I have just been reading an account of the rescue efforts going on in Texas. At first I thought there had been an error, because after all who would have stayed? OK, maybe a couple like Harry Truman of Mount Saint Helena fame would stay and suffer his fate.
But no, there were about 140,000 who ignored the demand to leave the area. What? I live in the middle of Italy and for an entire day every news report said Ike was closing in on the Gulf Coast of Texas and that everyone was told to leave or face “certain death”. I would leave, wouldn’t you? But not only did people not leave, they kept their children with them. What part of certain death did they not understand?
If it weren’t for the innocents involved, I’d be tempted to invoke the Darwin award and let them survive or not instead of risking more lives trying to pull them off their roofs or out of trees. Only this short time since Katrina and 140,000 people say to hell with it, I’m not stirring?
Will you please explain to me what is in these folks’ minds? Can someone justify for me the risk and costs of rescuing people so stupid that they would lie down in front of a freight train? With their kids?
Because frankly, I don’t get it.
September 14th, 2008
At 8 o’clock this morning, Greenwich meant time, it became possible to email entries to Blog From Italy and enter the recipe contest to find the best Italian autumn soup.
A Soup is a Soup 
Understand just what constitutes soup in Italy is not all that easy. Many innocent tourists order ‘zuppa’, and what they will find in front of them is a steaming bowl of liquid. Great! Looks like soup, tastes like it too. End of story.
No, sorry, not quite. You see what many visitors to Italy may overlook is that there are other soups on the menus too, it’s just that Italians do not refer to them as soups. The words they are more likely to use are ‘minestra’, ‘brodo’, ‘veluto’ and ‘crema’.
My apologies if I’m ladling on so many soup related terms, but then Italy has never been known for its simplicity. If you have not gone potty by now, then proceed to the next paragraph. Otherwise, go make soup.
That is from Alex’ opening day post. When you read it, you will discover that there are so many more opportunities to be Italian and also be soup, that you may boil over with ideas. You can enter five recipes if you are that creative.
I heard taste testers talking via email yesterday about how excited they are to see what there will be. They expect a fall and winter full of tasty new soups to make, and when that cold and damp season begins, we’ll be ready to slurp them all down!
September 12th, 2008
Mary of The Flavors of Abruzzo has made us her version of potato salad. With temperatures scratching the 90s, it’s a timely choice and a very interesting recipe, too.
It may look like the page isn’t going to load, but give it a few seconds and it does show up. There is a file problem on her blog that hasn’t been solved yet, but after a couple of color changes, the article showed up for me.
Thank you, Mary, for taking time from your new boy to cook for us.
We’re very sorry if the link to Mary didn’t work for you. Her server has unresolved issues, but I have changed the link now to one that works.
September 12th, 2008
Here in New York Magazine there is a very well-written account of dining at el Bulli. What makes it special is that it is written not by someone who deals with food professionally or even someone who dabbles in food, but instead by someone who didn’t even know what el Bulli was
September 11th, 2008
That is the beginning of plum syrup I made experimentally and tried yesterday on pancakes. Yes, pancakes. I don’t like pancakes, but I know a lot of people do, so I figured I’d better try it out the way others would. I liked the syrup very much, the pancakes, not so much. I love crepes, but all the things people say about pancakes: light! fluffy! ethereal! cloudlike! are the things I don’t like about them. I like chewy, dense, tender and eggy. What you see above is wild plums. There are three kinds here: sloes, red ones and these blueish ones. These have a acerbic quality I love and rarely find that reminds me of chokecherries, another thing I can’t explain. I have never seen them again since I left Maine. What the heck are they and where else do they grow? The point is, though, that very likely wherever you live there is a wild fruit like this. It’s something most would not eat alone and raw. Like a cranberry or a lingonberry. It is sour and makes the inside of your mouth pucker all over. That, my friend, makes incredibly good syrup that you can use in lots of ways. These fruits are also generally jammed with vitamins, which is probably why we have to fight the birds for them.
The next thought is that tomorrow, September 5, 2008, is the first day in which you can email your entry to Alec to win the soup contest. I wish I could enter! While listening to friends discuss what might make a good entry, I thought of about 30 soups I would enter if I could. Hah! Fodder for this blog through the winter, eh?
Eccociqua! We’re back! Starting Friday a whole new series of great American food as it can be made in Italy. Every recipe will as always be in English and Italian. It’s like the first day back at school for us, and we are standing here in our new shoes and with our new pencils ready to go. We’ve been batting around and sharing out a list of some of the most delicious American dishes there are, besides us, of course.
A reminder: if you would like to join us and can translate your recipe into Italian, we’d love to have you.
Hot under the collar:
Want to read some of what I think about this importantissimo election in the USA? Here, here and here are some articles that say it better than I can at the moment. My throat is too full of bitter gall to make sweet sense. Bleeding Espresso has also had some well-weighed words to offer.
September 11th, 2008
moar funny pictures
Alison has already pimped Tilda in mere kittenhood. Makes you kind of sad, doesn’t it, when parents are so careless of their children’s safety?
September 9th, 2008
Stop press!
I opened the green tomato dill pickles because if I want to make more of them I need to do it while there are still green tomatoes.
Verdict: love them! They aren’t like cucumber pickles at all, but they are really delicious. I’m not nuts about their texture, but they really haven’t been in the brine that long and that can change.
September 8th, 2008
I keep hearing from miserable people who are living through hurricane trails or the wet and nasty aftermath of the storms coming out of the Atlantic. Those storms run up the western coast of the Atlantic, then cool off really well in the north and rumble back over the ocean to Europe. This recipe is dedicated to those who need some warmth and some love wherever they may be.
This is the absolutely basic recipe for cooking lentils in Italy. One could just boil them in water without sofritto, salt or seasonings, but why? This is how to make them good, delicious, healthy and Italian. That pink stain, by the way, is where I tried elderberry vinegar as a condiment. It’s fine, but this dish doesn’t really need a condiment.
These are the most precious lentils you may ever see. They are Lenticchie di Castelleucci, a place in Umbria that is famous for growing tiny, perfect and flavorful lentils that are unlike any I have seen anywhere. I photographed these with a three inch paring knife blade so that you could see how small they are. No matter which lentils I use or how I cook them, the recipe begins with spreading them out on a plate and checking them for anything that isn’t lentils. That’s important.
(more…)
September 8th, 2008
We have had this before, but with a very different recipe. That’s the way with leftovers, they are never quite the same twice. I think torta rustica is very generic and there are no recipes or a million, whichever you choose to think. Here is the recipe for this one. Oh, by the way, the twirls on the top don’t say anything. They look so much like they do that I spent some minutes trying to remember what I meant to say until I remembered they were just random bits of pastry.
Torta Rustica or leftover tart, which sounds like an 18th century character in a novel.
4 hearty servings
Heat the oven to 200°C or 400°F
enough crust to cover your baking dish
2 sausages removed from their casings
optional 30 grams or 1 ounce of diced pancetta
about 4 cups or 1 liter of leftover vegetables
a chunk of stale bread
milk to soften it
herbs at your pleasure
salt to taste, probably none with the sausages and pancetta
an egg
another egg, beaten with a bit of water for egg washing the pastry
Put the sausage meat, pancetta, most of the vegetables, the soaked bread, the herbs you choose into a food processor and mix really well. Taste for salt and correct. Add the egg and mix again.
Oil or butter a baking dish — this one is 4″ wide by 10″ long and a bit over an inch deep. Spoon the mixture into it, then scatter over the top whatever vegetables you reserved, if any, in smallish pieces. Mine has potato and cauliflower.
Put the pastry on top of the vegetables and use any trimmings to decorate it in a way that will make you think you were sending yourself messages. With a brush, apply the egg wash over it all.
Put it in the oven and in about 25 to 30 minutes it should be golden and crusty and as individual as the contents of your refrigerator
I used frozen puff pastry, because I can keep it in the freezer all the time and use it whenever inspired. If I lived nearer to my friend’s pastry shop, I would arrange to buy half a pound of freshly made puff pastry from her, but she’s far, far away at dinner time. It would be worth it if I were having guests, though. Other times I have used a plain short pastry and still others a pasta brisé. You use whatever you like.
This is best served just warm or room temperature, so it would make a great buffet dish. It can sit for hours with no alteration in it’s goodness. If you keep it overnight in the fridge, you will probably want to reheat it, but if you microwave it I think the crust will go rubbery.
If you were to go utterly mad and use both a top and a bottom crust, you could take it on a picnic and be very posh.
September 7th, 2008
Today the rules were made official for the contest I mentioned last week.
I urge you to try this challenge. The magazine is a real class act and worth having, and the contest is one I think any one of you could win.
September 5th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts
