Archive for March, 2008
Here it is Monday and no ready to wear clothes! Why? How can that be? Are there no more things to wear in 2008? The answer is there is more to come, but this is my 400th post and so I am announcing something new and sharing a tiny gift with you.
I know I have complained before about the way American food is dismissed as terrible, accused of being unhealthy and generally viewed by many Italians as poisonous. They are told this on the government supported TV cookery and food shows, programs which I am forced to pay for with my annual TV tax. You know it burns me up!
Most recently the termagant who is just the worst American hater said that we do make good sweets because that’s about all we eat.
Basta! Enough! I’m not taking it any more.
Some friends and I are going to begin publishing weekly recipes for old fashioned American food, food like grandma used to cook and perhaps like you still cook, if you happen to be American. So what’s new about that? There are innumerable food bloggers in the USA pouring out magnificent food of every description as made in the USA. Yes, that is so, but they don’t do it from Italy and in Italian!
Every dish we make and publish will be made with ingredients you can actually buy in Italy and the recipe will be written twice– once in English with US measurements and again in Italian with metric measurements.
No excuses, no lies, no obfuscations. If you know some Italians who cook, send them to us and they’ll know what we eat besides brownies and McDonald’s plus they’ll be able to make it and try it. They won’t love everything we do, because they didn’t grow up with it, but it’s a beginning, yes? Downhome cooking is a thing no one can sneer at. When expatriates are asked “What do you miss?” it almost always starts with food, the familiar food of home. If you know the awful Beppe Bigazzi, 
send him over too, the ignorant jingoist! (Folks, I think Italian products and Italian food are wonderful, but you don’t have to speak disparagingly of all other cuisines to make that so.)
We are starting out with Barb of Barb and Art Live In Italy, Michele of Bleeding Espresso, Mary of Abruzzo Flavors, Sara of MsAdventures in Italy and me. There may very well be more padella packing expatriates as we go along, but these are the Fabulous Five for takeoff. Tune in for time and place “tra pochissimo” as we say over here.
And now the little gift. Have a look at Wanhart blog and look at the incredible work of British photographer, Carl Warner. You will be glad you visited.
March 17th, 2008
but she is not and she is also not really a soup.
When something tastes this good and is this easy to make, looks shouldn’t count. I even threw a rosemary sprig at her, but it didn’t help, and I didn’t want to sprinkle something all over that would alter the flavor. This is a traditional dish of Sardinia again, and again it is just the kind of thing you need to know how to make if people come in for meals at intervals or at odd hours. It takes five or ten minutes to put it on the table if the ingredients are at hand.
I hope someone will try making it with lavash, because I think that will work but I can’t buy lavash here.
This is another dish made with Pane Carasau– see below. It sounds a bit unpromising, but once you have the box in the kitchen, you really do have to try all the ways to use it. Don’t you? It turns out that this first course vegetarian main dish is delicious enough to warrant buying the box in the first place. The most difficult part of making it was deciding which cheeses would work the best. The ones I used were terrific and I suspect that anything you choose may be terrific too. Recipe after the
Zuppa Gallurese
Pane Carasau, about 1 to 1-1/2 sheets for 2 portions
formaggio fresco/fresh cheese, anything from Kraft Philadelphia on up, about 2 ounces (60 g) for two
Pecorino not very aged, grated on the big holes of the grater (about 2 ounces for 2)
Pecorino stagionato quite aged and gratable like Parmigiano, or use any grana including Parmigiano– about 1 ounce or 30 g for two
a few leaves and sprigs of herbs, such as bay, rosemary, thyme or sage
boiling hot reduced broth or stock, enough to cover, about one pint for two.
In a pot that will hold the amount you want to make, make a layer of pieces of Pane Carasau on the bottom. Using a spoon, add a few dollops of the fresh cheese on top, then sprinkle with the grated soft cheese, then grate the hard cheese over that. Add a few pieces of herbs. Continue with another layer of everything, in the same order, but you must end up with a layer of the crispy bread.
Now pour boiling hot broth over it until it is just covered. Let it sit for a minute or so until it is moistened, then serve. This is the step that gives her her name. Soaking the dish in broth is to inzuppare, and so it is called zuppa even though as you can see, it is not soup. Black pepper is a very nice addition. You really won’t believe what this tastes like!
I gave you an estimated amount for two portions, but that could change if your pot were wider or narrower. My pot was about 7″ wide and I made 3 cheese layers surrounded with bread layers. By simply layering up more I could have made many more servings. In a 10″ pot I could easily have made servings for 10 people. I could have made it richer by using more cheese. I could have made it less rich by using stronger cheeses but less of them– although you do need the soft cheese to combine with the broth, so don’t alter that one. The broth both melts the cheeses and becomes milky itself, and that is why there are two fairly young cheeses in the dish. If you were to use more aged cheeses, that effect would lessen. It would probably still be mighty good, however. I don’t really see how it could ever fail as long as you use tasty cheeses.
I picked the herb bits out as I ate this. They definitely flavored the dish, so I would never leave them out, but all the herbs mentioned are woody and stemmy and I can’t see eating them. All in all, this is another surprising dish from Sardinia, a place that has a talent for surprising me in the nicest possible ways. Let’s see if we can surprise Ruth at Presto Pasta Night with it. 
March 16th, 2008
I am experiencing a small problem with the cooking school/lessons for which I need advice. I will so appreciate comments expressing your genuine opinion.
We do not set up the subject of a lesson until someone has signed up for it. That person then gets to say what he/she would like to learn, based on seasonal availability of course, and excluding things that must cook longer than class time. Maybe it’s just one thing, and we build the rest of the menu around that, or sometimes someone says, “Anything but that!” when they have food hates or sensitivities. Lately, however, we have had more people want us to say what they should learn. (Of course, if they are the second or the third to sign up, that’s already been done for them, probably.) With some discussion that may seem like social work, I can probably suggest things. It makes no sense to teach people to cook things they’ll never find where they live. Some dishes are unique, and so learning to make them will not open the doors to many other parts of Italian cuisine. I like to teach things that lead to other things, in essence you should leave class prepared to make judgments about so-called Italian recipes you run across, or be able to remove ingredients that just shouldn’t be in a real Italian recipe. It is meant to be the most durable souvenir ever– the ability to choose, to cook and to judge Italian cookery forever (plus some printed recipes that you made, etc.)
This means that I feel like I have designed the policy and whatever you want you can have within that policy. That’s why lessons at the school start with shopping, because shopping right is very important in Italian cookery. So we could teach you to make genuine Italian dishes from whatever you found in the pantry and the fridge– after all, 50% of Italians are going to do that at lunch today– but we think figuring out what ought to be in that pantry and fridge is important.
So the question is this: is it better to offer an unformed and customizable class? Or is it better to design classes and then let the people who want that class sign up for it? Since almost all the students are travelers, should that be instead: “This is what we can teach any day, you choose which one.” Which would mean dividing the information up into a few offerings.
Although my pleasure at teaching is certainly key for me, suiting just me is not what I want to do. I like being able to teach food of the north one day, food of the south another, food from the center on a third. I like being able to do one meat Wednesday, a different one Saturday and vegetarian Friday. But it might be easier for travelers to know that, for example, every Friday was vegetarian, or every Thursday was southern food.
In trying to be as flexible as we can be, we may have made ourselves too formless so that those with little experience don’t know where to start?
What would you prefer and why? What would make your experience of a day or two in an Umbrian kitchen just perfect?
March 13th, 2008
A whole site dedicated to preventing food waste! Even though it is British I think we can all learn from it. Remember, everything you throw away cheats somebody hungry.
Lovefoodhatewaste is where to go.
March 10th, 2008
Choosing soft over crisp is easy this summer. Day or night, ready to wear shows slippy, loose-fitting dresses made of fabrics that move. Some have T-shirt styling, some have Grecian pleating and some are made big enough for two to wear, but with such soft fabric it seems just enough. In many cases the dresses are made extra generous for modesty, because the fabrics are so thin. These are all dresses, but there were tunics and tops like this as well, and the pants from a week ago included some very drapey ones.
Both of these are Max Azria for BCBG
In general, the colors are soft as well. They tend toward neutrals or very toned pastels of gold, nut or sea.
Left Bottega Veneta; right Narciso Rodriguez.
Detailing is beautiful, from the row of tucks at the neck of a charmeuse shift to the openwork embroidery that provides body to all but the yoke of the frock of silver silk jersey, it is clear every time that without that detail the dress is nothing, it is not just for show.
Left Donna Karan; right Bottega Veneta (sigh.)
Fabrics to look for to make the look yours are thinnest knits, jersey, challis. gauze and crepe for daytime. For the evening you could add the thinnest and lightest silks and satins I’ve seen. They remind me of lining fabrics.
Here’s a tip in case you don’t know it. Rayon challis, which in its lighter versions is cool and pretty to wear in summer, is generally dry clean only. If you are having something made or making it yourself, however, you can wash and dry the fabric beforehand as you wish to wash and dry the garment and almost all of the time it will then be stable to wash. I pre-wash in the machine at a low temperature then hang on the line (or in the shower) to dry. It presses quite easily or sometimes looks just nicely summery un-ironed. It makes the difference between a dress you constantly have in the dry cleaners and a dress that is fantastic for traveling. All the above daytime choices travel well, as a matter of fact.
On the street, Bloomingdales has some dresses that move by Eileen Fisher and Free People, for a start. I didn’t look at the upper end of the price bracket where I am sure there are more choices. Banana Republic also had some nice choices, although since dresses are not their specialty, the range is not as wide as Bloomie’s. J. Crew has some beautiful dresses that fit this description. I was tempted to order a couple myself, except I remember how long everything from them was.
March 10th, 2008
We begin with this. It’s an inconveniently large, flat box filled with thinnest and crispest stuff called Pane Carasau or Carta di Musica
or music paper. It’s from Sardinia and in Sardinia it’s used in so many ways I may never work my way to the end of them. For me the only problem is how to store it, because 500 grams, or about a pound, can last a long time. Once you’ve broken into the plastic covering it is vulnerable to humidity, dust and critters. Fortunately, most uses require that it be broken into pieces, so you can stick it into a big sealable bag if you do that.
I can buy it at any grocery store and I know it is available at a horrific price in the UK, but I’m not sure how widely available it is across the Atlantic. The various labeling on the back of my brand is in German, French, English and Spanish, so do look for it. Otherwise, I am convinced you can use lavash bread instead, and that really is widely distributed in the US. If you are very ambitious, you will find a recipe for making it from scratch at home at The Ingredient Store. Please let me know if you do that! N.B. I think a pasta roller could help you get this thin as paper and who cares if it’s round?
OK, so why would you want this product? For its extreme usefulness and flexibility, say I. It’s delicious and crunchy as a bread or cracker, really tasty with baba ghanouj and hummus, just nice tucked in among other breads. But even more, it makes a series of traditional Sardegnan dishes that are perfect for how a lot of people live nowadays. You can make them in moments of few ingredients and for as many diners as there are. It can even be used to make a lasagna.
Today’s dish is Pane Frattau or just Frattau. I’ve made it and eaten it three times this week because I could not convince myself that was all there was to it. (OK, also because my poached eggs kept coming out warped.) I used the recipe on the back of the package and I can’t wait to get to the rest of them now. Each time I varied the cheese a bit, or how much I poached the egg, but no matter what, I couldn’t ruin it. 
Jump to the recipe:
Pane Frattau
tomato sauce (purchased or homemade)
Pane Carasau in the amount you want to eat
about 1 ounce per person/30 g of grated Pecorino (because that’s what they make in Sardinia which is very far from Parma!)
1 poached egg per person (crack it into a cup or a small bowl at this point)
I shall give you a simple recipe for the tomato sauce I used below. Whatever sauce you will use, you must gently heat it while you do the rest of this.
Grate the cheese you’ll use and set it aside. Start a pot of water to boil for poaching the egg(s) and put salt and a little vinegar in it. Put some water into a large pot and put it onto the flame. Make sure to have a slotted spoon or spatula for removing things.
When the egg water boils, stir it into a whirlpool and slide the egg into the vortex. This is how I wrecked my eggs. I broke them from the shell and couldn’t aim them, so they didn’t go into the center and became sort of sea slug shaped. Let the water return to a simmer while you drop the pieces of carasau into the big pot of hot water, a few pieces at a time, immediately removing them with the slotted spoon to a serving plate. When they are all dipped and drained, your egg will probably be done just right, with a firm white and a liquid yolk.
Pour tomato sauce over the wet carasau pieces, toss the grated cheese over that, top it all with the poached egg. Done. Yummy, too.
Oh, and the cleanup report is super easy, because although there are three pans, two have only had water in them, and a quick wash and rinse is all it takes.
The Tomato Sauce I made is simple and quick.
1/2 cup finely minced onion, celery and carrot
2 cloves of garlic cut up
2 tablespoons of good olive oil
1 28 ounce can of peeled Roma tomatoes, or others you like
salt to taste
You may add oregano or basil or any herb you like, but you don’t have to every time.
Sauté the vegetables and garlic in the oil until they soften, then add the tomatoes, stirring them in. Using a stick blender, puree the sauce and then heat it, tasting to correct salt, for ten to 15 minutes. Once cooled it can be kept covered in the fridge for many days or frozen in portions for almost forever.
And now, let’s slide this past the folks at Presto Pasta Night and see if they buy this idea for “instant” pasta.
March 6th, 2008
Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.
As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.
No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup
1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth
salt to taste
heavy cream to taste
In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.
Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. 
The verdict was “Good!”
For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.
With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.
Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage
This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.
about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.
I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.
March 4th, 2008
Notice anything different?
I did.
Every waistline is at the waistline. Every waistline is noticeable and belted. Every trouser is a soft and flowing fit. I saw exactly one pair of snug-fitting trousers and they had bell bottoms and a natural waist. When I first saw this in last summer’s Ralph Lauren Couture Collection, I wondered how far it would come toward us. The answer is, overall that’s how designer pants are this year.
Pick the proper version of this easy trouser and you will look taller, leaner and believe me, they’ll feel cooler.
There are pages of shorts, too, but no cropped, capri or fisherman’s lengths.
So, where can you find pants like these this year? So far almost nowhere unless you are shopping at the very top level, such as at Barney’s or Bergdorf’s. At Sak’s Fifth Avenue right now you can pay $470 for a pair of skin tight chino capri pants, or a staggering $697 for painted on black capris by Versace.
There may be more in the stores than I am seeing on line, but so far Bloomingdale’s has the best array of eased fit trousers. Banana Republic has some trousers with wider legs, but they all have dropped waistlines except one pair in black wool, which wasn’t what you wanted for this summer.
I have faith that UK shops will have these faster than USA shops, partly because they are so close to the continental providers and also because for good or ill, UK girls do not buy dated fashion and the shops that try that on with them will still have it at the end of the season.
Anyway, today’s article has convinced me to pull out the Pilates DVD, shake out the hiking gear and get ready to be elegant, if not very tall.
And speaking of tall, think on this: 
There is a reason why every animal with hooves is four-legged. Without gripping feet or spreading toes you fall over with only two legs. If they ever existed, those two-legged hoofed creatures, outside of mythological paintings, they evolved out of existence when wide-footed predators knocked them over and ate them. Don’t let that happen to you. Save your $3600 and maybe your life, if you walk often in forests
March 2nd, 2008
A day in June may very well be the absolute ideal for most who live in the northern hemisphere. Where I live a day in June can also be one of the hottest of the year, but I like heat, and June makes up for the heat with the deepest blue skies of the year. The roses go drunk with the wine of late spring, the days offer up their most sunny hours, and the nights begin to wink with fireflies.
But rare? In every four years there are 120 June days. In every four years there are only 113 days. In every four years there is only one of yesterday.
James Russell Lowell is wrong, but must be forgiven for putting it so well.
AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
‘Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing,
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
‘Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
‘Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season’s youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep ‘neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
Because yesterday was OK but I am waiting for the day he speaks of, when the cuckoo and the lily and the sun all croon to me the same melody.
March 1st, 2008
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