Archive for July, 2007
This is the only woman who counts at a wedding, unless the official doing the job is female. This is Gianna after she arrived walking down the street hand in hand with Paolo to be married before her friends. Gianna’s puppy, Zorro, also married Paolo, piping up with a shrill “bau, bau, bau” as Gianna said her “Sì” to the official. You can see that the bride was lovely in ivory. Zorro wore a red bow.
This is the important man, Paolo, in an ironic moment. (Paolo knew he was marrying the dog as well.)
The deed is done, I cried only a little. I cry at the weddings of total strangers, so naturally I cried for these two. I also cry at parades and when I hear marches, so don’t take my tears too seriously.
When more photos are available I’ll post more about the wedding, because there were many interesting things about my first Italian wedding. These photos were taken by Susanne Munshower, beauty reporter.
July 29th, 2007
Today is Thursday. Tomorrow, Friday, I will spend very happily in Florence with the daughters and granddaughters of my dear friend, Miss Joe. Saturday is the wedding.
Whose wedding? It is the wedding of Gianna, who sometimes comments here, and Paolo, my figlioccio or chosen godson. (I’ve been sure that had his mother known me at his birth I would have been chosen, so it’s just a formality that he is not legally my figlioccio.) They are, anyway, loved friends of my Italian life and are finally, after seven years of cliff-hanging suspense, getting married.
I am eager to attend this wedding. When I heard it was in the offing I stupidly said, “Ahhh, I have just the hat!” And were the wedding in the morning I would have just the big, cartwheel hat of my dreams to wear. This wedding, instead, will be at 17:30 with the reception beginning at 19:30 and I don’t have any summer evening hats. When I checked with Tina of “What Are They Wearing to the Opera” fame, she said, “Oh, an evening dress, certainly. But you must wear a hat.”
“A hat?” I cried, “but I can’t if it is in the evening.”
“You must. La Signora Gianna will be very disappointed if you don’t. You promised.”
“I don’t have a hat for a summer evening.”
“You have lots of hats. Just wear one.”
“They’re all for the daytime,” I moped.
“Italians don’t wear hats. They’ll never know the difference.”
But I would. In ensuing conversations I was told three more times that I had to wear a hat. It almost seemed like it wouldn’t matter if I wore anything else.
I could either wear a daytime straw hat, of which I have at least two that are really dressy, and all the British present would think I was a wild Indian from North American shores, or I could make a hat. So, I am making a hat. I am using antique fabric flowers given to me by Miss Joe some years back and some black dotted veiling I bought for the heck of it perhaps ten years ago. I’ve let my hair grow out to almost 2 inches so I can secure this chapeau to something without resorting to eyelash glue. I’ve chosen small and restrained earrings. I’m almost ready to make the hat.
But there are other considerations. Stockings or no stockings? Ten years ago there would have been no question at all. Nowadays it appears that wearing stockings is the grossest fashion error, and yet these are legs that work outside and show it and never get a tan. OK, self-tanner it is. That means exfoliating like crazy, putting it on very carefully and staying naked for at least an hour. I won’t discover the streaks and irregularities until later when it’s too late to change anything.
Eyebrows must be shaped. Facial must be done. Nails must be evened out and slicked up a bit.
Will my dress fit? Who has time to worry about that? All I can do is live entirely on watermelon whenever I have control over the menu until Saturday evening. If it’s tight, who will notice if the hat is crazy enough?
The truth is, there’s hardly anybody at a wedding who looks at anyone other than the bride except the bride… who wants me to wear a hat. Maybe my dinner table mates will see me, but if I stay very silent they may think I am Gianna’s childhood nanny from Brazil or something.
The flowers were all restored very carefully years ago, and they have been used to pin on things since then, but the last few years haven’t been rich in garden parties, so they’ve flopped into the Umbrian humidity and have to be perked up. The veiling waits as crisp as a tutu. I have scissors, thread and somewhere there’s a hair comb I can rob from a different and unacceptable hat to launch this creation onto my locks.
I’ve long had the theory that if you need to call attention from something, you should adorn something else, far away, to grab the eye. I could wrap an ankle, perhaps, in four yards of tiny diamond chain, except the ankle doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, either, and I don’t have even a meter of diamond chains.
So, hat it is. Sorry to leave you, but I have millinery to do.
July 26th, 2007
I know that basil grows best in poor, dry soil and doesn’t want to be watered all that frequently. I had to plant in pots this year, however, and I never have done before. So since potting soil doesn’t have nutrients, I mixed in some manure at the lower levels. Pots also dry out faster, so I watered them almost everyday. Both gigantic pots are in full Italian summer sun, after all.
The result is basil that has much less flavor than usual. Pesto is almost what it should be, but not quite. It looks wonderful, and rivals lettuce for beauty in a pot, but it isn’t what it can be and I must learn to be a bit mean. I shall water when they start to wilt. I shall continue to pinch off buds and cut to encourage branching. But no more food and much less water.
The above photo is the work of Sandra Caldwell, and the link is from iStockphoto.com and inquiries are underway for permissions. Should they not be received, I will shoot a photo of mine, which will not equal this nice shot.
It may be that witches grow the best basil.
July 23rd, 2007
I’ve been getting emails from amazon.com about their grocery pages and a sale they’re having. I even looked at that part of Amazon, and I thought, why would one buy crackers and microwave popcorn over the internet? Those things were, as I recall, in every supermarket in America. You can’t buy them here, but the shipping would be a killer and I’d have to want popcorn a whole lot more than I do to pay it. You can buy simple, ordinary popcorn at my supermarket here, anyway.
Then this morning I clicked on the side list out of curiosity and I found this.
Now that is a different kettle of fish! Flours and meals of almost any kind I ever heard of would certainly widen the possibilities. There’s gluten free flour, too, which answers my question about what do those poor people eat? That’s a resource I would like very much to have.
Curiosity then led me here.
where yeasts and leaveners abound. Whoopie! Baking powder in tins– bet you didn’t know we can’t get that here! Yogurt starter, too. That looks like baker’s heaven, you know. All those choices I haven’t seen in years, poor me.
I’m going to have to live without Panko breadcrumbs, because I learned about them too late to ever try them before leaving the US, but here they are. I wonder are they really as different as all the posting cooks say? Will someone here tell me?
So, I wandered over to oils and found this truffle oil, which, although it isn’t the brand I use is exactly the ingredients I told you to look for when I made the pork with sage perfumed rice and truffle oil. That’s a good sized bottle that will last you a long time and the price is less than I pay here, where they make it. I don’t buy those flavored olive oils, but when I find them, I do buy nut oils and other natural oils, and here they are, all on these pages. If I want something even as ordinary as toasted sesame oil, I have to make a day trip to Rome, and that’s something I used to buy in any good grocery store in the US. Walnut oil, almond oil or grapeseed oil are only dreams to me.
There were lots of things to discover. I haven’t seen a dried cherry in seven years until today! At first some of the prices seemed wacky, but then I realized that they were for packs of several of the item — who packs in multiples of seven?
Anyway, by the time I cruised through the offerings, I realized I had ignorantly ignored a resource that I would use if I could. People who live in New York, Washington, London or Paris can find these things, but for the rest of us who live in small and not so sophisticated cities or in the countryside, this resource makes sense.
Have a look, because the sale ends July 31st. I’m sorry I am so late to the game.
You know I’d prefer that you don’t buy all the pre-prepared mixes and certainly not any fake food, but I found quite a list of things I do buy or that I would buy if I could. I also feel freer to publish recipes that use things like chick pea flour or chestnut meal, which I haven’t previously done because I used to have to search out Indian groceries or wholesale suppliers to find them myself. Now you can buy them with a click and a credit card.
July 22nd, 2007
I am writing this at 2:58 in the afternoon.
The sun radiates outside as it has for a week in a way that makes the verbs usually associated with subject sun useless. There is no shine, beam or coming out about it. It seems exactly what it is, an atomic reaction whose effects reach me. There has been no rain for some time now and everywhere is dust and cobwebs. The ongoing roof work next door contributes red dust from sawing the terra cotta tiles.
Today we have wind, too, dry and hot and sterile. Through the afternoon the birds fail to sing. The cats lie sprawled under bushes. Grass is not green , but tanned and knife-edged. Roses open and then dry on their stems, not even having the energy left to fall.
It’s almost incredible that the roofers can work in this heat. This is their season, however, and the work needs to be closed up before rain comes in September. If it is 40°C or 104°F on the terrace under the gazebo, what must the temperature be up there on 300 square meters of tiled roof? The reflection alone could kill me, but they continue with the bang, bang, bang of destroying an old roof that hasn’t been touched since 1957. The crane lifts silly-looking wheelbarrows of debris down to earth. I should go up there and see why they use wheelbarrows and where they can wheel them. That’s possible, because they leave at 5 in the evening and there are stairs that go up and up to the top, with landings here and there. From 7 in the morning until 5 in the evening they work, with only a lunch break at noon in Olga’s cooler cellar among the jars of tomatoes and barrels of wine and vinegar. They’re lucky to have it. I’m surprised that they don’t go splash in the river, as Olga’s grandchildren do. The water isn’t very cool, but it’s wet.
There’s one very young roofer who wears a jaunty Panama hat. I see him duck into a garage for the shade once in a while between cartloads of debris that he sorts endlessly. The rest are worn and wrinkled and burned as any tropical native. I believe they have become lizards who can only move in heat and sun, and that the transformation hasn’t yet happened for the young one.
Anything that goes to seed has done it. That includes most human beings. One acclimates and functions, but staying upright is about the extent of function. Reading or talking or remembering has fled for the duration. My brain needs cleats.
Tonight I will stay on the terrace under the gazebo and do nothing but listen to the cuckoo and French radio. I won’t cook or run out to buy something cold to eat. I won’t read. I will have a single candle burning far away from me and watch the stars appear and the upturned sliver moon. There will be fireflies. There will be cats but no laps.
I love summer.
As usual, clicking on a photo will make it full sized.
July 20th, 2007
Good Morning
Originally uploaded by Decobabe.
This was my kitchen window a couple of weeks ago. Yes, the rose has climbed inside. I blamed her for the ants coming in, so I swore to remove her, but didn’t and didn’t. One day she’d put out a side branch and tapped my on the shoulder, a full five feet inside the house, so I got the ladder and rearranged her outside.
The ants still come in. I think they have a tiny elevator I can’t see, because as you can see this is at tree top level. Or do they stand on each others shoulders until they reach the sill?
I’ve used everything it is safe to use. My pal Viaggatore said she had success with laundry detergetn across the sills. My ants just got clean feet. I have traps. Nothing is working and I can’t use poisonous sprays. I just wash and was during every kitchen function and hide things where they can’t reach them. Don’t ants ever go on holiday?
July 20th, 2007
Nocino making
Originally uploaded by Decobabe.
Look quick! They start to lose color very fast.
These are green and unripe walnuts from one of my trees, gathered in late June and chunked up and then covered with 99% pure alcohol.
I buy that at the supermarket. In the US the closest thing is Everclear, which you can buy through liquor stores. After an interminable amount of time, the liquid will be drained off and blended with simple syrup, then bottled and allowed to ripen until late December.
It is at that time that the writing on the lid will become true. It says Gusto Party — Party Taste. Let’s hope I get it right and the party won’t be tasteless.
What happens to the alcohol soaked walnuts? I haven’t a clue. Maybe some kind Italian can come up with something cleverer than making a pig drunk.
July 18th, 2007
Craig pub
Originally uploaded by Decobabe.
Hello! My name is Craig and I will be your server tonight.
July 16th, 2007
The menu this evening will be:
Foglie di salvia fritte
Lenticchie di Casteleucci
Cicoria brasata
Battuta di olive piccanti (or tapenade)
Vittello ripieno di vitello
Fagiolini alla greca
Torta di pesca con salsa di yogurt e zucchero di canna
Last things first, the torta. I made two. Buy pasta sfoglia or puff pastry and follow the directions for thawing it. Be careful not to over thaw, because it becomes impossible to handle without stretching it and making it tough if you do. Preheat the oven to 200°C or 400° F. My packages come with two sheets, so that I end up with two oblong tortes of about 8” X 10”.
Once it is thawed, put each on a piece of baking paper or parchment, then using a sharp knife cut straight down and remove about ½” or 2 cm of each side. If you saw, your edges will not puff up. Pick up the strip you cut off and make a border on top of the pastry sheet, cutting off the extra bit at the end. Pop them into the hot oven and cook for 10-15 minutes until puffed and browned. Remove to a surface to cool. There will be a dome in the middle, but don’t worry about that now.
Boil some water and briefly dip 6 fresh peaches into it until the skin rubs off with a finger, then using a cooking fork, remove the peaches to a bowl of very cold water. Use your hands to slip the skins right off.
Make a glaze using cornstarch, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, sugar, a dried hot pepper (or pinch of cayenne powder) and water. The recipe is free form, but I will post one below that you can use if you need it. Let it cool to lukewarm.
Using a paring knife, cut around the dome in the middle of your pastry sheets, then pull it off with your fingers, (these crunchy shards can be distributed to good little girls and boys) cut the peaches into attractive wedges and arrange them in rows across the two pastry shells. Carefully spoon the cooled glaze over the peaches, making sure to cover them so they won’t discolor and will be glued to the pastry. Put them into the fridge.
To serve, cut the tarts into 4 pieces each, and then you will layer Greek yogurt and brown sugar in a bowl, so that it comes out striped when spooned out onto the tart servings. Let the diners serve the sauce or skip it.
Next, the veal dish. This is an adaptation of a recipe I learned in culinary school that uses boiled chestnuts. Chestnuts are more wintry than porcini, to my mind, so I made up a new one that is seasoned quite differently and not cooked as individual rolls, but as a carvable roast.
Vitello ripieno di vitello (Veal Stuffed with Veal)
2 boned veal breasts
Stuffing ingredients:
1 slice of bread
½ cup of minced soffritto
1 teaspoon of thyme leaves dried or 3 teaspoons of thyme leaves fresh
Milk as needed
1 egg
1 heaping tablespoon of powdered porcini mushrooms. This you can make if you get dried ones, remove the stems and then carefully brush away any dirt from the caps. Grind them to a powder in a food processor with muscles.
Salt
Pepper
Butcher’s string
Simmering broth:
1-1/2 cups of soffritto mixture
½ pint of broth reduction your own or Better than Bouillon or something like this
Salt to taste
Water to cover
When I work with raw meat, I wear surgical gloves the whole time and then throw them away once the meat starts to cook. That way there’s no chance I will cross-contaminate something eaten raw with anything from the raw meat. I happily eat raw meat, but when I’m feeding others, I don’t take chances. You never know when something will get caught under a nail and end up in something that marinates at room temperature and then is eaten without cooking. Better safe than sorry.
Take one of the veal breasts and mince it with your trusty and well-sharpened chef’s knife. Don’t substitute with ground veal or have the butcher grind it unless you trust him not to turn it into hamburger. It should be a roughly ground meat that doesn’t pack down or emulsify.
Put the bread into a biggish bowl and pour milk over it to soften and soak it. Squeeze it with your hands to break it up really well. Add the minced veal and then all the other stuffing ingredients. Using your hands, squish it around and mix it well. I start with about 1 teaspoon of salt and a couple of grinds of pepper. When I think it is right, I take a small piece of this forcemeat and fry it to taste it. You should, too.
Once it tastes terrific, I open up and lay out the un-minced veal breast and spread this filling over it. You may have too much, but you can use it to stuff a pepper for lunch tomorrow if you do. Then roll up the breast quite gently, not tightly, and using the technique shown here, tie it up with butcher string, leaving a long loop for a handle. You will want to tie over the ends as well, though, to help the stuffing stay stuffed.
Put a tall pot on the fire and add some olive oil and then the 1-1/2 cups of soffritto mince. Sauté it until it smells good. Add a pint or so of water and then the broth reduction. If you use commercial reduction, don’t add any salt until the whole thing goes together, then taste and salt as you see fit. Lower the stuffed veal into this broth and add boiling water until it is covered. Taste for salt and correct. Lower the heat to a simmer and put a lid on it. Do not ever let it boil. Ignore it for at least 1-1/2 hours, and then start to test for tenderness with a cooking fork. When it goes in easily, it is done.
If you want to serve it cold, let it cool in the broth. If not, use the loop handle and a fork to pull it out, letting it drain a bit and put it on a carving board. Don’t carve it for a few minutes, as it is a bit delicate at first.
The broth is served to the diners in cups before the meat course, so do that while it rests. You will re-heat it if you’ve let it cool. When it has rested briefly, use a very sharp knife to cut slices—about 5/8” to ¾” if hot. Cold it can be cut much thinner. Arrange the slices on a platter and throw some thyme branches here and there , if you have them.
While the veal cooks, you can begin the Lenticchie di Castelleuci
These are very special Umbrian lentils. They are so tiny they look like doll lentils, and they stay nicely firm and have a bite even when they are cooked. I always scatter them across a plate and check for anything that isn’t a lentil. It’s much easier with these than it is with larger lentils.
The ingredients are only:
250 g (.5 lb.) lentils
.5 cup soffritto
1 tablespoon of good olive oil
½ teaspoon of salt
Water to cover about 1” higher than the lentils.
A dash of Tabasco or a pinch of cayenne or other powdered chili would not be wrong.
Heat a pot, add oil, then the soffritto. Wilt it until it smells good, stir in the lentils, add the salt and the water. Cook about 20 minutes. These are served from hot to room temperature and it doesn’t matter which.
Cicoria brasata
Any slightly bitter green will do. The cooking time depends on which you choose. I wash them very well in several baths of water—showers don’t work—and then cut them into ½” lengths. I heat a bit of oil in a heavy pan, then toss in the greens, sprinkle salt over them and put a lid on. Check for moisture once in a while so they don’t catch on the bottom before the stems are tender. These are served at room temperature, so there’s nothing else to do.
To serve these I copied the Pugliese style with puree of fave. I ladled lentils on half a plate, greens on the other half, drizzled with a bit of Pugliese oil, and then put a dollop of the battuta or paste of spicy olives on top. If I couldn’t buy this battuta,
I would get tapenade or make it. David recently posted lots of ways to make tapenade and some suggested ones to buy.
Fagiolini alla greca
1 kilo of green beans, topped and tailed, then washed
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 ripe tomato, diced smallish
Olive oil
Salt to taste
Heat a big pot of water to boiling, then drop a small handful of salt into it, then the beans. Bring back to a boil and cook for from 90 seconds to 3 minutes. When they bite well to your taste they’re done. Drain them into a colander, put the pot back on a low burner and add the oil. Instantly add the minced garlic, and then the beans, Toss a bit, very quickly, then cut off the heat. Add the tomato dice and toss about. Taste for salt and correct. These can be served hot or cool. There just is not a prettier dish of vegetables for summer.
Just before serving the meal, I quickly fried fresh sage leaves in olive oil, then put them on paper napkins, strewn with a bit of salt. They are really nice with some Prosecco, and usually a surprise to newcomers.
Okay, this time I arranged the recipes more or less in the order you should tackle them. What do you think? Is it better to arrange them in the order in which one eats them and you figure out when to start what? Or this way?
Here again a white wine with lots of body and fruit would be great, a big oaky Chardonnay, or a light and fruity red like with the turkey in the previous meal. If you are ever confused just serve champagne. I’d like it.
Here is a lemony glaze recipe you can use.
175 ml (.75 cup) water
59 ml (.25 cup) lemon juice
the finely grated rind of one lemon
250 ml (1 cup) sugar
a couple of small dried chilis or a pinch of powdered cayenne or peperoncino
Put all these ingredients into a small pan, bring to a simmer and boil for a couple of minutes, stirring. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to tepid. Remove the chilis.
July 15th, 2007
A fresh look at the autumn jacket.
Too dental assistant for me.
I’d wear this in a flash if you’d ask me out.
Unusual and beautiful, but you won’t be anonymous.
A very pretty schoolteacher who needs a bra badly.
I think I may have an idea about how to use all that leftover fringe from my previous job! Not.
There’s an idea!
Elegant and very retro. There’s hardly anyone alive who wore this dress the first time around.
Nicolas le Cauchois, but the question is, can Annika do this with her hair now?
What the well-dressed Russian buffalo hunter wears to dinner?
All photos are linked from the UK Telegraph from the reports made by Hillary Alexander– the best fashion editor around these days.
July 13th, 2007
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