A Sicilian Pasticceria in Rome

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

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...

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"...

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...

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

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

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.