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 ).

sabato 27 marzo 2010

Miss Daisy

Cousin Daisy died yesterday while undergoing surgery to remove an eye, which had long been troubling her. She was fourteen. Cousin Daisy was a most marvelous pug, sweet, and charmingly cantankerous in her later years. She was always obstinate. Though she hailed from Staten Island, she had a most Manhattan aura about her.

When she was younger and more mobile, Daisy’s idea of a good time was to wake you up by putting her tongue in your ear (when the Italian Scallion put his tongue in her ear in retaliation, she didn’t much enjoy it). She liked to make mad dashes out of doors, particularly onto two-lane highways in upstate New York. She thoroughly enjoyed her time at the dog run in Washington Square Park, and was recalcitrant when it came time to leave: once, there were four us of trying to round her up; we held a competition to see who could do it the fastest. The Italian Scallion’s brother won in record time (4 seconds; for the rest of us, it was close to a minute).

She was the bane of Tillie’s existence. Though one could argue that pugs are butt ugly, Daisy always attracted more attention when the two were out in society together (Tillie became the big-boned, buck-toothed sister, the wallflower at the party).

Tillie had this to say about Cousin Daisy in her sadly unpublished-during-her-life-time memoirs: “ … [she] absolutely adores fegatini. She has inflicted herself on me four times since I have been living here. She is the bane of my existence, and inescapable. She is from New York and has lots of attitude, a big designer wardrobe including several winter sweaters, a raincoat, and boots, and she is spoiled rotten. Whenever we are out together, everyone always pays attention to her and ignores me. It’s one of those cases that, since we’re family, we’re supposed to like one another. Well, she might like me, but I have very little use for her. When she was younger, she used to be ok as a puppy playmates went, but now she is merely a thorn in my side. Two things bug me about her: she gets to ride inside the airplane whenever she travels, and she’s small enough to fit in people’s laps. Maybe I am a lapdog wannabe.”

“Carlino” is Italian for pug (don’t ask me why, as it means Little Charles). Italians would ask my sister what Daisy’s name was, and Kerry would say, “Daisy” and they would not understand. “Margherita” she would then offer which is, of course, Italian for Daisy.

Daisy never came when called. She always enjoyed Asian food, particularly Chinese. One time, when Kerry and Daisy were visiting Florence, we decided to go to one of Florence’s better Chinese restaurants. We called to see if we could bring a dog (many restaurants allow dogs to dine with their people). “You’ll have to speak to the chef," they said. We think they thought that we wanted to add this to our menu.

Daisy was well traveled; she came to Italy many, many times (she continued to visit after Tillie died in 2004).[1] Her first visit was in February 1997, and though she took in the sites (there was a memorable trip to Piazza Santissima Annunziata), she took in more food. My sister loved fegatini, and decided to introduce both pups to it. Who, naturally, took to it like a house on fire. During Daisy’s first visit, my sister regularly bought store-made fegatini and fed it to them, liberally.

Fegatini is classic Tuscan cuisine. You make the spread, and then you toast that saltless bread, rub a clove of garlic over it, and then lather it on. There are two schools of thought: creamy or chunky. Both are good: Fabio Picchi, at Cibreo, serves the best creamy version in town. The folks at La Giostra serve the best chunky version in town. Below is a variation on La Giostra’s recipe.

This one’s for you, Puggles.

Crostini di fegatini
Chicken liver spread

3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 lbs. chicken livers, cleaned and trimmed
Dash of extravirgin olive oil
¼ lb. butter
One glass of red-wine vinegar (have a bottle on hand)
1/3 c. red wine
1 bay leaf
3 juniper berries
½ c. red-wine vinegar
1 onion, finely minced
1 carrot, finely minced
1 celery rib, finely minced
A generous ladleful of chicken stock (a scant cup)
A half glass vin santo (about a ½ c.)
2-3 T. high-quality balsamic vinegar
One small jar of capers, with their brine (chop the capers)
1 tube anchovy paste
Saltless Italian bread or a baguette, for toasting

Place the olive oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and let melt. Add 3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped. Do not brown the garlic.

Add the whole chicken livers and cook over high heat. Add the bay leaf, juniper berries, and glass of red wine vinegar. Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

When most of the liquid has evaporated from the pan, add the glass of red wine, let bubble and reduce. Once done, remove the pan from the heat and let cool. Do not chop the liver when it is hot, as it becomes mush. Put the liver mixture in a bowl and reserve.

In the same pan (unrinsed), put a quarter glass of extravirgin olive oil. Mince the carrot, celery, and onion, and add to the pan. If necessary, add a little red wine vinegar to the pan to deglaze it. Dribble the liquid from the cooling liver into the pan. Add another generous dollop of red wine vinegar.

Coarsely chop the cooled liver (remove the juniper berries and bay leaf), and add to the pan once the vegetables are softened. If any liquid from the pre-chopped liver remains, add that to the pan as well. Add one generous ladleful of stock, a half glass of vin santo , and cook slowly over a low flame. Add the jar of capers with their brine to the mixture, and the tube of anchovy paste. Stir vigorously. Let the liquid evaporate, and remove from the pan.

Just before serving (preferably almost immediately upon removing the pan from the flame), add two to three tablespoons of high-quality balsamic vinegar, stir quickly.

Take the Italian loaf, or the baguette, slice, and toast it. You can, if you wish, drizzle a little olive oil on the toast, but it isn’t necessary. Generously lather on the liver spread, eat, and make sure to share with dogs.

Terracotta Sculptress says that one of life’s greatest tragedies is that dogs don’t live as long as we do. She’s right.

When Tillie died, we pictured her as chasing cheeseburgers in the sky. Not our Daisy: I’m sure she’s sitting around, waiting for someone some saint eternally serving her crostini di fegatini.

Daisy Dog
December 12, 1996-March 26, 2010

[1] She summered in the south of France with Waldo, who was then a pup, and admirably tolerated his obnoxiousness. She went to Mexico a couple of times; she also became well acquainted with various states, including Virginia and North Carolina. She was especially fond of Maine – had a great liking for mussel shells.

martedì 23 marzo 2010

Heaps o' Green


It’s known in some parts (mostly the Anglophone world, it seems) as “Roman vegetable stew,” as vignole or vignarola in Rome, as garmugia in and around Lucca. It celebrates spring’s first green offerings: peas, fava beans,[1] artichokes, spring onions, asparagus. It’s a business to make, but ultimately it’s worth peeling every one of those darned beans.

Odd that it’s called Roman, as most food historians say it hails from Lucca; the late Marchesa Maria Luisa Lotteringhi della Stufa dates the dish to the 16th century, and calls it a springtime dish for the illing, or for those who are recovering.[2] . In an ideal world, you’d cook this marvelous soup the way they did back then – on a grill, on a low, low flame.

[Is it called Roman vegetable stew because Anglophone food writers sampled it in Rome, and then wrote about it? Check out, among others, Jamie Oliver’s recipe at http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes/spring-vegetable-stew-vignole. The recipe appears in none of my multitudinous cookbooks, either in Italian or in English. Perhaps the addition of lettuce makes it Roman? Lettuce is not an ingredient in the Lucchese version. The two versions could descend from a common ancestor-dish. Their ingredients are all old-world, the variations could date back to Lombard, Visigoth, or Roman and Etruscan times.]

It’s a “fleeting” soup because the window of opportunity to make it, when all of these vegetables are at their peak, is narrow. My friend the Terracotta Sculptress makes this only once or twice a year because, as she says, “ each veggie has to be perfect and babyish, and it takes some time to prepare, especially since I insist on removing the skin of every fava, no matter how small.” She discovered the recipe in Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan, and adds: “Ugly to look at, but so worth it. I am eating my third helping as I type …”[3] She also goes on about Ms. Hazan’s recipe: “[She] says to add lettuce with other veggies, but it gets overcooked and she can be really irritating at times, damnit.).” Marcella Hazan refers to this recipe as a “casserole.” It certainly is not soupy.

Terracotta Sculptress makes hers as follows, based muchly on M. Hazan: Saute 2-3 thinly sliced new onions in olive oil and salt until translucent. Add 5 or more sliced artichokes, 2 cups fresh peas, 2 cups just-peeled favas. Cover, on low flame until about halfway tender then add--Big head of romaine or Cos lettuce, shredded. Keep covered and low until done.

She then usually adds a little mint, parsley and lemon juice, but just enough to not notice them. This is a most stew-like spring vegetable soup, as broth is not present.

They do a swell bowl of garmugia at the Buca di San Antonio in Lucca (actually, everything they do there is swell). Here’s an adaptation of theirs (from Intervista alla Buca di Sant’Antonio, Lucca, 2001). They do theirs with ground veal; I’ve opted for ground chicken. The addition of pea shoots is completely unorthodox, but why not?

This is soupier. Best prepared at the absolute last minute, and best eaten immediately. Otherwise, it really becomes, as Terracotta Sculptress says, ugly to look at. Spring green turns to gray mush, fast.

Garmugia

4 spring onions, chopped (or one small red onion, equally chopped)
3 slices pancetta (or unsmoked bacon)
2 artichokes
Juice of one lemon
½ c. freshly shelled peas
½ c. fava beans (from, sadly, about two pounds of pods)
Asparagus tips from one bunch of asparagus
4 c. chicken stock
¼ lb. ground chicken
2 pieces of crusty (preferably Italian) bread
Extravirgin olive oil
Sea salt and a pinch or two of ground white pepper, to taste
Two nice handfuls of pea shoots, garnish

Prepare all the vegetables before starting to cook: chop the onions, shell the peas, trim the artichokes (and then slice them into pieces about ½” wide, dumping them into lemon-filled water), pod the fava making sure to peel the outer skin (a pain in the neck, but well worth it: they are sweeter, and lose their metallic edge if you take the time and trouble to do so), clip the asparagus tips (reserving the rest for a tasty, purèed soup).

Lightly toast the bread.

Put a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a deep saucepan. Add the chopped onions and pancetta; cook on a medium flame. When golden, add the ground chicken, stirring religiously. When it’s cooked through (in about 5 minutes), add all the vegetables, give them a stir, and then add the chicken broth. Bring to a light boil, turn flame to low. Cook for 5-10 minutes, until the vegetables are just done.

Place the toasted bread in each of two soup bowls, ladle the garmugia on top, add a pinch of sea salt and white pepper, drizzle a little olive oil on top, and garnish with pea shoots.

Serves two, who eat this immediately.If you couldn’t be bothered, and are in Lucca, have a bowl at the Buca di San Antonio, via della Cervia 3, 0583/55881

[1] Florentines do not refer to this delicacy as fava, as most of the rest of the world does. Why? Because “fava” is nasty slang referring to homosexuals. I say. Italian Scallion says that “fava” refers to a part of the male anatomy. We are in discord. At any rate, they’re called “baccelli” in Florence. We both invite corrections.
[2] http://www.emmeti.it/Cucina/Toscana/Prodotti/Toscana.PRO.98.it.html. For more on the Marchesa, click on http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1072036/index.htm.
[3] Marcella Hazan, Marcella Cucina, New York, 1997.

Happy Birthday, Akira Kurosawa.

sabato 20 marzo 2010

Consider the Artichoke


“Artichokes … are just plain annoying … After all the trouble you go to, you get as much actual “food” out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking thirty or forty postage stamps. Have the shrimp cocktail instead.” So said Miss Piggy.[1] Artichokes provide an equal source of amusement for the terrifically funny punsters who note at http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Artichoke[2] : “Artichoke is the extremely dangerous physical condition of museum induced asphyxiation.”

We should praise that forward-thinking North African (for this is where the artichoke originates, or maybe it doesn’t: some think a Sicilian first braved this spiny creation) for thinking to eat this thistle (we should also wonder what led him or her to do so).[3] The artichoke’s first documented mention in the Western world occurs in Florence, in 1466, when it made its way from Naples.[4] Supposedly Filippo Strozzi, card-carrying member of the Florentine upper crust, brought it home from Naples, where he was busy supervising the machinations of his family’s bank.[5]

(Why eat thistles, which is what we eat when we eat an artichoke? Who knows. Aesop’s ass did it.[6] If you don’t know how to, check this out: http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-eat-thistles)

At any rate, artichokes were all the rage in Florence; we have letters from 16th century Medici thanking various cronies for sending them from far away: in 1548, Cosimo I thanks his agent in Genoa on behalf of his wife Eleonora di Toledo, who quite liked artichokes from those parts, and probably wanted more; evidently, this yen continued, as we have another letter from 1551 alluding to her great pleasure in this Genoese foodstuff. Love for this thistle ran in the family, as granddaughter Marie, married to Henry IV of France, wrote to thank her father for a gift of artichokes and duck (presumably and hopefully not to be had together in the same dish).[7]

Lulu, who embodies “omnivore,” eagerly lapped up the artichoke drippings falling from the cutting board. A quick google survey reveals that people eat artichokes because they are high in fiber and low in calories. Hm. What say you, Miss Piggy?

Risotto ai carciofi/Artichoke risotto

4 globe artichokes
Juice from one lemon
1 T. unsalted butter
1 T. extravirgin olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 c. white wine
3-4 c. vegetable stock or mushroom stock
3/4 c. Arborio rice
Juice from one lemon, again
2 T. coriander seeds
½ c. grated Pecorino Romano cheese
½ c. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Fill a bowl with water, juice the lemon, add to the bowl, and throw in the two lemon halves for good measure (this nominally ensures that they artichokes don’t blacken, but only nominally). Trim the artichokes by cutting off the stalk, then pull off the particularly spiny leaves which are, apparently, called bracts. Take a good, well-sharpened knife and cut away the top half, more or less, of the artichoke. (Throw that part in your compost pile.) Remove the leaves until you get to the yellow, slightly striated-with-purple part. Quarter the artichokes and, using a teaspoon, remove the hairy choke. Immediately put the denuded artichoke into the lemon juice water, and continue with the remaining artichokes.

In a large, heavy saucepan, melt the butter with the olive oil over a low-medium flame. Add the onion and let cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden. In the meantime, put the vegetable broth into a saucepan, and bring to a nice, steady heat.

Drain the artichokes, and make the quarters eighths (i.e., chop them in half). Add them to the onions, and stir for a few minutes, then add the rice. Stir frequently, for a minute or two, to coat them with the oil/butter. Splash in the wine, stirring continuously. Once it’s evaporated, ladle some of the vegetable broth, and stir occasionally. Continue this procedure until the risotto is done (about 18-20 minutes).

In the meantime, while you are desultorily stirring your risotto, take the two tablespoons of coriander seeds, place them in a small saucepan, and toast ‘til fragrant (this happens in less than a minute). Immediately remove them from the flame, and mortar and pestle them (or whizz them in a spice or coffee blender … but if you do that, make sure that you don’t whiz them into nothingness; they should be slightly chunky). Reserve.

Just before you think the risotto’s ready, toss in the Pecorino Romano cheese (which you've already grated), grind some black pepper and a pinch of sea salt, and mix it all up. After a minute or so, remove from the heat, and fold in the toasted ground coriander seeds and the juice from that second lemon. Scatter the chopped parsley on top, and eat immediately, with extra Pecorino-Romano cheese for grating waiting on the table.

Serves two, more than generously, and gives at least a soupcon to each Stooge.

[1] She never tried cardoons, notes the Italian Scallion.
[2] The Italian Scallion wonders if this idea extends to art history classes and lectures?
[3] Alan Davidson remarks that there’s some uncertainty about its origins, as some believe in the School of Sicily. He offers words of support to folk such as Miss Piggy:”The eater must be equipped with front teeth and patience.” See his artichoke entry in the Oxford Companion to Food, New York, 1999.
[4] See above.
[5] What’s interesting is that Florence was on the brink of civil war in that very same year. Luca Pitti challenged Piero di Cosimo il Vecchio for supremacy of the city; a peace deal was brokered by offering up Francesca Pitti, Luca’s daughter, as matrimonial bounty/booty to a Medici insider (i.e., Piero’s brother-in-law Giovanni Tornabuoni): imagine her walking down the aisle (they didn’t, then, but still) with a bouquet of artichokes). For a candid and concise account of this event, please see John M. Najemy’s History of Florence (London, 2006), pp. 298-.307
[6] Hopefully, s/he ate a raw artichoke (eminently pleasurable) as opposed to a raw cardoon(eminently not). The ass’s story may be found at http://www.litscape.com/.
[7] For more details, go to http://www.medici.org/.

sabato 13 marzo 2010

Pauline at the Baths


A couple of weekends ago, we decided to leave the Three Stooges with Zoe’s Mom and Aunt Betsy and take the waters in Bagni di Lucca. Zoe’s Mom is eminently trustworthy and wonderful; Aunt Betsy, equally wonderful and trustworthy, lived briefly with Tillie a hundred years ago.

Bagni di Lucca, a sleepy town running along the narrow valley of the Lima river 17 miles north of Lucca, has hot thermal waters. The ancient Romans put it on the map; allegedly Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus sat in the grotto (or, perhaps, swam; it’s unclear) after agreeing to form the Triumvirate in 56 B.C. Following the Barbarian invasions people left the valleys for the safer hills. It wasn’t until Countess Matilda of Canossa (c. 1046-1115) built the nearby “Devil’s Bridge” to allow people to come to the waters that bathing resumed. She also left money for a pool for the indigent to benefit from the curative powers of the waters. Those who have taken these waters read like a Who Was Who: Frederick II (enlightened 13th century King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor), Castruccio Castracani (14th century lord of Lucca), Franco Sacchetti (writer, a contemporary of Boccaccio’s), countless Gonzaga, d’Este, a handful of Medici – all princely ruling families during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Montaigne visited twice in 1581 seeking relief from kidney stones, and wrote about it in a diary.

It’s in the 19th century when the place really becomes the East Hampton of its time: Josephine Beauharnais (Mrs. Napoleon Bonaparte), Pauline Bonaparte (sister of), Elizabeth Barrett Browning with her husband Robert, Lord Bryon, Charles Montesquieu, Heinrich Heine, Franz Liszt, Niccolò Paganini, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Johann Strauss, countless European major and minor royalty, even a north African in the personage of the Viceroy of Egypt (Mehemet) -- to name drop just a few -- came to sit/swim. This was helped by the fact that gambling was allowed here. The Casino opened in 1839; gambling had been allowed on and off since the 1300s as a way to finance the baths and provide for the visiting indigent.

The place plunged in popularity in those years leading up to World War II.[1] Now it rests on its laurels, and attracts young couples, families, and budgeteers. People decidedly not famous. Here it’s possible to have a spa experience and not break the bank.

We stayed at Antico Albergo Terme (http://www.bagnidilucca.it/) , a simple, no-frills three-star hotel positioned directly above and over those grottoes, one of which is known as la Grotta di Paolina (Pauline’s grotto). Pauline Bonaparte came frequently to Bagni di Lucca to take the waters, and sat (or swam) often in one of the caves. She suffered from gynecological problems, and it was thought that these waters had – like most waters – a salubrious effect. If it helped her, we’ll never know. We do know that she never had more children.

The very colorful Pauline Bonaparte (1780—1825) spent a lot of time in this part of the world. She was, they said, very beautiful, uneducated, and wanton in her ways (two husbands, countless lovers – including, some suspect, her very own brother Napoleon).[2] She was his only sibling to follow him into “exile” in Elba (scare quotes, as being exiled in Elba could only mean Heaven). There, locals say, she liked to swim naked in the water (there’s a lovely beach in Elba called “Paolina” with a little beach hut serving wonderful salads).Thought of her as we sat sweating in her cave.

Afterwards, we dined in the hotel’s cozy little dining room, with all the coupled youngsters in love, elderly couples who had, over the decades, made love a habit, and other budgeteers. Highly audibly present was Sofia, a six-month old miniature pinscher from Genoa. That night, we were served a regional specialty, a simple yet delicious soup of farro and lentils. (Farro, Emmer wheat, was Republican Rome’s staple grain until Sicily’s wheat fields were conquered. We can suppose that the Triumvirate or, perhaps, the less exalted members of its entourage would have eaten the stuff back in 56 B.C.)

The following morning, Sofia was at the breakfast table yapping up a storm (“Does she yap like that often?” I asked her person. “Only when she’s around people,” was the response. Looks to me like Sofia’s going to be doing a lot of time in solitary.)

One of the hotel staff came over and told Sofia that she was annoying others, and would have to leave the breakfast room. After the staffer was out of earshot, her person said, “Why is it ok if babies cry, but dogs can’t bark?”

Here’s a variation on that soup theme.

Minestra di farro e cannellini (Bean and farro soup)

For the beans:

2 lbs. dried cannellini beans
Small handful fresh sage
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, finely minced
1 celery rib, finely minced

For the soup:

4 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Handful of fresh sage
1 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 red onion, chopped
2 vegetable bouillon cubes or 1 c. broth (chicken or vegetable)
¾ lb. farro (a.k.a. Emmer wheat)

Put the dried cannellini in a bowl, cover with water, and let rest at least four hours, or overnight. Put the cannellini, with its soaking liquid, into a large pot. Add the sage, onion, garlic, carrot, and celery, and cook on a really low flame. Stir occasionally. Cooking time is about 45 minutes or slightly more.

In a terracotta pot, heat the olive oil, and add the garlic, sage, and ½ the rosemary sprig. Cook on a low flame for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Then add the chopped red onion, and continue to cook, continuing to stir constantly, for another 10 minutes.
Return to the beans. Remove the sage, and then purèe the mixture either in a food processor (hit “pulse”) or, better yet, a food mill. Add this pulse to the terracotta pot, and cook for about a ½ hour, stirring somewhat frequently. Then add the bouillon cubes (or broth), the farro, stir frequently, and cook until it’s done (at least a half hour). Take the remaining sprig of rosemary, and chop the leaves. Strew over the soup just before eating.

Serves a whole lot of people, dogs included.
The portrait of Pauline Bonaparte is by Robert Lefèvre (1755-1830). You might want to check out her most famous portrait at http://www.galleriaborghese.it/.

Dogs detecting bedbugs, who knew? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/garden/11bedbug.html?pagewanted=3&8dpc

[1] Nobel Prize poet Eugenio Montale wrote a lovely poem called “Bagni di Lucca.” It begins: “Fra il tonfo dei marroni/e il gemito del torrente/che uniscono i loro suoni/èsita il cuore. (Amid the blended/sounds of chestnuts thudding/and the stream that moans/the heart hesitates.”)Collected Poems 1920-1954, revised, translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi, New York, 2000.
[2] See Flora Fraser’s Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire, New York, 2009. It’s a well-written read about a highly vacuous woman. She doesn’t mention Pauline skinny-dipping in Elba.

martedì 9 marzo 2010

Comfort Food

This past Sunday was sunny and glorious. We had aperitivi outside, the dogs ran wild (except for Harry, who runs so wild he runs away; he was firmly leashed and in Samantha’s hands). The Italian Scallion pruned the apricot tree just outside our door; we put branches of it in a vase, and put it in the bathroom.

Today it is bitterly cold. Winds gusted through the night; you could hear the cypresses moaning. This morning, high humidity and the occasional snowflake. This afternoon it’s even colder and more miserable. I hear it is sunny and 60°F in New York. But it’s not here, so tonight’s dinner calls for comfort food. We always find it in spaghetti aglio e olio.

Waldo loves pasta, particularly any uncooked shape. He loves crunching on it. He loves crunching on things. We discovered this during his early months when we were in the south of France. We rented a small house with a garden, and the garden was full of snails. He was about three months old, and found great pleasure in eating them au naturel. He was in France, he reasoned, so why not enjoy some local fare?[1]

Waldo is sometimes humble, and he was most inexpensive. (Indeed, he was free.) He was born to a somewhat promiscuous mother named Leila. She was less than three years old, and Waldo's litter was her second. Leila roams the countryside in Galluzzo, a pretty suburb south of Florence. She has a sunny character, a rodent-like aspect to her muzzle, and her coat is a creamy tan.

All of her children were born black sometime in May 2005, some with little white markings. Clearly they take after their father. Waldo (see picture) is a mishmash of a pup. His tail sticks straight up, then curves over his back, a periscope gone awry. He is very silly, and loves to chase his tail, particularly after dinner.

Spaghetti aglio/olio, like Waldo, is a most humble, most inexpensive dish. Four basic ingredients are required: spaghetti, extra-virgin olive oil, hot peppers, and garlic. We mince the garlic; most slice it thinly. [2]We also add a lot of other stuff to it. What elevates this from something very tasty to something sublime is the addition of a beef bouillon cube (or a chicken cube, or a vegetarian cube … but it absolutely tastes best with a Knorr beef cube).

You could drink a simple, young red wine with this and still taste it; il Cucchiaio d’Argento suggests either Gavi or Frascati, both light white wines that easily induce headaches the next day. This dish goes really well with beer or ale (like Ceres) which also helps cut the heat from the peppers.

Samantha’s Spaghetti aglio-olio-peperoncini-dado di carne
Or Poor Noble Giovanni’s Spaghetti

200 gr. spaghetti
3 T. extra-virgin olive oil
8 garlic cloves, minced
2 hot peppers such as jalapeno or cayenne (or more, or less, to taste)
Handful of flat-leaf parsley, minced
1 beef bouillon cube, preferably Knorr[3]

Fill a big pot with water about two-thirds up, and bring to a boil.

the meantime, peel and mince the garlic; stem and chop the peppers. (If you have a mezzaluna, mince the garlic and peppers together.) Stem the parsley, coarsely chop, and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan, then add the garlic/hot peppers. Salt the water (with kosher salt if possible), toss the spaghetti into the big pot, and cook according to package instructions.

Take ¼ c. of the pasta cooking liquid, and add to the sauce pan. Add the bouillon cube, mash up. Once it’s melted, remove from the heat or let it reduce to your liking.

Drain the spaghetti, put it in a bowl, add the sauce pan mixture, the parsley, and stir vigorously. The garlic usually sinks to the bottom of the bowl, so either stir from the bottom up, or serve yourself last. That way you get most of it.

Serves two. Dogs would love this, but there are never, ever any leftovers.

Variations: add crushed green peppercorns (in brine); add a couple tablespoons capers; use coriander instead of parsley.

Oh, my, what an image this conjures up: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/03/future-princess-kate-middleton-is-not-above-rooting-around-for-the-pearl-studs-her-cocker-spaniel-injested.html

[1] Unfortunately, he shed this habit upon our return. Highly unfortunate. Snails rule our garden, and all efforts – beer traps, surrounding plants with ashes from the wood-burning stove, hand-picking them – to keep them at bay have been an abject failure.
[2] Il Cucchiaio Argento/Silver Spoon, (Milan, 1997), Simon Hopkinson (in his lovely Vegetarian Option (London, 2009)) and the Joy of Cooking (New York, 1997) suggest slicing it).
[3] For those of you who scoff at using such a product, Marco Pierre White doesn’t – or, at least, not publicly. He features prominently on a new Knorr launch here in Italy – in this case, semi-solid vegetable broth cubes. The TV ad shows him deftly slicing vegetables, then adding one of the cubes, and inhaling profoundly. The next scene shows him serving the dish to a handful of children, all of whom look thrilled (Thrilled children and vegetables? What's wrong with that picture? If you have children, demand that your grocer stock this product, and soon.) And Anthony Bourdain, in his eye-opening Kitchen Confidential (New York, 2007 reprint), freely admitted that he used them while at C.I.A.

sabato 6 marzo 2010

Drooling Retriever I

She’s properly called Tallulah, but she comes (sometimes) when we yell “Lulu!” She’s four-years old and is supposed to be a golden retriever. Like the Holy Roman Empire (neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire), she is neither golden nor a retriever, since she doesn’t retrieve (except when the Italian Scallion returns home from a hard day’s work at which point she’ll pick up any shoe at random and parade around the house). She’s white, abhors water (except if it’s in her bowl), and disdains birds. Except, of course, when she’s barking at the many pigeons who occupy too many of the buildings around where she lives. And surely that must go against the breed which – if memory serves – is meant to wait patiently and quietly while a gunshot takes out a fowl from the sky; said fowl then falls into water whereupon a true retriever retrieves, gently, with a light clench so as not to crush the newly-dead bird.

Lulu prefers chasing deer. That is, until they were all gone from the woods (through no fault of her own). She is a Scottish deerhound masquerading as a golden retriever.

Lulu, a Libran, was born in October 2005 in Greve in Chianti, just south of Florence. She can lay claim to being Florentine (oh-so-important in this part of the world). Her titled mother Millie produced nine others but Lulu, it appears, was always Top Dog (equally titled pa retired from the scene after having done the deed in Arezzo some weeks before). Once the pups were weaned, Lulu possessed the remarkable ability to inhale her food, and then proceed to the bowls of her siblings, who acknowledged her queenly status and gave way. When she came to us in December, just before Christmas, she was a butterball of retriever-ness.

In the past almost five years, thanks to the Baden-Powell regimen largely due to the Italian Scallion (who, it should be noted, is one-quarter English), she has slimmed down because of obligatory runs in the woods, food monitoring (my doing), and the fact that Waldo (who eats just about as quickly) and Harry (who doesn’t) will not let her near their bowls.

Tripe is popular in Italy, especially in and around Florence. It’s sold in markets, in grocery stores. It’s sold in cans for people (before feeding some to the Three Stooges, I sampled some, and it wasn’t bad at all) who, I suppose, can’t be bothered with the tricky business of cleaning it, soaking it, cooking it. If you go to a pet shop anywhere in Florence, or in Livorno, aisles teem with cans of less-good tripe for pups.

What is tripe? If one could call this food “niche,” it would certainly be that. It’s bovine stomach lining, it’s cucina povera (poor people’s cooking). It’s an acquired taste.[1] The Gourmet Cookbook (New York, 2004) has a lovely description of the product – check it out if you have it, and just one recipe (trippa alla romana). The penultimate re-do of Joy of Cooking (1997) contains zero tripe recipes; its predecessor (1931, and republished/reprinted countless times) has three recipes.[2]

Our pups, like pups world-wide, are omnivores (though if one could describe a dog as a picky eater, think Harry). They usually eat dried kibble tossed with a tablespoon of sunflower oil. Often we enliven the dried kibble with wet (canned) dog food, or a bit of meat, or fatiguing leftovers in the refrigerator (or what’s about to go off such as tonight’s supplement, a Greek fava bean stew). The Three Stooges thrill to the Enlivenment.

The other day said Enlivenment came in the form of canned (for people) tripe. Pups waited patiently at their dining stations. Cracked open the can. Looked over at Lulu. Acute sense of smell, or simple lover of canned goods? Who knows … but she was drooling. Really, truly drooling. Totally unbecoming. Would have pretended not to know her had we been out in public, but we weren’t. In fact, the four of us were all alone in a country kitchen in Tuscany. No one could have seen my tears of … um … relish?

Years ago, my sister Kerry (the very same who scoffs at tripe) likened golden retrievers to Christie Brinkley. Tall, blonde, gorgeous (perhaps boring was implied, but I am not sure). Kerry pointed out that retrievers dominate the packaging in most pet food aisles. They – and their very near cousin the Labrador retriever – certainly overwhelm the L.L. Bean catalogue (http://www.llbean.com/). (When they put a mutt on one of their lovely dog beds, I will do … I’m not sure what.) Goldens are beautiful, well-tempered, dogs, and perhaps the cutest puppies in the world. You tend to think of them – well, at least, I do – as elegant, classic, and perfect dogs for children. You don’t tend to think of them – well, at least I don’t – as droolers.

This led me to Elvis Presley, and “Hound Dog” and those immortal lines, “When they said you was high classed/Well that was just a lie.”[3] This could be Lulu’s theme song. Re-do the lyrics to include drool somewhere.

Here’s a tripe recipe to please even those who refuse to eat tripe. It’s adapted from a slim, wonderful volume called “La povera nobilità della trippa”/The penniless nobility of tripe (Lucca, 2000) by Laura Rangoni.

Trippa alla falsica

1/2 lb. minced pork
½ lb. canned tomatoes
4 tasty pork sausages (with hot pepper, if you want some spice)
1 onion
2 celery stalks
2 carrots
1 good-sized glass of Chianti
1 equally sized glass of top-notch extra-virgin olive oil
¼ lb. of Pecorino, grated (if in the States, you’ll probably have to use Pecorino Romano, which isn’t Tuscan at all but, in fact, Roman)
A handful of fresh thyme and rosemary
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¾ lb. tripe, optional

According to Laura Rangoni, the name of this dish, originally from the Maremma (southern Tuscany), derives from the Latin venter faliscus.

She suggests that you finely dice the vegetables, and let them cook for about a half an hour, then add the sausage (taken from its casing), add the wine and let it evaporate. Then you throw in the other ingredients, turn the flame low, and let the mixture cook for a couple of hours. Serve it up, and drizzle it with extra-virgin olive oil.

The Italian Scallion made this lovely dish a couple of Sundays ago with tripe. You don’t have to.

But yeah: we’re gonna keep feedin’ more. To the dogs, that is.

[1] As my sister argues. However, a Google search, in English, for tripe recipes revealed 49,500,000 hits.
[2] Fried, à la mode [de] Caen (involves calves’ feet, suet, Calvados, and soothing baked potatoes), and Spanish (distinguished by the addition of diced green pepper, minced ham, and mushrooms). Wondering about this, I checked out tripe listings in 1080 Recipes (Phaidon, couldn’t find the year of publication anywhere, but rather recent English translation), the Spanish Joy of Cooking. Two recipes: one, in French sauce (differentiated from à la mode de Caen by the addition of a pig’s snout; the French sauce is a basic béchamel but made with beef stock, then egg yolks and lemon juice are added); the Madrid-style recipe includes pig’s snout, calf or ox foot, and chorizo and andouille sausages).
[3] http://www.lyricsfreak.com/. What’s pretty puzzling is that the original song, recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1952, is clearly about a man coming ‘round sniffing at the singer’s door (“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog/Been snoopin’ round the door … You can wag your tail/But I ain’t gonna feed you more” (http://lyrics.wikia.com/). No mention of catching rabbits and friendship. Perhaps it would have been tricky for 1950s Elvis to sing about men snoopin’ round his door. Wouldn’t a Rufus Wainwright or Adam Lambert cover be swell?

martedì 2 marzo 2010

Hosteria il Carroccio, Siena

She presides over her small, intimate dining room, carefully surveying all she sees. She sits herself between the even smaller kitchen and her guests. Quietly unobtrusive, her name is Leila, and she is a six-year old tan and white Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

(For those of you who might wonder, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is a different breed from the King Charles Spaniel. The former has only been recognized as a breed since 1945; the latter has had ties with various aristocrats for centuries. Mary Queen of Scots adored the breed, and lived with them most of her life; apparently one of them stood faithfully by her side as she went to the scaffold.)(Check out http://www.cavaliers.co.uk/, or The American Kennel Club’s Complete Dog Book of 1970.)

Leila shares her life, and her restaurant, with Renata Toppi, who has run this little eatery since 1990. If you find yourself in Siena in or near Piazza del Campo, and you’re hungry around lunch or dinner time, you’re a stone’s throw away from having a terrific meal. Forget the curmudgeonly Waverly Root’s (1903-1992) assertion that “It is curious that Siena has so little to offer of its own apart from general Tuscan dishes” (The Food of Italy, 1971). He was wrong.

The creative menu proposes dishes with combinations you won’t find anywhere else. Written on it is “Our dishes may contain spices.” And indeed they do. Herbs and spices which appear infrequently in typical Italian cuisine turn up here, like tarragon (in a risotto with artichokes, zucchini, and sundried tomatoes). The cipollata del contadino (the farmer’s onion soup) comes with grated orange zest. Here they mix up the typical Tuscan crostini con fegatini (chicken liver spread on toasted bread) and turn it into a salad with vin santo (literally, “holy wine” – a sweet, usually-but-not-always dessert wine). The menu lists “crostini neri di milza,” a Sienese specialty, and adds a rhyme: “dalla bontà ci si rizza.” (Its goodness makes you come to attention.)

Crostini neri di milza much resembles Tuscany’s famous chicken liver spread; in Siena, they make it with veal spleen (this might sound disgusting, but it really, truly isn’t). The recipe uses the same ingredients as the chicken liver spread (butter, olive oil, dry white wine, anchovies, capers, broth) but substitutes spleen for liver. (Unless you are lucky enough to date, be married to, or be a butcher yourself, finding this organ meat in the United States is extremely tricky. If you have a good butcher connection, there’s a recipe at http://www.ilgreppo.it/; if you don’t, all the more reason to sample Renata’s.)

A horde of us descended on the place a couple of Saturdays ago, and had the most delicious time. Though the menu changes frequently, almost always on it is the decadently delectable palline di pecorino con lardo e salsa di pere, translating to “ewe’s milk cheese balls with lard and pear sauce.” These succulent cheese concoctions, wrapped in lardo, are run under the broiler. Pecorino pairs beautifully with pears, and pairs even better when it’s melted. Though we shared most dishes, two of us who ordered this dish were somewhat reluctant to do so.

(A word about lardo. Do not think Crisco. Think, instead, of an aged pork product cured in caves, adorned with herbs – usually rosemary; think of it the way you would think of raw oysters on the half shell, or a tin of caviar just in from Russia, or any other Special Occasion Food. Remember that Michelangelo used to eat it when he quarried his marble up above Carrara, that his wonderful David, any of his Pietà, and maybe even the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were fuelled by lard.)(In the United States, it’s euphemistically called “white prosciutto.” Call it what it is: lard.)

The primi (first courses) include typical Tuscan dishes, like ribollita, and a Sienese pasta mainstay, pici (a thick, long noodle found in Siena and south of it). In this case, though, it’s made more lively than the usual ways (garlic, bread crumbs, typically) and sauced with mushrooms, ham, ricotta, and onion. Those who ordered it, while offering to share, were notably silent during this course, as they were too busy eating.

A fragrant green olive and zucchini sauce flavors the striscioline di petto d’anatra (slightly rare duck breast strips). (Le mangiavano le dive/Divas ate them, advises the menu). You don’t often find duck on Tuscan menus, unless you’re in the Mugello, an area north of Florence, whose signature ravioli stuffed with potatoes is sometimes sauced with a minced duck ragù.)

Desserts, like the primi, are typical Tuscan (cantuccini con vin santo/almond biscotti served with a glass of holy wine) and typical Sienese (ricciarelli con vin santo – almond cookies served with holy wine) as well as a torta mascarpone e nutella (mascarpone cheese and Nutella chocolate cake). Here Mr. Root is right: you’ll find this all other Italy and lots of happy Italians eating it.

The folks at il Carroccio are generous with their grappa; they offer it gratis, along with vin santo, to worthy diners, which means just about everybody. Chestnuts macerated in one of the flasks, and hard-to-tell-but-definitely-had-cinnamon-sticks in it in the other. Both packed tasty punches said those who tried them.

All this comes at most reasonable prices (the pastas clock in at around $10 per plate).

Dogs love chicken liver spread, and spleen spread. Here’s hoping that every now and then Leila, hardworking and beautiful as she is, occasionally has a crostino or two thrown her way.

Hosteria il Carroccio, Via del Casato di Sotto 32, 0577/41165. Closed Wednesdays.

Gone to the Happy Hunting Ground: Bobo (c. 1991-February 25, 2010). Splendid hound.

Happy Birthday, John Cowsill (b. 1956). Go to http://www.youtube.com/ and watch him and his family sing “Monday, Monday.”

Rose Gray of River Cafe fame has died. Her cookbooks, written with Ruth Rogers, are indispensable in our kitchen, especially River Cafe Cook Book Green (London, 2000). See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/garden/02gray.html?hpw. How sad.