Aroma Cucina

Dough and Crust

This summer I baked a lot of bread at the restaurant, I must have made at least a ton of foccacia and a half ton of everything else.  Baking bread is soothing and satisfying and makes the kitchen smell great. It’s sort of the flip side to the coolness of molecular gastronomy. But, I have questions about bread baking and an invitation to a free bread class seemed like a pretty painless way to solve some of bread’s mysteries.

So, Tuesday night I was back at the   gorgeous new space (seriously, if you need a professional kitchen, a party space or an intense wine tasting room, this is the place. The wine tasting room has individual sinks for washing away that unwanted wine, and light boxes at your seat for viewing the wine color…however, it does make for some strange wine photos!).  Richard Bertinet was giving the class; he’s a Frenchman by birth, but apparently British by choice, which leads to a very endearing, but confusing accent.
We settled into our seats with a nice glass of wine, a little plate of nibbles and some outstandingly good bread.
Richard teaches classes in Bath, England and if his classes on his home turf are as relaxed and as fun as this class was, then as soon as I figure out where/when and how, I want to go to Bath.   However, Bath is really a silly name for a city, it’s like it’s missing something…like Bathville, or Bathtown or even Bath Water….something. He’s also have  two lovely books about baking bread at home: Dough and Crust. 

Back to bread. Richard’s theory about bread kneading is that you don’t knead, you work the bread, and since he likes really wet dough, this is a messy prospect. I gave it a whirl in the class and managed to send the dough over my head onto the top of the cabinets. However, as the man turns out really tasty bread, he may know what he’s doing working that bread.
He demonstrated making foccacia, how to cut those damn epi shapes that I CANNOT master, and we happily munched on his bread creations as he generously answered our questions.

Cut to my kitchen: I spent all day Wednesday restocking my kitchen, and along with staples like paper towels and cat food, I bought flour and yeast and salt. (You know the kitchen is really empty when you don’t even have salt.)  And then I started the pre-ferments: a beer based ferment and a more classic poolish that I would use for ciabatta style bread.  A pre-ferment is a batch of flour, water, yeast, salt (optional) that you let sit and ferment for a few hours or overnight, and then later you use that preferment as an another ingredient for the finished bread.  By Thursday evening I had started to pull the finished breads out of the oven.  I like the breads, but they aren’t ‘there’ yet, and as Chef Bertinet said, “Practice.”  A lot of bread knowledge and expertise only comes from the continual making of the bread, recognizing and reacting to what your fingers are telling you about the dough, teasing the dough to do your bidding. I’m still at the apprentice level, but I’m working the dough!  Any my gorgeous new, autographed copy of his book Crust? It  is already full of crumbs and flour and I think it’s much better this way.

A Strange Flirtation

I’m having a strange flirtation with ‘molecular gastronomy’, by that I mean I want to explore using chemicals and techniques that are outside the range of the classic chef, techniques that didn’t exist during Escoffier or Pellegrino Artusi’s time.  Now, bearing in mind that I don’t even own a microwave, this is pretty radical for me.

Friday night we ate at Fiamma, a restaurant on Spring St. in Soho.  They have a new chef, Fabio Trabocchi, who is pushing the boundaries between what is considered Italian cooking and what is contemporary, or radical, or molecular. Call it what you will, but we ate sorrel foam and there was some bits of powder, and a strange glowing orb on a spoon that turned out to be a pear skin with pear gel inside, and it was all excellent, and tasty, and satisfying.  So, if this is cutting edge cuisine, or molecular, than I want to learn how to cook like this.

Last night, the Culinary Historian Society of NY hosted a talk with Herve This and Mitchell Davis.  Herve This is the mack daddy of molecular gastronomy; he holds the only degree that has ever been issued for this science. Mitchell Davis is a cookbook author, a chef, and the vice president of the James Beard foundation.  Mr. Davis is also a sociologist and raised some interesting points last night about the current state of restaurant dining. Not home dining, but restaurant dining. He called what’s going on now to be multi-sensory theater.  Showing us photos from Alien where burning leaves enhance the smell of a pheasant croquette, or a juniper pillow is placed under a plate and as the pillow deflates the aroma of juniper fills the air. Of course, it’s a bit silly and over wrought, but it is avant-garde in the traditional sense, it is cutting edge. It’s not what you might crave on a blustery Tuesday night for dinner, but there is truly a place for this kind of dining, but there is something going on here that will be changing the way all of us conceive, prepare and eat our food.
I’m still not going out to buy a microwave, or burn my Slow Food membership card, but I really do want to fool around with that liquid nitrogen.
And the photo? That’s “cubes that float”… I can’t remember the French name that was given to it last night where it was served as part of the aperitivo hour before the lecture, but it was apple cider and Guinness with an apple and olive oil gelatin cube floating in it. An intriguing looking creation of the desert chef Will Goldfarb, but somebody needsto do some flavor adjustments on this one because it was unpalatably bitter. Back to the kitchen…or to the lab on that one. 

Turkey Day Whirlwind

Our feet had barely touched US soil before we were on the road, traveling to Baltimore to begin feasting at my cousin Jim’s house, then on to Thanksgiving at my dear aunt and uncle’s where we consumed a boat load of oysters Rockefeller, back to NY on Friday for a sensational meal at Fiamma, and finally back to Philly for yet another turkey fest.  This was a serious gastronomy weekend, not for the faint hearted and weak willed.
It was an amazing time, with amazing food, but for me the best moment was Saturday night at my son’s house. He and Lauren threw a Thanksgiving Due party for everyone who couldn’t get together on Thursday.  And here was my epiphany moment: if there was one thing our son had learned at home, it was the value of family and friends gathering around a table. Everything else is just gravy.
In lieu of a litany of all the wine and food we consumed, here are some photos of my wacky family and friends, enjoying each other’s company. I hope you were all so lucky.

Now, back to food. I am just busting to start cooking again. There is so much that I want to learn while I’m here in NY, I want to take advantage of all that there is to absorb while I’m here. Woo-hoo! Now, if I can just find some time to grocery shopping, because my cupboards are still bare!

Back in the U.S., Back in the U.S.

We’re back!! The bags are sort of unpacked, we are sort of over the jet lag, and we are still a little over whelmed by being back.
There were lots of good byes, and a few tears when we left, but we will be back in Montone soon enough, and it’s time now to enjoy being back.   Everything is so big here…the streets, the cars, the noise, the people.  I rode my bike around the city yesterday, doing some errands, absorbing the sights and the energy, with everyone looked so busy and confident, striding around, talking on all sorts of phone devices. It seems as if everyone is on the phone, all the time. It’s miraculous, you can have a phone signal just about anywhere. No more finding a little niche or angle within a stone wall village, here you can stride and chat everywhere.  However, could you all lower the volume a bit? I really don’t want to know what’s in your top right hand bedroom drawer,  and I don’t care how many handful of beans you are putting into your sack.  Enough about cell phones!  I’m happy to be back!

We are heading out for the Thanksgiving weekend to be with family, and I can’t wait. I’m giving thanks that I have my family, good food and wine, a roof over my head, friends who love me, and I wish everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving a very happy holiday!

P.S. I’m not cooking anything! I’ll just assist, and wash dishes!

Mighty Marcia di Montone

And to whom shall we turn to for news of Montone while we are away? That would be the Mighty Marcia di Montone!
Marcia is having the adventure of a lifetime: she lives in Portland, Oregon, but has decided that she will live in Montone for 6 months; from November to March.  She closed up her life States side, left her cat with a friend and moved into our little village without knowing a soul. That’s not quite true, Jody and Tom, the owners of her house were here to meet her and introduce her around, and I had met Marcia through my blog.  So armed with determination, a spirit of adventure and the ability to speak Italian, she’ll spend a quiet winter in our little village.
Marcia’s adventure started off with some high drama when she took a terrible fall on the street during Festa del Bosco, and broke her arm, very badly, un brutta fractura.  She had to spend five very long and unpleasant days in the hospital before we were finally able to spring her from that horrible confinement.  Now Marcia is walking around with a large cast on her right hand, and is figuring out how to do everything with her left hand. For five minutes, try using just your left hand.  I can’t last more than two minutes without getting very frustrated.  However, Mighty Marica di Montone, is taking this all in stride, with a dash of humor and making the best of it.
Marcia came with us for our farewell pizza dinner in Trestina (Yes, for those Montonese among us who crave good pizza, there are 2 good places in Trestina!  And if you offer to buy us a glass of wine to drink with the pizza, we will divulge the whereabouts of these hidden gems.  The quest for good pizza in Umbria is elusive: a place will be good for a short while and then it’s not. Bummer.)  So, am I ready for the noise and bustle of New York City? I think so.  We played a game at dinner last night and tried to come up  with some food that we missed from the US, and I have to say it was a very short list. I know I want some Indian, Chinese, Thai and Viet Namese food, but I can’t say there was anything that I was craving while we were in Italy. So we raise our glasses and drink a toast to Marcia and to our return to New York.

Trip to Milano

This week, we had to take a quick, overnight trip to Milano to take care of a bit of business.  We left Montone in foul, sleety weather, which turned into a full on snowstorm around Bagno di Romagna. And, of course, there was a long detour on the E45 highway that took us up and over a treacherous, snow covered, gorgeous mountain pass. So, it was a long drive to Milano.  Think of it as driving from New York to Vermont, in a snowstorm.

We got our business out of the way, and then had a gorgeous morning and lunch in Milano, all to ourselves. Like two country bumpkins who had forgotten what life in a big city could be like, we wandered around by the Duomo in Milano, doing a little shopping, see the art exhibit inside the cathedral, and of course, having lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Girarosto.  Girarosta is a businessman’s lunch place, with waiters in white jackets who’ve all worked there since they were young, and that was a long time ago.  The food is simple, grilled meats and fish, but everything is clean and delicious.  It’s the sort of place where you hope that nothing will ever change, and we’ve been coming there for at least 10 years, and so far, our wish has been granted. 

Milano is a sleek and chic city, where café life is alive and well, and it was a good place to get back in touch with our city skills because tomorrow morning we head back to New York. It seems so strange to be closing up our house, covering up the furniture, saying good byes.  I can’t wait to see family and friends when we get back to the States, and I know we will be back in Montone soon enough, but I also know that I will miss being here. I will miss the morning sounds of the street sweeper who uses a broom made of twigs, the two little boys and their mothers who hurry to school at a few minutes to eight, and of course the bells ringing the hour. Instead we’ll wake up to traffic noises on Broome Street, but I guess that brings life back into balance. At least for us.   So, ciao for now, and wish us a safe journey home.

Romanian Lunch

Our friend Alina made us a Romanian feast! We work with Alina at the restaurant, and we’ve become friends. She’s an incredible asset in the kitchen, hardworking, beautiful, and best of all, fun to be around. We’ve been through a lot in the kitchen at Erba Luna, and she is a great team player to have around.  The other day, to say thanks for some help that we had given her, she went all out and made us a Romanian lunch.
We’re not talking about a little lunch, we’re talking about multi course extravaganza.
To start:
Salata beuf: a chopped vegetable salad with chicken meat. Alina described it as being like the Italian Russian salad, but this was much lighter on the mayo and more flavorful. Italian Russian salad is this vegetable salad that is swimming in Russian dressing. It shows up at parties and potlucks, and it is a strange dish indeed.
Salata de vinete: a pureed eggplant appetizer that is best spread on bread. It has a lovely char flavor, but no pictures because it’s a little shy and not very photogenic.
Ova Umplute: a sort of deviled egg, with parsley and no mayo. The egg is seasoned and compacted; almost back into it’s original texture and served at room temperature. Delicious. Then again I’m a big fan of deviled eggs, even if they are sort of retro.

Then came the soup course: ciorba.  According to Alina, some variation of this soup shows up on the table at most meals.  This was a tomato base, flavored with meat and lemon juice. It was light and flavorful. You could see why on a cold Romanian evening, in the frosty shadows of the Carpathian Mountains, this would be a very good thing to eat.

Now we are up to the meat course: a stuffed cabbage roll called sarmale, served with a bit of cream.  Alina says that when she can, she makes the same dish using grape leaves. I ate more than my share of these, they reminded me of my mom’s stuffed cabbage, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had that!  Mom, are you listening??
Then just in case we were still hungry, out came some roast beef and sautéed zucchini.
By this time, we had opened the second bottle of wine and our stomachs were full and we were just so touched that Alina had gone to so much trouble on our behalf.
Then she brought out the cake! My, my, my.

A Romanian friend of Alinas heard what she was cooking, so Loridana showed up around 3:00 specifically to eat all the leftovers….and she did manage to devour quite a bit in a short time. She had to head back to work, but not before we indulged in some Romanian dancing. I’m afraid Jeff confused Romanian folk dancing with the jitterbug, but it didn’t’ seem to matter!    Thank you Alina for a very special time.

Poached Fresh Shrimp

The trick here is to find fresh shrimp; I mean shrimp that have not been frozen.  For this, it’s probably easiest if you move close to a shrimp producing body of water. That may not be so practical, but every once in awhile I can find them. Sometimes in NY’s Chinatown at a fish wholesaler, but the other day I scored at the Citta di Castello fish market. These babies were gorgeous!  They were huge, and with the most delicately colored tails.  Should you come across any fresh shrimp, try this. If you only have regular shrimp available, give it a try as well, and let me know how it works.

3-4 shrimp per person (whole, leave the head on, don’t get all squeamish! It helps keep the juices inside the shrimp body)
Parsley stems
White wine
Butter
Lemon wedge
Salt and Pepper

Take a bunch of parsley stems, or the whole parsley sprig and layer the bottom of individual ramekin type dishes with a good half-inch of parsley.  Cover the parsley with white wine, then cover the dishes with foil or a lid and poach the parsley for 20 minutes in a warm oven (300-325 degrees).  When it’s time to cook the shrimp, give them a little dusting of salt and pepper and arrange  in the poached parsley dish with a pat of butter on top. Reseal the dish and poach the shrimp for as little time as possible, maybe 3-5 minutes. Particularly with the fresh shrimp, you want them barely cooked to enhance the natural sweetness.  Serve with a wedge of lemon, some bread to soak up the juices, a crisp cool white wine, like a Grechetto, and some soft Brazilian style jazz in the background.

New World Wine

It’s been a long time, about six months, since we drank an American wine. Our friends Jody and Tom, from Portland Oregon, left us a gift of a bottle of Lemelson Pinot Noir from the Wilamette Valley. I was always a fan of big, chewy wines, the kind of wines that are like a sensuous roll around on silk sheets; but spending time in Italy has made me appreciate the somewhat more austere taste of Italian wines. Think of the difference between hopping into bed with Marcello Mastroianni versus Marlon Brandon.
Well, I have to say that getting reacquainted with the Marlon Brandon slice of life was a lot of fun. We set out a big table of cheeses, and wine and some delicious tartufo flavored salumi and talked about just how good the wine tasted.
After a few months of ‘deprivation’ it was an eye opener to taste this style of wine again. There is an ongoing discussion in the wine world about how European wines are generally more food friendly than the big American and Australian wines.  I do have to say that it would have been difficult to pair this wine with a simple meat based dinner. However, it paired beautifully with the big cheese and salumi flavors, and there was something about the different tastes on the table being anchored by this strong wine flavor that really worked, but in general it’s a challenging wine.  And pairing wine and food IS challenging, when you get it right, the food just sings, when you get it wrong, you wind up with a sour taste in your mouth.

Our latest cheese discovery is caciotta. It’s a young, smooth, relatively bland flavored cheese that can come from a cow, sheep or water buffalo, depending on which part of Italy you are in. Recently, we served it at the restaurant, melted, with black truffles and honey.  This is a cheese that melts beautifully, it gets all brown and bubbly and acts like a neutral palette to play off of other flavors. Our favorite variation is to sprinkle some fennel flower pollen on the pieces before melting and then a bit of honey right as it comes out of the oven. The caciotta on the left was flavored with oregano and some red wine, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the fennel variation. If you can track down some caciotta, this makes a great, quick meal, along with a salad. And it tastes great with some Pinot Noir! Thanks again, Jody and Tom!

Festa del Bosco, 2007

Festa del Bosco, Montone 2007

It’s been a wild ride and I’m happy to be back in the blog world and the real world! Last week was our festa, and this is the first moment that I’ve had to sit and digest. It feels like I’m emerging from a tornado shelter and I’m sort of stunned that the world, and Montone looks like it did before the Festa.
According to the Chinese calendar, I was born in the year of the horse.  I once read that the horse knows that when there is a celebration, there is extra work to be done. Great, I’m a horse. Jeff, on the other hand is a lucky dragon. Some guys have all the luck, me I had to work like a dray horse to get ready for the celebration.
We prepped all sorts of sauces for the restaurants: ragu of goose, of wild hare, of cinghiale (wild boar), racks of venison and lots and lots of pasta. Unfortunately, we did not have a whole of truffles. Although we had some at the restaurant, this is not a good truffle year, white, black, Umbrian, Piemontese, we are all suffering this year.

Everyone kept an eye on the weather, and on Thursday, opening day, it was a little nerve wracking. All this hard work and preparation could come to nothing if it rained, but the gods were with us, and the weather was crisp and cool all weekend.

Our block is the main street in town, and I wish I could describe the pandemonium that was on our doorstep. I tried to photograph it, but even that doesn’t capture the intensity of the crowds. We have a long hallway on the ground floor that leads to the street, and the walls are thick, old stone walls, so no sound comes through, then when you open the door, this wave of noise and chestnut smoke just washes over you and sucks you onto the street, like a riptide. For four days, every time you open your door.
By Sunday night, when we crawled home from the restaurant, in the dead of a quiet night, with the garbage piled high everywhere you looked, it certainly looked like everyone had had a fine time at our Festa del Bosco.
Monday morning is sort of grim and hang over like, with everyone dismantling their stalls and heading home or to the next festa. It is quite amazing how quickly everything gets cleaned up and put back to normal.
And so, the quiet season begins in Montone. All the transient Montonese, the ones with house in Rome and Milan, have said good by until the Christmas holidays, or until the spring.  Most Montonese complain about the quiet season, but to me, its peaceful and beautiful, and puts balance back into your life.  And it gives you more time to fool around in the kitchen!