Once again a little break away from the home office and the Rome office. A quick stop to write and think in my little book bar haunt in L’Aquila - Caffè Polar. The music is from Ray Gelato’s most recent album, a current jazz singer who’s sound seems more at place alongside Louis Prima recordings. It’s cold and humid today, my older relatives here would say c’è aria di neve, in other words the air is perfect for it to snow soon.
It’s five-fifteen in the afternoon and it’s pampering time - hot chocolate, almost as dense as pudding, with a little island of crushed coconut in the middle.
You can find excellent hot chocolate all over Italy, and sometimes it’s better. But today I like it best here.
Carbonara.wordpress.com
ilcappero.blogspot.com
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Joshua
venerdì 6 marzo 2009
venerdì 27 febbraio 2009
Soggy Noodles?
My daughter likes her breakfast cereal soggy. I think that's gross and hope her tastes will change as she grows up; thankfully she already is food-curious for an eleven year old.
Breakfast cereals are slowly becoming popular here after years of marketing by multinationals, which can even be a good thing - corn flakes are not evil.
Breakfast cereals are part of our half-american household but we still usually go for dipping Italian breakfast cookies in warm milk, colored with chocolate or espresso shots according to the age of who’s dunking.
But most of us would rather our cornflakes are still crunchy when we eat it.
It's the same with pasta. Think about it. It's just more pleasurable to have something to bite into than something squishy that falls apart under your tongue. It's called "al dente" - literally "to the tooth” because your teeth still have to deal with eating it - but Ricciolidoro (Goldilocks) would have called it "just right".
How do you tell when Ricciolidoro will finish her whole plate?
Folk legend has it that you throw a strand of spaghetti on a vertical wooden cupboard and when it starts to stick it's ready.
I have tried this so you don't have to at home.
First, it has to be a simple wood surface, or it will just slide off anyway. Second, it's really quite disgusting. When was the cupboard last cleaned? How much pasta material will stay up there and for how long? And trust the insights of the rocket scientist who tested the theory (me) that the taste of wood finish and traces of cleaning liquids and wax were not enjoyable when I was 19, and there’s no way I’m going to verify if they have gotten any better today.
I mean, who dreamt that up?
Gross.
Basically the pasta is al dente the minute the center is cooked, and the exterior is just becoming soft enough to make the sauce stick but not so soft that it absorbs the sauce.
You can actually see this moment happen. As your spaghetti boils try taking a piece out and biting into it a few minutes before the cooking time indicated on the package and look at the subtle color difference like you would count the rings of a wooden stump to identify the age of a tree. When the inside yellow disappears, it should be ready. I prefer it a bit rawer, when there’s still a pinprick sized darker core.
If you’ve been eating soggy spaghetti for most of you life, try eating it the hard way.
ilcappero.blogspot.com
carbonara.wordpress.com
Breakfast cereals are slowly becoming popular here after years of marketing by multinationals, which can even be a good thing - corn flakes are not evil.
Breakfast cereals are part of our half-american household but we still usually go for dipping Italian breakfast cookies in warm milk, colored with chocolate or espresso shots according to the age of who’s dunking.
But most of us would rather our cornflakes are still crunchy when we eat it.
It's the same with pasta. Think about it. It's just more pleasurable to have something to bite into than something squishy that falls apart under your tongue. It's called "al dente" - literally "to the tooth” because your teeth still have to deal with eating it - but Ricciolidoro (Goldilocks) would have called it "just right".
How do you tell when Ricciolidoro will finish her whole plate?
Folk legend has it that you throw a strand of spaghetti on a vertical wooden cupboard and when it starts to stick it's ready.
I have tried this so you don't have to at home.
First, it has to be a simple wood surface, or it will just slide off anyway. Second, it's really quite disgusting. When was the cupboard last cleaned? How much pasta material will stay up there and for how long? And trust the insights of the rocket scientist who tested the theory (me) that the taste of wood finish and traces of cleaning liquids and wax were not enjoyable when I was 19, and there’s no way I’m going to verify if they have gotten any better today.
I mean, who dreamt that up?
Gross.
Basically the pasta is al dente the minute the center is cooked, and the exterior is just becoming soft enough to make the sauce stick but not so soft that it absorbs the sauce.
You can actually see this moment happen. As your spaghetti boils try taking a piece out and biting into it a few minutes before the cooking time indicated on the package and look at the subtle color difference like you would count the rings of a wooden stump to identify the age of a tree. When the inside yellow disappears, it should be ready. I prefer it a bit rawer, when there’s still a pinprick sized darker core.
If you’ve been eating soggy spaghetti for most of you life, try eating it the hard way.
ilcappero.blogspot.com
carbonara.wordpress.com
domenica 22 febbraio 2009
Galleons and Sloops in the Apennines.
The Garibaldi Caffè e Enoteca is another of my favorite little places in L’Aquila. It’s a neighborhood all-hours place kind of like the Bar Pasquino under my apartment in Rome. In other words, cappuccino, brioche and newspapers (in Italian only) in the morning, wine and spirits from aperitivo time until after midnight. Both have pannini and other simple but delectable food at lunchtime, but I’m always somewhere else then.
The place was tiny when I first stumbled in 10 years ago. The walls were lined with bottles, boutique chocolates and fake masterpieces up to the arched ceiling and stacked along a wall like in an art counterfitter’s hideaway. Davide and Daniele the two friendly and attentive young brothers who own and run the place also have a gallery that sells professional fakes of famous paintings. As I write this I have two enormous scenes of venice above me (Tintoretto, I believe) Klimt, Hopper, and Van Gogh above the wall of white wines and grappas in front of me, Renoir, Modigliani, Monet and Bottero to my left. When I first stumbled in back then were the model sailing ships among the wooden chess sets and humidors filling the windows. They also have a small but interesting selection of cigars and a nice little bench on the cobblestone street outside - no smoking in bars in Italy anymore.
Despite being on a medieval street 2000 feet up in the mountains the boats fit in because the place was tiny, lined with dark hardwood, the bathroom was tiny like those on sailboats and after a few glasses of wine the world might start to pleasantly sway. They have added another room since I first started coming here, but the lived in, slightly cluttered atmosphere is the same.
This evening as I’m killing time before I meet up with my eleven year old daughter who hanging out with friends in the main square (I’m sometimes jealous of kids growing up in Italy. Just me, a notebook, and a plate of olives, mixed cold cuts and taralli (crispy dried bread in bite sized curls) meant to dampen the effects of a glass of Pecorino, white wine from varietal native to Abruzzo that is undergoing a sort of Renaissance here. The music goes back and forth between Spanish jazz and Astor Piazzola inspired lounge.
The only thing missing is dinner, but recently Davide and Daniele opened up the Punto G - Piacere della Griglia grill (literally “G Spot - Pleasures from the Grill”) across the street. Strictly carnivores only.
But that’s another post.
carbonara.wordpress.com
ilcappero.blogspot.com
sabato 7 febbraio 2009
Why Dracula can’t cook
Garlic, like anchovies and raw onions, gets a bad rap. Just because it’s smelly or fishy or salty and stays on your breath doesn’t mean it’s not scrumptious.
Peanut butter eaters shouldn’t throw stones.
Even here in Italy, a land famous for garlic and anchovy eating, these wonderful foods have their detractors. I think the detractors are clueless.
Forget about the proven health benefits of garlic for the heart and the immune system. They are part of why garlic is good, but only a small part. It’s because they are heaven.
My first garlic epiphany is still a fond memory today. My mother had just ordered a plate of baked garlic cloves with our hamburgers and steak sandwiches in a basement bar in what little was left of the Italian-Irish neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin.
I loved it.
And the bad breath? It’s only bad if you don’t like it (poor unknowing fools) and have not also eaten garlic in the same meal. The important thing is that you eat garlic together, then none of those involved will care.
I still remember a meal I cooked for my friends Erin and Bill when I first came back to Madison from Bologna in 1990. Oven-toasted rosemary potatoes, grilled sirloin with oregano and black pepper, and truffled champignon mushrooms.
Truffled mushrooms are as simple as it magical. Clean, dry and slice the mushrooms and get them ready. It’s going to be fast. Peel and crush a few cloves of garlic and get them ready. Get some good Italian olive oil up to frying temperature. Throw the garlic and turn the heat down low just before the garlic fragments turn crunchy and golden. Then slide the mushrooms and cook until they are soft, grey and have absorbed the garlic and the oil.
I like them straight up as a side dish, but they are great as an appetizer on toasted bread (with or without melted provolone cheese).
What made the dinner with Erin and Bill so memorable? The moment I tossed in the garlic in the yellow tuscan oil (yes, even back then you could find it in Madison) a mushroom cloud of garlic steam burst up and filled the studio apartment. I looked back and saw them both, noses up in the air and huge silly grins like dancing Peanuts characters in It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.
They say blood is thicker than water, but garlic bonds.
To all my garlic brothers and sisters.
anche carbonara.wordpress.com
Peanut butter eaters shouldn’t throw stones.
Even here in Italy, a land famous for garlic and anchovy eating, these wonderful foods have their detractors. I think the detractors are clueless.
Forget about the proven health benefits of garlic for the heart and the immune system. They are part of why garlic is good, but only a small part. It’s because they are heaven.
My first garlic epiphany is still a fond memory today. My mother had just ordered a plate of baked garlic cloves with our hamburgers and steak sandwiches in a basement bar in what little was left of the Italian-Irish neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin.
I loved it.
And the bad breath? It’s only bad if you don’t like it (poor unknowing fools) and have not also eaten garlic in the same meal. The important thing is that you eat garlic together, then none of those involved will care.
I still remember a meal I cooked for my friends Erin and Bill when I first came back to Madison from Bologna in 1990. Oven-toasted rosemary potatoes, grilled sirloin with oregano and black pepper, and truffled champignon mushrooms.
Truffled mushrooms are as simple as it magical. Clean, dry and slice the mushrooms and get them ready. It’s going to be fast. Peel and crush a few cloves of garlic and get them ready. Get some good Italian olive oil up to frying temperature. Throw the garlic and turn the heat down low just before the garlic fragments turn crunchy and golden. Then slide the mushrooms and cook until they are soft, grey and have absorbed the garlic and the oil.
I like them straight up as a side dish, but they are great as an appetizer on toasted bread (with or without melted provolone cheese).
What made the dinner with Erin and Bill so memorable? The moment I tossed in the garlic in the yellow tuscan oil (yes, even back then you could find it in Madison) a mushroom cloud of garlic steam burst up and filled the studio apartment. I looked back and saw them both, noses up in the air and huge silly grins like dancing Peanuts characters in It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.
They say blood is thicker than water, but garlic bonds.
To all my garlic brothers and sisters.
anche carbonara.wordpress.com
domenica 1 febbraio 2009
Rosemary’s nose
The quick basics of Italian cooking: keep it simple and care intensely about the ingredients. Try to get them fresh and in season unless the preservation method makes them something better (sun dried tomatoes, for example, or spicy artichoke hearts or salt cod, the list a mouth watering few). I learned my first year here as a college exchange student in Bologna that one of the easiest ways to impress dinner guests is is baked potatoes and rosemary.
But you need fresh rosemary. Rosemary is a brush-like wooden herb that grows well even in cold corners of walls and outside windowsill pots. It’s a compulsory ingredient in Easter roast lamb and other early Spring dishes all over Italy, but especially in the mountains and the hills. Here around L’Aquila many people have a bush growing in a corner of their yard.
Cut the potatoes thin - whatever potatoes you like. I like them razor thin but have been known to cut them into thicker disks with the skins still on. Spread it out over oven paper or a pan slightly greased with olive oil. Sprinkle more olive oil, salt and a couple handfuls of fresh rosemary twigs. Bake away until they look as crispy as you like them. Open the oven a crack occasionally to free up the aroma of baked rosemary to fill the kitchen and tease the the dinner guests who are keeping you company. Bring them to the table warm, making sure that the plate gets passed around under everyone’s nose.
And if it smells good, it tastes good.
ilcappero.blogspot.com
carbonara.wordpress.com
But you need fresh rosemary. Rosemary is a brush-like wooden herb that grows well even in cold corners of walls and outside windowsill pots. It’s a compulsory ingredient in Easter roast lamb and other early Spring dishes all over Italy, but especially in the mountains and the hills. Here around L’Aquila many people have a bush growing in a corner of their yard.
Cut the potatoes thin - whatever potatoes you like. I like them razor thin but have been known to cut them into thicker disks with the skins still on. Spread it out over oven paper or a pan slightly greased with olive oil. Sprinkle more olive oil, salt and a couple handfuls of fresh rosemary twigs. Bake away until they look as crispy as you like them. Open the oven a crack occasionally to free up the aroma of baked rosemary to fill the kitchen and tease the the dinner guests who are keeping you company. Bring them to the table warm, making sure that the plate gets passed around under everyone’s nose.
And if it smells good, it tastes good.
ilcappero.blogspot.com
carbonara.wordpress.com
sabato 31 gennaio 2009
The Great Rice Compromise (Cinnamon Winter)
I was never that fond of white foods. Lack of color was a signal that it would be boring.
I’ve gotten better with age, but I still have to add something to normal boiled potatoes to find the desire to eat them - cheese, oregano and capers, diced boiled ham and cheese, artichoke hearts - anything. Grand Sasso blue and Marsican red potatoes come close to being edible alone, but still sea salt and freshly grated black pepper help them out.
Boiled white rice is still problem, even with butter and Parmesan I was never wild for it. Especially in elementary school.
Growing up I was adamant about it. Why eat lumpy pasty stuff? So it would sit there and a little verbal arm wrestling would pass. But not for long. I don’t know when she started (I was too little at the time) but Mom would doctor it by reheating the rice in milk adding a tablespoonful of sugar (Mary Poppins-style) and then tap cinnamon over it all to make a soup. The powdered cinnamon would form islands and swirls on the surface of the milk.
It was gone in a flash.
Since then sweet milky cinnamon rice soup has been one of my comfort foods. Years ago a friend with a cold with nothing in her apartment phoned me for advice on what to eat. There wasn’t much, and she had to substitute coconut milk for the bovine variety. When it was ready there was silence on the other end of the line. I hung up and let her eat and sneeze in peace.
I’ve gotten better with age, but I still have to add something to normal boiled potatoes to find the desire to eat them - cheese, oregano and capers, diced boiled ham and cheese, artichoke hearts - anything. Grand Sasso blue and Marsican red potatoes come close to being edible alone, but still sea salt and freshly grated black pepper help them out.
Boiled white rice is still problem, even with butter and Parmesan I was never wild for it. Especially in elementary school.
Growing up I was adamant about it. Why eat lumpy pasty stuff? So it would sit there and a little verbal arm wrestling would pass. But not for long. I don’t know when she started (I was too little at the time) but Mom would doctor it by reheating the rice in milk adding a tablespoonful of sugar (Mary Poppins-style) and then tap cinnamon over it all to make a soup. The powdered cinnamon would form islands and swirls on the surface of the milk.
It was gone in a flash.
Since then sweet milky cinnamon rice soup has been one of my comfort foods. Years ago a friend with a cold with nothing in her apartment phoned me for advice on what to eat. There wasn’t much, and she had to substitute coconut milk for the bovine variety. When it was ready there was silence on the other end of the line. I hung up and let her eat and sneeze in peace.
lunedì 19 gennaio 2009
Panzerotti (clogging arteries on brisk Friday afternoon in Milan)
I just got back from a Friday business trip to Milan. The trip was a whirlwind of appointments but still, as I crossed through Piazza del Duomo on my way from one meeting to anther, I felt something familiar call out to me and draw me in for a greasy tasty pause: Panzerotti from Luini.
Even though the Luini bakery is tucked out of site behind the back entrance to Milan’s up-market La Rinascente department store, it is an institution.
Luini means panzerotti, and panzerotti mean deep fried pocket pizzas. Puffy and a bit chewy, the dough is slightly sweet and very addictive. The classic version is simple tomato and mozzarella, other seasonal versions (mozzarella and ham, pesto and cherry tomatoes) and so on give you enough variety to harden your arteries almost every day, and when I used to work nearby it was hard to resist.
Originally just a bakery, it’s now traditional stand up street food at it’s best. Their other specialty is focaccia pugliese and other traditional baked treats from the Puglia (Apuglia) region of Italy.
Luini Bakery
Via Santa Radegonda 16, Milano
Even though the Luini bakery is tucked out of site behind the back entrance to Milan’s up-market La Rinascente department store, it is an institution.
Luini means panzerotti, and panzerotti mean deep fried pocket pizzas. Puffy and a bit chewy, the dough is slightly sweet and very addictive. The classic version is simple tomato and mozzarella, other seasonal versions (mozzarella and ham, pesto and cherry tomatoes) and so on give you enough variety to harden your arteries almost every day, and when I used to work nearby it was hard to resist.
Originally just a bakery, it’s now traditional stand up street food at it’s best. Their other specialty is focaccia pugliese and other traditional baked treats from the Puglia (Apuglia) region of Italy.
Luini Bakery
Via Santa Radegonda 16, Milano
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