Aroma Cucina

Speecy Spicy Spaghetti Gorgonzola

It was an “AHA!” moment, standing in front of the open fridge and trying to figure out what the heck were we going to eat.

One of my all time favorite pizzas is a spicy Gorgonzola pizza. I know it sounds a little funny, but it’s addictive and I’ve been known to fight to keep that pizza all to myself. So if it is so good as a pizza, why not as pasta sauce? Picture light bulb going off over my head.

Spicy Gorgonzola Sauce
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 cup or so of chopped canned tomatoes
1-2 chopped dried chili peppers depending on how hot you like it
1 T butter + 1 T olive oil
4 T Gorgonzola
Olives for garnish

Sauté your onions in the butter and olive oil, don’t brown them, just soften them up. Add the tomatoes and chili pepper and simmer for about 20 minutes or about as long it takes for the pasta water pot to boil. Simmer, slow bubbles, not a rolling boil.  As the pasta cooks and its just about done, toss the Gorgonzola into the tomato sauce. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the cheese melts.  Check to see if it needs a bit of salt, which will depend on how salty your cheese is.
Drain your pasta, toss with the Gorgonzola sauce, throw some olives on top and enjoy.
Pasta in the time it takes to boil the spaghetti, now that I like.

What cocktail are you?

Facebook is full of these wacky quizzes: what painter are you, what nationality are you, where should you live?

Here’s my quiz: what cocktail are you?

Do you:
a)    never drink
b)    refer to scotch in the past tense
c)    refer to cocktails as mixed drinks
d)    quote David Windrich at the drop of a bar spoon
e)    devote large quantities of shelf space to esoteric ingredients

 

When you are offered a gin drink, do you:
a)    recoil in horror
b)    ask if there is any vodka in the house
c)    look at host as if they were in a time warp
d)    ask if the gin will be Plymouths or Bombay
e)    whip out that nifty leather Hendricks bottle container and sniff deeply of its contents

When was the last time you tasted pure rye whiskey:
a)    never
b)    when you raided your parents liquor cabinet
c)    last night
d)    at a recent rye whisky tasting hosted by local distillers

True or False: Maraschino is by Luxore and is virtually impossible to find in its home country.
True or False: Real maraschino cherries are small, dark and delicious

If offered a gin and tonic on a hot summer afternoon, you would:
a)    smile and refuse
b)    smile and ask for a beer
c)    smile and recognize the classic genius of combining gin and tonic

If offered the aperitivo nazionale of Italy, you would be drinking:
a)    Proseco
b)    Cappuccino
c)    Negroni

What state was responsible for casting the deciding vote that overturned the National Prohibition Act?
a)    New York
b)    Florida
c)    Burgundy
d)    Utah

This concludes our test of your cocktail identity. If this had been an actual test, you would have been required to drink a gin-based cosmopolitan and quit your whining. This post was inspired by the NT Times bliog “The Proof” which somehow manages to squeeze and squander every last drop of cocktail pleasure.  There can be no definitive answers to this quiz, just an opportunity to meditate on the intricacies of a well made cocktail. Please drink responsibly or not at all.

HR 875: Food Safety Modernization Bill

If you are concerned that HR 875  could obliterate small farmers, here's your chance to sign a petition that wants to stop the bill in its current form: Leavemyfoodalone.org

I took the time to actually read through the bill and I'm worried.
 Its clearly meant to regulate large industrial food processors but it doesn't make any distinction based on the size of the operation. The record keeping requirements would be virtually impossible for small operations; free range chickens wouldn't be so free anymore.  It also puts a huge burden on foreign food producers so you can kiss imported cheeses goodbye. Even the name of the bill is clumsy, Food Safety Modernization; its sounds like something  from the 1930's.

The first goal of the bill is restore consumer confidence in processed foods. Now, I can see why Kraft and Monsanto would be all over that goal. But regulation isn't going to restore my faith in the benefits of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Another primary goal is to reduce imported foods. Protectionism rears its head so that Baco'bits aren't outsourced?  We should start making powdered infant milk and dog food on our own shores! Can you explain to me what 'reducing imported foods' has to do with actual food safety? The mission should be safety not a politically motivated agenda.

Take a minute, read through the bill and sign the petition. This isn't a bill that will protect us from food that is unsafe, its an industrial food supplier's wet dream.

Now, if only there was bill that encouraged common sense.

Jeffrey’s Pig

 

In Umbria, porchetta is a celebrated dish. It’s a whole pig that is stuffed with wild fennel, garlic, rubbed with salt and roasted, it’s divine, shows up at all celebrations, can be eaten at any time of the day and has made vegetarians turn back into carnivores.  
There is no real equivalent to porchetta in the US, but I think a case could be made for Jeffrey’s Pig.
A few weekends ago, Jeffrey, the famed butcher at the Essex St. market gifted me with a hunk of pig that he had seasoned with his special ‘secret’ marinade mix.  He wanted me to try the way that he seasoned his pork, and he wouldn’t divulge what he used. We lugged home our hunk of meat and tried to analyze what we were smelling: vinegar, pepper, chili?

Friday night the hunk o’ pig came out of the freezer and into the oven. I’m not exactly sure what cut of meat it was: perhaps a shoulder? It had a thick layer of skin and fat with boneless meat attached and I roasted it until the skin was crunchy and the fat had rendered through the meat.
It was the tenderest, softest, most yielding pig I’ve ever eaten…it was practically spreadable. I humbly bow to Jeffrey and his seasoning…it’s magical. You’ve got to love a good butcher!

And check out Jeffrey's Recession Dinner for a tasty way to forget about our woes.

Jeffreys Meat Market
120 Essex St.
New York, NY

Making Soup

I could eat soup every day. And in these days of economic austerity, soup is a good choice. It’s certainly flexible: cheap, peasant, elegant, rustic, you name it and there will be a soup recipe that fits the description.
Recently I’ve been on a tomato soup kick. Hell, Campbell’s made an entire empire out of lowly cream of tomato soup so there must be something soul satisfying about a red bowl of soup.

Here’s my ½ hour to make tomato soup recipe.
Roughly chop up a carrot, a stalk of celery and a medium white onion. Sauté the vegetables in a bit of olive oil. Maybe toss in some bacon or guanciale. Let the vegetables soften and relax, then add a can of tomatoes. Let simmer for about 20 minutes. Use an immersion blender or a regular blender and puree everything. Maybe add a dollop of cream if you want cream of tomato soup. Or a sprinkle of smoked adobe chili powder. Or gently poach an egg in the soup and then break the runny yoke into the soup. Or whatever strikes your fancy. Reheat and serve in a fancy bowl so that it looks like it took you all day to make the soup. Unfortunately, I don’t own any fancy bowls.

Not in the mood for tomato soup? How about leek and potato soup?
Roughly chop up some leeks, a carrot and some celery. Sauté until everything is soft and mushy. Add a peeled and diced potato. Add a cup of water. Let simmer for about 20 minutes. Puree like crazy. Serve with a swizzle of good olive oil and lots of fresh ground pepper.

It doesn’t take hours or days to make a simple vegetable soup, so go take a look in your fridge and let me know what you come up with. I’m thinking a roasted pepper soup would be nice for tomorrow…

What did I miss?

I confess. I took a computer break for a few days to do a bit of painting and house maintenance and now I’m catching up on the food world. The photo is my Bella helping with the paint project.

Here’s what I missed:

I’m going to be arrested for having a garden? There is blogger outrage all over the place regarding House of Representative Bill HR 875. Basically it applies the same rules for industrially grown foods as it does for small, local farmers. Clearly the monetary burden for complying with just the record keeping rules will kill off small farms, but if the FDA can’t even police the industrial sized food producers (think peanut butter) why all the fuss? What are the chances of Jane the Farmer being inspected for her organic carrot crop?

The Well at the NY Times is asking what kitchen gadget do you covet most? A garlic skinner, a peanut butter mixer, an oil sprayer, a $50 spring loaded chopper (spring loaded?? I’d be fingerless in minutes) or an herb saver (hello, juice glass with some water in the fridge works great). Now, my friend Mitch at Tasty Travails probably has more gadgets per square inch than most, and even he’s not going to pop for an avocado saver!   Gourmet Worrier in Australia is pleased as punch with a silicone egg poacher. Now, I confess, I really, really like silicone molds, they are so much fun to play with.

There is yet another book about foie gras? Why aren’t people as riled up about Smithfield hams as they are about foie gras? You want to talk nasty, inhumane treatment; a Smithfield pig farm is my ultimate nightmare.

And it looks like fat is ‘in’. Articles about lard and even a book dedicated to fat. Look: fat = flavor. Eat in moderation and be happy.

I can’t even imagine what I would miss if I stayed away from the computer for a whole week.

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Warning: Non-Food Related Rant

We have reached the moment where we throw open our windows and shout at the top of our lungs, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
My tipping point came this morning when the NY Times reported on the bonuses that AIG will pay to its employees. There are two rationales for paying out  $165 million bonuses: they are contractually obligated to pay and how else could they retain ‘the best and the brightest’ to stay at AIG.
Renegotiate the contracts; prospective recipients of the bonuses should refuse to accept them, and doesn’t AIG know that the phrase “best and brightest” has been tarnished to the point where it means lucky, greedy bastard?
People are hurting; the symbolic gesture of returning your $3,000,000 bonus would do much to restore faith and trust. The era of greed-good should be coming to an end. Rant over. For now. Because I’m really mad as hell.

Albertson's Update

For those of you following my Albertson’s saga, they have credited me back for both delivery charges. Unfortunately the reason they took action appears to be that I reported them to the Better Business Bureau and not that they wanted to apologize for their shocking betrayal of customer trust.  It isn’t so much about the $26.00 in delivery fees as much as it’s about recognizing that if your employees make a mistake, you suck up, honor the commitment you made to a customer and then rectify it for the future.
Albertson’s would now have to bend over backwards to regain my trust and I simply don’t see that happening. ‘nuff said on this subject!

Cultural Divide in the Supermarket?

The latest kitchen fad seems to be not shopping for food. It’s a variation on closet shopping; where instead of buying a new outfit you go rummaging through your closet to find something that you’ve forgotten you even had.  Everywhere I look there’s a blog post, forum discussion, or newspaper article about the wonders of using up what’s in your pantry and your freezer. It got me wondering who are these people who have so much cabinet and freezer space that they could live for a week or so without shopping.

In our house, we would either starve or discover that you can actually survive on a diet of dried spices. Most of my freezer space is taken up with ice and cocktail glasses. I’m not saying this because I want to pat myself on the back for being frugal, its just that living in Italy for the past few years with a college dorm sized refrigerator I’ve had to scale my purchases to just what we are going to eat in the next few days. It’s the way most of Italians live, no one has enough electricity coming into their house to run a giant American freezer. OK, this may sound extreme to someone who has never lived in a medieval village, but turning on the oven and the vacuum cleaner at the same time is NOT an option in my house. Life in Montone has other compensations, so you learn to deal.

The typical Italian grocery store devotes at least 1/3 of its space to fresh fruit and vegetables. The entrance to my local COOP in Umbertide opens directly onto the huge fresh fruit and vegetable area. Most of the fruit, vegetables and lettuces are in their whole form, they have not been trimmed, triple washed or otherwise handled. There are some bagged lettuces but they are off on the side in a special refrigerated section and tend to be fragile things like mache (valeria), which is easily bruised. It’s a completely different approach than the A&P in Goldens Bridge NY where you walk pass the bank of cash registers and then into a confusing small corner of the store that has fresh produce and where nearly everything has been handled or processed in some way. All lettuces are pre-packaged, occasionally you can find a forlorn bunch of asparagus that is rubber banded together is a small basin of water; green beans come neatly trimmed in a plastic wrapped Styrofoam dish. 
In Utah, which is in the heartland of America, processed foods and  produce seems to be more the rule than the exception. If you go to Albertsons.com and click on citrus fruit, the first item is an 8 oz container of “Del Monte Fruit Naturals Red Grapefruit”. I don’t even know what it is.  Plastic bottles of lemon or lime juice precede the offerings for the actual fruit.

I’m really not passing judgment, (ok, maybe I am grinding the Albertson’s ax just a little) but I am observing how the two cultures think about fresh produce.  The assessment seems to be that the American consumer will happily pay more if she does not have to wash and trim her broccoli and she (or he) doesn’t really need to think about all the wasteful packaging. Will that change now as everyone’s wallets are shrinking; or as people discover that broccoli stems actually tastes great when you thinly slice and sauté them? Check back in two years and we’ll see if there has been a significant change in American produce display and purchasing.  I’m sincerely curious if this current ‘recession/depression’ will cause the type of lasting generational changes of the Great Depression. What are your thoughts? Are there seismic changes afoot in the way we shop, cook and eat?

Wine Evolution

 A welcome article in today’s NY Times about pinot noir’s evolution in California. 

A person’s wine preferences and tastes change over time, so why can’t there be a whole new style emerging on the west coast?  Newbies to wine imbibing like a bit of sweetness in the glass, so instead of a coke they’re reaching for a white zin. Anyone else remember the taste of Boone’s Farm? Little sip by little sip you get exposed to other wines and you start to build up a mental flavor repository. You become the sum of all your tasting experiences.

I think this may be what California is flirting with, a sense of confidence that comes when you realize the wine does not have to jump out of the glass and explode in your mouth to be enjoyable. We used to collect Turley wines; they were huge, massive experiences in a glass. Now, I don’t know what to do with them; I don’t know what foods I can pair them with; they are stand-alone wines, not food enhancers. For me, the whole point of wine is to create a bond with the food and to elevate both flavor experiences. I usually start with the food and then pick the wine but everyone has their own style, which is as it should be.

It’s a good thing when winemakers experiment with different styles, the same way that it’s a good thing when wine drinkers experiment with different flavors. Viva la difference!