You might think he's doing something else. But in reality, he's learning how to sit/stay, and not doing a very good job of it (he eventually learned how to do so beautifully ... sort of ).

martedì 21 dicembre 2010

Io, Saturnalia!


OTTAWA — This year's winter solstice — an event that will occur next Tuesday — will coincide with a full lunar eclipse in a union that hasn't been seen in 456 years.
The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.” (This from the Montreal Gazette, addenda’d below.)

Wow. That’s today.

The last time that happened was 1554 say some sources; NASA says 1638. I prefer to go with 1554, since I will experience something not experienced since Cosimo I experienced this, that is if he experienced it. Cosimo might’ve been clueless, as he was busy taking over Siena. The last time the solstice and a lunar eclipse occurred, Cellini was putting the finishing touches on his Perseus. Or maybe he was already in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Perseus, that is.

Then I thought about the Saturnalia, wherein ancient Romans would have been whooping it up an even longer time ago. Was this feasting tied into the shortest days of the year merging into the beginning of more light?

Says the sometimes reliable Wikipedia: “Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BCE to raise citizen morale after a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Carthaginians.[1] Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd. Efforts to shorten the celebration were unsuccessful. Augustus tried to reduce it to three days, and Caligula to five. These attempts caused uproar and massive revolts among the Roman citizens.”

It sounds a whole lot like Christmas, doesn’t it? Though we’re not sacrificing much of anything (unless you count spending a lot of money which you don’t necessarily have on presents) and the Romans surely did (probably the obligatory and unimaginative ram), Saturnalia involved giving presents, allowing gambling (even for slaves), Saturnalia, continues wikipedia.org, “ was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. The toga was not worn, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "dinner clothes"; and the pileus (freedman's hat) was worn by everyone. Slaves were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect … The customary greeting for the occasion is a "Io, Saturnalia!" — Io (pronounced "e-o") being a Latin interjection related to "ho," or less quaintly today, “yo” (as in "Ho/Yo, praise to Saturn").”

Why praise Saturn? Because he was the god of agriculture. He also was the father of Zeus, and failed to eat him (as he did most of his other children, fearing that he would be usurped) because Mother Earth (Gaia) put a stone in the swaddling clothes which Saturn duly swallowed. Zeus lived to tell the tale, and to enact a lot of his own misdeeds.

I continue to rip off/quote wiki: Seneca the Younger wrote about Rome during the Saturnalia around 50 a.d./c.e. (Sen. epist. 18,1-2): “It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business... Were you here, I would willingly confer with you as to the plan of our conduct; whether we should eve in our usual way, or, to avoid singularity, both take a better supper and throw off the toga.”

Richard Cohen, in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune remarks: “Thus, although the New Testament gives no indication of Christ’s actual birthday (early writers preferring a spring date), in 354 Pope Liberius declared it to have befallen on Dec. 25. The advantages of Christmas Day being celebrated then were obvious. As the Christian commentator Syrus wrote: “It was a custom of the pagans to celebrate on the same Dec. 25th the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity …”

Throw off the toga! Our plan of conduct? To eat and drink to excess. Except.

It might be the shortest day of the year, it might be a feast fit for the gods, except that it’s a pretty grim day on the Roman Catholic calendar. Ten saints are feted on the 21st of December: St. Peter Canisius, Bl. Adrian, St. Anastasius XII, St. Andrew Dung Lac, St. Themistoeles, St. Severinus, St. Glycerius, St. Honoratus of Toulouse, St.John and Festus, and St. John Vincent. Peter Canisius (1521-1597) spooked for the Vatican, toting heaving tomes of Catholic doctrine into Luther-filled zones; Bl. Adrian, who lived sometime in the 13th century, was executed with 27 others in Dalmatia by Muslims; Anastasius XII, patriarch of Antioch, might’ve been killed by Syrian Jews about 609 a.d./c.e.; Andrew Dung Lac, canonized in 1988, was martyred in Vietnam in 1839 and recently-ish canonized in 1988; St. Themistoeles, in Nicodemia, was martyred in 253 a.d./c.e., St. Severinus, bishop of Trier, around 300, with “No details of his labors are available” (one tends to think of Hercules at such moments), St. Honorius of Toulouse, 3rd century religious guy, seemingly escaped being martyred, St. John and Festus – this sounded promising – martyrs of Tuscany, “Their Acta are no longer extant”; St. John Vincent, a 7th century bishop and hermit (one wonders how he pulled that off – bishop and hermit? Kind of like a baby grand piano).

Had been hoping that, of those 10 saints honored on this day, at least one of them would be associated with something celebratory, something festive. But NO. At least half of them were possibly martyred. The most promising of the group was “St. John and Festus” – as “festus” suggests “festa” and “festival” and all sorts of good things. But again : NO. Virtually nothing’s known about this duo; even the go-to- www.santiebeati.it showed zip for these two so-called Tuscan martyrs.

Obviously, a most joy-less bunch in this period of joy.

"For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone. Flowers are appearing on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land."

Merry Christmas/Buon Natale/Here comes the sun …

ADDENDA

For the rest of the article, go to http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Solstice+eclipse+overlap+first+years/3983582/story.html#ixzz18Y6Wwy5P

Richard Cohen, “There goes the sun,” International Herald Tribune, December 20, 2010.

Italians often play Tombola on Christmas day. It’s a whole lot like Bingo, only funner [sic]. Sometimes $ is exchanged, as it will be at our house this year. So I guess you could say we’re running – if only for a day – a gambling den.

List of ten saints for December 21st from www.catholic.org.

Song of Songs 2:11-12

Photograph of the Mistress of Deportment (Georgia), Tillie, and Santa Paws … a long, long time ago.

giovedì 16 dicembre 2010

Not about the broth


Every year, weeks before the day, we discuss what to eat for Christmas lunch. This is the subject of intense scrutiny and, often, of heated debate (well, not really heated, but it makes it all sound somewhat more exciting, no?). We decided to do the fish thing on Christmas Eve, which is what Italians tend to do (more on that in an imminent post).

We decided to mix it up on Christmas day: a little bit Italian, a little bit English (five are half English, and it’s this half of the group that truly thrills to the Christmas pudding and brandy butter concluding the meal). The rest of us – a German, a Russian, and several Americans – do not see what all the fuss is about.

(Hopefully, Florentine Sister (herself half Danish) will attend, but serious canine issues need to be worked out – like, this place isn’t big enough for six adult dogs & three wee puppers.)

The starter (which will happen after the pre-starter, recipe below) will be tortellini in brodo to be followed by roast beef (rosbif, for those of us who live in Italy) with Yorkshire pudding. Marina, Muscovite chum, brings a herring dish which, she assures us, is one of the heaviest holiday dishes Russia has to offer.

Decided to make the broth over the weekend and freeze it. Typically a capon serves as the backbone of this stock, but nary a one was to be found in our local supermarket (presumably other Italian casalinghe – housewives – had the same idea).

Eight pounds of assorted chicken backs/chicken wings/beef bones/turkey legs/ one whole chicken were placed in a large stockpot; the concoction was meant to come to a very slow boil whereupon various condiments (the typical stuff you throw into a stock when making one) were to be added. We put the pot on the wood-burning stove which, after a couple of hours, we decided was really too slow a boil. Even Artusi, who wrote that to make a good broth it’s necessary to place the meat in cold water and to bring it to a boil slowly slowly and never let it spill from boiling “mettere la carne ad acqua diaccia e far bollire la pentola adagino adagino e che non trabocchi mai” would surely have nodded his be-toque’d hat in agreement. So back on the gas stove it went.

Many, many hours later we put the broth outside – lidded, of course – to cool down. It’s since been kind of successfully drained (will have to apply the egg white process pre-serving it in order to remove various residue), put in Italian Tupperware, and frozen. We’ll make the tortellini this weekend, and freeze them as well (thereby freeing up our hands for more important things on the day like holding cups of egg nog and hanging out with our friends).

A messy operation, this whole broth business. Every time I do it I wonder why I do. The Senior Pups got the dregs from the beef bones, and the pretty-much-tasteless fowl products went into tonight’s chili.

A few months ago, Averardo, the Scallion’s urbane gourmet cousin, remarked that he found it a tragedy that tomatoes and olio nuovo (new olive oil, that of the first pressing) didn’t happen seasonally at the same time: tomatoes peak from July to mid-September, and olio nuovo’s pretty much a November thing. Imagine eating a tomato freshly picked from your very own vine (or someone else’s) and drowning it in olio nuovo with a pinch of sea salt! Or imagine eating insalata caprese (mozzarella di bufala, basil, and tomatoes) with olio nuovo.

Recently, I read something shocking in “Tables for Two” in the New Yorker. Reviewing a new restaurant called il Matto in Manhattan, Andrea K. Scott writes, “The tired combination of mozzarella, tomato, and basil is refreshed as a velvety buffalo-cheese soup, served with a dollop of tomato ice and herb-dusted crostini.”

TIRED COMBINATION??? Let me quote the good Dr. Johnson who said, “No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” (Unless you're lactose intolerant), substitute insalata caprese for London, and bring on the morphine drip for Ms./Mr. Scott! She (I assume she’s a she, unless he’s Italian, at which point ‘Andrea’ names a he) has evidently never had a proper insalata caprese; otherwise, she/he would never pen such a blasphemous thought. “Velvety buffalo-cheese soup?” Oh, my. Tomatoes in November? Oh, my, my. How would they taste of anything (unless, of course, the chef has studied with Ferran Adria and has infused that tomato ice with essence of tomato via blow-torch chemistry lab technique)? I digress …

For true fans of a properly executed insalata caprese – and we know who we are – there’s nothing like the first one of the season, usually sometime in early July. The cheese is at room temperature (and has been all morning, if it’s not too hot), it mingles with the tomatoes and olive oil … and, in fact, mopping it up with bread or, indeed, drinking the liquid is always the perfect way to finish off the plate. (Perhaps we could call that soup and perhaps it would find a place on the menu at il Matto?)

Now just imagine that with olio nuovo.

The following recipe is a wintry insalata caprese. No basil’s in this because it’s not growing outside right now, but arugula is. It will probably precede the tortellini in brodo.

Insalata caprese d’inverno/Winter Salad from the Isle of Capri

Two large handfuls arugula, spun dry and coarsely chopped
½ lb. freshest mozzarella di bufala, at room temperature, chopped into chunky cubes
¾ c. sundried tomatoes, in oil, drained and chopped
2 T. brine-packed capers
1 T. dried oregano, preferably Greek, perchance Calabrian.
A liberal amount of olio nuovo
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

About a half hour before serving, put the mozzarella di bufala in a bowl, toss liberally with olio nuovo, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Then throw in all the other ingredients, toss, taste for seasoning, and bring the salad – and the bottle of olio nuovo – to table.

This comfortably serves two, with nothing left over for any dog at all.

VARIATION: substitute the sundried tomatoes with green olives, pitted and chopped. It would be even tastier if you could find green olives with garlic, a wee bit of hot peppers, and oregano.

(If you can’t find the best quality mozzarella di bufala, don’t try this at home.)

ADDENDA

Pellegrino Artusi, La Scienza in cucina e l’Arte di mangiar bene, Firenze, 2003. He suggests adding grilled onion to the mix, but cautions: producing wind, this is not for all stomachs “questa essendo ventosa non fa per tutti gli stomachi.” He also thinks broth tastes better if made in a terracotta pot (as opposed to iron or copper).

Review of il Matto in the November 15, 2010 New Yorker. Let the record also show I’m sad I’ll never get a table at El Bulli (www.elbulli.com), and that if I were in Copenhagen, I’d make a dash for Noma (www.noma.dk), if lucky enough to get a table.

For more on S.J.’s witticisms, go to www.samueljohnson.com.

giovedì 9 dicembre 2010

Meatballs


Lactating bitches (what fun to write this not as a hurled insult!) typically start to disengage themselves from their pups when the pups are one month, or a little older. So then people need to get involved in the act by helping wean the pups. Signs that the L.B. is getting to that point are her diminished interest in her pups, longer absences from the Whelping Pool, standing up (rather than lying prone) when feeding them, or sitting in a sort of three-quarter pose (if you can imagine that). The pups make a beeline for her, but her boredom fairly quickly sets in; she stands up, shakes them off, and exits the pool.

If you look at the image at the top, left, I’m sure that many of you know that sculpture well. For those of you who don’t, it’s the She-Wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus. Besides the fact that this is a canonical bronze sculpture, a symbol of ancient Rome (see below, however), you can also tell that the She-Wolf Has Had It. And if you look closely, those ain’t no infants she’s suckling – they are beyond toddling stage, given the stance of the twin on the right (years ago at a dinner party in Ithaca, New York, one of the guests -- and this could only happen in a town like Ithaca -- told us that she stopped feeding her child when the latter was four because “I wanted my body back.” Rosie wants her body back; had she chosen the path of that nutbag in Ithaca, she would stop feeding her pups when they were 28).

Various schools of thought abound re: this weaning process, so a few days ago we started pureeing Rosie’s food with high-digestibility milk. Dipped our fingers into it, pups – who are very, very curious (they’re truly coming into their Pupdom), tentatively licked fingers, and then were led to the bowl. Which they gingerly lapped at, though Yip was far more interested in chewing the bowl rather than licking it; Yap, in her excitement, practically nose-dived into the concoction, which made licking it up from the whelping pool all that much easier. Their enthusiasm, however, was not palpable. So we went back to the drawing board, googled “weaning pups” and found someone’s great suggestion to blitz the concoction, and add hot water to the mix. Makes more sense when you think about it, and pups were far more interested.

Maybe because it looked better.

It resembled a brownish ragù, and you could imagine the spaghetti underneath it. Italians don’t do spaghetti and meatballs. They do meatballs, usually small-ish ones (polpettine) or larger ones (polpettone). They are served as a second course, and never with spaghetti, which is always a first course. There’s a big divide on this: when the Sopranos ran on Italian television, an irate Italian -- no doubt appalled by the appearance of spaghetti with gravy -- wrote to the International Herald Tribune ranting about the assault on Italian cuisine; I wrote a letter (which was published) explaining to him the differences between Italian cuisine and Italian-American cuisine. Jim Harrison, that muscular, man’s man, who writes brilliantly about food (among other things), opines in his essay called “Meatballs”: "Certain Gucci-Pucci-Armani Italians have told me that they have never eaten spaghetti and meatballs … These Cerruti aristocrats tell me that the dish is an American perversion of Italian cuisine, to which I always reply, “I don’t give a shit.”

Italians would probably be equally appalled by having little meatballs to accompany an aperitivo.

Since the holidays are upon us, and plenty of aperitivi times will present themselves with family and friends, we will be offering Swedish meatballs to accompany the prosecco and egg nog. The beauty of this dish (my mother’s recipe, which she obtained from our next-door-neighbor) is that you don’t fry them but bake them. Another beauty of this dish is that you can make them, freeze them, and put them back in the oven just minutes before you want to serve them.

Why are they called Swedish meatballs, I wondered. http://answers.yahoo.com provides a compelling explanation: “According to Mathistorisk Uppslagsbok by Jan-Ojvind Swahn, the Swedish word for meatball (k”ttbulle) first appeared in (Swedish) print was in Cajsa Warg's 1754 cookbook. Swahn points out that the meatball could not have been a common food, at least not for common people, until the meatgrinder made the preparation simple. Swedish meatballs, smaller in size that those of Italy or Germany, are traditionally served with a cream gravy and lingonberry preserves.” (Longing thoughts for the food section of IKEA dash through my mind ...)

You could alleviate the tedium of making these tiny things by swilling a little holiday cheer. Pop open the prosecco!

Swedish Meatballs

½ c. dry bread crumbs
½ c. water
½ c. light cream
1 T. butter, melted
3 T. finely chopped onion
¾ lb. ground beef
¾ lb.ground pork
1 t. salt
¾ c. sugar
¾ t. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix and make as many tiny meatballs as your patience with allow (like the size of half a walnut only a little smaller).

Bake for 5-10 minutes and either eat immediately or let them cool and freeze them in a freezer back.

Makes a great many, and there will be enough for six pups to sample one as well (well, maybe only the three adult pups).

Addenda:

You can find the controversial She-Wolf with Romulus and Remus at the Musei Capitolini in Rome. If you’re interested in the problems of dating, go to Wikipedia for details (it was originally thought to be late 15th century – the twins, possibly by Pollaiuolo, and c. 500-480 b.c. (the wolf). Recent investigations suggest that the wolf was probably cast sometime in the 13th century.

The late, great Alan Davidson: “Meatballs have been the subject of an eccentric and enthralling book by Spoerri (1982), but neither he, nor any other author, has succeeded or could succeed in treating the subject comprehensively. See his entry in his Oxford Companion to Food (New York, 1999). You can find a recipe for the “Sunday Gravy” frequently served up on many a Sopranos episode at http://www.timesonlin.co.uk, January 19, 2003. Jim Harrison provides his spaghetti with meatballs recipe in “Meatballs,” in The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand (New York, 2001). My mouth watered when I read it. Marcella Hazan has a luscious baked rigatoni dish with tiny pork meatballs in Marcella's Italian Kitchen (New York, 1986) – but I think she made a concession to her American readership.

martedì 30 novembre 2010

Spaghetti Carbonara

For totally banal reasons, we were unable to celebrate Thanksgiving on the proper day. Dreary tasks kept us in Florence too too-late-to-put-in-any bird unless, of course, we wanted to eat at 3 a.m.

Incredibly dispiriting. Time to beat one’s breast like one of those professional female mourners on an ancient Roman sarcophagus, pull out one’s hair, and wail (I pretty much did both of those things).

Fortunately, Calvin Trillin sprang to mind. Calvin Trillin is one of our Household Gods. Should we ever have to depart in haste due to anything, we would take his books with us. Every year, we read aloud two of his Thanksgiving-related pieces. In one, he controversially suggests abolishing eating turkey on Thanksgiving and replacing it with carbonara. The essay is called “Spaghetti Carbonara Day” and the first sentence is a call to arms: “I have been campaigning to have the national Thanksgiving dish changed from turkey to spaghetti carbonara.” He then bravely continues: “It does not require much historical research to uncover the fact that nobody knows if the Pilgrims really ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing we know for sure about what the Pilgrims ate is that it couldn’t have tasted very good.”

We decided spaghetti carbonara was just the thing.

When properly done, it’s a gift from the gods. When not properly done, it can be a mess (you never, ever want to scramble the eggs). The basic recipe is simple: spaghetti, eggs, cheese, pancetta. But then polemiche (as they say in these parts; we’d say controversy/argument/nit-picking) arises over the exact approach: Should I use the whole egg, or merely the yolk? Should I use a couple of egg yolks and a whole egg? Ought I to add a little cream? Or should I add a little milk?

The late, great bard who was Alan Davidson weighs in: “[it] is made with spaghetti which, when still as hot as possible from cooking, is liberally dressed with hot fried PANCETTA (the sort called guanciale), which resembles bacon, raw beaten egg, and grated cheese. The heat cooks the eggs to some extent [not really, I don’t think]. Additions often made are a little wine [yum!], heated with the bacon, or cream.” He then discourses about the dish’s origins, dismissing the idea that it was a favorite of the carbonari (charcoal burners). More likely, he says, “A more credible explanation is that it was invented in 1944 as a result of the American occupation troops having their lavish rations of eggs and bacon prepared by local cooks. The name would then be from a Rome restaurant, the “Carbonara,” which makes a specialty of the dish.”

EGAD! Might we -- that is, we Americans? -- be responsible for this Italian classic? It would make perfect sense – us, the Land of Plenty in a country reeling from the deprivations of war?

Samantha, who makes the best plate of carbonara on the planet, uses a little milk and egg yolks. Stig in London has been known to throw in Cheddar cheese (if you haven’t tried it, do: it’s divine, and if you have the first Greens cookbook, check out Deborah Madison’s version with smoked cheese and green olives). Ada Boni, the Irma Rombauer of Italy, does an egg/100 grams of spaghetti, and uses both cheeses. Calvin Trillin makes his with pancetta and prosciutto. Crustily beloved Elizabeth David made hers with maccheroni (though she’s one of my heroes, she would), pork product lightly fried in butter (hm …), whole eggs, and only Parmesan. The River Café Green book has an asparagus carbonara which, when it’s the season for, is beyond wonderful. Though it appears that black pepper’s not a vital ingredient, it is for all of us who make it. We like ours particularly peppery, hence the excess.

Spaghetti alla carbonara con porri /spaghetti carbonara with leeks

1/3 lb. spaghetti
¼ lb. pancetta, diced
1 T. olive oil (extravirgin not necessary)
2 leeks
3 egg yolks
¼ c. light cream
¼ c. Parmesan, grated
¼ c. Pecorino Romano, grated
3 T. (at least) black peppercorns, mortar’d and pestle’d

Bring a pot filled with water to a boil.

Trim the leeks: you want the part where the white fades into the green; clean them carefully and julienne them as finely as you possibly can. (Reserve the white part for future use, compost the upper part; or give the white part to Lulu, who adores raw leeks.)(Yes.)

Put the olive oil in a saucepan, heat, and throw in the pancetta. Cook ‘til crisp, remove, and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 1 T. of the pan’s fat. Throw in the leeks, and cook ‘til just about golden brown.

While the leeks cook, throw the spaghetti into the boiling water.

Mix the egg yolks, light cream, and cheeses in a small bowl. Add the black pepper.
Drain the spaghetti, and toss it with the egg mixture. Add reserved pancetta and eat immediately.

Serves two. It always gets eaten up, hence nothing left for the dogs.

If a good plate of carbonara exists in Tuscany, I have yet to find it. It always tastes best in Rome; here are two places to have it the next time you’re in town.

La Carbonara, (birthplace of?) Campo dei Fiori 23, Rome, 06/686 4783.

Maccheroni, Piazza delle Coppelle 44, Rome, 06/68307895. Reservations a must, as is their carbonara.

Oh, what has happened to my footnotes? On eating late-night fowl: This reminds me of the first Thanksgiving dinner I ever cooked for 12 or so unwitting Brits, a Scot, and a Dane. After securing a turkey at Harrod’s (I had to return an hour later to pick it up, as they had to pluck it), turkey and I repaired to friend’s flat in Chelsea, where the meal was to take place. A mid-afternoon (lengthy) power failure translated into the turkey emerging from the oven at around 11 p.m. Dane and I whiled away the hours with a bottle of dry vermouth.

Calvin Trillin's other marvelous piece: “Doing it the Lard Way” – about deep frying turkeys – appeared in the November 27, 1995 issue of the New Yorker. This was a most novel idea at the time (of course, Calvin Trillin’s always been on the crest of the wave). This reminds me of another Thanksgiving-related story. Once upon a time, John and Todd deep-fried a turkey on their driveway outside Ithaca, New York. Todd thought (incorrectly as it turned out) that he’d successfully disposed of the fat underneath the gravel of their driveway. In fact, he hadn’t, and Gizmo, their lovely but somewhat dimwitted Lab mix, ate it. This led to highly expensive emergency surgery at, fortunately, one of the best vet schools in the States (Cornell).

Quote from "Spaghetti Carbonara Day" from Third Helpings, New Haven and New York, 1983.

martedì 23 novembre 2010

Dieta Bianca


When Italians are feeling poorly, they frequently revert to dieta bianca – white diet. (Dieta Bianca can also successfully be employed after a grueling appointment with one’s dentist.) This basically means soft, unchallenging food that removes hunger pains but doesn’t necessarily satisfy the soul. Dieta bianca includes pastina in brodo (little bits of pasta in broth), spaghetti simply sauced with butter and maybe a little Parmesan (this also doubles as nursery food which indeed most of these dishes are), and myriad pale-faced dishes involving rice.

Riso al burro is popular with Italians at any time. In fact, you don’t even have to be feeling poorly to have it. Mario Sconcerti tells us that the Italian national football team usually eats about four hours before a match, and they often start with riso in bianco (boiled white rice) and then have a steak filet.

You don’t have to chew a lot. In fact, you could take your dentures out – if you had them – and fare quite well.

The Scallion, in Typical Contrarian Mode, sniffed over lunch (recipe, below): “Well, you could call anything dieta bianca then … including white truffles.” Hm. Yes, one could. If you’ve ever been unlucky enough to have had a hospital stay in Italy, and the cause of your incarceration was not gastrointestinal (or maybe even if it was), don’t you think that riso al Parmigiano (boiled white rice with Parmesan) would be elevated by a generous shaving of white truffle? What better way to lift the spirits? What aroma to help one get out of bed! Che gioia to mask the boringness of boiled white rice with cheese.

We rotisserie’d a guinea fowl for Sunday lunch, and half a side remained. It got turned into today’s risotto. Surprisingly tasty for food not meant to challenge the palate. You probably won’t have any leftover guinea fowl after Thanksgiving, but you will probably have leftover turkey, which would work just fine as a substitute (and, to my mind, would be a welcome change from hot turkey sandwiches, cold turkey sandwiches, turkey hash, turkey tetrazzini, turkey croquettes …) The fresh herbs really lift this dish, so try to use them. Dried simply won't do.

(Italians don't have a day such as this. Perhaps they should? They could celebrate the unification and ostensible concord of/in Italy by sharing regional dishes -- grissini and affettati misti to start (Piedmont), risotto alla milanese to follow (Lombardy), tortellini in brodo (Emilia-Romagna), bistecca fiorentina (Tuscany), cannellini beans (Tuscany), artichokes cooked in the Jewish way (Lazio), tiramisù (arguably, the Veneto), panna cotta (Piedmont), cantucci with vin santo (Tuscany), and cannoli (Sicily). And wines from everywhere, particularly Piedmont, Tuscany, and Puglia. If they did it at this time of year, they could (white) truffle practically everything. Oh, the possible combinations!)

Thanksgiving Day is a day like any other here, though increasingly Florentine restaurants offer their version of Thanksgiving; unfortunately, these offers are mostly at dinner time which is when most of us Americans are sitting in front of the television, groaning, and watching (American) football.

Risotto alla faraona e porri /Guinea fowl and leek risotto

¾ c. Arborio rice
2 T. butter
1 T. extravirgin olive oil
2 leeks, white part only, finely chopped
1 hefty cup leftover cooked guinea fowl (turkey if immediately after Tgiving)
1 c. white wine
4 c. chicken or vegetable broth, heated
A bunch of chives, scissor-snipped
1 T. fresh thyme
1 T. flat-leaf parsley
½ c.(or more) Parmesan cheese, grated and at the ready

Melt the butter and olive oil in a heavy saucepan. Add the leeks, stir, and cook through. When soft but not brown, add the rice, stirring to coat with the butter.
Add one cup of good white wine (make sure it’s good, since you’re going to drink the rest of the bottle when you eat the risotto), stir ‘til it evaporates. Then start adding in ladlefuls the chicken or vegetable broth.

About 10 minutes into the proceedings, add the guinea fowl (or turkey), and continue to stir. Just before the rice is done (usually in about 20 minutes), add the grated Parmesan and the chopped/snipped fresh herbs. If the risotto seems a little dry before you add the cheese, give it another glug or two of white wine.

Generously serves two. Remember to drink the rest of the wine.

Re: riso al bianco and the Azzurri: Not dishes for champions, apparently, given the Azzurri’s dismal 2010 World Cup performance. See Mario Sconcerti, “Di Rigore gli Spaghetti,” in Corriere della Sera, Sette, 18 November 2010, numero 46.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING/BUON GIORNO DEL RINGRAZIAMENTO

giovedì 18 novembre 2010

Soft Bright Golden Rolls


Rosie seemed a little down last night. None of her frantic energy scratching at the Whelping Room door, none of her bounding out, submitting immediately (you have to wonder who taught her how to do that, or why she learned that behavior), and then prowling the kitchen for ingots of dropped food. Or scurrying to the terrace, leaping over the wall (Waldo lives!) or inserting herself between the little fence and the terrace gate to prowl the garden looking for lizards.

She also didn’t seem particularly interested in her combination high-digestibility milk/water combo, and she had absolutely zero interest in her Science Diet food for Pregnant and Lactating Females. A call to the Splendid Vet this morning at 4 proved inconclusive. We should keep an eye on her. (We could have saved ourselves a phone call, as we already were.)

Having puppies for the first (and last) time has been exhilarating and scary, since all sorts of questions come up, and you don’t know the answers. And unlike friends with children, there’s a whole lot less people to ask for help. Like: How long will a mother dog be protective of her puppies? (This at http://answers.yahoo.com.) A particularly unsettling response: “If she’s anything like my dog, she’ll be protective of them forever.” (One wonders when Lulu and Harry will meet these pups.) The Animal Defense League of Texas (www.adltexas.org) provided invaluable information under such rubrics as “Pet Resources,” “Lost & Found,” “Newborn Care,” and the inexplicable “Fireworks Safety for Your Pets.”

Perhaps Rosie’s fatigue came from yesterday afternoon’s vigorous romp in the woods with Lulu and Harry. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Yip, Yap, and Yup basically attached themselves to her all day. Usually, the Whelping Room has an audio soundtrack of Yip yapping, mighty lungs has she, or Yup yipping (Ibid.). (Yap pretty much keeps her own counsel.) No noise yesterday/today because they were the Three Little Pigs.

This morning, Rosie had great interest in accompanying the Large Dogs out on their morning constitutional, but returned home – wet and sopping, just the L.D.s – and turned her nose up on her food.

This was worrying. A somewhat soothing conversation with Bobo, my Wine Consultant, ensued. “Give her an egg yolk,” she suggested, “We always gave one every morning to our dogs when they were feeding.”

The egg yolk was met with great enthusiasm. I decided to take the white, add it to the other four egg whites in the refrigerator (Sunday’s pasta for ravioli called for four yolks) and make an egg-white omelette/omelet.

Is the egg-white omelet/omelette, once faddish, an idea that could only have been created in the United States of America? Seems like everyone was eating them in Hollywood in the 90s, and now you can find them twenty plus years later in dive-ish diners around Washington Square. (They entered the mainstream ages ago.) Years ago, I remember reading an article about Demi Moore, in some trendoid restaurant, jumping up and cooking herself her own egg-white omelette somewhere in Los Angeles (made me wonder why bother going out to a restaurant if you do it yourself? Isn't one of the reasons that they cook for you?) In the more than usually health-conscious 80s, Jane Brody was an advocate of the equal amount of egg whites to whole eggs: so if you’re using four eggs, you use four whites.

Egg-White Omelette/Omelet (actually, Egg-White Scramble) or For the Love of Rosie

5 egg whites
1 T. safflower or other mild vegetable oil
1 small onion, minced
1 small potato, minced, about 1/3 c.
2 button mushrooms, trimmed and peeled (if necessary), cut into fine dice
2 generous T. soft goat cheese
2 T. chopped coriander, for garnish
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a non-stick pan, preferably one designed to cook omelettes. Add the onion and stir for a moment or two, then add the potatoes and mushrooms. Stir to keep the potatoes from sticking. (You might want to add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper at this point.) When they are soft, toss in the egg whites and scramble with a wooden spoon. After about a minute or two, add the goat cheese, and stir to combine.

If you are at all like me, you will feel virtuous, and perhaps a big smug after eating this (especially if you have not laced it with Frank’s Hot Sauce, which is more necessary in this household than salt and pepper). You might also feel hungry; Peggy Lee singing “Is that all there is?” might come to mind, and rightfully so.

Elizabeth David would have scorned that recipe. According to her, “What one wants [in an omelette] is the taste of the fresh eggs and the fresh butter and, visually, a soft bright golden roll plump and spilling out a little at the edges. It should not be a busy, important urban dish but something gentle and pastoral … And although there are those who maintain that wine and egg dishes don’t go together I must say I do regard a glass or two of wine as not, obviously, essential but at least as an enormous enhancement of the enjoyment of a well-cooked omelette.”

Amen.

This is an omelette (well, ok, a scramble) which is as decadent as the one above is austere.

2 T. minced shallots
2 T. butter
2 heaping T. pancetta (or bacon), minced
2 T. grana padana (or Parmesan)
2 whole eggs
1 egg white
2 T. heavy cream
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in an omelette plan, and add the shallots. After a minute or two, add the pancetta. In a small bowl, adding a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper, mix up the eggs and the egg white. Add the cream.

Pour into the omelette pan as the edges cook, roll the pan with your wrist to move the uncooked egg. When it’s crisping on the sides, flip it by using an inverted plate, or a deft flip with a spatula … or say to hell with it, and scramble the thing.

Serves one and a morsel each for the dogs.

Inexplicable problem with footnotes remains. Quote from Elizabeth David in "An Omelette and a Glass of Wine," in An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (New York, 1985). Jane Brody's Good Food Book came out in the same town in the same year. The controversy over the spelling of omelet/omelette can be found in my post of October 12. Have yet to encounter egg white omelettes here in Italy. Of course, Italians don't do eggs for breakfast, so it's hardly surprising. My guess is that 5-star hotels have them on their breakfast menus since they cater to many Americans.

giovedì 11 novembre 2010

the 11th of November


In 1918, on the 11th day of the 11th month on the 11th hour, World War I came to an end. Statistics vary, depending upon the source, but an estimated 650,000 Italian troops died during the course of the (Italian) conflagration from 1915-1918, 947,000 were wounded, Missing/POWs numbered 600,000. Wikipedia’s numbers more or less agree with what was just cited, but also add civilian deaths, which totaled 589,000 souls.

Ernest Hemingway became a man in Italy while serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian campaign; he was seriously injured by an Austrian mortar shell while handing out chocolate and cigarettes to entrenched Italian soldiers. He would turn nineteen in three days’ time.

He was later given the Italian Silver Medal for Valor, which said, "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated." (And he of course wrote a great book about the experience afterwards.)

Italy’s version of Arlington Cemetery, “one of the biggest in the world,” according to Wikipedia.org, has more than 100,000 bodies of men who died in the war (and one woman). It “opened” in 1938, when Mussolini was at the height of his power.

This is also a big day on the Roman Catholic church calendar, as it’s the feast day of San Martino. Or at least it used to be a big day.

Martin of Tours (c. 315--397) was born in Hungary, became bishop in Tours, founded monasteries in France, trashed pagan shrines, and died a non-martyr’s death (not a bad run for a Christian in those days). From an invaluable dictionary: “A goose at his feet may allude indirectly to the season of his feast-day ... which is said to coincide with the migration of geese (or the season of their killing and eating)."

Carol Shields writes that Martin is the patron saint of, among others, “grape growers, and wine makers, and in some places he is also the protector of drinkers.” Shields also notes that he’s credited with transforming a river into wine (wouldn’t you like to dip into that?). She continues: “It is mostly old people who continue to roast turkey and chestnuts in Apulia and Abruzzo and in Sicily …” (You have to figure that just about no one’s doing that now, as those old people were old when she wrote the book 20 years ago.) In the Abruzzo – at least back in the day -- turkey fed on walnut shells is served on November 11th. Called tacchino alla porchetta (herb-scented roast turkey from Nereto), Shields provides a marvelous recipe in which you cook the turkey sort of the way you’d cook young pig.

In Italy, you don’t say “Indian Summer.” You say l’estate di San Martino (“St. Martin's summer"). Despite the torrential downpours of late, accompanied by gusty winds, today was truly, in every way, the feast day of San Martino. Lulu, Harry, and I took a long walk in the woods, and the sun beat down upon our backs. Rosie managed to extricate herself from her pups innumerable times today, and joined Lulu on the sun-filled terrace chasing and nosing for lizards (neither was successful in today’s hunt; Waldo too often was. Once they stopped moving (i.e., dead or practically so) he moved on, allowing me to deal with the recently-dead or still twitching creature).

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929.

Recipe next time.

Footnotes in strange form due to problems with blogspot.com:

www.worldwar1.com. According to this site, 126,000 Americans died, 234,000 were wounded, 4,526 went missing.

You’ll find a big discrepancy here re: American deaths, which is significantly lower than worldwar1.com: Wiki says 116,708.

www.lostgeneration.com

A Farewell to Arms appeared in 1929.

“It is a limestone landscape in itself: a geometrised model of the Carso, complete with its fatal gradient. Beyond a deep drop of stone, the Duke of Aosta lies at the foot of the slope within a 75-tonne block of porphyry: a tomb worthy of Achilles … From below, visitors look like fleas on a Fascist stairway to heaven.” This on the Sacrificio Militare di Redipuglia; Mark Thompson, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919, London, 2008.

Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, London, 1974. St. Martin is frequently shown on horseback, a beggar at his side, cutting off half his coat to give to the shivering guy.

Most of the rest about San Martino, and the allusion to the recipe, comes from Celebrating Italy, a triumph by Carol Fields (New York, 1990).

Photo of St. Martin and the Beggar (copy), facade, Duomo, Lucca. Work at the Duomo began at the end of the 12th century. (The original of St. Martin and the Beggar can be found inside, the work of a Lombard-Lucchese sculptor, dating from the beginning of the 13th century.)

lunedì 8 novembre 2010

Olives

We picked olives three days running, ‘til yesterday, when it dumped the proverbial torrential downpour. We shook the proverbial s*** out of the trees with rakes (I thought of Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, innocently picking an apple, and the tree turning on her. Kind of hoped the olive trees would do the same to me, but of course they didn’t.) The weather up ‘til yesterday afternoon: Sunny and glorious – another day to thank Whomever/Whatever and be glad to be alive.


The Scallion has taken the first lot of olives to be pressed, and is due back imminently. Nothing like olio nuovo (new oil) … it’ll be fragrantly green, and we’ll toast Tuscan bread, rub it with garlic, sea salt it and black pepper it, and then be overly generous with the oil. It will be bliss.


In the Whelping Pool, four completely conked out dogs digest; the bellies of three youngsters twitch as they do so. (Yip enjoys this process, on her back, in total splay position.) Shortly, they’ll wake up, then eat, then sleep/digest. For those of you who have produced your own spawn, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For those of us who haven’t, all I can say is … well, nothing. Can’t compare human babies with puppies, since often human babies emerge sort of clueless about what to do upon entering the world, and often the mother is equally so. Rosie did exactly what she was supposed to do, thanks to genetic wiring, and her pups did exactly what they were supposed to do, thanks to genetic wiring. (Would that I possessed this skill at all times.) What a truly odd, inexplicable thing, animal instinct (as mother-in-law observed on the birthing day, thank goodness we knew beforehand that eating the placenta is part of canine birthing procedure).


No pups picked olives, unfortunately, nor did they gambol in the orchard or the woods. The two senior statespups, Lulu and Harry, can be fully relied upon to either get into mischief (Lulu) or exit the premises (Harry). Rosie was tending to three noisy pups. Yip now looks like a tiny Cornish game hen (if you flipped her over and pinned her paws to her side, you could bake her, and could serve two people with modest appetites). Hard to tell with the mysterious Yap, as she’s the quietest and darkest of the three. Yup remains scrawny, though he gains slowly but steadily (Jack White singing “Steady as she goes …” comes to mind), even though you can still see all of his little bones under his skin. He eats after the girls, which causes him great distress, about which he is quite vocal. (He doesn’t have a chance in hell bypassing either one of them.)

All of them, when they want food or their mother, whine. And their whining sounds like the sounds junior seagulls make while flying around landfills. Only nicer.


If you live in Italy, and live to eat, after a very short time you’ll find that basically your only options are Italian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but sometimes it does get a bit tiring, especially when the urge for fire and spice gives your stomach a homesick hunger pain. Thai chilies, coconut milk, pho, Jamaican jerk chicken (Jamaican jerk anything, actually), dim sum, tacos teeming with Scotch bonnet peppers (to name but a few) jolt your culinary memory bank with happy memories of wanting to grab for water while knowing it only makes the fire in your mouth worse. The safest thing to do is to eat more of whatever, immediately.


You can eat ethnic here, but for the most part, these joints aren’t very good.[1] If you want non-Italian, you have to make it yourself.


This past Friday (Fish Night) we craved something decidedly non-Italian. Which we made ourselves, simply because we couldn’t go somewhere and order it.


Persico al vapore con salsa di funghi/Steamed sea bream with mushroom sauce


A generous pound of sea bream or other mild, white-fleshed fish
2 T. canola or sunflower oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 small shallots, minced
¾ inch piece of ginger, peeled, and grated
As many hot peppers as you can bear, seeded and minced
¾ lb. champignons (or button mushrooms), trimmed (peeled if necessary), and chopped into fine dice
2 T. fish sauce (or perhaps more: have the bottle handy)
Juice of one lime (or perhaps more: have another one handy)
6 T. water
3 scallions, chopped
Handful fresh coriander, chopped


Assemble all the ingredients for the sauce before steaming the fish: heat the oil on a low flame, throw in the garlic and shallots, stirring frequently. After a minute or so, add the ginger and minced hot peppers. Another minute or so later, add the mushrooms, let gently brown, then add the water. When the mushrooms have released most of their juices, and the water has burned off, toss in the fish sauce and lime juice. (You might want to fiddle with the fish sauce and lime juice to get the right balance: it should be 50-50.)

Remove from the flame, and tent with aluminum foil. Now steam the fish: you will already have, at a steady rumble, a double boiler (with water's depth of about 2-3 inches) lined with parchment paper, upon which you steam the fish. This should take 5-8 minutes.

Put the fish in a serving plate, ladle the mushroom sauce on top, then the chopped scallions coriander.

Eat immediately; serves 2.

Depending upon your appetite, you may well have leftovers. It provides a marvelous base for a delicious fried rice (because of course you just happen to have some perfectly-executed cooked, cold basmati rice lingering in your refrigerator). Take a couple of shallots, mince, heat a tablespoon or two of canola oil in a saucepan, toss in the shallots, stir ‘til golden. Toss in a generous heaping of best-quality curry powder (like Fortnum & Mason’s), an equally generous heaping of cumin seeds, stir. Throw in fish/mush mixture, and heat through. Add a tablespoon of tamari or shoyu while continuing to stir. Throw in the rice, add a couple of tablespoons of water, heat through. Have on hand some chopped roasted peanuts and coriander (chopped, but not roasted), and add to conglomeration before bringing the saucepan to the table and eating immediately.

[1] The only ethnic food that’s spreading like wildfire in Florence is the kabob. A few months ago, a local rag reported that there were 51 shops serving them. Most of them are awful, but a couple – like Turkaz – are not.

mercoledì 3 novembre 2010

WHELP!


Hard to believe that this is November. Today a glorious, sunny day in Tuscany – warm enough to sit outside in the middle of the afternoon and watch three rotten dogs cavort. But now it’s dark, and I’m making pappa al pomodoro and thinking about whelping. Thoughts re: whelping have caused me to nearly burn the pappa.

Pappa al pomodoro is a Tuscan classic, a marvelous way to use up those stale ends of salt-less bread lingering long past their due date.[1] (Because there’s no salt, there’s no mold, which makes this bread reusable in this, as well as in ribollita (a wintry dish), and in panzanella (a summ'ry dish rife with tomatoes grown from your garden which have not been eaten by insects as ours were this year).

Pappa is simple, basic, cheap, and tasty: four adjectives that often describe Tuscan food as long as you’re not talking about bistecca fiorentina, which is simple, basic, and tasty, but decidedly not cheap. “Pappa” sort of translates into English as “mush.” It’s what you call nursery food, oft times, in Italian. So in this case, it’s Mush with Tomatoes. (Sounds scrumptious, no?)

Rosie will be whelping soon.

Last night, I turned to The Complete Dog Book, The Official Publication of the American Kennel Club, 1970 ed. (one of my Bibles), to see what they had to say about whelping:

“Constant restraint and vigilance will be necessary for at least three weeks to prevent a mating undesired by her owner. If it should occur in spite of all precautions, the veterinarian may be able to prevent conception by prompt use of a hormone injection.”

[Hm. Screwed on all counts.]

“If puppies are wanted, a sire should be selected and arrangements made well in advance. For her first mating especially, an experienced stud should be chosen.”

[Here’s hoping he was.]

Whelping is a funny word. Went to wikipedia.org to find more about this weirdo word. They say: “Birth (calving in livestock and some other animals, whelping in carnivorous mammals) is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring.[1] The offspring is brought forth from the mother. Different forms of birth are oviparity, vivipary and ovovivipary.” http://dictionary.reference.com/ relates: “Origin bef. 900; (n.) ME; OE hwelp (c.G. Welf)" ... might I suggest a possible link between whelping and the Guelfs? Linguistically, they’re pretty much on the same page.[2]

(Especially fun that offspring is brought forth from the mother. Could we say that Adam whelped Eve? Zeus whelped Minerva? ... Just wondering.)

I wrote this yesterday, and since then, Rosie has successfully whelped. A temperature check this morning suggested that today would be the day, and so it was. At 10:30 the festivities began, and by around 2:30 she had successfully pushed out three surprisingly-large-(except-for-the-third) pups, who greedily feed as I write. Mother-in-law was around, a soothing and calming presence.

What, ideally, would be the best music to play while whelping? A little Mozart? Or how about a little Laurie Anderson? I read this awhile ago, and thought it entered Theater of the Absurd. Or maybe not: “Soon she [Laurie Anderson] would be off to Iceland for a solo recital, and then to Australia, where she was a curator of the Vivid Live arts festival in Sydney with her husband Lou Reed. In addition to retrospective and work-in-progress performances she would introduce and give a high-frequency outdoor concert composed primarily for an audience of dogs. It was apparently a hit.”[3]

All’s well in the whelping pool.

What follows is not your usual pappa al pomodoro recipe, but a recreation of a marvelous dish enjoyed repeatedly at the wonderful restaurant La Giostra in Florence. Don’t think it’s on the menu anymore. Florentine Sister aka Bobo groused the other day at lunch that, lately, Tillie’s Tuscan Table’s recipes have been decidedly unTuscan. (The addition of raw onions is not part of the classic pappa recipe, although, for what it’s worth, they do put chopped raw onions on their ribollita in the greater Montalcino area.) Trying to find my way back home (Stevie Winwood) ...

Could there be anything more Tuscan than what follows?

Pappa al pomodoro con cavolo nero/Tomato mush soup with Tuscan kale

3 generous Ts of extravirgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
A just-short-of-one pound Tuscan loaf, as stale as can be
Hot vegetable broth, about 4 c.
Generous pinches of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch of cavolo nero (Tuscan kale in some parts)
3 T. tomato paste (use triple concentrate if you’re blessed)
1 generous T. fresh thyme
2 peperoncini, minced*
Basil, if it’s still growing in your garden in November
Red onion, peeled and finely diced
Extravirgin olive oil for garnishing repeatedly

Heat the olive oil in a large, deep saucepan over a low to medium flame. Toss in the bread, and immediately add vegetable broth. Using a wooden spoon, break up the bread. Continue to add vegetable broth as needed, and much of it will be.

When all the bread is broken up, add the tomato sauce, stir to combine, and check for seasoning – salt, pepper. Let cook for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Take the cavolo nero/Tuscan kale, remove the leaf from the ribs (the ribs can go in the compost pile). Chop. When the water boils, toss in the kale (if you want to add some kosher salt to the cooking water, do so). Let it cook for about 3 minutes, and drain in a colander. Reserve.

Add the tomato paste to the pappa, the thyme, and the hot peppers. Just before serving, throw in the cavolo nero/Tuscan kale. Check for seasoning, and eat immediately. Liberally garnish with swirls of extravirgin olive oil, and the chopped red onions, if you don’t want to be authentic.

*Tuscans from Livorno, as well as those south of said, refer to hot peppers as “zenzero,” which is actually ginger in Italian.

Variations: Terracotta Sculptress takes her bread, roasts it in the oven, and when it comes out, rubs a peeled garlic clove over all surfaces, and then commences with the recipe. She remarked in a recent telephone conversation that cavolo nero depresses her because, according to experts, it’s only good after the first frost, which means that winter is truly here.

Bobo’s Fine Wine Idea: Pappa al pomodoro is often paired with Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a white wine, but I’d recommend Rosso di Montalcino doc Castello di Romitorio 2008 (NOT to be confused with their Brunello Di Montalcino Riserva 2004, that has recently won the International Wine Challenge award for the best red wine in the world).

La Giostra, Borgo Pinti 12/r, 055/241 341.

[1] Hm. I do have whelping on my mind.
[2] This would make it possible to recast the colorful conflicts between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines: the Guelfs were a dog-loving group, the Ghibellines preferred cats.
[3] Will Hermes, International Herald Tribune, June 25, 2010. “Electronic expressions of loss.” Given that this apparently was about loss (though only the audience could tell us, and they don’t speak our language), and Rosie’s birthing experience about gain, perhaps it wouldn’t have been altogether appropriate.

[Please hum John Lennon while singing "Help!" only do substitute the word WHELP! for HELP!]
Huge thanks to Betsy Bennett Purvis (aka Aunt Bets) who kindly found the image (above) for me when I was too pupped-out to do so: it's the beyond magnificent Piero della Francesca, Madonna del Parto, 1450-44, Monterchi (Arezzo). The Virgin has not yet delivered. Rosie has.

domenica 31 ottobre 2010

You'll Be Good Little Dogs II




We’re not picking olives today because it’s raining cats and dogs.[1] The Scallion’s been picking all week by his lonesome; yesterday we were joined by friends from Florence. We lunched (roasted red pepper/caper crostini, mackerel crostini, linguine al pesto, and salad with pomegranate and pumpkin seeds – the latter to mark Halloween). Australian friend brought little sweet delicacies from a pasticceria in Florence, many of them almond-paste filled, which were devoured. We then proceeded to pick.


The two young boys among the group decided very quickly that doing almost anything else was preferable to picking olives, and so absented themselves. Dear German Chum went at it with zeal (she will definitely be getting a big bottle of oil once it’s pressed); the Scallion and Samantha were assiduous. We had some help from two Australians, new to this kind of thing, and Florentine Sister, who like me, preferred to uncork a bottle of vino sfuso and serve the workers.


The dogs, of course, were totally in the way.


It was Rosie’s first foray into the olive orchard, and she acquitted herself well. She managed to sit on a lot of olives, and generally get in the way. She discovered the joys of yet another of Lulu’s Archives – in this case, a pile of logs teeming with furtive lizards. Both of them were oblivious to the rest of the world.


Soon such pastimes will become just that: a thing of the past. Rosie will remain a youngster, sure, but she will also become a mother. Like in about 4 days’ time, or maybe a little longer. Just last Thursday, the Splendid Veterinarian confirmed what we’d suspected: those Neapolitan folks pulled a fast one on us. You might note the photo of Rosie from a couple of blogs ago. You might note that the woman’s hand covers a good part of Rosie’s little chest. Said Neapolitan woman did this to cover up the fact that Rosie is all ready to start feeding her youngsters as soon as they arrive. Rescue one dog, get three free.


Rosie had a sonogram confirming the fact that she was up the spout/up the duff/knocked up; then she had an X-ray which showed three little critters. The fact that she’s constantly lying on her back, paws extended, shows that she’s just about had it with this condition. We spend a lot of time on the couch, and it’s fun to feel the heartbeats of the pups.



But back to food. This gem, truly, of a chili recipe from Larry, a high school pal, who has lived many places in the United States, and picks up marvelous recipes and makes them his own wherever he goes. If you read his Facebook page (as I do, regularly), I often wish I were in Florida sitting at his dinner table. As it turns out, we didn’t serve it to the olive pickers, as a strict vegetarian lurked among us. (An especially nice touch is the mandatory bourbon sipping about midway through the recipe.)



Larry’s Big Pot of Kitchen Sink Chile


1 lb. bacon – chopped
1.5-2 lb. stew beef cut to dime sized pieces
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground turkey
2 16. oz Guinness Stout (or other stout)
8 oz. Kentucky Bourbon
8 oz. strong black coffee (I like day-old)
3 large white onions
3 large red onions
2 large cloves garlic – minced
6 serrano or jalapeno peppers
2 banana peppers
1 – 12 oz bottle chili sauce
1.5 lbs. sliced mushrooms (white button (Champignon) are fine, I prefer a combination of cremini and Portobello mushrooms that have been given a rough dice)
8 oz. beef base (can substitute 4 beef bouillon cubes)
2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes (or homemade tomato puree)
5 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes
3 10 oz. cans Rotelle tomatoes
5 4.5 oz. cans chopped green chilies
1 10 oz. can tomato paste
3 16 oz. cans black beans (drained & rinsed)
3 16 oz. cans pinto beans (drained & rinsed)
2 28 oz. red kidney beans (drained & rinsed)
4 large cans black olives pitted and chopped
1 T. Sazon Completa
2 T. Spanish paprika
1 T. black pepper
1/2 -3/4 lb chili powder
1 T. garlic powder
2 T. flour
Liquid Smoke


I use a Dutch oven to cook each layer and then “dump” the contents into my 42 quart pot. Realistically, you need about a 6 quart pot if you make the entire recipe. It freezes extremely well and the flavors seem to intensify while frozen. If you do not want to make this much go ahead and do the math to reduce the size of the batch.


Render the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon to your chili pot.


In the bacon fat sauté the rough chopped onions and the minced garlic on medium high heat. Sautee until translucent and then dump entire contents into chili pot. Turn on the heat under the chili pot to low.


Remove both Italian sausages from casings and cook thoroughly chopping sausage into very small pieces. When cooked, remove sausage to the chili pot preserving the fat.


In the fat from the sausage add the ground pork and ground turkey. Season the meats with some of the chili powder, garlic powder, paprika, and the Sazon Completa . Chop into very fine pieces and cook thoroughly. Remove to chili pot preserving the oil.


At this point increase the heat beneath the chili pot to medium. Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, bourbon, and coffee to the pot and give it a good stir. Add the chili sauce and stir through again. Add approximately .25 lb of the chili powder, stir and let this mixture heat through.


Chop the serrano/jalapeno and banana peppers finely after removing seeds and ribs. Add to the fat from the pork and turkey. If necessary add a little olive oil. Place the thoroughly sautéed peppers into the chili pot. If desired add a few finely chopped pickled jalapenos to the mix. Remove peppers to chili pot.


Spread the stew beef pieces on your cutting board. Sprinkle with flour, black pepper, paprika and garlic powder and using a tenderizing hammer pound the beef until tender but not flattened. Add beef. the oil in your prep pot(there should be a little oil left after you sautéed the peppers). Add Guinness, beef base, mushrooms, a couple of dashes of liquid smoke, more of the chili powder, reducing heat and simmering for 15-20 minutes until the beef is tender. WARNING! This is so good you’ll be tempted to drag a piece of bread through it for a snack! When done, “dump” into chili pot.


Add the coffee and 6 oz. of bourbon to the chili pot. Stir until completely incorporated. Pour the remaining bourbon into a glass over ice and take a short break while the mixture heats through. This is an essential step!



From here it is “everyone into the pool." Add all remaining ingredients to the chili pot and bring up to temperature. (If you are a “no beans” person you can leave them out.) You may want to add the chili powder gradually to ensure that the heat is not too much for you and your guests.


Once up to a simmer cook on low heat for 1-2 hours until chili is a deep red color and has thickened. Taste and season with chili powder and/or cayenne pepper to reach desired level of heat.


Ed. Note: Obviously, Larry’s chili could feed an army. But it does freeze well, as he says, and if you already have an army at hand (i.e., olive pickers) freezing shouldn’t be too much of a problem. (Larry and family eat this wonderful concoction with either beer or a nice spicy Zinfandel.)

Myrtle, at left, all dressed up for Halloween funkiness -- any ideas about her costume?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


[1] Wondering about the origin of this phrase, I went to http://www.phrases.org/ and got the following: “This is an interesting phrase in that, although there is no definitive origin, there is a likely derivation.” It continues: "The much more probable source of 'raining cats and dogs' is the prosaic fact that, in the filthy streets of 17th/18th century England, heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals and other debris. The animals didn't fall from the sky, but the sight of dead cats and dogs floating by in storms could well have caused the coining of this colourful phrase. Jonathan Swift described such an event in his satirical poem 'A Description of a City Shower', first published in the 1710 collection of the Tatler magazine. The poem was a denunciation of contemporary London society and its meaning has been much debated. While the poem is metaphorical and doesn't describe a specific flood, it seems that, in describing water-borne animal corpses, Swift was referring to an occurrence that his readers would have been well familiar with: Now in contiguous/Drops the Flood comes down,/Threat'ning with Deluge this devoted Town..../Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow, /And bear their Trophies with them as they go:/Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell/What Street they sail'd from, by their Sight and Smell./They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force,/From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their Course,/And in huge Confluent join'd at Snow-Hill Ridge,/Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holbourn-Bridge./Sweeping from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,/Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood." Oh, what perfect images for Halloween.

martedì 26 ottobre 2010

You're a Good Little Dog Part I


And most of them are, especially JR, left, who died this past week. (Waldo was little, and he was a dog. But good? Bah!)

We pick olives beginning this week, that is, if the torrential downpours stop torrentially downpouring. Lots of trees, lots of olives … here’s hoping.

It’s the time of year when people who are lucky enough to have their own trees put down their nets (the better to catch them with, my dear), whip out the rakes to shake the s*** out of the branches, and watch the olives fall to the ground, preferably on the net.

You typically do this on a sunny day, well after the dew has magically evaporated (and trust me, there’s a lot of dew, even without torrential rains, this time of year). At day’s end, you roll the nets (presumably the olive trees are terraced, thus making the nets easier to roll) to the bottom of that terrace, and then bring the nets together, and put all the olives in a big container. Typically, dogs have gotten in the way, and this year will surely be no exception. Over the weekend, there will be at least 4 present.

(You keep doing this ‘til you’ve picked all the olives, and this can take time. Because it can take time, you rope any willing friend/relative/passerby off the street, bribe him/her with a good meal at day’s end, and then ply him/her/it with wine … as much as it takes to hear, “Hey! Helluva good time! Would love to do this again next year!” ... we take Tom Sawyer and painting that fence as our inspiration.)

Then you take the olives to the frantoio (the place where they press the olives and make olive oil) and the stuff comes out young, green, redolent of … yup, olives. You take a piece of unsalted bread, toast it, rub it with a peeled garlic clove, magnanimously drizzle the olive oil on top, add a pinch of best-quality sea salt, grinding of freshly ground pepper, and you eat it. And it is heaven. And you want all around you to eat it, because otherwise you will smell like my cousin Sean’s garlic recipe, below, and no one else will.

What to serve these unwitting, kind, generous friends of ours? Normally, it’d be Italian, the usual. Instead, why not serve American – since, in fact, I am?

Here is Cousin Sean’s take on his parents’ recipe, long served at a beloved tavern to many of us. Why is it award-winning? Says Sean: “I went there last year [to a garlic festival in Easton, Pennsylvania] with Ellery [his young, presumably garlic-loving daughter] and saw that they had a garlic dip contest. I tried all the entries and was thoroughly unimpressed. So I decided to enter the contest this year using the dip my parents always made. I won the contest. The prize was a bag of garlic flavored goodies and a $50 gift card from Wegman's. So now when you blog about it you can tout it as an ‘award-winning’ recipe.” [Done, Cousin!]

(Larry’s Big Pot of Chili, to follow this dip, is next post’s recipe.)

Old Brewery Tavern Garlic Dip aka Sean’s Award-Winning Garlic Dip

1 lb. cream cheese
4 oz. sour cream
1 oz. whole milk
½ medium bulb garlic, mashed through a garlic press
1 T. ground cayenne pepper

Let the cream cheese sit out for a couple hours so it is easier to work with. Then mix in the sour cream and milk. Add the garlic and cayenne pepper to taste. If you let someone try it and they don't comment about how freakin' spicy it is, then you haven't put enough garlic and pepper in it! My mom came up with the original recipe, sans the cayenne pepper. Then along came my father and added the pepper and an instant classic was born. Serve with the thickest crinkle-cut potato chips you can find. Even the native Italians will find it outrageously garlicky and irresistibly delicious. P.S.- You will eat it all in one sitting, so batch it accordingly. Buon appetito!!

If the idea of eating all that raw garlic appalls you, roast it first (slice the top off, place on aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, loosely pack it up, and place in a 375°F oven ‘til lightly softly browned; squeeze the cloves from their skins, and mash … then add to dairy mix).

JR died last week, a dog beloved to His People. You can see his picture on the upper left on this post. I never knew him, but his people are my family. A lab/chow mix, he was rescued at the age of somewhere between 2-5, and quickly ingratiated himself into his pack. In the beginning, he divided his time between undergraduate/graduate studies in Philadelphia and family life in Bethlehem before ultimately deciding to settle in Bethlehem – perhaps because he loved Musikfest so much? Or Pottsie’s Dogs? Or perhaps, simply, Lori and Fred?

JR was named, as previous members of his pack were, for ice hockey players (many of his pack played the game). He was popular with his neighbors: as Fred, one of His People wrote, “JR was fondly referred to as ’Chinese Guard Dog’ by his neighbors.” He was a talented dog who, as Lori, His Other Person writes, “He was quite an escape artist when he first arrived and even I got a call, from a bar - the bartender told me he was quite charming and would have probably ordered a drink if he could have, when he got out one time.” (One wonders what would have been his tipple of choice.)

And then, for any of us who have rescued dogs, you wonder about their back story, the stories they could tell if only they could speak (we’ve been wondering this about sweet little Rosie this past near week). Lori continues: “Someone took the time to train him because you could put a plate of table food on the floor and he would not touch it unless I told him it was okay.” One of JR’s greatest pleasures? Recycling: “He pretty much went everywhere with us - and became quite the little recycler - that was once of his favorite places – the Bethlehem Recycling Center. He rode around in the convertible with the top down and never moved a muscle.”

JR, know that when we eat the Old Brewery Tavern’s garlic dip, we will all have DOG BREATH. Safe trip to the Happy Hunting Ground, dear boy, where you’ve already been met by your immediate and extended canine pack, all hamburger loving, who will teach you, as Robert Frost once wrote, to bark with the great Overdog, “that romps through the dark.”

JR circa1999/2002-October 2010.

venerdì 22 ottobre 2010

Pup!


It’s the picture at the left that sold us. Actually, it was a posted picture of a small abused little white poodle which first stirred us – so much, in fact, that I wrote to my friend and said, “Where is that poodle?” As it turned out, the poodle – unlike so much of the Please Help this Pup Out photos that we get – happened to be in Florence. We happened to be third on the waiting list, but we lost out to the first.

At which point Florentine Sister (aka Bobo, who pairs wine with my recipes) sends us a photo, the one you see above. We write to the woman who saved her. Here’s what Marilena wrote:

Carletta [the name Marilena gave her] and her lucky choice.

“I was transferring a dog to a friend’s house. While I was going down a country road suddenly a little black muzzle popped out from under the guardrail, and threw itself before my car; if it weren’t for my instinct of always checking the side of the road, the little pup would already be dead. She chose the right car to throw herself in front of. Carletta is a young little dog, let’s say around a year or less, weighs about 10 [20 plus pounds] kili but has the paws of a bassett hound. She’s very sweet and affectionate, and has fears being abandoned. In fact, as soon as I took her she attached herself to me [as she’s done in one day with me]. Now she’s at a friend’s house who is also hosting another dog, so I must help her find a beautiful family who will love her, because her will to survive had her choose the right car.”

Read it and weep. Well, I did. Negotiations began; we were told that Carletta was “vivace, curiosa, e testarda” (lively, curious, stubborn: three adjectives that could be applied to many a small dog).

Marilena belongs to a national organization here in Italy which rescues abandoned dogs. In a country where inefficiency is as common as pasta is for dinner, this We Help Dogs (literal translation) is remarkably the opposite.

Michela, a local representative who’s a medieval classicist and philologist in Pisa when she’s not rescuing canines, came to interview us, and said interview lasted an hour. We filled out a complicated questionnaire. Fortunately, we passed, and were told that a team of vets from Germany (why not Italy, we wondered?) were heading to the south of Italy to offer pro bono spaying and neutering (a requisite of this program, though emphasis – typical – is placed on females; remember, this is a balls-oriented country). Pup would be spayed and then sent up.

Probably because a convoy was on its way north, this plan was scrapped. Michela, the Scallion, and I met with a trucker at an exit ramp/parking lot on the autostrada just outside Florence, and picked up the pup. He opened the truck door, revealing several containers of crated dogs, all destined for loving homes. Our pup, wildly shaking from fear (she’d been in the back of a semi overnight from Naples) was crated with another youngster destined for a home in Pisa. You wanted to cry, and I did. Horror at the people who abandoned these dogs, and joy that these pups, at least, were saved.

She stayed pretty shy yesterday, and her body reveals that she – heartbreaking at her tender age – has had at least one, perhaps more – litters. She does indeed have bassett paws, and probably the most ridiculous tail we have ever seen.

The sun cooperated mightily, and we spent most of the day sunning ourselves. Lulu took one look at her and basically yawned. Harry returned from the hospital only that evening[1] and seemed most intent on humping her. Though we have yet to hear the pup speak, we did hear her growl at him on more than one occasion.

Solicitations for names via Facebook were all terrific, creative, fun. My mother, recalling her decades' long dead dog: Scrappy. Claudia in Amsterdam: Annunziata; Judy Z in the States: the beautiful Biblical name Selah; High School Chum Scott in Houston: Dinah … “as in Roadside Dinah” (he added helpfully). Dogeressa of the Broken Halo: Ella, Cleo, or Jane. Long Tall John from Ithaca suggested Bitch. Canadienne Red in Chicago: Little Tiny Baby Little Small Thing (quite the mouthful, no?). Some went edible: Gamine Stephanie in Florence suggested Biscuit, and Cecilia, also in Florence, suggested Muffin. Frau Doktor von Spritz, London resident and perhaps taking a cue from Canadienne Red: Eleonora (da Toledo?) or Sancia. Auntie F also in London started with a Halloween theme (Glinda, Elvira) and added Bessie for good measure. Florentine Sister championed Pepita. Paula from Ithaca (she of the cold soba noodle recipe): Chibi. Preacher Guy in Nashville, Tennessee: Oreo, Mr. Jay (explicable only to those of us who went to the same high school, but pretty funny nonetheless), Mickey, Paws, and Midnight. Michele in Boston: Lia, Roxie, or Maxine. Aunt Bets in Toronto: Lira. Chantal in Brooklyn: voted for Glinda and Eleonora. Zoe’s Person: Daisy (impossible, as Cousin Daisy just died this year). Jenny, Zoe’s Person’s Daughter: the delightful Doris. Doc G in Charleston, South Carolina: Daphne. Lisa in Florence simply sent a message full of exclamation points, which made us very happy.

Susie, a dear pal from San Diego, suggested a name, which we quite liked. A lot. My sister suggested the same name while we were having our daily morning U.S./Italy chat. Kismet.

Her name is Rosie.

www.aiutiamofido.org


[1] Two nights before he’d eaten about two cups of cooking oil carelessly left on the kitchen counter, breaking the container. He began to heave later that night, and at 5 in the morning we decided to take him to the Splendid Vets for observation and to make sure that he didn’t have any glass in his stomach. He didn’t, but was put on a drip, and stayed overnight. One of his prescriptions includes Maalox.

lunedì 18 ottobre 2010

Birthday Retriever


Lulu turned five yesterday, and we marked the occasion as we mark all dog birthdays: we eat burgers. On Waldo’s fifth and last birthday this past May, all five of us happily tucked into Mark Bittman’s absolutely delicious dim sum burgers[1]

It was a more subdued celebration this year, as the pack is one less strong, that’s for sure, but all good dogs (which surely doesn’t include our two) do deserve their birthday burgers. (Italians either refer to hamburgers as “HOM ber ger” or, more oddly, svizzera (which means “Swiss”).)(I don’t know why.)
(Lulu was one of ten, and born in Greve in Chianti. Her mother Millie and sister Matilda live in her natal home, and her brother Oliver also lives in the neighborhood. A quick call to M&M's person revealed that Millie had decided to celebrate her tremendous output of five years ago by giving in to her wanton ways: four separate calls to her person complaining of her carousing in the Tuscan countryside.)(Millie's capers go far to explaining Lulu's personality.)

According to Alan Davidson, the hamburger “is one of the principal forms in which BEEF is consumed in the western world.” The word “hamburger” first turns up in print in 1890; the “St. Louis World Fair of 1904 was a significant launching pad for the hamburger in a bun as we know it." http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/ will give you everything you need to know about the dissemination of the burger in the United States of America, as well as the competing claims of various cities who want credit for inventing it.

Tillie loved burgers. From her sadly unpublished memoirs: “It’s kind of tough to find a well-made [cheeseburger] in Italy, though they can be had. You could, if you wanted, succumb to the allure of McDonald’s and yes, I have indeed done so … Some Italian bars will make hamburgers, or cheeseburgers, though they’re usually not all that interesting.” In Florence, Tillie loved the burgers at Danny Rock, where she often dined.

Two schools of thought re: seasoning hamburgers. The first school – we’ll call it the Purist School – advocates adding absolutely nothing to the ground meat. The second school – we’ll call it the Rococo School – salts, peppers, spices, and does other things to the meat sometimes adding so much stuff it pretty much becomes like meatloaf without the bread crumbs and egg. Mark Bittman is of the latter school[2]

All a question of taste, of course, like preferring vanilla to chocolate ice cream.

Type in the word “hamburger” on google, and you’ll come up with 15,400,000 hits. Play around with some word combinations: “hamburger” and “women” and you get “Women bringing you Hamburgers [sic], better than sandwich”(sounds like a fortune cookie gone seriously awry). You can find that Ted Reader, in an attempt to best the Guinness Book of World Record’s current titleholder, just this very year made a hamburger weighing 590 pounds. President Obama and Russian Tsar Medvedev had a cheeseburger together during recent meetings in Washington; they split the fries. Google “hamburger” and “movies” and you eventually get Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (U.S. version) or Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies (U.K. version). If any of you have seen this little gem, were you salivating by the time they finally got there?

Tillie adored the following recipe.

Danny Rock burger

¼ lb. ground beef
1 slice of Fontina
2 slices bacon
1 sesame seed roll

No need for directions, as I think we all know how to fry bacon, set it aside, then fry the burger, melt the cheese just before it’s done, toast the roll, and eat immediately.

We opted for turkey burgers last night. The Scallion, following the dictates of Mark Bittman, dutifully ground the happily-raised-‘til killed turkey, and fashioned two burgers for us, and two smaller ones for the Rotten Dogs. He equally dutifully toasted the rolls.

Both burgers (open-faced) were presented to the R.D.s in their bowls. Lulu had no doubts, and basically inhaled hers in about 15 seconds. Harry, puzzled, pulled the roll from his bowl, ate that, sniffed the burger, and then daintily ate it. What follows is part of the recipe; we were both too tired and lazy after a long day to go out into the garden, flashlight in hand, and pick season’s end basil. So we didn’t.

Turkey burgers with mozzarella, basil oil, and sundried tomatoes

1 lb. preferably organic turkey, ground, or put through a meat grinder
2 hamburger rolls
1 ball of mozzarella, sliced sort of thick
2 ample handfuls of basil mortar’d and pestle’d with
2 T. (or more) extravirgin olive oil
½ c. sundried tomatoes in oil, drained, and chopped fine

Cook the burgers in a frying pan, toast the rolls, and melt the cheese about a minute before burgers are cooked through. Liberally ice burgers with basil oil, top with the chopped sundried tomatoes, and eat immediately.

Serves two humans, one Birthday Retriever and her companion
The Queen of Kansas poses a seasonal question:
A quick cooking question: the sage in my backyard overfloweth and I was thinking of making some fried sage leaves. Some sources say just to fry them quickly in oil, others recommend dipping them in a pastella and then frying them. I don't seem to remember eating battered sage leaves in Italy but it's been so long since I've had them that I'm not sure.

My -- ahem -- sage answer: What's your recipe? If the sage leaves are garnish, just fry them w/o pastella. If they accompany an aperitivo, reverse.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/dining/26mini.html
[2] See his “For the Love of a Good Burger,” New York Times, May 23, 2007.

Danny Rock, via Pandolfini 13/r, Florence, 055/2340307.

martedì 12 ottobre 2010

Into the Woods


It was safe to take Lulu and Harry into the woods today, because the 54 sheep who’d been hanging out there these past two months sadly rejoined the other half of their flock.[1] Various forms of funghi punctuated our walk due to lots of rain. Heavy rains typically happen in Tuscany in the fall, but not this early and not quite so torrentially like the other night. Torrential rains are bad, but what often happens after is really, really good.

Porcini.

Today’s walk with Harry revealed scads of different kinds, probably all of them lethal, including some amazing toadstools.[2] (Lulu began the walk with us, and then went off to her archives, a pile of chopped wood where she noses in looking for lizards; at least, this is what I thought she was doing until she just this very instant threw up something so disgusting I won’t even go into it.)

Sometime in July, the Scallion went wandering in the woods, and returned with a nicely-sized porcino. At least, he thought it was. They do have a deadly nearly identical twin cousin, so we waited to ask Daniele, our Water Guy who is also a mycologist.[3] He affirmed the porcino-ness of said, and so we made a lovely frittata and ate it with Samantha .

Daniele and the Scallion went off into the woods a couple of days ago, basket at the ready, but returned empty-basketed.

Frittata di funghi porcini[4]/porcini frittata

2 T. butter (from Devon or Cornwall if you’re blessed)
1 medium-sized porcino, trimmed, cleaned with a paper towel, and cut into large dice
½ lb. button/champignon mushrooms, cleaned and cut into fine dice
5 organic eggs, cracked and whisked briskly with a fork in a bowl for a couple of seconds
¼ c. heavy cream, which has been added to the lightly-scrambled eggs in the bowl
Pinch of sea salt, Ibid.
White truffle oil

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan over a low, steady flame. Add both mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, ‘til cooked through. Pour in the eggs, and tilt the pan so that it’s completely covered with egg mix. Tilt the pan as it cooks on the edges and roll the uncooked egg/cream combination over it. When it’s just about set, take a plate that’s at least as large as the non-stick pan, hold it over the pan, and flip it. Cook the other side ‘til done, which will be significantly less time than the other side.

Remove from pan by gently sliding it off onto another nice plate. Liberally drizzle with the white truffle oil, and eat immediately.

Serves 3. Sort of.

We have other wild mushrooms growing where we live, and though they are bland and somewhat tasteless, they are absolutely gorgeous to behold. Called galletto (young male chicken), they look like engorged narcissi on a sunny but cool March day (only they’re burnt siena colored, not white). If you can’t find them (and you probably won’t be able to), use any sort of mixed fresh mushroom combination; texture and variety provide the visuals. (This provided the kick-off to last Sunday’s lunch; follow it up with a tasty veal stew, which we did.)

Risotto ai tre funghi /risotto with three mushrooms

¾ c. dried porcini, soaked in 1 c. nearly-boiling water
½ lb. pretty but ultimately tasteless wild mushrooms
½ lb. button mushrooms (States) or champignon (Italy), trimmed and finely diced
1 small red onion, minced
1 c. red wine
2 T. butter
1 T. extravirgin olive oil
1½ c. Arborio rice
4-5 c. mushroom or vegetable broth, warmed
White truffle oil
Chopped fresh mint (if truffle-oil-less)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Soak the porcini in hot water for at least a half hour; strain, reserving the liquid, and run the mushrooms under lukewarm water to ensure that all the grit’s gone; using cheesecloth, strain the porcini liquid and reserve. Chop the porcini, and set aside.

Melt the butter and olive oil in a wide saucepan, throw in the onions, stir until translucent. Add the button mushrooms/champignons, and stir. Add the rice, stir to coat, and throw in the wine. Stir ‘til absorbed. Add the mushroom (or vegetable broth) incrementally, stirring all the while. After a ladleful or two, throw in the dried chopped porcini. Keep stirring.

When the risotto’s nearly done (20 minutes or so after embarking on this project), throw in the pretty- but-ultimately- tasteless mushrooms. Remove from the heat, taste (add sea salt and freshly ground pepper if necessary), swirl in the truffle oil, and eat immediately.

Generously serves 3 people and 2 dogs.

Wine suggestions from Bobo: Frittata funghi porcini: Cerviolo bianco Chardonnay Toscana Igt You can drink the same white with risotto ai funghi (if you are serving it before the frittata. You don't go back to a white after a red wine) or I'd go for: Rubesco Rosso di Torgiano doc Lungarotti 2006 (I love it, Umbrian, not Tuscan, but perfect with porcini). If there's wine in the risotto, consider you are supposed to drink the same wine you put in the food.

Bobo’s right-on. Rubesco, mushrooms, Italy in the autumn: heaven.
Fans of Florence should check out this lovely blog: http://lettersfromflorence.blogspot.com
To Papaya: Victoria Stilwell could, I'm sure, straighten us all out. For those of us despairing of cayenne-loving canines (or other equally strange canine behavior), go to her official web site at positively.com.

[1] Angelo, their shepherd, brought 52 ewes, 1 ram, and a ram-in-training to graze near us in late July (pity a camera was not around when Waldo met the sheep). Ram meant to have his way with most of the ewes, perhaps inspiring the ram-in-training to follow suit. Sadly, Angelo and his wife have split up, so he’ll be tending his flock solely for meat; his wife made the fantastic, I-can-practically-taste-the-grass in my mouth cheese.
[2] Wondered why this appellation. From Wikipedia.org: 'The terms "mushroom" and "toadstool" go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. The term "toadstool" was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form. Between 1400 and 1600 A.D., the terms tadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstooles sometimes were used synonymously with mushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns.'
[3] He comes every other Friday and makes crucial deliveries of bottled water, ale, and wine.
[4] The difference between a frittata and an omelette? Elizabeth David tartly weighs in, but not on the difference: “It must be admitted that very few Italian cooks have the right touch with egg dishes. They are particularly stubborn with regard to the cooking of omelettes, insist on frying them in oil, and use far too much of the filling, whether it is ham, cheese, onions, tomatoes, or spinach, in proportion to the number of eggs, and in consequence produce a leathery egg pudding rather than an omelette.” (Italian Food, 1954.) Alan Davidson, the Go-to-Guy (much as Larry Bird was for the Celtics in the 1980s): “a French word which came into currency in the mid-16th century but had been preceded by other forms, e.g. alumelle, which are littered along a trail leading all the way from the Latin lamella, ‘small thin plate’, suggesting something thin and round.” Well, that appellation fits both omelette and frittata. Lest we think that the bastardized spelling of omelette to omelet is a 20th/21st century idea, we should think again. Davidson, one more time: “Cotgrave, in his dictionary of 1611, recorded its arrival in England in this entry: ‘Haumelotte: f. An Omelet, or Pancake of egges.” As usual, with things culinary, it looks as if we can credit ancient Persia for this dish. The frittata does not enter into his “omelette” entry, nor does it merit an entry of its own. (Oxford Companion to Food, New York, 1999.)