Aroma Cucina

Festa del Bosco in Montone

It may only be a weekend long Festa, but it starts on Monday when workmen come around and run electric lines from our house out onto the street. It’s part and parcel of the festa, as we live on one of the main streets, we are therefore expected to donate our electricity to the cause.   By Wednesday evening, pick up trucks are roaring around town with flanks of men standing up in the backs of the trucks as if some strange coup had erupted. I kept checking to make sure no one was waving an AK47, and that the men were holding pieces of gazebos that would house cheese and salami stands. (Not that I might not be in favor of a coup, but that is something we should discuss in the back room of the Aries bar.)  Thursday was the day of the Concerto of the Dropping Pipes. Apparently, while assembling the vendor stalls it is required to drop the support pipes regularly and rhythmically or the Festa Gods will be angry.  By Friday night, all the pipes were standing, the stalls had been built, decorated and stocked and it was the opening night of Festa del Bosco 2009.

 

This is where I start to lose track of the days, and of the nights. People started showing up in our kitchen bearing gifts of art (It was actually quite amazing: young Daisy’s watercolors, Joseph’s unexpected and very beautiful gift, and the irrepressible Franco showing up with his Burning Bridges and Woman Reading to the Sea…. Don’t you love the idea of a young woman entertaining Neptune?), people were telling stories, saying good-byes, saying hellos, opening Prosecco, opening more Prosecco, handing me goose eggs, and just when I wished out loud for some roasted chestnuts, Oswaldo walked in the door with a huge bag of warm chestnuts and cool and fresh Cannaiolo wine.  Oswaldo and Giusy set up their chestnut stand in front of our house and they always make sure that we have more chestnuts than we could possibly desire; but how he knew to walk in the door, right on cue, is a mystery to me.

 

Saturday I entered the world of Taverna Indentured Slavery and began cooking pasta for all of Umbria and beyond. Kilo after kilo of pasta, mountains of miaile, entire forests of olives, and leg after leg of prosciutto walked out of our kitchen.

 

Saturday night we had planned on a quiet dinner for two, but then the door opened and there was Jonathan with more cheese and wine and salami, along with some crazy good cured cinghiale.  And before you know it there was roasted quail in a maple syrup and bourbon glaze, followed by a spectacular, intimate jazz concert in the teatro San Fedele.

 

Sunday is usually the busiest day, and this year was no exception.  The Taverna del Verziere was packed to the gills and once again we cranked out the food, only this time there was the added excitement of serving Emanuele Umberto Reza Ciro René Maria Filiberto di Savoia, Prinicipe di Venezia and Piemonte.  I’d had my head in a polenta pot for too many hours, when Luca starts bouncing around the kitchen babbling something about the Principe di Savoia and pointing in the general direction of the dessert station, which is also near the front door. I look over at the desserts expecting to see a Principe di Savoia…I thought it was some sort of whipped cream dessert confection, hey, if strangoprezzi, or ‘strangle the priest’ can be a pasta dish, why can't Principe di Savoia be a pastry? Finally Luca explains that we actually have royalty in our midst and he literally drags me outside to take a group shot with the very gracious Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia and his two adorable daughters.

This happy episode is immediately forgotten as a large man rushes into the kitchen, shouting at full volume, complaining that he has been waiting too long for his polenta. Which has the result of everyone dropping what they were doing, including making his polenta, so that we can all discuss his rudeness, thereby further delaying delivery of said polenta.  Dinner service was fairly dull by comparison, as everyone alternated between falling over with exhaustion and giddy exuberance that festa was nearly over. At one point in the night, there were literally more people crammed into the kitchen, all babbling and grabbing bits of food, then there were diners out at the tables. Anyone who is part of the Del Verziere family is eternally permitted to come into the taverna and scrounge for handouts.

 

   I staggered over to Jane & Eddy’s for a very welcome cup of tea, and finding it hard to put a whole sentence together in any language, Jeff took pity and guided me home.  Arriving at our door, we stepped over and around mounds of chestnut shells, cheese, corn, fruit, leaves, empty wine bottles, cartons, crates, found our traumatized street cat Niccolino at our feet begging to come in,  and with that, we went inside and closed the door on Festa 2009. Or at least I did, Jeff wound up helping Oswaldo and Giusy break down their stalls, whereupon we were gifted with more chestnuts, a sack of walnuts and more wine.   This morning, the Concerto of the Dropping Pipes resumed to give thanks for a successful Festa del Bosco, and right on cue the rains have begun as Montone shrugs off the effects of the Festa like waking from a fevered dream and we inhabitants resume our usual rhythm.

For a full set of photos: clicca qui

 

Hunting Season Conundrum

  The guns are blasting outside, so it must be hunting season in Umbria.  Mushroom hunters battle for territory, clusters of men dressed in camouflage gather on the sides of the road clutching walkie talkies in one hand and the lead of a barking dog in the other. Cinghiale is hunted ‘in battuta’ meaning the hunters and their dogs bark and whoop and flush the prey into a tight spot and then they shoot it. I have mixed feelings about battuta style hunting as it doesn’t’ seem very sporting to have 10 men with advanced weaponry, dogs and a lot of communication devices chasing after one wild boar. On the other hand, the terrain around here is seriously challenging, one misstep and you disappear into the bowels of a bottomless ravine, so maybe it’s best for everyone if they hunt in a group. That is, everyone but the cinghiale.

Dana McCauley’s recent blog post “How Bloodthirsty are you?” is a lively piece where she grapples with her own issues about hunting.

I have to support responsible hunting because I love to cook and eat game, so I can’t be wishy-washy on the subject. But, could I pull the trigger? I just don’t know.

According to my dear friend Jay Cassell, a life long hunter and big muckedy-muck editor at Field & Stream, the number of hunters and women hunters has risen in the US to around 15 million, but as a percentage of the overall population, the hunting population is shrinking and women account for less than 10% of hunters. Jay thinks I should take up hunting, and maybe I’ll go out with him when we get back to NY, if only to symbolically honor the fallen deer (Because Jay, if I go out with you, I totally expect to come back with a nice buck, none of this, oh better luck next time nonsense like you pull with fly fishing!). 

In Umbria, hunting is so woven into the fabric of life, you just accept that in the fall it sounds like you are living outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, it’s best to wear a red bicycle helmet and you always hope that sooner or later someone is going to hand you a choice piece of cinghiale. This weekend, we are serving cinghiale with black olives at the Taverna del Verziere during our Festa del Bosco and I promise to say a small prayer of thanks to the animal spirit. It’s the least I can do.

So, what about you? Do you eat game? Could you pull the trigger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Celery from Trevi

 

No, black celery is not the stuff you find in the back of the fridge. 

It’s a much revered type of celery that can only be grown in Umbria in the area around the picturesque town of Trevi. The town seems to be literally spilling down a mountainside, almost in defiance of gravity.

This celery variety, Apium graveolens L. var. dulce (Mill.) has earned IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) status along with Cannara onions, Lago Trasimeno beans, faro from Monteleone di Spoleto, saffron from Cascia and other products unique to Umbria.

 

Trevi loves it’s black celery so much that they’ve been holding the Sagra del Sedano e della Salsiccia” since 1965.  This year we made it our business to get to Trevi to experience this famous black celery. The first thing you notice, aside from the fact that this is some honkin’ big celery, is that it’s not black. The leaves are a very dark green but even in the dark, they don’t look black.

There is something quaint, and slightly mad about seeing crates of celery stacked up and people lugging around big bags of celery. I’m sure it’s my US perspective, where celery is this generic crunchy stuff without much flavor, so to see true passion for celery, well, it just warmed my heart on a very cold night.

 

Now that I had my bunches of celery, and was carrying around a bag just like a local, I started to wonder what exactly was I supposed to do with them? We took a walk around the vendors who were selling black celery products and most of them were a ‘crema’ de sedano with sausage or truffles.  Restaurant menus also offered mainly ‘crema’ preparations, so we staggered around with our celery bag still a bit mystified by the cult of the black celery.

 

Arriving back in Montone, I was seized by inspiration! Give one of my huge bunches to Margie and let her figure out what to do with it! Ha! Half of my dilemma solved. We stood around in her kitchen munching on the flavorful (but my no means earth shatteringly tasty) celery stalks. Assessing the celery like wine we came up with: somewhat woody character with a good celery flavor. Maybe you need to cook it.

 

The next morning I had to face my celery and deal with it.  I cut off the huge, dark leaves and made a vat of richly flavored celery stock. The stalks I chopped into finger length pieces, put them in a clay pot with a very small amount of water and braised them for about 2 hours. Then I pureed the braised celery into a fragrant green mush.

 

My first experiment was “sedano nero e patate puree”, or “celery mush mixed with pureed potatoes” which I used as a bed under roasted quail. Not bad at all!

 

These are approximate quantities:

1 cup of celery puree

1 cup of potato puree (boiled, salted, potatoes put through a ricer and combined with a few tablespoons of olive oil)

 This would be a nice side dish all on its own, for those times when you are tired of just plain potatoes.

 

Next, I had to try the sausage and celery combination as this seemed to be the most classic preparation.

Celery & Sausage Sauce

1 medium sliced onion

1 cup of pork sausage meat

1 cup of celery puree

½ cup white wine

¼ cup heavy cream

4-5 thinly sliced artichoke hearts (optional)

 

Put a large pot of water on to boil the pasta and begin cooking the pasta as soon as the water boils because this sauce only takes about 5 minutes to cook.  I used orchiette pasta, which made for a toothsome, hearty dish.

 

Sauté the sausage meat and the onion, when the meat is brown add the pureed celery, artichoke hearts, and white wine. Gently simmer. About 2-3 minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the cream and check the seasonings.  In Italy, it is common to buy pre-seasoned ground sausage filling, which is usually heavily salted so I’ve learned to be extra careful about not adjusting salt levels until ready to serve. If the sauce seems too thick, add a bit of the pasta water to loosen things up.

 

I realize that not everyone is going to have access to ‘sedano nero’, so I think you could adjust the braised celery described above by adding a bit of parsley and the celery leaves to the braising pot.  You’d need to experiment on your own if you want to discard the parsley and leaves before pureeing. You might also consider using Chinese celery which has much thinner stalks, more leaves and is very flavorful; however it is meant to be cooked and not eaten raw as it is rather tough. And here is your celery trivia of the day: most of the nutrients in celery are in the leaves so consider using them in salads and stews.

 

Deborah Mele on ItalianFoodForever describes a black celery pesto that she made and that sounds yummy.

 

I’ve been singing the praises of celery for ages, and it’s good to know I’m not alone!

 

P.S. My trusty camera is in the hospital. It had a focus seizure and had to be rushed to the ER. I’m using a little hand held video camera thing to take stills and its like shooting with a blindfold on. So, for the next 10 days or so, my shots will be more ‘artistic’ than usual. Pray for a speedy recovery!

 

 

 

Fall in Umbria

And the days go flying by. The searing summer heat is gone, replaced by a chill wind and a few thunderstorms.  A tougher skinned, hardier tomato has replaced the sun warmed summer tomato, but no one really is thinking much about tomatoes now. The first of the fall artichokes showed up at last week’s market, along with the first ‘cachi’ or soft persimmons. We have marvelous leeks in the orto, and we’re waiting for a batch of rucola to sprout.  We need more rain if we are going to have a good truffle harvest. Most everyone's grapes are in, and it will be another few weeks before olives can be picked.

The mono diet continues. Last week we ‘processed’ a large amount of grapes, but I’ll save that story for another day.  Tomorrow I work on a crate of lemons, hand delivered by Joni and Carl, all the way from Positano.

 

It’s the fall festa season and time for the debate: Shall we go to Morra for chestnuts? Apecchio for truffles? Citerna for funghi? Trevi for black celery? We meet our cheese maker friend, Francesco, up in Apecchio, and then run into his sheep on the way home.

The light is softer now, the shadows deeper and cooler. Sunday lunch was as if we were living in a painting. After a  few weeks of much loved guests visiting us, everyone has gone home, and the house seems so quiet. But our Festa del Bosco is right around the corner, so I’m savoring the calm.

And so, it’s fall in Umbria.

Cue: Sister Sledge singing, “We are Family”.

Sometimes you need a soundtrack in your head to set the mood.

Normally I don’t blog about people that I cook for, but I was honored and privileged to be a part of a fantastic wedding celebration. Two families that came together to have fun and share the love; it was something that none of us will forget. Seriously who can forget a cooking class of barely contained chaos, with an aubergine frying marathon, or a naked guy making breadsticks, or the cries for yet more garlic? And our poor token, good-natured vegetarian took a lot of ribbing but still kept laughing. The wedding day was absolutely storybook beautiful and we were happy to be a part of the festivities.

 

Cooking for people takes a lot of heart and sometimes, I’ll be honest, it takes a lot out of me. This time, I got it back in spades.  Making and sharing food with people is absolutely primal, and to be able to do this with my own family and very close friends, made it all the more special.

Tante Auguri Sarah & Chris!!

 

BLT in Italian = PIP

I confess that I really don’t miss too much American food, and I was never much of a sandwich eater, but I recently NEEDED to eat a BLT, but obviously it was going to have be Italian style, so we created the Pancetta Insalata Pomodori!

 

Here’s the recipe, but you’re on your own deciding if it’s worth it. We had everything around so it was no big deal, but you do have to stop and wonder and pay respect to what it took to get our sandwiches to the table.

1)    Bake the bread. That’s the easy part, I usually bake a batch once a week, freeze it and we’re all set.

2)    Find some willing chickens. You need an egg to make the mayonnaise. What? You thought I was going to buy mayonnaise? Our friend Bruce has some lovely chickens that lay great eggs, the kind with very dark orange yokes.  Yeah, that orange stuff on the bread is actually the mayo made from these eggs.

3)    Grow and harvest a good tomato.

4)    While you are out getting the tomato, pick some lettuce.

5)    Fry up the pancetta. I did not raise the pig, know the pig or have anything more to do with the pancetta other than buy it. What can I say? Maybe next year we’ll convert the guest room to a pigpen.

6)    Slice, fry, assemble, eat.

 

Goings on in the Upper Tiber Valley: Montone, Umbertide, Sagrantino

It’s time for a local news update:

Weather report: still cool. We’ve actually had a good, steady rain, which is a blessing because everything was tinderbox dry. It was looking more like an African savannah than the green heart of Italy.  I’m crossing my fingers that this rain will bring porcini mushrooms; it’s been 2 or 3 years since we’ve had the right combination of rain, followed by the warm weather that is necessary to get these ‘shrooms to sprout.

Vendammia (grape harvest) is under way and this weekend is the big Sagrantino release and festival. Montefalco, here we come!

The Montone piazza is still ripped up! Originally we thought it was to fix the water problems, but no, it seems some of the stones in front of the tabaccheria and the hairdressing shop need to be replaced. The Aries bar has no outdoor seating except the front porch, the old guy’s eternal card game has had to move indoors and town just feels unsettled.

There is huge screen set up right down the middle of the piazza, and for over 10 days now, Martina and the tabaccheria are behind the screen, along with very noisy stonecutting machines. We’re thinking this may not have improved her usual good mood.  Stone cutting begins promptly at 7:00 am. This was supposed to be a quick fix project, but no one is taking bets on when it will be finished.

Umbertide had their Ottocento festa over the weekend and it was a rousing good time. Forgoing the whole medieval theme, Fratta (the original name of Umbertide) has embraced the roaring 1800’s. It is a festival in every sense of the word: lavish tavernas done up as genteel parlor rooms, can can girls, dance performances, jugglers, ragazzi running in the streets with bayoneted rifles, spectacularly bad wine, incredibly good home digestivi. We sampled basil, erbe and Indian fig, and all were outstanding. Oh, yes, and did I mention the ring toss around the salami game? There was a large, erect salami, and if you got the ring around it, you took the salami home. Fun for the whole family! We went home tired, with sore feet, and big smiles. I love this festa!

Figs are in season and I have eaten too many of them. There are still good peaches to be had. Tomatoes are winding down.

Getting a pizza on a Monday night was even harder than usual. It took four tries before we found a pizza last night! Franco is always closed on Monday, Nestors is on ferie, Old Café was closed…we finally wound up at Habanera’s in Umbertide. Pizza Guru was beside himself as he led us on this pizza pilgrimage. Habanera’s deserves to be fourth on the list, but we still managed to have a good time.

And that’s the news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A cool wind blows

Summer Lock Down is Over

Let the Sun Shine In

 

Finally, mercifully, the long hot summer heat has broken. After two full months of not being able to open the shutters in a vain attempt to keep the house cool, a north wind blew in on Friday, and it’s still blowing. It brought with it a renewed appetite, an incredible desire to be outdoors again, a need to get on our bikes and to be out and around.  

There is no shortage of festas, so on Saturday, we drove up to the gorgeous Tuscan town of Stia where they hold a biannual ironworkers competition. Each ironworker is given three hours to complete a piece based on a theme and this year’s theme was balance.  After wandering the town and seeing the sights, we got back into the car and with the top down the wind in our hair, the sun on our faces, we went up and over the mountain pass and into Emilia Romagna and treated ourselves to a fantastic meal at Locanda della Gambero Rosso, but that deserves a post all on its own. Stia photos here.

 Sunday we dusted off the bikes and went to Spello for a ride through olive groves and into Assisi.  Assisi photos here.

Which of course leads to building up a spectacular appetite, which means that we had to stop off at the town of Canarra which is holding its famous onion festival.  Onions in all shapes, sizes and forms were on sale in their raw state or you could go to one of the massive tavernas and have an onion meal. Onion pizza, followed by onion soup, with a side order of onion stuffed tomato, sausages in simmered in onions, sfizio which is a local dish of baked onions and meat sauce, marinated onions and for dessert onion tart.  We were seated at a table of 6 kids, the parents were at the next table over, and we could not have asked for better dining companions. They asked us at least a million questions about being in the States, they corrected our Italian, we worked on their English, we tried to explain where Las Vegas is, and why we don’t need an alarm system for our apartment in New York City.  I did buy some of those gorgeous onions, but I'm just a little too onioned out at the moment to enjoy them.

It was a fantastic weekend adventure and it feels great to be able to go back out and enjoy the world again!

And the winner is.....

Del Verziere! Del Verziere! Del Verziere! Del Verziere! 

Although I'm sure the news has gone global by now, our rione, Del Verziere has won the 2009 Palio della Santa Spina.
The winner was announced Saturday night,  the piazza erupted and the party went on all night long. Sunday we all dressed up yet again and had the huge procession or corteo through town that climaxes with our priest displaying the Holy Thorn which was brought to Montone by Fortebraccio.   It also meant walking around town in scorching heat wearing more upholstery fabric than most of us have on our couches. And tonight is the victory party back up at the Taverna. More food, more wine, more feasting, more laughter. It's good to be the winner!!

For anyone wishing to see  photos of the Donazione della Santa Spina, I invite you to take a look at my Flickr gallery. Honestly, it's like being asked to sit through someone's wedding video...but for those of us passionate about Montone, have fun!  

Donazione Update: The Waiting Game

Ciao! For everyone who has been sending me emails asking about the festa competition…. Tonight is the night that the winning rione will be announced. So stay tuned.

It has been a crazy, crazy, hectic, HOT, fun filled week.  All the plays have been played, everyone has done their best and now it’s up to the judges.   Del Monte’s play or spettacolo was a moody, after the battle scene with fantastic gory wound make-up, great use of a shadow screen to simulate the battle and a tale of intrigue and deception. Del Borgo was a visual extravaganza with eerie witches, flag throwers, Death on stilts, and a dramatic, lone knight in shining armor.  Del Verziere’s spettacolo was the Cecil B. DeMille inspired tale of the battle of Perugia. We had a cast of thousands, a horse, chickens, scary looking soldiers and a tragic love story. As always, I’m utterly amazed at the overall production quality, the amount of hard work and dedication that it takes to pull off these spettacolos is staggering.

The tavernas are packed every night, turning out mountains of food, filling the air with smoke and the aroma of roasting meat.  The piazza has been packed, literally bursting with people, until the wee hours of the morning. And each morning, everyone is sleeping in just a little bit later.

It’s late afternoon, and I can hear the sounds of the Del Verziere taverna being readied for tonight and I actually just got a whiff of tomato sauce. But most of all, you can feel the tension in the air. Small groups are huddled together discussing the merits of each of the plays as they glance around at their neighbors wondering what the outcome will be.  Objectivity may be in short supply, but passion is alive and well in Montone.