock at Nick's Cove.

Christmas Dinner

2011-12-25T03:00:00.000+01:00

Two Christmas dinners this year: one with friends in Rome, one in San Francisco with family. The San Francisco meal is a wonderful collaborative affair with my sisters and extended family and the other a feast I offer up to my friends.

I'll tell you about our Rome Christmas, starting with the table. A great meal involves every sense and this begins with where we all join together to share our meal. It's the Christmas season so reds and greens are an obvious choice. I love natural, homemade, preferably edible centerpieces so this combination of apples, walnuts, bay leaves and candles was perfect.

Individual plates echoed the red and green theme with a star formed from bay leaves and half a cherry tomato.

We had two starters, beginning with a lentil soup with mussels and clams.

We were just in Naples and since that trip I've been wanting to make a giant frittata di spaghetti. This is a simple but delicious dish usually prepared from leftover spaghetti. One beaten egg per 100 grams of pasta and abundant grated pecorino and parmesan cheese is added to the spaghetti. The mixture is then cooked in a well oiled (olive oil of course) large, deep frying pan. I use the flat lid of a smaller pan to compress the frittata while cooking. It needs to be cooked slowly so the eggs cook thoroughly. Once done the frittata is removed and cooked on the other side.

We have meat lovers and fish lovers in our group of friends so I prepared both. Lamb is the traditional Christmas dish in Italy so we had a de-boned leg of lamb prepared with an olive oil, ginger, fresh rosemary, soy sauce and garlic paste. The additional paste is used as a dipping sauce for the lamb.

Our salmon was de-boned by the fishmonger and stuffed with mussels, clams, fish fillets, bread cubes, minced onions, parsley and fish broth. The salmon was then baked to an internal temperature of 170F. It makes a delicious, beautiful presentation which is very easy to serve.

Our potato side dish cooked stove top for 20 minutes, then 20 minutes in the oven, in a deep-dish, oven-proof cast iron pan. A stick or two butter is melted and drizzled on the layered potatoes as they're added to the pan. Once cooked through the excess butter is drained off and the potatoes inverted onto a serving platter. Buttery and delicious.

Our winter garden is exploding with vegetables. I served cauliflower and mixed dark greens sauteed in olive oil, peperoncino and garlic.

Fresh mandarin oranges are a must at the Christmas table.

I spent last week making acorn flour from the acorns in our yard. I prepared a hearth bread from acorn and whole wheat flour.

We had three cakes and three ice creams for dessert. We started off with pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin souffles, which I love because they rise three or four inches out of the ramekin.

My favorite ice cream was the peanut butter and chocolate chip ice cream, which was served with a chocolate torta caprese.

I used the acorn flour to make the torta caprese and although it was good it didn't compare to the original recipe which uses almonds.

Our final dessert combination was cranberry cake and torrone ice cream. For the cranberry upside down cake I used dried cranberries soaked for several hours in warm water and then drained. The cranberries were mixed with brown sugar and melted butter, poured into a baking paper lined spring form pan, topped with the batter and baked.

No Italian Christmas is complete without torrone, a nougat prepared with honey and egg whites and almonds. I made the ice cream with honey and cream. Five minutes before it was done I added chopped torrone to the ice cream.

Panettone

2011-12-23T00:00:00.000+01:00

One of the signs that Christmas is around the corner is that panettone sales start popping up everywhere. I love them and I love looking at the vast array of packages, each one more beautiful than the next. It's true that Italians don't go in for a lot of holiday decor, but they do love their exquisitely packaged panettone.
No one really makes them at home anymore because although fairly simple the numerous risings render panettone making a lengthy endeavor requiring you to be on hand for eight to ten hours.
I didn't do so this year, but I often make small panettone to give out as gifts. I use old 16 oz peeled tomato cans for baking tins and it works out perfectly.
There is a constant changing of hands of panettone throughout the holiday season as whatever holiday party you attend it is de rigueur to arrive with a panettone in hand for your hostess.
Tre Marie is one of the better known panettone makers in Italy. Many shops (such as the specialty food chain Castroni) either make their own panettone, or have them custom made. Local bakeries all make their own panettone and I enjoy offering up an artisanal product at my holiday table or as a gift to friends rather than a mass produced panettone.
Do I like panettone? Actually, I do. Early on I envisioned the super sweet desserts like pumpkin and pecan pie as quintessential Christmas desserts. I've gotten over that and prefer the raisin bread-like panettone.

This year we're in the San Francisco area for the holidays once again, but we've stocked up on three panettone from a top Italian bakery: Emporio Rulli.
Whether in Italy or abroad you'll never go wrong giving a gift of panettone to friends and family. And should you find yourself with a massive inventory of panettone post-Christmas they make the best french toast you'll ever taste!

Smoking Salmon at Frantoio

2011-12-20T16:23:00.001+01:00

When I'm in San Francisco my favorite restaurant is Frantoio in Mill Valley. I love it because it's genuine Italian food with wonderful fresh ingredients, mostly from the Bay Area.

Our first lunch upon arriving in San Francisco we had here: a simple pasta all'amatriciana, salad and fresh bread. We had lunch early with Sous Chef John and the frantoiano (olive oil maker) Patrizio who was in San Francisco for six weeks to press olives before heading back to Tuscany for the Christmas holidays.

Frantoio has a wonderful wood burning pizza oven that is used to make pizzas and bread and roast meats. John also uses it to smoke salmon, which is what we did today post lunch.

For two days before the actual smoking process John places the salmon under a mixture of two parts salt to one part sugar. The salmon is then weighted down using a baking sheet with heavier objects placed on top. Twice a day John bastes the salmon with the liquid the fish has cast off to keep it moist.

Once it's ready for the smoking process John gets a small fire going in the back of the pizza oven with about four logs. The wood used depends on the flavor he wants to achieve. He uses apple or olive or whatever else strikes his fancy.

The oven needs to be more than warm, but not hot, otherwise you will cook the salmon. The pizza oven has no thermometer, but I'd say we're talking somewhere around 150 F to 200 F. When the oven's ready John closes it until the flame goes out. The salmon is then placed in the oven where it will stay for 15 to 20 minutes. Once during the smoking process the salmon is very quickly turned to achieve a nice, even smoking process.

The flavor John achieves is amazing. There's nothing like smoked salmon and when it's freshly smoked it's unsurpassable. Why haven't I been doing any smoking in our pizza oven? I really don't know, but I will be doing a lot of smoking henceforth.

Aromaticus

2011-12-12T16:47:00.000+01:00

Newly opened Aromaticus in the Monti area, Via Urbana 134, has set out to be quite a few things to its clientele and it remains to be seen if the owners Luca and Francesca can pull it all off: purveyor of specialty fresh herbs & greens, sales of garden supplies ranging from organic fertilizer to seeds to gardening tools, Monti area rooftop and garden consultants and last but not least restaurant service for light lunches showcasing the greens and herbal product line.

We visited Aromaticus Monday morning when alas the store is technically closed. Therefore we were able to explore Aromaticus and have a chat but were unable to try out the lunch. Next time....

We met with the affable and enthusiastic, albeit overwhelmed, co-owner Luca. Luca readily admits that Aromaticus is still in its start-up phase and that a lot of tweaking still needs to be done to the venue, product line and website. It's a charming concept and if the owners manage to juggle everything they've set out to accomplish it should be a very successful enterprise.

Check it out; it's well worth it. Here's a heads up on what you can expect to find at Aromaticus....

Lunch offerings will include salads, carpaccio (baccala' or anatra) and tartare fassone piemontese (a Piedmont beef tartare). Lunches are served at a bar decorated with a mini herb garden.

Lots of gardening tools and toys....

Fresh greens and herbs....

Specialty salts and peppers, spices, and other types of condimenti. One that appealed to me was a tube of aromatic soy and wasabi paste.

Aromaticus is sparsely but harmoniously decorated with plants and herbs....

Maira Kalman & Cake at the American Academy in Rome

2011-12-10T22:08:00.000+01:00

Maira Kalman and American Academy pastry chef Mirella Misenti were co-conspirators in the creation of a delightful afternoon of pleasure to the palate and the eye. Maira briefly shared her reflections on Rome, her life, her career and what inspires her....cakes do. Illustrated edible cakes, and edible illustrations of cakes.

Our cakes were delectable: a three layer pan di spagna with two different fillings between each layer: lemon cream filling and whipped cream. We were also served bite-sized ginger snaps and tea.

There is no rhyme or reason as to what Maira illustrate; these days, she says, it's simply what appeals to her at that moment. She's illustrated an eclectic assortment of publications over the years including the New Yorker magazine, The Elements of Style (a book originally published in 1918 by William Strunk Jr focusing on the rules of usage in literature), and most recently Michael Pollans' Food Rules. Maira has also published a number of her own adult and children's books.
Food Rules is a simple handbook of intuitive, numbered rules on how to eat sustainably, that can be just as easily understood by an elementary school student as an adult. Michael Pollan is a journalist turned culinary sustainability expert and spokesperson. Food Rules is his seventh book. I use Food Rules as a bible in my intro culinary sustainability classes. When the revised addition with illustrations by Maira Kalman was published last month I was no less than ecstatic. It's delightful! Make sure you pick up a copy; you won't be disappointed!

Via dell'Oca and Via della Penna in Rome

2011-12-07T14:48:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I was in the Piazza del Popolo area for meetings so I decided to head over to one of my favorite streets in between appointments. This short two block street has a different name for each block: Via dell'Oca (Goose street) and Via della Penna (Feather street), so I guess you could simply call the street goose feathers!

I love this street because it's a peaceful oasis in the midst of the bustling, overcrowded Via del Corso shopping area. The street is home among other things to four restaurants, a number of subdued, elegant clothing stores, tailors that have been there for years, a few other boutiques, an art gallery and the Hotel Locarno. Bomba is one of the nicer shops, offering both a designer clothing line and tailor service.

Most of the merchants have been in the area for a long time and are getting on in years. They're quite colorful local characters, like this clothing store merchant and the gentleman who owns the art gallery.

The Hotel Locarno, which has been on Via della Penna since 1925, is my favorite spot to meet up with friends for drinks. It has an old world feel to it, including the outdoor garden area where cocktails are served in the evening, weather permitting.

The hotel has sixty-six rooms, each one unique. Hotel Locarno offers a huge buffet breakfast every morning and light lunches are also available.
The historic center is best explored on foot or by bicycle: the Locarno is the only hotel in the area thatmakes bikes available for its clients.... a nice extra touch.

Bed And Breakfast Piazza Dante - Napoli

2011-12-05T10:37:00.001+01:00

Last week before going to Naples the first thing I did was to check with the blogger community for suggestions on a place to stay. I have to thank Walks of Italy for the two fabulous accommodation suggestions made as both were fabulous. We ended up staying at the Dante B&B, so named due to its spectacular location overlooking the beautiful Piazza Dante.

Our room (like all the rooms) was spacious and comfortable. The building is old so ceilings are high and the windows are the fabulous thick wood (about six inches thick) that it's hard to come by nowadays.

The rooms are simply furnished with a comfortable bed & fold out couch and immaculately clean. All rooms have their own bath, each well lit with good showers and plenty of hot water.

Owners Simona and Marco are delightful. Marco works full time and when he's free his passion is fishing. He took his boat out a few times while we were there and managed to catch a few calamari. The next time we're in Naples we hope to go fishing with him. The idea is so enticing we may just go down for a day of fishing. Marco helps out with the B&B, but it's Simona who dedicates herself full time to its operation.
Simona and Marco live in another location, but Simona arrives first thing in the morning arms full of freshly baked pastries & breads for breakfast. The breakfast area is cozy and bright. During the day when Simona is not around you can still make yourself a tea or coffee or help yourself to juice and water. Wifi is available on the premises so I used the breakfast room to work in when I wasn't in my room.

My favorite breakfast item by far was this casatiello, a thick bread stuffed with salami, prosciutto and eggs. The morning Simona served it it was so warm, soft on the inside and with a crunchy crust. It's considered ann Easter bread but is available year round.

The best thing about this B&B is its unbeatable location: right smack in the center of Naples centro storico overlooking the lovely and expansive Piazza Dante: my favorite piazza in Naples. Beautiful view, great restaurants and pasticcerie wherever you turn; one of the streets leading off the piazza is the hub of Naples bookstores....both current and antique. In the afternoon and evening the piazza becomes a playing area for kids and there are always a half dozen or so impromptu soccer games going on. Recently the piazza has become a pedestrian only area keeping it quiet and beautiful.
Simona has arrangements with local parking garages for those arriving by car. The term garage is perhaps a stretch, but it's an economical and ideal place to leave your car. A tad sketchy, but adequate.
And the price? Shockingly affordable for such a perfect spot. The Dante B&B is now my home away from home in Naples.

Leon d'Oro Restaurant - Piazza Dante, Naples

2011-11-30T15:14:00.000+01:00

We arrived at our bed and breakfast a bit too late for lunch, but Simona, the delightful owner of the Dante B&B, suggested that we stop down at the Leon d'Oro restaurant & pizzeria to make our dinner reservation as it books up quickly for the evening. Even though it was almost 4 pm there were still a few people finishing lunch and both owners, Antonio (Tonino) and Salvatore, were at the restaurant. As Tonino saw that I was curious to have a look around the restaurant he invited us to come in. When I peeked into the kitchen from afar he grabbed my hand and took me into the kitchen. There, the very shy Salvatore and his kitchen help, were at work preparing for the evening service. Salvatore was making eggplant parmesan and I made a mental note to order it for dinner.
Tonino, who works the sala, is the kind of Neapolitan restaurant owner I love: so welcoming you feel like you've been friends for years, anxious to show you every corner of the restaurant and share every detail of the manicaretti (tasty delicacies) they are preparing.

The interior of the half century old Leon d'Oro is simple and brightly lit, with checked table cloths and. Inside the pizza oven flanks the kitchen and one of the dining areas. We didn't try the pizza only because we had already decided on other dishes. When a soccer game is on the waiters have half an eye on the game, but still manage to take good care of the customers. And if Naples is playing, well.....

Seafood abounds in Naples and we'd seen some scrumptious looking fresh clams at the market earlier in the day so that was an easy and obvious first choice.

We ordered the eggplant parmesan after our pasta. The eggplant was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of fresh buffalo mozzarella & provolone cheese and a delicate tomato sauce.

A typical Neapolitan dish is the frittata: spaghetti, eggs, tomato sauce and parmesan or pecorino cheese pan fried in a large, deep frying pan and served sliced. Tonino brought it out just as we were finishing our eggplant and served us a slice to try: such a simple dish but wonderfully flavorful.

Based on our experience the first night we decided to have our final lunch at Leon d'Oro and Tonino was clearly pleased to see us again. We had a chard and bean soup and pasta genovese. Genovese is a slow cooked ragu' made from the muscolo cut of meat, frequently pork. It's cooked for hours with olive oil, tomatoes and lots of onions and then served with a short cut bucatini. Often the meat is broken up into pieces or, as in this case, served as one piece.

We finished with mandarini and freshly made graffette, a sugar-coated donut-like dessert made with almost equal parts potatoes and flour, served by our affable waiter Giuseppe.

We left Naples with a freshly baked loaf of bread in hand to take back to Rome and an invitation to come back to cook with Salvatore. In Naples these are not just pleasantries but solid invitations.Although Naples can be crazy and disorderly, Neapolitans are some of the warmest and genuine people I've come across in my travels.

Capri: an Indian summer day before Christmas

2011-11-28T08:43:00.000+01:00

Capri is my husband's favorite place and I have to agree that the island's beauty is indisputable. Unfortunately what Capri has become, at least in the centro, is a high-end tourist location for the very wealthy. No characteristic, artisanal items on sale here; what you're most likely to find are the top designers, and costly jewelry & gift items.
So why do we keep going back to Capri? It is so spectacularly beautiful and once you get out of the center you can walk and hike for hours and every turn you make reveals another view of unparalleled beauty. We loved these old, blue row boats at the end of the port area which is mostly frequented by fishermen.

The last Sunday of November Capri was almost a ghost town. Normally we would already be well into winter and the likelihood of getting an aliscafo from Naples to the island unlikely. Instead, it was a gorgeous Indian summer day....and the island was ours for the taking. When you first get to the main square following the funicular ride up the mountain the characteristic view is the ceramic clock.

After we'd spent the day hiking and were ready to return to the mainland it was already getting dark and the piazza was transformed, glowing with Christmas lights.

The piazza was magical and almost fairytale-like.

A gorgeous Christmas tree had become the focal point of the piazza.

When we arrived on the island in the morning we first walked around the port area and enjoyed all the colors and the view up into the hill town of Capri.

Capri is probably best known for its faraglioni: two spectacular rocks emerging from the sea and reaching up towards the sky. The view is timeless. At each hour of the day and from various spots on the island the faraglioni always have a slightly different look.

As you walk along the pathways of the island you come upon immense cliffs and rock structures that reach to the sea and nearly obscure your view of the sky.

Capri is full of amazing gardens, replete with flowers and sculptures; this one is part of the Augustus Gardens on Via Krupp.

The villas you encounter along the way are each one different from the next, an explosion of color and varying architectural style. The red earth tones of this villa were accentuated by the piercing blue sky. The villa was covered with simple frescoes, fading from the wear and tear of the elements.

Many villas are white and often incorporate the characteristic ceramics of the Campania region, mostly coming from Vietri.

A creamy white and beige columned villa, again gorgeous against the deep blue sky.

Once we'd rounded the island and the day was coming to an end we came upon a view of the Amalfi coast, off in the distance.

Some kind soul, probably a dog-loving villa owner, had created this watering hole for dogs, with a marble slab indicating the spot, in Latin: Bibe Canis: i.e. place for dogs to drink.

By this time in our hike, well over an hour from town, there was no source of water in sight and the stone water bowl was bone dry.

The Colors of Napoli....

2011-11-27T10:31:00.001+01:00

In his book Seeing Naples Barringer Fifield says: " Some cities are born for commerce, some for religion, others for reasons of state. Naples began with a song." Naples is all about the sensual: the music, the sounds, the language, the food, the smells of the sea and cafes and food, and the colors. It's one of the most spectacularly beautiful cities in the world. I've been exclaiming to my husband for days now "I could live here, I want to live here!", but he keeps telling me I'd tire of the the inherent lawlessness and the craziness. I don't know. I'm still in the blindly in love phase. It's not my first time here by any means but it's been awhile and I'm simply enjoying a rekindled love affair with Naples at the moment. Let me share some of the colors of Naples with you....

Old doorways with old lace curtains and motorini

The clock in Piazza Dante, above the Vittorio Emanuele boarding school: Convito...with room & board

Popolare housing in the centro storico, laundry hanging out to dry

Garbage and graffitti

Multi-colored and multi-style buildings, triple parking, full of life

Via Portalba, famous for its book stores, church with mustard yellow and gray

Colorful decades old books on Portalba

Local pescheria

Winning lottery tickets

Pensive Neapolitan man perched on a railing

Upcoming tombola schedule advertising a magical, irreverent, piquant event...

Red and gray exterior of the San Gaetano church

A local roadside beverage and aperitif stand

Gray & beige eggs with gray and beige man

Red palazzo with gray stone

Lemon yellow limoncello

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

2011-11-24T17:40:00.000+01:00

As today is Thanksgiving it seemed to make sense to make some typical Thanksgiving foods in today's cooking class. I'm on an ice cream kick at the moment and I really love pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie ice cream was the perfect variation on the traditional Thanksgiving dessert theme. Fresh, pureed pumpkin, cream and sugar plus all the wonderful spices you'd normally see in a pumpkin pie.
We also made pumpkin souffle's. Piping hot from the oven accompanied by pumpkin pie ice cream made for a perfect Thanksgiving dessert combination.

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Ingredients:

120 ml / 1/2 cup cream
120 ml / 1/2 cup condensed milk
100 grams / 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
160 grams / 3/4 cup pumpkin: steamed until tender, pureed and thickenedover a double boiler
2 egg yolks

Procedure:

Whisk together cream, condensed milk, egg yolks, spices, salt andgranulated sugar in a small heavy saucepan.
Bring to a simmer over a double boiler, over moderate heat, stirringconstantly, until thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Do not letboil.
Remove from heat and whisk in pumpkin.
Cool to room temperature.
Process mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer'sinstructions.
Transfer to container and freeze.

An artisanal julienne tool from the market

2011-11-21T22:14:00.000+01:00

Every time I go to the market I find something new and fascinating. Usually it's the food; some prepped and ready to cook vegetable dish or a new seasonal arrival at the market that merits being photographed and then eaten. I also love to chat with the vendors and see what they're up to. It's no small task to clean dozens upon dozens of artichokes daily, to prepare the minestrone and ribollita that's for sale and, in this season, to clean the puntarelle.
Puntarelle, pre-cleaning, look like this:

and once cleaned and placed in acidulated water (cold water with lots of fresh squeezed lemon juice) they look like this:

and once you get them home, drain and toss them in their olive oil/garlic/anchovy/white wine vinegar dressing they look like this:

and what do they taste like? Well, nothing short of amazing. Hence, they sell like crazy when they're in season. They are so easy to make, that is, assuming you're not doing the cleaning. I don't know anyone who actually buys the uncleaned puntarelle. It's a laborious, time-consuming task that yields very little satisfaction in the food-prep department.
The market vendors are amazing to watch cleaning all the different types of produce and they are incredibly fast and adept at these tasks. Yet even they look for the faster, easier way. Today the elderly zio of one of my vendors was cleaning puntarelle with a hand-made tool that I would best describe as an artisanal julienne device. He was using it to clean the puntarelle by pushing them through the device, rather than slicing them with a knife the traditional way.
I loved this little tool and managed to purchase one of their spares from them. I thought I'd be able to use it on other vegetables (no, I still had no intention of cleaning puntarelle) like carrots and zucchini. Once I studied the tool better at home and realized it was a bit too delicate to use ona hard veggie like a carrot, I decided to steam the vegetables briefly to make them more tender and then pass them through the device. It worked:

So here's how this cool little tool is made. There's a square of wood about half an inch thick with a whole cut out of the center. On each side of the circle there are two staggered rows of nails. A guitar string has then been woven back and forth between the nails creating the criss-crossed rows that you see here:

It's really quite ingenius in its simplicity and I'm glad to have welcomed it into my collection of odd & unique, but highly functional kitchen tools.

By the way, here's how to make the puntarelle dressing:

Place the following in a small blender:

About 1/2 cup olive oil
About 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 small garlic clove
4 to 5 anchovy fillets

Blend until creamy, toss on your puntarelle and serve!

Pumpkin & Amaretto Ice Cream

2011-11-14T11:14:00.001+01:00

Who says ice cream is just for the summer? I love it all year round! There are so many fruits, veggies and treats that you only see in the fall and winter that lend themselves beautifully to ice cream. One winter flavor combination I love is pumpkin and amaretto. Pumpkin and amaretto are used together in the Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna regions as a tortelli (large tortellini) filling. So why not use them together in ice cream? Pumpkin is readily available in a can in many places, but avoid the temptation. There's nothing like fresh pumpkin for this ice cream.
I'm trying to keep things light these days so I used skim milk instead of cream. I also used brown, demerara sugar instead of white sugar:
Ingredients:

Pumpkin - 600 grams
Egg yolks - 2
Skim milk - 400 ml
Brown (demerara) sugar -30 grams
Salt -1/8 tsp
Amaretti biscotti, crumbled - 60 grams

Procedure:

Steam the pumpkin unrtil a knife slips through it easily
Puree the pumpkin, then cook over a double boiler until thickened
Cook the milk,sugar, salt and egg yolks over a double boiler, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats the ack of a wooden spoon
Whisk the pumpkin into the milk mixture
Cool thoroughly, then place the mixture in the ice cream maker
Five minutes before the ice cream is done add the crumbled amaretti biscuits

Day trip to Cortona, in the Tuscan province of Arezzo

2011-11-10T14:30:00.001+01:00

The town of Cortona is easily reachable by train from Rome: a pleasant and affordable 2 1/2 hour train ride ((Euro 16 in first class). Once you reach the Camucia / Cortona station you can take a bus (runs about every 40 minutes) or a taxi (Euro 10) up to Cortona centro.

The entrance way to Cortona is flanked by two enormous wooden doors. I've always thought that crystal topped doors like these would make a spectacular dining room table...

Camucia / Cortona station

The train station has taxi driver phone numbers listed, but in case you want to book in advance:

Every Saturday morning in the centro storico's Piazza Signorelli plan to enjoy the outdoor market: cheese, porchetta, fresh produce, local salumi.

The market has a nice assortment of handmade tablecloths, inexpensive print tablecloths, brightly colored linens and clothing. as it's olive season I bought two print tablecloths with an olive motif: perfect to decorate a casual, fall lunch table.

Olive Motif Tablecloths

Aprons and dishtowels displayed in inverted umbrellas

Lots of locally produced cheese...

and porchetta, prosciutto and Tuscan salami.

Cortona is small (about 2,000 residents in the winter and triple that in the summer months) so it's easy to explore the whole town on foot in a day....and to enjoy a nice meal and local wines.
Cortona is filled with ancient stone walls and doorways, each hinting at a story from the past. I love the juxtaposition of this charming green door with the assortment of winter veggies and herbs for sale, right around the corner from Piazza Signorelli.

Piazza Signorelli takes its name from Luca Signorelli, the Italian Renaissance painter.

At 1 pm I met up with my IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) colleagues and friends. We lunched at the quirkily decorated restaurant Osteria del Teatro. Stairs leading up to the restaurant entrance were laden with flowers.

What once must have been an apartment has been turned into a restaurant with a number of small, cozy dining rooms. Each room is chock full of an eclectic array of decorative items: paintings, bottles, knick-knacks, jars, candles.

The oddest room by far was the ladies room: filled with dolls...on the shelves and windowsills, hanging, propped everywhere. So many so that it was hard to find the soap, towels and flushing mechanism among the menagerie.

Our lunch, a delicate play of sweet and savory in the menu: pears and pesto, sweet tomatoes and Cinta Senese ragu, fillet with prunes...

Fennel Stuffed with Pecorino di Pienza
Fagottini filled Pasta Stuffed with Goat Cheese, with Walnut Pesto & Slivered Pears
Strozzapreti with a Cinta Senese Ragu' and Seared Cherry Tomatoes
Filetto al Lardo Colonnata, with Prune Sauce and Sauteed Rape

The wines were local: 2010 wines from the Montecchiesi Dal Cero Tenuta. We started off with a chardonnay: Il Bianchino. Our main course was accompanied by a robust Selverello sangiovese. With dessert we had a Vin Santo del Chianti Geografico 2007.
Although I'd planned to do more wandering following lunch I opted instead for an earlier train getting me back to Rome at dinner time. After our hearty lunch in Cortona I bowed out of dinner and finished the day with a bowl of fruit instead.

Hills surrounding Cortona: beautiful despite the overcast day

Rome's Dirty Little Secret

2011-10-24T12:42:00.000+02:00

If you live in or are visiting Rome you may have seen posters throughout the city announcing the closure of theMalagrotta garbage dump, couched in self-congratulatory back-patting wording onthe part of Rome's mayor Alemanno and Polverini, the director of the Lazioregion commission.
Most of you are probably asking yourselves what Malagrotta is. Fair enough, asthe city of Rome and the Lazio region certainly aren't making a point ofairing this bit of its dirty laundry. Malagrottais the largest garbage dump in Europe: a dump of all of Rome and the Vatican'smunicipal waste....unrecycled waste. The European Commission hasfined Italy repeatedly for this blatant violation of European regulations, allto no avail. Yes, Malagrotta is closing after 35years, BUT....
It will be re-opening in a new location in Riano, north Rome. No steps havebeen taken towards an effective recycling program so Malagrotta will beperpetuated in a different location but twice as close to Rome's citycenter.

Just last week a meeting was held at the Lazio Region offices to discussthis issue. Renata Polverini (presidentedella giunta regionale di Lazio / president of the Lazio Region Commission)and Rome’s mayor Alemanno have appointed a CommissarioStraordinario (emergency/extraordinary commissioner), Pecoraro, to presideover this issue and make a decision regarding the Quadro Alto site in Riano. Bycategorizing this as a Situazioned’Emergenza (an emergency situation) and appointing anemergency/extraordinary commissioner this allows Polverini to supercede the lawand avoid due legal process. It also allows Polverini and Alemanno to washtheir hands of the issue and avoid making the uncomfortable decision directlythemselves to put the landfill site in Riano. Neither Polverini nor Alemannonor Pecoraro has visited the Quadro Alto site.Polverini and Alemanno say theQuadro Alto site will be a temporary solution. As Rome has made no progresstowards recycling how can the Quadro Alto site possibly be temporary?
There are many shocking aspects to this situation. The owner and president ofMalagrotta, Co.La.Ri. (the Lazio Consortium for Municipal Waste), is ManlioCerroni. Two years ago Co.La.Ri. made an application to the town of Riano, theprovince of Rome and the Lazio region to use Quadro Alto in Riano as a landfillsite. The request was denied by all three. Riano, the Rome Province andthe Lazio Region all three stated clearly that Riano is not an acceptablesite for a landfill. How can the Lazio region now claim that Riano is anacceptable location, just two years later? The town and the surrounding areahave remained the same. Riano’s population is constantly growing which, ifanything, makes it all the more unacceptable as a landfill site.

Last week on October 14^th Co.La.Ri. purchased 93 hectares inRiano which Cerroni has stated publicly will be used as the next landfill siteto replace Malagrotta. This purchase occured just days before the Lazio Regionmeeting to discuss using Quadro Alto in Riano as a landfill site. In addition,Pecoraro still hasn’t made a formal decision or pronouncement regarding the useof Quadro Alto as a landfill site. Although there should be a competitivetender for the management of a landfill site it is quite clear that there has beencollusion in this case.

Why the possibility of starting up a new landfill site in Riano is alarmingto its 10,000 residents and the thousands of residents residing in nearbymunicipalities:

Co.La.Ri. now operates Malagrotta. There is no recycling of any type beingdone at this landfill site. Every day thousands of garbage trucks arrive atMalagrotta and dump an alarming number of metric tons at the site daily.Although there are several TMB incinerators at Malagrotta only one isoperative….at just 60% of capacity. If Malagrotta is not doing any recyclingand the incinerators are not operating then why is there any reason to assumethat Co.La.Ri. will operate and manage a new landfill site differently?
Riano is just 15 kilometers from the historic center of Rome (Piazza delPopolo and the Spanish steps). Malagrotta is double that distance. St PetersDome is visible from Riano.
There are hundreds of residences within view and a short walk to QuadroAlto.
There are schools and pre-schools close to Quadro Alto.
There are roughly 200 people working each day at the Quadro Alto quarry.All these people stand to lose their livelihood.
There is a restaurant that has been operating for 50 years just 100 metersfrom Quadro Alto.
The proposed landfill site of Quadro Alto lies right above a faldaacquifera (underground water source) very close to the surface, and justseveral kilometers from the Tiber River. The damage a landfill would do to thewater is unfathomable. Hundreds and hundreds of residents rely solely on wellwater for their homes as no city water is available……I am one of those.
The Parco di Veio (a protected regional park) and the Universita’ Agrariaare located next to Quadro Alto. The area is filled with innumerable flora andfauna, including over a hundred edible herbs and greens, free range cattle,horses, wild boar, birds and many other creatures.
Quadro Alto in Riano is a designated area of archaeological heritage.
The city of Rome has made no progress towards an effective recyclingprogram that could move this region away from needing a landfill site. Themayor of San Francisco invited Rome’s mayor Alemanno to visit San Francisco tosee how an ideal urban recycling program works. Alemanno did not accept theinvitation.
No-one has ever been to Riano to perform a site visit at Quadro Alto.
No-one has consulted the municipal management, any of Riano’s citizens orthose employed at the Quadro Alto quarry site to discuss the plan to turnQuadro Alto into a landfill site.
The Quadro Alto site still has hundreds of employees, the underground watersource is just below the quarry surface and nothing has been done to preparethe site to be used for landfill. How can it possibly be used in two month’stime when Malagrotta closes?
The ecological damage to the Riano area would be overwhelming, as would theeconomic damage to the residents. Property will lose its value drastically andbusinesses will suffer and close. Already property values have decreased byover 50% as Riano and Rome citizens live in fear of what may happen in Riano.

Why has Quadro Alto been selected, particularly when no-one has evervisited this possible landfill site? The Riano area has quite a few tufoquarries (Romans have been mining tufo in this area for thousands ofyears…..one of the reasons this area is of great archaeological value) andconsequently represent already prepared holes in which to dump municipal wasteindiscriminately.

Yesterday a great post appeared on this topic on the Under the Tuscan Sun blog. What a wonderful summary of the garbage situation in Rome! I suggest youadd it to your favorites and "like" their Facebook page. It's anexcellent way to keep up on Italian issues....and enjoy a little tongue incheek humor!
Rome: WAKE UP!!! It's time to declare war on garbage and on the politicians(Polverini and Alemanno) who are perpetuating one of Rome's dirtiest problems(pardon the pun): the mega-discarica. Join theNovember 5th Rome city center protest against the proposed new garbage dump inRiano. For details check out the www.sosdiscaricariano.it website (give it afew days to be up and running) and follow SOS Discarica Riano on Facebook.

Wild Spinach (Lambsquarter) Pappardelle

2011-10-18T15:13:00.000+02:00

The fields behind our house are a veritable forager's dream. Last weekend we spent all day Saturday enjoying the prolonged Indian summer we've been having in Rome this October. As we walked along we managed to pick a variety of greens for a misticanza salad. We also picked bunches and bunches of wild spinach which I used to make wild spinach pappardelle. We used the very last of our cherry tomatoes for the sauce.
There's something so gratifying about hiking in the beautiful fields and hills surrounding our home and then making lunch from the wild herbs and greens we've picked along the way.

The spinach (Lambsquarter) grows prolifically in the Lazio region, and elsewhere. The leaves are very delicate, thin and tender: quite different from cultivated spinach. Once you know what it is and are on the lookout for it you'll find that it's just about everywhere you turn your head.

As with cultivated spinach, pick the leaves from the stems and rinse them off. Cook in a covered pan without adding any additional water. The water that clings to the leaves is sufficient.

Cook until just wilted and tender, drain and squeeze dry. Chop finely and knead about a quarter of a cup into the pasta dough. Not much remains once the spinach is cooked and squeezed dry so be sure to pick quite a bit.

Sometimes I work the greens into the pasta so they're thoroughly blended and the pasta is a uniform green. Other times, like today, I preferred a less-blended look. I like to see the wild greens that I've taken the time to pick.

Sperlonga Seafood Festival

2011-10-04T16:17:00.000+02:00

I've been going to Sperlonga for over twenty years; it's become our seaside home away from home. It's an easy drive to get there and an even easier, more relaxing train ride. The whitewashed centro storico is lovely and beautifully maintained. It spills down to two beach areas: one is the side with remains of Emperor Tiberiuses residence and a small museum featuring the spoils from his villa (sculptures and artifacts). The other beach side below the centro storico is the more recently developed commercial area of Sperlonga, with its shops, alimentari and small hotels which are all family owned and operated. The seafood festival was mostly below this side of the centro storico.
The seafood festival takes place every year and features local artisanal products and hand-crafted items. There are a few extras like music every evening, an art show and various seminars on local seafood and the sustainability issues facing Italy and its surrounding bodies of water. The latter, sadly, was the most poorly attended part of the seafood festival. People want to have fun, eat well and put on blinders for gthese other issues. most people in Sperlonga, country folk by and large engaged in agricultural activities, just don't get how endangered our oceans are and how depleted seafood has become.
In sperlonga's favor are the pride the residents and municipal management take in their town, its cleanliness, the cleanliness of the waters. The seafood served (free of charge) to everyone was a frittura of the most sustainable fish in the ocean: anchovies, sardines and other local, tiny fish.
I love this festival and issues confronting our oceans aside, fully enjoyed the frittura and community spirit this week-end.

Local volunteers worked tirelessly flouring and frying up all the fish for hundreds of people on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening.

Fish were served atop a slice of oil-drizzled bruschetta, made with local casareccio bread. I stayed around long enough to have several servings of fish. Such simple fare, but the freshness of the fish, the simple preparation of a dusting of flour and then a quick fry in fresh, good quality oil made for a more than satisfactory dinner. Local white wine was served with the fish: house wine, but perfect with the fish.

The beautiful port area, which loops around Sperlonga, was lit up each night and full of stands selling other local foods and artisan goods. I could have left after our little fish fest, but decided to move along to other stands and try out some other foods.

What meal is complete without pasta? In Italy it's almost a must. Never mind that we had our pasta following our main course; it certainly didn't affect our enjoyment of this seafood and tomato pasta dish.
After our pasta, a stroll and gelato we headed back to our house with full bellies ready to sleep and enjoy the following day on the beach.

Saturday Market in late September

2011-09-26T22:57:00.000+02:00

It's hard to believe that for twenty euros we purchased all the fruit and vegetables we need for the coming week and gorgeous, almost all organic, at that. We're in that enviable moment of the season when we still have a lot of summer fruits available but are starting to see some fall and winter produce appearing too.
Figs are one of my favorite fruits. Although they aren't available most of the year they are available twice: mid-summer and then again in September. The September figs are appropriately known as settembrini. We eat the figs whole; the purple figs are sugar sweet and the green ones less so but both kinds are delicious.

The woman we purchase from at the Saturday outdoor market in Prima Porta grows a lot of the produce herself. The grapes we purchased are from her vines and are even sweeter than the purple figs. This month is the vendemmia and all grapes are ripe for the picking.
Peaches and plums are still selectively available; the peaches come from cooler areas of Italy where the peach season is slightly later.

Bitter greens are our favorite and a favorite of most Italians: arugula as an addition to salad; cicoria pan sauteed with olive oil, garlic and hot pepper.

Fresh borlotti and cannellini beans are now available. It's time-consuming to remove them from their pods, but well worth the effort. As I remove borlotti beans from their pods I'm continually struck by their beauty; the pods and the beans look like they have been hand-painted.
We prepare a mixture of finely minced red onion and fresh sage, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and once the beans are cooked mix them piping hot into the sauce. The heat of the beans slightly cooks and amalgamates with the other ingredients, producing a surprisingly tasty side dish. Recently we've been making this dish a lot in our cooking classes and it's usually the favorite dish.

One of my favorite things about going to the market is the complimentary odori that are given to you when you make your purchase. Odori are a handful of herbs: parsley, basil, a carrot, celery stock and sometimes a small onion. These are the basic ingredients needed to make a vegetable broth or to season other dishes. It's a nice little added touch to the market experience.

Corzetti Pasta

2011-09-24T19:17:00.001+02:00

Elyssa loves to cook and is outfitting her new kitchen with great cookware and utensils. I went along with her to pick out pots and pans at a kitchen store she heard about from a chef friend. I was forewarned: when you first walk into the store you're underwhelmed; it looks like many other run of the mill casalinghe (kitchen supply stores). Even after browsing a bit I still wasn't impressed, but the more we looked around the more I realized that this store was very well supplied with just about everything, including a vast assortment of the best cookware on the market. More on this later as the store merits its own blog post.
Owner Simonetta is a fountain of in-depth knowledge on every product this kitchen store sells. I recognized her immediately and we soon realized we knew each other from the Gambero Rosso three years ago when we were both professionally active with the company. In between selecting everything Elyssa needed I also picked up a few great things. I love making unusual pasta shapes and forms and am always on the lookout for new items. Simonetta sold me a tool to make corzetti, a disk shaped pasta with a giglio fiorentino design. So this morning the first thing I did was to make corzetti for lunch.

After making a smooth and elastic sfoglia by kneading the dough for a good five to ten minutes and then rolling it out thinly, I cut out as many small disks as possible. I then used the stamp to imprint each disk with the giglio fiorentino design.

I used some of the last cherry tomatoes from our garden to make a simple tomato sauce with olive oil and basil. Although this isn't the traditional sauce used for corzetti, a pasta originating from the Liguria region in northern Italy, it was a perfect marriage with the pasta. In Liguria pesto is the traditional sauce used with corzetti.
Corzetti don't always have a giglio fiorentino design; in Liguria one stamp features a coat of arms with a rampant lion. In addition to its decorative function the design also helps the sauce adhere to the pasta.
The Encyclopedia of Pasta, by Oretta Zanini de Vita and masterfully translated in to English by Maureen B. Fant, dedicates a two page description to corzetti, along with drawings of the corzetti and the corzetti-making tool.

Reflections on the Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11

2011-09-11T15:23:00.003+02:00

I got up very early this morning to head into Rome for a 9 am memorial mass commemorating the ten year anniversary of 9/11. The sentiment ten years later is quite different from what it was ten years ago: anger, bitterness, disbelief, and the most ignoble of emotions: hatred.

The world is wiser now, at least I hope so, and focused on peace. The mood is reflective, looking to a future of optimism and global camaraderie. No one will forget, as the above pictoral tribute on the cover of a Romanian newspaper shows.

As I drove into Rome it was hard to believe what happened a decade ago, especially on the crisp, crystal clear, blue-skyed day that this September 11th is. I picked up the Sunday paper and was moved to see the entire front page of the Italian Corriere della Sera covered with a moving, water color memorial to 9/11:

After the memorial mass I received a message from Karen, now in the United States, with her reflections on what she was doing at the moment the attack on the Twin Towers took place. Karen is a poignant writer and I've shared her messages before, as I do now:

"a memory if you feel like reading something

I was teaching English to a small group of Saudi students in a pre-paramedic program in the fall of 2001. There was also one Japanese student who had joined the class to brush up his English skills. On September 11, my students were taking a practice English test - the big test that foreign students must take to study at most universities and colleges in the US. We had finished the listening section, and they started the rest of the test, the grammar and reading parts.

I got up to get a drink of water for myself, and walked by the program director's office - he had his radio on, and the paramedic teachers were standing there, looking grave. "A plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers," one said. How awful, what a terrible accident, I thought. I used to work on Wall Street, I used to take the subway home from the WTC station...I got my drink and then headed back to my classroom, and, as my hand went to the door knob, one of the paramedic teachers came running after me..."A second plane hit the other tower." We looked into each others' eyes in silence. No more needed to be said, we knew then that it was a deliberate attack.

I went to call my husband back in our house 30 miles away. He was killing time before taking a job with a Japanese government agency, the "househusband" that year....I knew he would not be listening to the radio, and we had no TV. He was silent with shock and then he half-whispered, "Don't let it be Japanese who did this, please don't let them be Japanese." I told him to stay in the house in case the kids were sent home, and to stay off the phone in case the school called the parents.

I went into the classroom and sat down, watching my students intensely reading, frowning as they searched for answers. I sat and waited for an hour and a half more, as they worked wordlessly on the test, coloring in the little circles indicating answer a or bor c.... I got up every 15 minutes or so to follow the events on the radio in the paramedic director's office, returning to look at those young men. But they were boys, really.

The Pentagon was hit.

I was old enough to be their mom. One of them had told me I was a year older than his grandmother! (I was 45 then.) Just boys. What time was it in Saudi Arabia, I wondered. Did their mothers know about the attacks? Word came of the US airspace and borders being closed. My students were now stranded in a foreign land; I watched them bite their lips, chew their pencils while thinking; their brows crinkled with the effort of concentrating on verbs and tenses and nuances of words and expressions. How many of my countrymen would see my Arab students as the enemy, would identify them with the attackers....in the office, the paramedic instructors' faces were ashen with intimate knowledge of wounds and death and grief, of broken buildings and broken bodies. They knew those kinds of wounds, those kinds of deaths. They knew firsthand the courageous fear of the firefighters who entered the towers when all others were leaving.

I went back into the classroom. It was quite, every now and then a student would sigh...erasers rubbed out answers... The Japanese student was here at the college alone, there were no other Japanese students that I knew of. Were there even any Japanese in this town? Who would he be able to turn to in his native tongue, who could truly understand his reaction, who could read his face properly? How would his parents feel knowing he could not leave the US to get to the safety of their home?

The fourth plane was missing.

The students finished the test. I couldn't face it, couldn't tell them at that moment. I wanted to hold that innocence for as long as I could..."Let's go over the answers right away," I said. "Let's not take a break now - we can take a longer one later..." We sat in a small, intimate circle, going over the answers. They added up the the scores of each section, compared the numbers with each other, talked about the hard and the easy questions, as if it were a normal class day. I was desperately holding on to normality as long as I could, keeping the events and confusion outside as long as possible. Was I wrong? Was I selfish? I don't know.

But I do know that I have held those faces, which stayed unmarked, unworried, unknowing for more than two hours longer than anyone else's I knew, held them in my mind for 10 years. I watched them intently as they discussed the answers, shared little jokes, complained about questions, watched them to remember their innocence as I kept them ignorant of the events which had occurred a few hours' drive away. And for 10 years I have held in my mind those faces when I had to finally tell them, in as simple and direct English as I could, what had transpired outside the door the small sanctuary of our classroom.

There was silence. I waited a few minutes, and I calmly rephrased everything - we ESL teachers are skilled in that, repeating ideas and facts in different words and phrases. They asked a few questions then; I quietly answered. They sat in silience again, and I said, "I think you should go to the internet and find the news in your own language." They bolted for the computer room down the hall, and I sat, alone, in my classroom which could no longer be my personal refuge in what had become a terrifying world."

From Rome to Romania, to the United States and all over the globe we are united in our personal memories of what happened ten years ago, and joined in our shared optimism and quest for a better, stronger world of peace.

Pasticceria Mondi

2011-08-06T19:41:00.014+02:00

At Pasticceria Mondi you'll find delicious mini-sandwiches; these are filled with sliced kiwi and brie, a refreshing change from your usual sandwich option....

I've been going to the Pasticceria Mondi regularly for about twenty years now. When Giulia was small it was the nearby morning coffee meeting point of choice among parents following school drop-off. Mondi also happens to be right around the corner from my favorite produce market at Ponte Milvio. My daughter is an adult now but I still head off to the market with cooking school clients several times weekly to pick up ingredients for classes. Mondi is a natural stop off point for a mid-morning coffee and sweet treat before we head off to start cooking. This week I took friends James Martin and Martha Bakerjian to Mondi, both travel & food writers, and I think they were both bowled over by the eye candy Mondi produces every day in its pasticceria.
Mondi is privately owned by the Mondi family who reside near Bevagna in Umbria. The pastry chefs who produce Mondi's edible works of art have mostly started off as young artisans within the pasticceria and made their career there.
Some of the most incredible things Mondi produces are their mini sanwiches (like tiny sliders) and bite-sized pastries, both so intricate and elaborate that when photographed it's hard to tell they are not full-sized, unless you hold one in your hand or place one next to a full-sized sandwich or pastry.

Mini sandwiches filled with tomato & shrimp, zucchini flowers & mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes with a soft cheese & ground pistacchio nuts....

Bite-sized pastries filled with cream and topped with wild strawberries...

At the cash register you'll find a selection of mini gift pastries: miniature birthday cakes and seasonal items like Easter baskets and Christmas packages. Although these cakes are only several inches in diameter they are so elaborate that they look full sized.

It's not all about the mini pastries at Mondi. Some of the regular desserts are spectacular looking and beautifully crafted, and the temptation to purchase is nearly overwhelming.

Millefoglie presented in a refreshingly different way...

These caramelized nut baskets are filled with portion-sized desserts dipped in dark chocolate....

This cake, probably filled with some type of pistacchio cream, is covered in ground pistacchio nuts....

Mondi also prepares a whole line of candies; below is a variety of flavors and shapes of jellies...

Scoop of the Week: Zucchini Ice Cream

2011-07-24T14:28:00.011+02:00

I've been making a lot of ice cream recently and experimenting with different flavors. The best one I've made so far is zucchini ice cream. It's also the ice cream that everyone, across the board, loves. As long as I don't tell them it's made from zucchini. I really get a kick out of making a great ice cream from a vegetable.
The other thing I love about this ice cream is that it's another way to use up all the zucchini in my garden. Of course zucchini are not a weed, but they act like they are. Even if I miss a few days of gathering zucchini, when I finally make it into the garden I find I have enough zucchini gathered to feed everyone on my street. There are also inevitably a few "attack" zucchini in the garden: so large you can hardly lift them. I think they hide from me until they reach that size. Of course it's not true but it does seem so given how rapidly they grow. I find myself talking to the zucchini, asking them where they came from in such short time. Enough about that because already my daughter finds it odd that I personify the vegetables growing in my garden.
This is what I gather in my basket every day:

I explained my approach to ice cream in past posts: I'm trying to reproduce everything sweet that I love in ice cream form. In this case it's zucchini bread. I've looked at each of its ingredients, and selected those that make it uniquely zucchini bread. The zucchini are grated (better if it's everything but the very center of the vegetable where the seeds are).

The essential flavors that come through in zucchini bread are sugar and cinnamon, and sometimes walnuts. So that's what I used for the ice cream, to keep it simple yet delicious.

Ingredients:

Milk, whole - 1 1/4 cup (200 ml)
Cream - 1 1/2 cups (355 ml)
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp (5 ml)
Sugar - 1/2 cup (100 grams)
Cinnamon - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Zucchini, grated (all except the seedy center) - 1 1/4 cup (190 grams)
Walnuts, finely chopped (optional) - 2/3 cup (50 grams)

Procedure:

Place all the ingredients (except the walnuts) in a saucepan and simmer until the zucchini is just tender but not mushy.
Place the pan in an ice water bath and cool completely.
Add the walnuts if desired.
Follow the manufacturer's instructions for your ice cream maker or:
Pour the mixture into a flat metal baking pan and freeze.
Once frozen the ice cream can be served, or stored for future use:
Transfer the ice cream into an airtight container and return to the freezer.

Topkapi - Turkish Restaurant in Rome

2011-07-20T22:02:00.003+02:00

My friend Karen started the Lunch Bunch a few months ago to get friends together to try some of Rome's ethnic restaurants. Ethnic restaurants are not Rome's strong suit, but nonetheless it's nice to dine on something other than Italian fare, fabulous though it is.
Yesterday we had lunch at Topkapi (Via Nomentana 81, tel. 06 4429 2408, info@topkapi.it). Katie Parla briefly reviewed this restaurant back in 2010 when it was known as Antichi Sapori della Turchia. The Turkish Chef Hikmet Ozkaya was the chef at the Turkish Embassy in Rome prior to joining Topkapi.
The dolma (stuffed cabbage and grape leaves) were tasty:

I love Bakla Ezmesi (hummus made with fava beans) and although this dish photographed well it was disappointing. The flavor was bland, and as the dish had been plated hours before it was dried out.

By contrast, the fried calamari (Kalamar) was delicious. Chef Ozkaya's wife, who served us, convinced me to try it based on its Tarator sauce. The sauce was made with equal parts yogurt (homemade in the restaurant) and ground walnuts, chopped dill, garlic, cucumbers and salt. It sounded odd but the chef's wife was so convincing that I opted for it. When I tasted the sauce on its own I didn't like it at all.

The sauce with the calamari was fabulous; a case where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. The calamari were fresh, crisp, tender and cooked to perfection. This is the dish that will bring me back to Topkapi.

I also had a very tasty Barbunya pilaki: borlotti beans with garlic, carrot, tomato paste, olive oil and a touch of peperoncino.
We all shared a simple but tasty chicken and vegetable dish with a rice pilaf.

If you're curious about Turkish cuisine visit Wikipedia or Hayriye's Turksh Food and Recipes.

"Tiella" from the Gulf of Gaeta, Southern Lazio

2011-07-10T16:38:00.004+02:00

Sperlonga has been just about my favorite place on earth for well over twenty years. When Giulia was little we used to spend the month of June in a spartan, but charming beachfront apartment. Back then I was the only foreigner in Sperlonga, literally. Only the big hotels (and big still meant fairly small and family owned) had sdrai or lounge chairs, on the beach. No phone, no television and internet was unheard of. In a word, heaven. We bought all our food on a daily basis from local fish vendors, fruit & vegetable stands and a local alimentare, the same one I've been going to for twenty plus years.
On Friday my daughter and I, along with some visitors from London, decided to "escape" the heat by hopping a train down to Sperlonga. It was one of those hot, humid Italian days with no hint of a breeze. We rented sdrai and ombrelloni on the beach. These days there's not a square foot of beachfront area where you can throw down a towel and lay in the sand. In the end, I spent the entire day under the umbrella fantasizing about returning to the peace and quiet of my pool. But it was great fun all the same. The view of the hill town of Sperlonga alone made the excursion worth it. I never tire of that view. The water was clean and crisp and delightful: Sperlonga prides itself on having the top water cleanliness rating along the coast.
For me it always boils down to the food and Sperlonga offers plenty to satisfy. We kept it simple: a few gelati from the Pasticceria Fiorelli which, in addition to amazing ice cream, has the best doughnuts in Italy.
Then it was on to the same alimentare we've been going to for decades, still owned by Carmina and Sandro, still with the same ebullient sales girls working the banco gastronomico (deli counter). They are not girls, or even young women; they can't be if I've known them almost a quarter of a century. But they look it. They're so friendly and welcoming that I usually end up purchasing much more than I intended to.
We always buy plenty of mozzarella di bufala, made just hours before: warm and succulent and redolent of fresh buffalo milk. Our London guests ate theirs as soon as we left the shop, right out of the bag and dripping with milky flavor.
Carmina and Sandro's alimentare is always fully stocked with tielle. They're so good I usually buy a small slice of every kind. The tiella, typical to the Gulf of Gaeta, is something in between a pizza and a calzone. It's the shape of a pizza with a softer dough, and filled, like a calzone.
Like so many Laziale gastronomical specialties, the tiella was born a poor man's food and a way to use up leftovers. The local favorite is filled with calamari, tomato, olive oil, parsley and a touch of peperoncino (below right). The tiella alla parmigiana is filled with eggplant, cheese, tomato and fresh basil. Another popular filling is potatoes and zucchini (below left).

These tielle are all filled with assorted fresh vegetables cooked in local olive oil, cheese, prosciutto and mortadella.

Legend has it that Frederick IV of Bourbon, who ruled the Neapolitan Republic for a time during the 16th century, was so fascinated with the tiella that he came up with the idea to honor it by creating different types, each with different tasty fillings.
The name comes from the round teglia (hence tiella) or baking sheet used to bake tielle. A disc of dough is placed in the teglia, filling is placed on top and then a second disc of dough is placed over the filling.
The best recipes I've run across for the Tiella di Gaeta made with polipi and calamari are in Italian. It's such a simple dish that it should be fairly easy to follow, even in Italian:

Saporetipico.it
Mondodelgusto.it

Here is my simple recipe to prepare the dough, which you can also use for pizza:

Ingredients:

Flour, 1 kg
Yeast, one cake
1 Tsp sugar
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tsp salt
300 ml water, plus an additional 200 ml water as needed

Dough preparation:

Combine 300 ml of tepid water with the yeast and sugar. Gradually combine the yeast mixture & flour.
As needed, add the additional 200 ml water so that you have a soft, kneadable dough. Add the salt and 1 tbsp oil to the dough.
Knead the dough until it is smooth & elastic, about 5 minutes.
Put the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil into a large bowl, and place the dough in the bowl, covering it with the oil.
Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow the dough to rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Punch dough down & make into 6 to 10 dough balls.
Roll each ball into a disc, or rectangle, that will just fit into a wide-rimmed baking sheet.

The Tomato: Reigning Queen of the Market All Summer Long

2011-07-04T08:56:00.013+02:00

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. ~Lewis Grizzard, American writer & humorist

My favorite Roman market is at Ponte Milvio. Tourist free, full of great produce but not so large that it's overwhelming. It used to be outdoors, running along the lungotevere, but like so many of Rome's larger markets it's been moved to an indoor space. Why? Many reasons probably, not the least of which was the traffic problem the market created. In the past this wouldn't have been an issue as people used to walk to and from the market to do their daily shopping. Anymore people head to the market in their car, leave it double or triple parked and quickly grab what they need from their banco di fiducia (preferred produce vendor), creating a parking and traffic nightmare.
In addition, what was left behind after market closing created a clean-up nightmare each day for the local Della Vittoria quartiere of Rome. To alleviate the clean-up problem, relieve traffic and offer parking to clients, indoor markets are popping up all over Rome to replace the larger outdoor markets. It's the end of an era, but I'm not at all unhappy to have a parking lot right under my favorite market.
More than a few days each week I'm at the market conducting market tours and picking up ingredients with clients for our cooking classes. Every week there's something a bit different available, but throughout the summer every banco has an abundance of wonderful tomatoes. It's true that the tomato's origin is in North America, but it was Italy that took this fruit and turned it into something marvelous.
One of my favorite tomatoes is the Cuore di Bue (Oxheart). This tomato is large (often weighing upwards of 200 grams) is very textured, with few seeds and almost pink. The skin is so tender there's never a need to peel them. They're great on their own or used to make dishes like Acqua Pazza.

The Casalino tomatoes on the left were grown in Sicily or are a Sicilian variety. Generally the Casalino tomato grows in the Southern Lazio region, from the hills of Itri to the seaside town of Gaeta. This tomato has a slightly acidic flavor and is at its best in early summer. In the past the Casalino was grown in between vigne (grape vines).

Frequently produce sold at the market will indicate its growing area, like the Sicilian Casalino tomato above.
These tomatoes were grown in Cerveteri, north of Rome.

The San Marzano tomato (a plum tomato) is one of the best known tomatoes, and the easiest to recognize, given its elongated oval shape and uniform size. Throughout Italy, and perhaps worldwide, San Marzano tomatoes are deemed to be the best tomatoes for sauce and canning. Originally the plant was grown in the San Marzano area of the Campania region, but is now grown worldwide.

These tomatoes look almost black due to the blend of their dark green and red pigmentation; in the case of the Sun Black variety, due to the presence of anthocyanin pigments in the skin (also found in eggplants, blackberries, violets, cherries, red cabbage).

The pomodoro di riso (rice tomato) is used to stuff with rice and bake. The best pomodori di riso come from Fondi in Southern Lazio. They're large and have only a few large seed pockets, lending themselves well to stuffing with rice.

The pomodori Colonna look suspiciously like the San Marzano...

Cherry tomatoes (ciliegini) are great for salads and eating on their own...

Datterino tomatoes are similar to a cherry tomato, but smaller and slightly elongated...

The Ikram tomato is usually sold a grappolo, on stems as a bunch of tomatoes, usually five or six per bunch. They're a great all around tomato: for sauce, insalate caprese, salads.

These are only the tomatoes I saw today at the Ponte Milvio market, but they're by no means all that's available. Each time I go to the market I see other varieties.
My garden is filled with many kinds of tomatoes; right now there are hundreds of datterini growing. They're so sweet and tasty that for every few I pick I pop one in my mouth. Today I made a tomato sauce with datterini for lunch and last night I made pasta caprese, the quintessential, super easy, summer pasta dish:

Penne Caprese (serves 5 to 6 people)

Ingredients:

1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Olive oil, 1/2 cup
Buffalo mozzarela, two large, cubed
Medium tomatoes, about six, seeded & cut in bite sized pieces, or 30 datterino tomatoes.
Basil leaves, about 20
Salt to taste, about 1 tsp.
Penne pasta, 500 grams

Procedure:

Marinate the garlic in the olive oil, in the serving bowl.
Add the other remaining ingredients.
Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente.
Drain pasta, add to serving dish, toss and serve.

Culinary Tips & Tools: Tegole (Roof Tiles) for a Serving Platter

2011-06-29T11:43:00.007+02:00

I never seem to have enough serving dishes and platters when I have a big group to contend with. Bringing out the silver isn't always the right way to go (fortunately, as I'm short on silver anyhow!). Besides, given our location, country chic is much more appropriate, especially in the summer months. So I always look around for something I already have at home to cleverly adapt into a serving platter, but generally nothing jumps out at me. So I usually resort to ceramic serving dishes and platters. Don't get me wrong, I love them! They're all hand-painted from different places in Italy. Some I've had made, some purchased, some are antique and quite valuable. Still, a little variety is nice.
The other week we attended an event at the American Academy, home to the Rome Sustainable Food Project. For those who don't know, it's a joint endeavor dining program for the Academy residents, between the American Academy and Alice Waters, the mother of culinary sustainability.
The food is simple, but delicious fare: all grown in the Academy's edible garden or sourced locally from organic producers and then transformed into masterpieces by Chef Mona Talbott and her chef assistants and interns. Our cocktail was served on the Academy grounds, next to the edible garden. A simple but tasty appetizer: almonds and cherry tomatoes. What charmed me was the serving platter: antique Italian tegole (roof tiles), covered with a fig leafs. It was in keeping with the theme and style of the event, and the sustainable philosophy of the Rome Sustainable Food program.
Our dinner of roast lamb and vegetables was also served on the tegole. Lighting was poor (an insufficient number of candles placed on the tables) so I was unable to see the food well, let alone photograph it. Food is multi-sensorial and I like to be able to see what I'm eating... it's a large part of the pleasure.

The tegole I have are not antique, but I think they'll lend themselves admirably to my next terrace dinner or cocktail event. I plan to use the tegole to serve fruit & breakfast for our B&B guests. And why not use some other household terra cotta pieces while I'm at it?

If you're looking for some appetizer serving ideas, check out myrecipes.com or about.com.

Scoop of the Week: Banana Ice Cream

2011-06-26T13:08:00.009+02:00

I've always loved bananas and eat one or more a day. They go against my goal to always eat sustainably and locally, but it's one of the exceptions I make. If bananas were ever in season in Italy I'd wait patiently, but they aren't. So I eat them a lot, all year round.
Lately I've been trying to make ice creams that recall something sweet and delicious that I love. Banana bread is one of these things, but it's only recently, thanks to Cook's Illustrated, that I now make a perfect banana bread.
My approach to ice cream (in this case banana) is to look at the ingredients in banana bread and try to use them in my ice cream. Bananas have to be over-ripe to achieve a rich banana flavor, but Cook's Illustrated takes this one step further. They suggest microwaving the bananas for five minutes and then using a fine mesh strainer to separate out the banana juice. The banana juice is then cooked until it is reduced by half and added back to the bananas. What you achieve is a deeper, richer banana flavor and a banana bread that is much lighter. I used this same approach in my ice cream and it worked divinely.

Ingredients:

Over-ripe bananas (black and soft), peeled and mashed - 2 1/2 cups, about 6 bananas (600 grams)
Cream, 1/2 liter
Sugar, 1/2 cup ( 100 grams)
Eggs, two whole
Toasted pine nuts, 1 cup (125 grams) - optional
Dark rum, 1/8 cup (30 ml) - optional

Procedure:

Use a potato masher to mash the bananas. Don't process the bananas: you want to have some bits of banana in the ice cream.
Whisk the sugar, cream and egg together in a saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat a wooden spoon.
Place the pan, lidded, in an ice bath and cool thoroughly, stirring occasionally.

Cook the mashed bananas in the microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Strain the bananas for about 30 minutes over a fine mesh strainer.

The banana juice, once cool, has a gelatinous appearance. Cook it in a saucepan until reduced by half.

Whisk the cream mixture, banana pulp, banana juice and rum together until well amalgamated.
Place the mixture in the freezer.
Every half hour whisk, or stir, the mixture vigorously until frozen solid to avoid the formation of ice crystals.
Place the pine nuts in a frying pan and toss gently until just golden. Cool.
Once the ice cream is almost frozen solid stir in the pine nuts.

I made the ice cream in four different ways: without pine nuts and rum, with pine nuts only, with rum only and with pine nuts and rum. It was great all four ways. This ice cream is so tasty, and the texture of the bananas so luscious, that I think I like it best just with bananas.

If you are allergic to dairy or eggs try this recipe using only bananas.
David Lebovitz uses brown sugar and coconut milk in his version of banana ice cream.

Edible Lazio: Sagre this week-end

2011-06-25T19:16:00.006+02:00

I spent the morning, as I always do on Saturdays, with my husband. Enjoying a coffee and cornetto, reading the paper, driving around to different towns in northern Lazio to run errands...and just for the pleasure of it. Fiano Romano, pictured above, is one of my favorites.
I also spent a bit of time tweeting about the different sagre (food fests) going on in the fabulous Lazio region this weekend.
The tomato is the star of most sagre as in one way or another it usually appears in the signature dishes each town is showcasing over the weekend.

The essential element of the sagra is that it features the town's tastiest, locally produced, in season food or beverage. In other words it's all about sustainability. Many of these sagre have been going on for decades and are a time for the town to celebrate with music and dancing and other activities. The main event, however, is the food and everyone gathers in the town square to enjoy a feast.
I love snails, both the sea and field variety, and happily a few sagre feature them this weekend.

Monte Rotondo's Ciummacata (field snails) will be prepared with tomato sauce and peperoncino.

Valmontone is celebrating its 31st field snail sagra.

Some of the other sagre happening in the Lazio region this weekend:

Rocca Priora is hosting its first ever clam sagra, and will also prepare fried moscardini.

Sipicciano's 6th sagra features something sweet: the bombolone casareccio, fried and filled with cream, jam, nutella and white chocolate.

On this hot weekend head to the hill town of Montelibretti for the town's wine fest featuring wines from local grotte antiche (antique wine caves).

Nerola offers up pappardelle al ragu' di cinghiale (wild boar sauce) as part of their sagra of homemade pasta and game.

Faleria hosts its second summer tartufo fest today and tomorrow.

Valcanneto's arrosticino (skewered lamb) sagra will also be its second ever.

Pizze fritte for the 28th sagra della frittella in the Laziale town, Terrignano, today and tomorrow.

Ardea will feature spaghetti cacio e pepe, served at the town's Sforza castle.

Lazio's abundant sagre are not just ebible fests: check out the infiorata artistica (flower display) in charming Poggio Moiano.

If you'd like to keep up to date on the various sagre going on throughout the year in Lazio there are a few websites you can look at: http://www.sagreinitalia.it/sagre-in-lazio.asp or http://www.laziofeste.it/

Scoop of the week: Cherry Ice Cream

2011-06-12T14:52:00.012+02:00

When I was little we used to spend part of the summer at our grandparents' home in Downers Grove, outside of Chicago. I haven't been back since, but at the time Downers Grove was a small suburban location, almost rural.
Two of my strongest memories from those visits pertained to food. Pepperidge Farm was located in Downers Grove and I used to love walking by their baking facility; the aroma of baking bread was almost tangible. The other memory was cherries. My grandmother used to can cherries from her trees and her pantry was laden with quart-sized jars of cherries. I can't recall what my grandmother looked like, or anything about her, but I do remember the shelves of canned cherries. They were delicious eaten right out of the jar and to this day I don't think there's anything tastier than a cherry pie made with fresh cherries.
Cherry season in Rome doesn't last long, just a month or so from mid-May to the end of June. It's unbearable that cherries are available for such a short time period, but it makes them all the more desirable when they are in season. I plan to bake a cherry pie this week, but today I opted for cherry ice cream. We're doing an 80th birthday dinner for one of our clients and her family, and I've baked her a luscious chocolate birthday cake for the event. Cherries and chocolate are a natural together, so cherry ice cream seemed a grand idea on this hot June day.
My ice cream is in the freezer now and every half an hour or so I give it a good stir with a wooden spoon. It should be frozen solid by dinner time.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Cherries, pitted - 525 grams (3 cups)
Sugar - 65 grams ( (1/4 cup)
Cream - 410 ml (1 3/4 cups)
Milk - 180 ml (3/4 cup)
Egg yolks - 2
Sugar - 65 grams (1/4 cup)
Salt - a pinch
Cherry syrup - 30 ml (2 tbsp)

Procedure:

Pit the cherries using a cherry (olive) pitter, like the one below.
Toss the cherries in the sugar and set aside.

Cream the egg yolks and sugar together until the yolks are a pale yellow.

Put the cream, milk and cherries in a blender and process until the cherries are roughly chopped.
Cook the cream, milk and cherry mixture several minutes on medium until warm.
Add the salt, egg yolks and sugar and cook several minutes over low heat until the mixture coats a wooden spoon.
Stir in the cherry syrup.
Place the pan in a sink full of ice water and stir occasionally until cool.
Put the pan in the freezer and stir every 30 minutes until frozen solid.

You might want to try the Simply Recipes version of cherry ice cream with chocolate chips.
Another cherry ice cream recipe you might want to take a look at: Canadian Living

A Sicilian Pasticceria in Rome

2011-05-23T12:46:00.008+02:00

I take the train a lot. It's a relaxing way to travel and frankly airport security procedures are starting to weigh heavily on me. With the train you show up fifteen minutes in advance of departure time and off you go. I can easily metro my way over to the station but usually my husband drives me there and then picks me up when I return. Traffic is always a mess right around the station so yesterday I decided to save my husband a little bit of aggravation by walking a block away from the station.
I parked myself on the corner of Via Volturno & Via Solferino, just in front of the Caffe Giuliani.

The display of cannoli in the window was enough to draw me into the pasticceria. I ordered myself a coffee and a cannoli: they're small and I like that. Perfect for a mid-afternoon indulgence.
But it doesn't end there. There's a whole row of glass cases displaying other tempting pastries, and the aroma of chocolate about the place made it hard to step out the door and into our car, with cannoli in hand for my husband.
I think this will be my new pick up point at Termini, making train travel all the more appealing.

Trains and Dining and Great Things Gone By

2011-05-22T12:32:00.011+02:00

I'm sitting on the Frecciarossa three and a half hour high speed train from Milan to Rome. It's great: I've got free wifi, a plug outlet for my computer, all the techie things we now look for in train and air travel.
And my lunch? I just ate a hard-boiled egg I pocketed from the hotel breakfast buffet and I also have some fruit, yogurt and a few beverages to tide me over until I arrive in Rome.
My meal reminds me of a story covered just two days ago on Italian television about London's Kings Cross to Leeds full dining car service. On May 20th the East Coast main line railway dinner service came to an end. There's something imminently sad and nostalgic about seeing the disappearance of railway dining. It's another form of slow food that you hate to see go.
Instead we have roll-away carts with soft drinks, potato chips, candy bars and occasionally some not-so-fresh sandwiches on sale. My train goes on to Naples after Rome so instead of a roll-away food cart an entrepreneurial Neapolitan man is selling homemade panini and water out of a water bucket.

It's great to get a lot of work and extra reading done on the train, but honestly I'd prefer to mosey up to a dining car for a full dinner service.
My brother-in-law is a train fanatic so when we were in California in January we trained our way up to Sacramento to visit the state capital's train museum. It might not be the first place that comes to your mind to visit when you're in California but it's well worth the visit. There's a whole slice of American history within the museum, but what I was most drawn to was the history of American railway dining. Railway dining was an event in and of itself, replete with great food, waiters, a la carte menus, and cutlery and dinnerware featuring the insignia of each line.
The charming guide we had dates back to the days of railway car dining and enthusiastically showed us all the menus and dinnerware of the various lines.

Here is a sampling of what you would have found in some of the West Coast's railway dining cars.
The cover of the San Francisco Overland Limited menu featured a detailed pen and ink drawing of its train. The line's cutlery was exquisitely and intricately designed.

The Mimbreno china could be found exclusively on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Dining Car No. 1474. The dining car was named Cochiti, after a 1,000 year old Indian pueblo in New Mexico. The car was later used as a restaurant in Tea, South Dakota.

This delicate, flower-painted dinnerware was featured on the California Limited. Of note are some of the appetizing, and exotic, menu choices: Green Turtle a l'Anglaise, Larded Tenderloin of Beef, Perigueux and Sweetbread Cutlet.

The healthy adage, "eat an apple a day", was artistically conveyed on the Southern and Northern Pacific Railway plates.

Although cooking space was tight on-board, the railway kitchens were probably no smaller than many restaurant kitchens.

Although the days of fine dining on trains have mostly come and gone I thought it might be nice to capture the moment by owning some of the old dinnerware and cutlery. It is available, not inexpensively, through antique dealers buying and selling on-line. "The Official Guide to Railroad Dining Car China", by Douglas W. McIntyre, will tell you everything you need to know on the subject. Careful though: this out of print book, published in 1990, currently sells for about $150.00, used.

Let me digress from food for a moment...

2011-05-08T13:12:00.003+02:00

I met Karen almost a year ago, on-line at first. We both belong to AWAR, a club for American women in Rome. Although there aren't many events I participate in with this group it does have one great thing: a list serve. For those of you who don't know what a list serve is, it's a way to put a question or comment out to a closed group and receive input back. It's a great thing. Especially if you live overseas and have questions about your new environment: restaurant advice, housing, local events and so forth.
Karen is a loquacious, curious and sometimes quirky American woman (married to a lovely Japanese man) living in Rome now for almost a year. She posted so frequently on our AWAR list serve that I eventually teased her about being a list serve spammer. Her insights and curiosity about everything Italian have made me notice things I'd never taken the time to contemplate.
Karen is now part of a monthly cooking group I run and I've gotten to know her quite well. She is a warm and insightful person and her posts to our list serve are often thoughtful and touching, like this one posted for mother's day, which she has allowed me to share with you:

Most of the time, the news is just terrible.

And New Yorkers are thought of as a pretty tough bunch, their thoughts concentrated on making it in a crowded, pushy, fast-paced, competitive place.

But this spring, all of New York has been watching the webcam of a Washington Square nest of a red-tailed hawk couple, named Violet and Bobby. The city (with untold watchers around the world) has been waiting for their eggs to hatch, watching the parents dutifully incubate and turn the eggs. They waited, and waited, and were collectively grieved when on Tuesday the eggs were termed by the experts to be duds.

But then, the unexpected happened....and all of NY has rejoiced! A baby hawk, the rather unattractive ornithological term for which is eyeass, emerged on Friday! Siblings are expected momentarily!

A happy Mother's Day for Violet! And just think of how this avian maternity and this little bit of new life has brought pleasure and smiles to millions!

I hope you human moms have a good Mother's Day, too!

You can read about Violet and Bobby and see pictures here.

(I love the fact that the parks department has stopped poisoning rats in the square so that the babies will have healthy food! And that the strawberry festival planned for the square will have signs up asking people to keep the noise down to be less stressful for the newborns and their parents! What a town!)

So that's Karen. I read her post first thing this mother's day and it started my day off just right. I've been rejoicing motherhood, birth and renewal for the last few weeks of our marvelous Roman spring. Births have been happening everywhere around me and here are some pictures I have captured that celebrate what mothers everywhere, of all species, bring into the world.

These six baby birds were born two days ago on my terrace; right next to my cooking group as we sat and dined...

These two kittens are part of a large litter; the mother is breast feeding her own, plus kittens from another litter who lost their mother.

Baby lambs are everywhere on our hillsides this spring:

A brown and white, spindly legged baby donkey with its mother.

Baby Alfredo was born ten days ago to a dear friend and his wife. Newborns aren't always beautiful but this baby boy is exquisite.

You say "all'amatriciana", and I say "alla matriciana"...

2011-05-05T15:53:00.000+02:00

Amatriciana or matriciana, the sauce is still the same: rich,spicy, with crunchy bits of guanciale. The name varies based on who is trying to lay claim to this pasta sauce's origins. The sauce is supposedly named after the town of Amatrice in the Appenine hills to the North East of Rome. Whether true or not, this sauce has become one of the signature dishes of Roman culinary tradition.
I know it must seem that I'm using guanciale for just about everything these days and it's probably true. But it's just so good and flavor-enhancing in many savory dishes. It gives a certain oomph to otherwise bland vegetables and provides smoky, crunchy flavor to pasta sauces. So it's true, I am using it a lot.

To prepare the sauce correctly (and it will make all the difference to the successful outcome of the sauce to use the right ingredients) you need:

Fresh or canned, peeled tomatoes, 500 grams
Guanciale, 150 grams, finely cubed (or cut into thin, inch long strips)
One peperoncino (red chili pepper), minced
One medium onion, thinly sliced
Bucatini or spaghetti, 500 grams
Pecorino Romano cheese, about 75 grams, grated

Cook the guanciale in a heavy-weight frying pan over a very low flame until the guanciale starts to become golden and crispy.
Add the sliced onion and minced red pepper and cook until the onion is soft and translucent.
Add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens.

While the sauce is cooking put the pasta into boiling, salted water and cook until al dente. The original recipe calls for bucatini, a long, hollow pasta. I find it too unwieldy and always end up with sauce on my clothes so I opt for the more manageable alternative: spaghetti.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and add to your pasta sauce.
Toss well and serve with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

Millefoglie fit for a Queen...

2011-04-30T21:23:00.006+02:00

If I hadn't been thinking about the Royal Wedding, and reading all about the Royal Wedding cake and then thinking about Queen Elizabeth in general this particular millefoglie cake wouldn't have pushed itself up to the forefront of my thoughts and inspired me to get in my car this morning to head to the Cavalletti Pasticceria. I've only had this millefoglie three or four times, but each time it's been more than a heavenly experience.
Before I tried it, if asked I suppose I would have said that millefoglie is not actually one of my favorite desserts. This millefoglie IS my favorite dessert. And judging by the quantity of millefoglie in the glass front fridges, along with the number people at Cavalletti to purchase them it seems these millefoglie are many people's favorite dessert.
Returning to Queen Elizabeth. Apparently she is also quite taken with the Cavalletti millefoglie and, if one is to believe an article which appeared in La Repubblica a few years back, the Queen occasionally has Cavalletti's millefoglie shipped back to her in England.
The Cavalletti website also affirms that La Stampa, La Repubblica, Class ( Vogue), the Gambero Rosso, Il Veronelli, Roma Conviene and the Guida Rover all have rated Cavalletti one of the top five pastry shops in all of Italy.
Cavalletti is a family owned and run business, operating in the same location for the past sixty years. Its location on Via Nemorense is a small, unpretentious storefront and had I not been searching it out I might not have stepped through the door. Friends of ours who used to live in the neighborhood introduced us to Cavalletti's millefoglie and I think they came upon it purely by chance. This part of Via Nemorense is a mixed residential and business neighborhood, overcrowded with cars double and triple parked.
The millefoglie I purchased today was the smallest one available: about seven inches wide and close to seven inches high. You need a razor sharp knife to cut it, simply because it's so delicate that applying pressure to the cake with a dull knive will squish out all its delectable fresh cream and zabaione filling.

When I got to Cavalletti today with the full intention of photographing the object of my desire, I was met by some resistance on the part of one of the owners. I don't know exactly what her concern was, if she thought that somehow the family recipe would somehow be etched into my photographs, or perhaps simply some kind of protective instinct: like a mother protecting her creation. In any case, I was in the end allowed to take a few photographs once the owner was softened by my unabashed admiration for her family millefoglie.
I'd hoped to open the fridge for a quick photograph of the shelves of millefoglie, but alas that wasn't to be.

Cavalletti doesn't only make small millefoglie like the one I took home. Millefoglie of all shapes and sizes are being created throughout the day to satisfy the multitude of orders Cavalletti receives. Simply based on the the comings and goings of this Saturday morning, coupled with the dozens of millefoglie I saw on display, I imagine they make a few hundred daily.
This millefoglie was large enough to serve about fifty people...

In addition to millefoglie, Cavelletti also makes delicious gianduia chocolates, wrapped in metallic blue paper with the company name etched in gold. I couldn't resist buying a small bag of them, which I just finished by the way.

Cavalletti is a full fledged pasticceria so in addition to its signature product and its gianduia chocolates you can also buy a tantalizing assortment of other chocolates, small pastries, cakes and enticing fresh cream-filled chocolate cakes decorated with shaved dark chocolate.

Pea Soup topped with Crunchy Guanciale

2011-04-29T17:16:00.000+02:00

I love pea soup in the winter, and in the spring when peas are fresh and in season, and what really makes it tasty is the addition of crunchy guanciale on the top.
So what exactly is guanciale and what differentiates it from pancetta? Guanciale is pork jowl or cheek: guancia is the Italian word for cheek, hence guanciale. Pancetta comes from the abdomen or belly area. Pancia is the Italian word for abdomen, hence pancetta.
Guanciale is almost all fat, whereas pancetta is a much meatier pork product. You can really see the difference in this picture as our local grocer holds up both (guanciale on the left):

Guanciale is traditionally used to prepare some of the best Italian pasta sauces: pasta alla carbonara and pasta all'amatriciana. Both are local Roman, poor man's dishes. The ingredients are simple but many restaurants don't quite manage to cook the guanciale correctly. Unfortunate as it's the magic ingredient in both of these dishes. The key is to cook the cubed or sliced guanciale slowly, over low heat until it's golden and crisp.

Cubed and just in the frying pan the guanciale looks like this:

Much of the fat has begun to melt and the guanciale is beginning to brown...

Once the cubes are nice and golden brown prop the frying pan up slightly to drain the excess fat from the guanciale cubes.

Pea Soup:

Whether you're using fresh peas from the garden or dried, split peas in the winter the procedure is the same; only the cooking time varies.

Ingredients:
Two cups shelled fresh peas (or dried split peas)
One medium onion, minced
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt
Water, 2 to 4 cups

Preparation:
Sauté the onion in the olive oil until translucent.
Add the peas, several cups water and salt and simmer until the peas are tender. Add more water as desired.
Allow the soup to cool, then place in a blender & process until smooth and creamy.
Reheat the soup and serve in bowls topped with cubed guanciale.

Reflections on our sustainable Easter

2011-04-26T17:37:00.009+02:00

Easter started off with a breakfast of succulent Tarocco oranges from Sicily.
We bought pizza bianca from our neighboring town of Castelnuovo di Porto and, although I've not sampled pizza bianca from every bakery, I am pretty sure this is the best.

We served our guests two sheep cheeses to eat with the pizza bianca, one of which was fresh ricotta di pecora, made just hours before.

This morning I used fresh eggs from our neighbor's chickens to make omelettes and French toast, using Colomba Easter bread. Our neighbors chickens are all free range and spend their days enjoying the countryside almost as much as we do.

Lunch was at our neighbor's country farm. Everything was prepared fresh using produce and animals from the farm. The two authors of our fabulous meal are the matriarchs of the family, women who have just passed the eighty year mark and live guided by a lifestyle that is slowly disappearing.
Lina, who I've known for two decades now, moves at a slow & efficient pace. I've never seen her rush to do anything and yet I don't know anyone who accomplishes more in a day than she. She chops the wood for their fireplace, raises the animals and tends to the produce that graced our Easter table.
When I think of sustainability and how it should be I think of Lina. She cares for her animals with affection and humanity and when the time comes to slaughter them does so using that same affection and humanity. She really is the benchmark that we all want to strive for. And yet the reality of "farm to table" in its truest sense is just a little bit difficult for me. Lina's two daughters are both professionals and while they enjoy the fruits of Lina's labors neither has the heart to take the life of an animal when the time comes. They've offered to raise the rabbits and chickens if I then slaughter them but so far I just can't make that jump. When Lina is gone, with her will go the generation of small farm traditions now present all over the Roman countryside.
Lina and Alfredo's garden is almost enough to feed their extended family year round. Today we had Roman-style artichokes and roast potatoes, both cooked with olive oil from their olive trees and herbs from the garden.

No meal is complete without freshly baked bread, this from the local town bakery in Riano.

Roast baby spring lamb is the Easter tradition and now the hills are covered with sheep and their baby lambs grazing the hillsides.
These lambs were crossing the street in front of my car the other day. Lina and Alfredo don't have sheep, but most farmers in the area do.

One of Lina's best dishes is coniglio (rabbit) alla cacciatore. Lina makes it with fresh herbs, olive oil, garden tomatoes and olives preserved from last fall's olive picking. It's simply delicious.
Lina raises rabbits year round. They have a large, pristinely clean living space and feed on hay and leftover vegetables.

And on to dessert! We are now right in the midst of strawberry season: we had a huge bowl of berries with fresh cream and sugar.

In addition to the traditional Colomba Easter bread we had Pastiera Napoletana and an upside down pear tart.

Roman tradition has it that on May 1st everyone has a country lunch of pecorino Romano cheese and fava beans fresh from the pod. As Easter was so late this year the fava beans were already ripe for the picking. Mid-afternoon, after coffee, we picked fava beans from Alfredo's vegetable garden and ate them in the garden.

Homemade Pasta....a picture says a thousand words

2011-04-23T14:17:00.010+02:00

On our way home this morning we stopped to visit some neighbors and before we left they gave us a precious gift; five freshly laid eggs. So I decided to use two of them to make fettuccine for our lunch.

The recipe for pasta is simple: 100 grams of flour + 1 egg = 1 portion of pasta. Pasta recipes tell you to mix the egg into the flour, knead until smooth & elastic, roll out into a sfoglia or sheet and then cut into the desired shape. Basically very simple, and indeed it is once you have the "feel" for it.
I'm always being asked in cooking classes how the pasta should "look" and how it should "feel", so herein lies a detailed pictoral explanation of both.

After you make a well in the flour, crack your eggs into the center of the well.

Whisking with a fork, gradually incorporate the flour into the eggs.

Gradually the flour will be absorbed into the flour. Keep using the fork to mix; it's still way too wet to knead.

When the flour and eggs look like this it's time to begin using your hands. Make sure you flour your hands first...

Pasta dough is not delicate so don't worry about roughing it around a bit. Knead whatever way works best for you: squeeze it, or fold over & press with the heel of your hand. Keep kneading until the egg and flour get fully amalgamated, about five minutes total.
As you get started it will look like this:

Here is what your finished product should look like. It's a smooth & elastic, fully incorporated ball of dough. All the flour from the work surface has been absorbed into the dough.

Now you pass onto the next kneading phase: within the pasta machine.
You don't have to use a pasta machine by any means; the whole process can be done with a rolling pin (use a 1 1/2 foot long dowel about two inches thick).
I use a manual pasta machine. They are readily available just about anywhere, but make sure you purchase a quality Italian machine.
Smash down your ball of dough so that it's thin enough to pass through the widest setting of the pasta machine. Roll it through repeatedly (about ten to twenty times), folding in half before you pass the dough through each successive time.
At first the dough will look like this:
It's uneven and has a porous look to it...

Here, it's smoothed out a lot, but still has a porous appearance and the edges are uneven. It doesn't yet have a smooth & elastic feel to it.

Getting much smoother, yet the dough still has a slightly lumpy un-smooth look to it...

Much smoother, almost where you want it to be....

And now, finally, you are rolling through a smooth, elastic sheet:

At this point begin passing the dough through the pasta machine at successively smaller settings. For filled pasta (ravioli, tortellini) roll the dough through until you reach the smallest setting. For unfilled pasta (spaghetti, fettuccine) you're best off using the next to the last setting as your final thickness.
Here is the final product: it's smooth, has no bumps, no porousness whatsoever and the edges are also smooth and even.

Next, cut the pasta into the desired shape. I made fettuccine today. Once I cut the pasta into fettuccine I lightly dusted them in flour.

Then place the fettuccine on a floured dishtowel, twirled into little round mounds to dry. Don't pile too much together; just a bit per mound otherwise the pasta won't dry and will begin to stick together.

I made the fettuccine today for immediate consumption, therefore as I was finishing up the pasta I was also boiling some water.
Salt the water with a handful or two of rock salt. Be sure to boil a large enough pan of water so that when you add the pasta to the water it can immediately return to boiling temperature.
Super fresh pasta only needs two to three minutes cooking, and it should be al dente. When the pasta is done it has a certain look to it: it becomes a paler yellow, almost creamy looking. If you compare the pasta in the boiling water below to the picture above you can see the difference in color.

Drain the pasta gently in a colander; remember: it's fresh and therefore delicate. Toss with a pasta sauce of your choice. I used a simple tomato sauce made with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, garlic & salt. As the sauce was cooking I made, and then cooked, the pasta. The entire process for everything took twenty minutes....and worth every minute for the resulting delicate, fresh flavor of both pasta & sauce!

Easter Tradition: Chocolate Eggs and Colomba

2011-04-22T14:57:00.005+02:00

The Viani Bar in Morlupo, just north of Rome, not only has wonderful breakfast pastries, great sandwiches and home-made ice cream. It also prides itself on always having fabulous decorations and edible gifts for every holiday. I had lunch there today and was mesmerized by the gorgeous Easter eggs and Colomba (traditional Italian Easter cake) they had on display.

The Easter eggs are wrapped in colorful metallic wrapping paper. Each egg is filled with a surprise, usually a small toy, key chain or piece of jewelry. Some of the more expensive Easter eggs on sale contain more elaborate gifts.

The nicest packages by far on sale at Viani are the Colomba. The traditional Easter Colomba, like the one below (the Colomba "classica") is a sweet yeast bread filled with candied orange and topped with whole almonds and sugar. It's beautifully packaged in a box covered with artificial flowers so pretty that they almost seem real.

The pasticceria that produces this Colomba, and distributes throughout Italy, is Flamigni Pasticceria. The company is located in Forli' in the Emilia Romagna region and has been owned and operated by the three Flamigni brothers since 1930.

Another Colomba producer is Pasticceria Muzzi, located in Foligno. Muzzi is a much older company than Flamigni and dates back to the late 1700's.
These two beautifully packaged Colomba vary from the standard recipe: one is peach flavored and the other is filled with almonds.

This Colomba, again featuring a beautiful artificial flower on a violet package with pink & green ribbon, is made with wild berries. The price for the Colomba is about four times what you would pay for a standard Colomba in an alimentari or grocery store. The price is for the lovely and unique packaging, but if you want to give someone a Colomba as a gift these are exquisite.

My favorite is this ladybug package. I love the red and white polka dot paper, the wooden ladybug attached to the package, complemented by red and white flowers.

I also like this Colomba in it's pretty orange and brown basket with orange ribbon and decorated with artificial oranges.

Almost every pasticceria in Italy produces Colomba at Easter-time and most have beautifully packaging. So if you will be an Easter lunch guest in an Italian home this is the perfect gift to bring!

Italian "Colomba" Easter Cake French Toast

2011-04-20T11:45:00.005+02:00

I can't say that the traditional Italian Colomba Easter cake strikes much of a chord with me although Italians go crazy for it. I've come to enjoy the Colomba, but only because I now think of it as more of a sweet bread than a cake.

There is, however, one way to serve Colomba that is exquisite: as French toast. It's incredibly moist and as the bread is sweet to begin with it barely even needs butter and syrup. The Colomba is filled with candied bits of orange and coated with whole almonds and sugar which adds to the flavor. I slice it into one inch slices as otherwise the slices fall apart when dipped into the egg mixture.

Prepare a mixture of a few eggs and a cup or more of milk, according to taste, and whisk until well blended. Lightly oil a pan with extra virgin olive oil, and once the pan is hot dip the bread slices into the egg mixture and pan fry on both sides until golden brown.

Place the slices on a platter and serve as is or lightly dusted with powdered sugar.

All the same, I can never resist adding melted butter and maple syrup or honey for an extra special Easter breakfast treat!

Food Fairies

2011-03-26T12:53:00.000+01:00

I wanted my husband's double surprise birthday celebration to be fabulous (it was a big one!, no numbers mentioned, but it was a big one!) and, looking back on it, my daughter and I not only managed to surprise Maurizio two days in a row but both parties exceeded all our expectations.
Food, of course, is always key. And the dessert should be the crowning glory of the meal....especially if it's a birthday.
Our elegant Saturday night party featured a luscious dark chocolate espresso cupcake tower. Each cupcake had a slightly different look, mostly garnished with berries. The top of the tower was a small chocolate cake decorated with chocolate espresso candy nuggets. The chocolate was so rich that with fifty guests we finished the cupcakes and only just made a dent in the cake itself. For the entire following week we were able to keep ourselves in chocolate.....just where I like to be.

Our Sunday party required another birthday cake, this one a richly dense carrot cake with a cream cheese & lemon curd icing. No raisins, but plenty of walnuts. At first glance the cake didn't seem like it could possibly suffice for our group of sixty but it did. When I carried the cake into our salotto, I could feel just by it's weight that it would be plenty. And what flavor and richness!

My Food Fairy, Sara, provided me with several very clever cake cutting designs which help you cut perfect pieces to serve a large group. Thankfully one of our guests took the cake cutting into hand.
The delightful Sara and her Food Fairy partner do catering, food events and, of course, amazing cakes for everything from weddings to casual birthday parties. Contact them at foodfairiesroma@gmail.com or check out their blog: www.foodfairiesroma.blogspot.com.

It's mostly about the butter

2011-02-27T12:34:00.021+01:00

Hot, buttery scones. That's what came to me this morning when, after a series of gorgeous, sunshine filled days, I looked out my kitchen window to see a gray, rainy Sunday.
Scones have to be the biggest bang for your buck if you want a hot, melt in your mouth breakfast in just a half an hour. Made with simple, always on-hand ingredients, effortless and quick to make, but oh what a result!
My favorite scone recipe is adapted from Maryana Vollstedt's The Big Book of Breakfast, my bible of sorts at our bed & breakfast.
I tried to use the scones and butter & honey to lure my husband into spending a lazy day with me reading in bed. He ate them happily, snuggled under the covers, and then went out into the bad weather. It worked for me though. I'm still here in bed reading and working.

So let's get started. First, preheat your oven to 425°F (200°C).

Here's what you need:

2 cups (240 g) flour
1 tbsp (10 g) baking powder
1/2 cup (50 g) sugar
1/2 tsp (2 g) salt
1/2 cup (113 g) cold butter, cubed
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) cream

Before we move on, a note on the cream. This is not a recipe to try to cut calories on: just go and use a nice, thick cream. And another thing: don't throw out any cream you have in the fridge that is going sour. It's great, perhaps even better, for this recipe. If you don't have cream a perfect substitute is Greek yogurt, or any other plain yogurt. Or fresh, creamy ricotta. And again, yogurt and ricotta that seems to have gone off and no longer suitable for eating as is, is perfect for the scones.
1. Put all your dry ingredients into a bowl and stir them with a fork.
Note: If you use a scale, as I do, this is made infinitely easier. Place your bowl on the scale and set the tare weight, in other words, bring your scale back to zero. Do this after you add each dry ingredient (and the butter) into the bowl. What's the point of all this? You only have one dirty bowl to clean, and weighing ingredients is much more accurate.

2. Cut the cold, cubed butter into the flour mixture. A simple tool, like this one, makes cutting the butter into the flour much simpler. In its absence use a dinner knife.

You want to cut in the butter until your mixture is crumbly, with pea-sized lumps.

3. Add the egg and cream (or yogurt, ricotta) to the flour mixture.
4. Gently whisk the cream and egg together (right there in the bowl with the flour), then
5. Stir the egg & cream into the dry ingredients just until they're moist. No longer.

This is what it should look like:

6. At this point dump the mixture onto a lightly floured surface.
7. Knead, ever so gently, just until you form a ball that (mostly) sticks together. Remember: you want to keep it crumbly.

8. Then pat the dough down into a circle. If, as I do, you like scones thick don't pat the dough any thinner than 1/4 inch high.
9. Use a floured knife to cut the dough into triangles.
If you prefer different shapes feel free to use cookie cutters or a knife to cut any shape you want.

10. Gently place the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving a little space between them. They need a little room to rise in the oven.

11. Bake until golden brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.

12. Serve warm with butter, honey or jam.
Scones are not just for breakfast: they're wonderful with ham and cheese, salad or just about anything savory that strikes your fancy.

Back to the weighing versus cup measurement approach. When you use a scale this is all you're left with to clean up. No unnecessary pile of cups, teaspoons & tablespoons. I'm all for easy....

A few tips on cleaning up your work surface.
Step one: use a scraper to scrape down the work surface. If you don't have one, it's a good investment. In the meantime, the side of a metal spatula will do just fine.

Step two: Use a whisk broom to gather up all the flour particles you've just scraped down. Ooooh, you might say, not my dirty whisk broom. True. I have one that I only use on kitchen & dining surfaces to gather up flour, crumbs and the like.
At this point your work surface is basically clean and a quick wipe over with a damp sponge will do the finishing touches.

And the flour that inevitably ends up on the floor? You can get out your broom and sweep it up.
Or if, like I do, you have a lovable chocolate lab she'll be ready and willing to lick up every last particle that touches the floor.

My market variety mandolin

2011-02-20T16:00:00.011+01:00

I recently was looking at Amy Fothergill's post on the most essential tools needed in the kitchen. One item I would add to this list is a mandolin. The mandolin I use was purchased by my sister-in-law a decade ago when she was out doing her Saturday morning vegetable shopping at her local open air market. As you can see this is a bare bones, simple mandolin but it works like a charm.

I remember seeing this kind of mandolin advertised on television years and years ago. I think back then it was called something like a Magic Slicer. The person in the ad was slicing vegetables with such rapidity that as a child it seemed impossible. Well, it does in fact work just that well. It slices so fast, simply by passing the vegetable rapidly across the blade, that vegetables are sliced (perfectly I might add) in a matter of seconds. But be careful: once the vegetable you are slicing gets so short that your fingers are dangerously close to the blade, spear the remaining piece of vegetable onto its holder to complete the slicing process.
I love this mandolin so much that I've since purchased two fancier models with bells and whistles that allow different slicing thicknesses and shapes. I hardly ever use them though as it's more trouble to get them out and set them up than it's worth. The great thing about my market variety mandolin is that it slices vegetables super thin and perfectly uniform.
I use the mandolin when we make pizza to thinly slice up all kinds of vegetables for the toppings. As the pizzas cook in 3 to 4 minutes the vegetables need to be sliced paper thin so they cook thoroughly in a short period of time. And this mandolin is also perfect for slicing potatoes for french fries. What the mandolin does not work well for are very soft (and juicy) fruits and vegetables like tomatoes.

Frequently I roast fish fillets in the oven topped with a thin layer of potatoes and drizzled with olive oil. The potatoes come out crunchy and golden. I also slice up other vegetables, like zucchini, to roast with the fish.