Think On It

Friday nights

OK, it has become clear that I cannot have open house every single Friday night, so the schedule is now to be the first and third Friday night. That may change later, too, because I have done nothing about looking at when holidays occur.

So 3 October and 17 October come on over. Just email me, because you will not find my house if you do not. Then 7 and 21 November unless Thanksgiving is the 20th? Hope not. If it is supper will be 28 November instead.

Email me at decobabeone at yahoo dot com and join us for a munch.

4 comments September 29th, 2008

What a week and overheard

I finally heard a politician, an Italian, say something I believed completely. He said. “Everyone has something to hide. I would not care to be a person who lived a life in which everything I had done I would be willing to publish.” Me too! He was talking in support of privacy laws which are chaotic in Italy.

Paola and I are trying to walk everyday, about 2 hours. It’s hard to fit in now that she is at work early every morning. Monday I had a late afternoon appointment for a medical exam. I got to complain to a lung specialist that nicotine and tar were the glue holding me together and I have been falling apart ever since I quit smoking. He, who is more overweight than I am, gave me some pretty useless diet advice but said to wait until one year after quitting.

Tuesday and Wednesday we did walk.

Thursday I went to Florence and exchanged books, ate lunch, saw a movie and had a look at what will be in the markets for Christmas presents. At least that’s lots of walking.

Yesterday I was fitted with a little machine that does an ekg for 24 hours continuously. You have to write everything you do and how it felt. I was so sorry I couldn’t write, “Had wild sex with a man half my age, heart skipped many beats.” I went out of my way instead to do ordinary things, but as many of them as I could fit in. I should wear my cell phone and pretend it is a Holter, because I would get lots more done that way. Paola and I did go walking– with sacks but without a mule. We collected a lot of plums. They are getting better and better with the cold, but are starting to drop off, which is sad. Apparently not even the wildlife comes to get them. When we came home we found that Olga had become a great grandmother while we were out… of a human, not a cat or a dog.

So today is our first ever in history neighborhood get together. I am so interested to see who lives in all these houses along the hills and the road! It is to happen at our one and only neighborhood bar which is famous for its torta al testo. It’s the local flatbread split and filled with local farmers’ prosciutto crudo. You still drink wine by the coppa there. It has grown out of the local farmhands’ habits of eating in company their small meals between the big three. So many people like it that I have a hard time getting out of the valley on weekends. The site from which that photo came looks a lot like our bar, but it isn’t.

And that is all the news fit to print from Barzotti.

1 comment September 27th, 2008

la buona cucina americana: Mom’s potato salad

Not my mom’s, but Michelle’s mom’s. Just think, it is only six months until beach picnics begin. I’m ready.

Anyway, potato salad is good any time there is a ham, or hotdogs or, or, or…

2 comments September 26th, 2008

Fast Food: cherry tomato sauce

Does that look good to you? It tasted good to me! This is a fifteen minute or less effort and is made of absolutely ordinary ingredients available most of the year in your supermarket. I know fresh mozzarella costs more than the hard kind, but since it is the star of a meal that has no meat, it’s well worth it. Why cherry tomatoes? Because they usually are still tasty in the dead of winter when the other tomatoes are horrible, because they are almost universally available, and because you don’t have to peel them. Blanching and peeling tomatoes takes more time than out 30 minute fast food limit, so canned tomatoes will have a place in our winter, but right now the cherry tomato plants are still bearing good fruit in enormous quantities, so go get them.

I used Pane Carassau, but if you can’t find that, use Lavash, an Arabian crisp bread. If you want to use pasta that’s fine, but it becomes a 25 or 30 minute meal, not exactly enough time to fall asleep over the stove.

Salsina di Ciliegine alla Mozzarella

for 4 people

1.5 pounds (650 g) fresh and ripe cherry tomatoes
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced fine
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons good olive oil
salt to taste or a seasoned salt
7 ounces (200 g) fresh mozzarella diced smallish

Optional 4 poached eggs (a very nice option that ups the protein and offers a nice taste contrast)

1 pound or 400 g of Pane Carassau or Lavash, briefly soaked in hot water then drained

Start the water heating for wetting the bread.

Wash the cherry tomatoes. Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and chop the onion. Both f these operations can easily be done with the pulse feature on a food processor.

In a wide frying pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and garlic, about 1/2 teaspoon of the salt you’ve chosen and fry them for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes and fry them, moving about once in a while with a wooden spoon until they soften and you can squash one fairly easily with the spoon. In between stirs dice the mozzarella and keep in reserve. Then poach the eggs if you are using them. That would actually be a nice job for your OH, who IMO shouldn’t be allowed to watch the news without helping you at all.

When the tomatoes are softened as described, use something like a potato masher or a clean bottle to smash the tomatoes slightly. This releases their juices to stir into the onion and garlic mixture. Check for salt and correct.

Quickly dip the crisp bread pieces into the hot water and remove, allow water to run off, then plate each serving. Top with the optional poached egg, then one-fourth of the tomatoes and scatter one-fourth of the diced mozzarella over it. It will start to melt immediately. Eat this blazing hot. As you cut into the dish, the mozzarella will move and thread.

I gave it some thought and decided to send this to Presto Pasta Nights. I know they may not still have fresh tomatoes coming from the garden, but they can just substitute lobster for cherry tomatoes and voila! Works for me.

4 comments September 25th, 2008

O foods for ovarian cancer awareness: Omeletta sgonfiata

I’m delighted to support Sara, Jenn and Michelle in this effort to uncover the hidden danger to women and girls: ovarian cancer.

This dish is something I ate as a child and something I just read about last week in Artusi’s Italian cooking Bible. He gives it the silly name above, because the original name was “Souffle Omelet” and was French. Artusi was disturbed by the incursion of French words and French ideas into Italian kitchens, and he loved to say so in his recipes. Throughout most of his book every souffle is called a sgonfiatto which means unswollen and therefore is incorrect, undescriptive and probably the silliest thing Artusi did other than to put brains and sweetbreads into so many otherwise nice dishes.

This is a simple food and I make it strictly as a dessert when the meal has been heavy. I think it needs to be made of at least 3 eggs or it is too small and becomes leathery. It can be as big as your largest frying pan that has ovenproof handles. People who haven’t had it before are usually impressed and those who have had it before are happy to be reminded of it. Make it just as you plan to serve it, it does not keep.

Souffle Omelet

for 4 people

6 eggs, carefully separated
a pinch of salt
a tiniest drop of Tabasco or pinch of cayenne
a spoonful of cold water
2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup or so (125 ml) of the best preserves you can get. My homemade peach preserves are my favorite, but good raspberry jam is darned good too.
powdered or confectioners sugar for topping (optional paper doily for making a pattern)

In a large bowl, using an egg beater or an electric mixer, whip the egg whites until they are big and shiny and stiff.
In a smaller bowl, beat the yolks, salt, cayenne ot Tabasco and water until very light and smooth.
Using a rubber spatula, fold the yolks into the whites, cutting down, pulling toward you, then down again, turning bowl. Gently, gently, incorporate the yolks into the white without flattening the whites.

Turn the oven on to 200°C or 400°F. Heat a 8″ or 9″ heavy frying pan and add the butter to it. When it sizzles, swirl to coat the bottom and the sides, then scrape the egg mixture into the pan and using the spatula make it into an even layer. Cook a few minutes to set and brown the bottom, then pop it into the oven and continue to cook until the top is dry and lightly golden. The sides should be just starting to draw away from the pan. It should take 10 to 12 minutes.

Using a thin metal spatula or a knife, loosen the sides completely, then slide the omelet out onto a big plate. Use the back of the knife to make a fold just one side of the middle of the omelet, then spread the preserves over it. Fold over at your fold mark. Using a small sieve or strainer, scatter the top with powdered sugar. If you put a doily on it beforehand, you’ll make a lacy pattern. Serve immediately by cutting wedges. Pass additional preserves.

O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

Please donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund
and help spread the word!

Do go and read the warning signs posts, because although I have known at least five women who have had this cancer, not one of them knew it and it was found accidentally in every case. That needs to change.

4 comments September 24th, 2008

Tilda and the preserving kitchen

I am not alone when I work to preserve the wonderful fruits of autumn.

Let me assure you that once her curiosity had been photographed for her mum, she was removed and the plums were re-washed. Yes, I know wild animals are all over wild fruits until I get them inside, but I wash them off, too.

2 comments September 24th, 2008

Nature continues to give

Paola and I went walking again yesterday afternoon and the plums that excited us two weeks ago were still bent with the weight of plums. We filled every pocket, our shirttails, Paola’s hood and staggered home saying, “Next time we carry baskets and take a mule.”

Wild Plums

I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with them this morning, especially when I’d promised myself to accept tomatoes from Amelia and make some sauce for the freezer, but after I dumped them into this gigantic copper tray they looked so beautiful I decided to prepare half of them today and the rest tomorrow. The largest of these plums is little more than one inch across.

They are growing so thickly on the branches that they look like bunches of grapes.

Grappola di susine

The colors excite me, the gentle frosting and occasional gleam of a rubbed cheek — what can be more gorgeous? These I will cut in half, pit and freeze in a light 50% sugar syrup. This winter they may become plum cobbler of plum cake or perhaps something more elaborate I haven’t even thought of yet.

And here they are, washed, pitted and ready to pack for freezing. I listened to economic news on the television while I worked and felt very happy that I had been offered these fruits just for a half a mile hike along the road. I’m lucky.

Add comment September 23rd, 2008

All the news almost all the time

The recipe contest has been extended! Come on guys, there is not a reason in the world for you not to enter this contest. Not only has the entry time been extended, but the first prize has been doubled to two years of subscription to La Cucina Italiana! That’s US$ 96 of fabulous food and fotos.

It’s freezing cold here, so it’s just the right time to be testing recipes for soup. We are ready. We are waiting. We are even hungry!

I have been very taken up with all kinds of non-blogging activities over the past week and this week looks busy, too. Part of the reason is that I am changing things. Instead of making dishes one by one and either eating them myself or making a dinner party so I can feed them to others, I will have open house almost every Friday evening when my friends will come by and eat the blog foods. Well, other food, too, however it won’t be a dinner party but more in line with a cruise ship buffet cocktail party. Did I really say that? Relax. I’ve never even been on a cruise ship.

I planned to write this and to say if any reader is planning on being in Umbria, get in touch and see if your schedule will allow you to come by on Friday evening. I planned that and then got an email from one of you saying that she is coming and could we meet, so she’ll be the first blog reader from the wide world to come on by. There are already, of course, people who read and even sometimes comment here who are loved friends and eat with me all the time.

One of the new focuses of Think On It is going to be cucina rapida, or quick cookery. Over time I will try to go back through all the posts and add a tag “fast” and “rapida” to any dish that takes less than 30 minutes to get on the table. I’ll also work on some new fast dishes.

Why? Because Alex had the nerve to write that slow food is for old people who have the time for it. In truth, old people are the ones who do not have time to spare. In truth a lot of made from scratch great cookery is not time consuming. What is time consuming is learning enough about food to figure out what is fast and good and what is fast and a dumb choice. No one can do that for you, but anyone who doesn’t learn enough about food and nutrition to get that is on the way to trouble. If you do not know what is going in your mouth you may very easily be poisoning yourself. I read an official government research article the other day that said that European men have extremely lowered sperm counts because of plastics used to package foods and drinks. You know what? That’s pretty serious. We already knew that somehow previously unknown food allergies have become so serious that a person can die when someone in the same room opens a package with the wrong contents.

I can’t fix all that for you, but I can work on coming up with more foods that are healthy, delicious and can be made in a veritable flash. They won’t all be Italian, but they’ll all be possible in Italy.

Alex called me last night after reading my comment on what he wrote. He challenged me to come up with more easy dishes and fewer in which you must first learn to catch or butcher the main ingredient. Okay, I can do that. I told him I would if he would also cook what I come up with. Sure, he’s a busy person with a full life. Who isn’t? He’s a dad as well. He admitted that he once bought and served his child dinosaur-shaped formed ham pieces and that they were awful. It’s one thing to say let’s produce more recipes for fast and easy food, but I challenge Alex, not exactly the family cook, to make them and feed them to the family and therefore prove to all of us that even a weak vessel like Alex can do it. It seems to me that there can be no losers in this deal.

3 comments September 22nd, 2008

A walk on the southern side: aji de gallina

Don’t worry about the photo, I’ve got a bunch of them and one is bound to be focused better.

This is not aji de gallina as my favorite Peruvian used to make it for us. This is not even as genuine an effort as I could make in the United States. This is aji de gallina the way a person can make it in Italy if she is fortunate enough to have Texan friends who carry chilli peppers to her in their luggage. Someone who lives in Torino, Milano, Roma, and maybe other big, international cities of Italy may be able to buy chillis of all types– perhaps even the gorgeous yellow aji amarillo pepper. People who live in charming backwaters cannot.

The real thing is pink and feminine and complex and delicious with a fire that warms the tongue and never burns it. My Italian version is different every time I make it depending on which peppers I use and the color is not the pastel the aji pepper gives, but a robust autumny and coppery red.

I like a change once in a while. I adore cooking, writing about and eating Italian food, but inside lurks that American girl who always asked “Where is Chinatown in this city?” whenever she went to a new place. For a summer garden lunch in July, I indulged that lurker and Barb Skinner, who came to lunch, must have felt the same, because she asked me to post this recipe. It has taken all this time to have the occasion to make it again so I could photograph it. And here it is.

Aji de Gallina

Serves about 6

1 4-pound chicken, an old hen if you can buy one
4 slices of plain white bread without crusts
1/2 cup of oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
3-6 dried chili peppers soaked in boiling chicken broth to soften them, the amount depending on how hot they are and how spicy you want your aji to be
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 pound (200 g) chopped walnuts or other nutmeats
4 ounces (100 g) grated Parmesan cheese
about ½ liter of milk
6 yellow potatoes, cooked and halved
Black olives and hardboiled eggs, for garnish
Boiled rice

Cook the chicken by simmering in a tall pot with a carrot, an onion, a leg of celery, salt and water to cover it all. If it is a young chicken it won’t take very long, but if it is a hen you should leave it to cook by itself for 2 –4 hours, or until it is tender. Remove the chicken from the pot keeping the broth. Remove the meat from the bone and skin and cut into pieces.

Soak the chilis in the chicken broth. Soak the bread in milk to cover.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and fry the onion, garlic and softened chili peppers until golden. Use a stick blender or a food processor to make this into a smooth paste. Add the milk-soaked bread. Add enough of the chili-broth to make a cream. Cook over low heat, stirring, for 10 minutes and then add the chopped nuts, grated cheese and cut chicken. Simmer, stirring, adding more milk as necessary to make the sauce the consistency of heavy cream. Taste and correct for salt.

Using bread to thicken a sauce means that it can become very thick and sticky, so watch and stir carefully toward the end of the cooking.

Arrange chunks of cooked potato on a platter, then pile rice over that. Pour the aji over the rice and garnish with olives and wedges of boiled egg.

Now I know you are thinking you don’t really need to use both potatoes and rice under this aji. You’re wrong. It was my first occasion eating this that broke through what I thought I knew about food and made me want to learn and go to culinary school. Until I ate this, I thought rice and potatoes didn’t have much flavor. Eaten together they reveal what there is of the other and you discover that they in truth have strong flavors. It was that watershed experience that helped me understand that most good ingredients are perfect within themselves and properly respected can create art in the mouth without smothering sauces and piling on multiple flavors. It was not much of a leap to the day when eg made fun of me for saying a cucumber is sugary. To me it is, but she’ll still laugh her head off if you say it.

8 comments September 22nd, 2008

La buona cucina americana: Baked Potatoes

This week Cherrye Moore, innkeeper estraordinaria and faithful blogger has prepared a favorite American dish that may conquer Calabria. Considering how very popular the potato is in Italy, it has always interested me that they don’t eat them baked and stuffed. Maybe they now will?

4 comments September 19th, 2008