Don't forget the chocolate

Had another Terra e Vento today…forgot one other ingredient…just a touch of liquid chocolate at the botton of the glass. Just a touch. It’s the Earth to the cinnamon wind…the espresso is the world between

mea culpa

Joshua

………….

Earth and Wind

Today the words “terra e vento” were printed across the chalkboard in my favorite Saturday afternoon bar, just above the names of the CDs that were playing.
“Terra e vento?” I asked the barista as I studied over the pastries.
Espresso with cinnamon. She replied. A bunch of Germans came through last week and they all ordered it. Terra e vento, (earth and wind) was their translation.
There was just a light sprinkle of cinnamon, barely enough to affect the taste of espresso in my little glass cup, but then taste wasn’t the point. It was aroma. The weather was brisk and windy, so a touch of cinnamon became the aroma that ran ahead of the coffee, awakening both senses before the coffee touched my tongue.
A newspaper later I remembered I still hadn’t had my second Saturday morning breakfast. A pane e cioccolato roll and a cappuccino, with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
Again the aroma raced ahead….
Neve e vento? Wind and snow?

Good for the Worm

I had polenta for the first time this season on Saturday. My mother and Dan have been visiting us from Madison and Fabrizio suggested we go eat polenta a village over from his.
Polenta is basically corn meal mush, but tastier than it sounds. The Veneto region (where Venice and Verona are) is best known for it, but it’s also common in much of the central Apennines. (I will talk about polenta later on as it’s considered more of a winter food. The grey haired men in the tiny little neighborhood restaurant served it to us on traditional rectangular, cutting-board like wooden platters instead of plates and we alternated tomato and sausage and tomato and wild boar sauces on top. All that we had to do was sprinkle grated pecorino cheese over it all and, a few drops, for those who wanted it, of homemade hot pepper olive oil.
Afterwards we were back at Fabrizio’s to show my parents around and give them information on hiking and cooking experiences he organizes in the area for groups of
English speakers. If you’re too impatient to wait for my description of them, you can see what they are like on the http://www.vacationinrome.it/ (and click on “program”).
Just before dusk, as rain clouds rolled over the mountain ridge across from us like slow motion foamy waves we spotted two trees of limoncello apple trees that somehow still had a few apples on them. We snapped up two buckets and went down the slope to pick them before the rain, our hiking boots freeing up the aroma of wild mint as the first few drops of rain came down. They were full of spots and scars and some of them had been pecked at by birds, but Fabrizio reminded us of what his father would always say: “Se era buono per il verme, è buono per te”
If it was good enough for the worm, it’s good for you too.
Diced apples are simmering on the stove as I write this and I’m trying to decide between chestnut flower honey or cinnamon.
Both?
Of course.

How about them apples?

(Cinnamon Fall)

I missed apple picking weekend at Fabrizio’s this year, we came two weeks late this year and could only pick the stragglers.
Fabrizio is a friend of mine who lives in Trastevere in Rome but he’s originally from a small town near L’Aquila called Colle di Lucoli, a small hilltop village on the way up to the Campo Felice (“happy field”) ski slopes. His house is in the middle of beautiful area of rolling hills dotted with tiny stone villages full of hiking trails and curvy roads.
As Fabrizio was growing up his dad would plant a new apple tree every year on the steep slope cascading down from his childhood house. He planted a different tree every year - varieties ranging from big red delicious to the tiny, yellow apples called “limoncello”, which means lemony, a name which derives from their color, small size and aftertaste. They were once once coveted in the mountainous areas of central Italy because as they shriveled up slightly during the winter in basement storage rooms they became much sweeter just before spring.
It’s an organic apple orchard, in the sense that neither Fabrizio nor anyone else does anything to the apples or the trees. Bugs, birds, squirrel and the like have free reign. Many of them are scarred and ugly. But tasty. I’m not as adventurous as I may seem - I strategically bite where they are not scarred and where it looks like bugs have not travelled. Tiny, little bites. But wonderful.
The wind knocks most of them down before we can get to them so the sloping field is filled with the smell of wild mint and baked apples. We were able to fill just got two bags, not enough for apple sauce this time around.
Three years ago we came the right weekend and there was a bumper crop. After lugging buckets of them to the apple storage room (which doubled as storage for wine, oil and preserves from their little garden) and the pile was shoulder-high we stared taking the rest directly to our cars.
But what do you do with buckets full or apples in a city apartment?
Applesauce, of course.
No real recipe. Peel and cut the apples in little pieces, cook slowly in a big pot with just enough water at the beginning to keep it from sticking until the apples melt. If you want it a bit sweeter or more rustic at the end, melt in some honey. And my favorite touch - cinnamon to taste. I love the smell of caramelized apples, honey and cinnamon just before I take it off the burner.
Then eat and smile.

Cinnamon Fall

Today the words “terra e vento” were printed across the chalkboard in my favorite Saturday afternoon bar, just above the names of the CDs that were playing.
“Terra e vento?” I asked the barista as I studied over the pastries.
Espresso with cinnamon. She replied. A bunch of Germans came through last week and they all ordered it. Terra e vento, (earth and wind) was their translation.
There was just a light sprinkle of cinnamon, barely enough to affect the taste of espresso in my little glass cup, but then taste wasn’t the point. It was aroma. The weather was brisk and windy, so a touch of cinnamon became the aroma that ran ahead of the coffee, awakening both senses before the coffee touched my tongue.
A newspaper later I remembered I still hadn’t had my second Saturday morning breakfast. A pane e cioccolato roll and a cappuccino, with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
Again the aroma raced ahead….
Neve e vento? Wind and snow?

Slush puppy heaven.

(or Cinnamon Summer II)

Growing up one of my favorite dirty pleasures was the slush, or slurpy, or slush puppy. The names changed with the convenience store, but the recipe was always the same. Crushed ice was pumped into a cup and copious amounts of sweet, florescent dyes were squirted in.  You drank this concoction until it gave you a dizzy headache, or you sucked all the syrup out of the ice. It didn’t matter that your tongue was green for the rest of the afternoon. Actually, it did matter –– it was a fringe benefit!

In Italy, they have a name for it: Granite. Anyone who has been to Italy is familiar with the machines swirling the already mixed ice and mystery liquid that are in every bar or gelato joint around the main tourist attractions. The flavors are often better than the convenience store variety of my youth, but not enough to take your mind off the fact that they are just slightly more liquid snow cones. 

Only a traveler to Sicily, where they claim to have invented granita, will understand just how satisfying flavored ice can be. Although, it is possible to find standard, tourist-trap granite – those candy shop machines are everywhere–– I have yet to find a more sublime granita anywhere else in Italy.   One of the best is at the Bar del Porto at the, well, at the bar at the port on the small island of Panarea in the Aeolian archipelago just north of Sicily.  Here the granite is dished out of stainless-steel ice cream containers, like those at Giolitti in Rome or other historic Italian ice cream parlors. The choices may be few: lemon; coffee (great sandwiched into a brioche for breakfast); gelso (white mulberries and almond milk, but all are wonderful.  The almond milk classic is my particular favorite. 

Last year a friendly bartender (who sadly was not there this summer) suggested we try different combinations - gelso and almond, coffee and almond, etc. But, it was not until the third to last night of our vacation when he greeted us with cinnamon sticks and a hand grater and, before our eyes, created something we call “cinnamon summer” -- thin layers of almond milk ice separated by freshly grated cinnamon dust.  Summer may be over, but I can still taste that cinnamon summer.   

Cinnamon summer

Cinnamon is one of those spices that bring back memories. Especially, freshly ground cinnamon. This evening I made a quick stop at the Caffè Polar, the tiny bookshop café, with a free hotspot (still not very common in provincial Italy) here in L’Aquila, the city in the Apennine mountains where I live. My goal was a short cappuccino and a newspaper break, but that change, as I stepped up to the bar to order and caught a whiff of that, oh so familiar spice. The young woman behind the bar was busy grating cinnamon over a small glass cup of espresso.  As she tops it up with panna (dense cream), I ask how she would do espresso and cinnamon cold. It is a warm day, after all. “I would make a

Caffè Shakerato,” is her response. 

Caffè shakerato is the hedonistic Italian version of iced espresso. It consists of two shots of espresso straight from the machine, ice and sugar.  The ingredients are mixed in a cocktail shaker then poured into a flute or cocktail glass. In Milan, and a few other parts of northern Italy, Rebarbaro, (a semisweet bitter), or Biancosarti, (a vanilla-based liquor) are added before shaking.   It is great with a touch of freshly ground cinnamon. 

What I like about the  best spices is how they can turn on your memories that play on all of your senses.   I’ll tell you how cinnamon transformed evening strolls on the Sicilian island of Panarea last summer, in the next installment 

Blood on my hands

For two Sundays in a row we were greeted at the gate of the my family’s country home in Navelli by a tree awash with cherries. I don’t know the exact species but when you have 4 buckets of dark, fresh, organic (we do absolutely nothing to the tree) juicy cherries just two steps of a ladder up and you don’t really care about the name. I am not a born gardener or farmer, the idea of having a little farm or taking care of the garden makes me want to pull up the covers and hide in bed. But when it’s just calling out to you like that…..

So as Emily rode her bike and chased farm cats, Sofia read under the pines and Linda cared for her wide-blossomed roses, I put on some old clothes and started picking. After about 15 minutes of plucking cherries so ripe a handful would come off without their stems, I was already taking breaks to rinse off the sugar when the stickiness started to make it hard to keep the leaves off. At the end I looked like a doctor in a Mel Brooks film.

The problem, of course, was what to do with four buckets of ripe, fresh Apennine mountain cherries. By nightfall we had already eaten enough to last us a year. A few Tupperware container full when to friends and family. This time I tried to make a marmellata (marmalade). Fania, my sister and law is the real expert on this, simple but long process of making topping for ice cream or yoghurt or to spread on toast. The original recipe calls for melting down (but not boiling) sugar in exact proportion (1lb cherries, one pound of sugar) in a few tablespoons of water. Just before the sugar starts to brown, we throw in the well-rinsed and dried cherries and bring to a slow boil, stirring periodically until the juice around the cherries no long rolls down a wooden cutting board. Fania and I prefer putting in as little as a quarter the amount of sugar (you can always add it in later), which means that the boiling process takes longer until the cherries’ own sugars kick in.

In addition to the sugar amounts, there are many variations on the theme: add cherry, or amaretto o limoncello, or spices like cinnamon.

But the important thing is that my bunch did not shed their blood in vain.

Il Cappero - the Caper

Why Il Cappero?

I was a picky eater as a child. I hated things I called "wet meat", "yucky mushrooms" or - the horrors - "quiche" or anything distant from steak or hamburgers. Fortunately some of us do grow up.
But for some reason, I loved capers. I still do.

That's right. "Il Cappero" means "The Caper". And did I say I love capers?

Capers, just to make sure we are talking the same language, are those little round green things that you usually find pickled in little jars. But in Europe they are often sold under salt (layers and layers of salt) as are anchovies (although the fish are often in huge tins). The best ones I've had so far are from Panarea. I picked up two bags (500 grams each, about a pound and a quarter) of local capers under salt.

The good part of the prehistoric tradition of preserving food under salt is not only that they last longer, but they also keep more of their original flavor than pickling. The drawback is that you have to rinse them almost obsessively.

Tonight's baked potatoes are a bit boring? Rinse a handful under running water and toss them on. Add freshly ground pepper (but no salt, of course).

Looking for a hint of Mediterranean character at a moment's notice? Throw a handful on your salad, or n your potato salad, drop a few in with the oil and vinegar with your freshly-cut summer tomatoes.

"Il Cappero" is where I hope to share some of the discoveries I've made about food, wine, and just plain eating, with a particular, but lovingly critical, emphasis on the magic of Italian food. This will take as through neighborhood markets, local foods and traditions, street food (a better word than fast food" kitchens (not just mine), wine bars and restaurants (but for those I'll also be writing on DeliciousCityIt) .

Oh, just in case you're asking, why should you look to me as your expert on food and wine, especially Italian food and wine?

Because I eat quite a lot of it. And I'm good at it too.

Did I say I like capers?

Just checking

Joshua Lawrence - L'Aquila, Italy