This ain't no rabbit food...

and Mr. McGregor isn't going to run me off~

For the longest time, I always wondered why Europeans had their salad course AFTER their main/meat course. In America, we eat our salad course first, almost as an appetizer. I am not sure why there is a cultural difference, but it has always made me want to ask the question, “Does it really matter where the salad falls during the course of the meal?”

 

The answer is—YES!

 

While I was living with the family in Italy, regardless of how we started the meal or what the main course was, we always finished every meal with a salad, followed by fresh fruit. And I discovered the reason why—after a meal, your palate becomes overwhelmed with rich sauces, exotic spices, and meats glistening in their juices (fat). If you follow all of that with fresh, crisp greens (my favorite being arugula), simply dressed with olive oil and some type of acid, like lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, you palate gets refreshed.

 

My first night in Viterbo with the family was a whirlwind. I had been up for 33 hours and, between flights and trains, I was exhilarated and exhausted. The food was home cooked, the conversation was all in Italian, and I was starving. I ate my fair share and, after the main course, out came a bowl of lettuce. I really wasn’t in the mood for salad at this point. To my American palate, my meal was over. All that remained was dessert. But I decided that “when in Rome,” or as close to Rome as I was, I would have the salad.

 

It was fantastic! Nothing complicated—no grated cheddar, thick sliced red onion, chopped iceberg lettuce drowning in a creamy, mayonnaise-y glob of dressing. It was a bowl of simple mixed greens accompanied by a salad set of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and black pepper mill. I placed some greens on my salad plate, drizzled over some olive oil, added a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of sea salt, and a twist of the mill. Done.

 

After my first bite, it hit me. Wow! The acid of the vinegar, the crispness of the lettuces, the hint of salt and the spice of pepper cleared my palate. It revived my taste buds, which had been subdued by all of the food before. Truly, it didn’t really hit me until I was served the fruit course next. The sliced cantaloupe was so sweet, so juicy, so incredible tasting—it had everything to do with the salad course clearing my palate. Again, WOW!!!

 

That is how I learned the importance of the salad course coming after the entrée and before dessert. The salad cleared my palate; the fruit paved the way for the dessert. Brilliant. I was again refreshed, ready for dessert, coffee, and an after-dinner drink, too.

 

While I was in Minneapolis last weekend (remember the birthday party where I served the roasted cauliflower—read the comments from the previous post and you’ll see how successful the recipe was for someone else), I went with another friend to a shop where they sold olive oils from around the world and flavored balsamic vinegars.

 

Vinaigrette is set up as a taste-testing store where you take a small piece of bread, fill a tiny cup with a sample of an olive oil, a flavored balsamic or wine vinegar, or a combination of the oils and vinegars, and using the bread taste the sample. Here large metal samovars held an Italian, Greek, Egyptian, Californian, Syrian, and Tunisian olive oil to sample from. Behind were more samovars offering olive oils and balsamic vinegars infused with various fruit flavors, spices, and even chocolate. It was fun to mix a porcini mushroom-infused olive oil with a Cabernet wine vinegar or the chili pepper-infused olive oil with the chocolate balsamic vinegar. Richard, one of the owners, was very helpful and it was fun to spend a good 45 minutes there sampling all there was. We even talked about a possible book event there. You should check out their website and, should you happen to order anything, please tell them where you received your information.

 

The visit there reminded my taste buds of the importance of a well-dressed and well-placed salad during the course of the meal. I hope you try to vary up your salad schedule, too, and see what it does to your palate.

 

Buon Appetitto!

Mark

 

Photos:

(1) My favorite kind of salad: Arugula dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar (this time pear-infused thanks to Richard at Vinaigrette), grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

(2) My purchases from Vinaigrette in Minneapolis: Balsamic vinegars infused with: pear, raspberry, fig, and chocolate; and a bottle of their Italian extra virgin olive oil, naturally my favorite.

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Posted via email from Beyond the Pasta

"You don't send me flowers"...well, cauliflowers~

Let’s take a break from Siena and talk food~

 

I spent this past weekend in Minneapolis visiting some dear friends—one of which was celebrating a birthday by having a little get-together at her house.

 

Recently I have been on a cauliflower kick and when I was asked to make a pasta dish for the party, I thought of roasted cauliflower with penne pasta. This is a dish very similar to one that Nonna made—she sautéed her cauliflower—but I like the idea of roasting this underused vegetable. Italians like to serve their vegetables with a bit of spicy heat, especially bitter greens, and, though it isn’t green, using red pepper flakes is a great way to add a little “som’in, som’in” to the often bland flavor of cauliflower.

 

I made this dish several weeks ago using spinach penne and it turned out wonderful. I am a little dubious of my success this past weekend. I think I could have used a little more salt once I added the pasta to the “sauce.” Everyone said they enjoyed it, but I wonder if they’ll invite me to cook again. You win some and, sometimes, well, not so much.

 

Here is the recipe for the successful version I made several weeks ago. I hope you are successful, too.

 

Roasted Cauliflower with Penne Pasta

 

To roast the cauliflower:

2 heads of cauliflower

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, maybe a little more

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, more or less to taste

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

 

Remove the core of each cauliflower, cut the florets into bite-sized pieces and place into a large bowl. Dizzle with olive oil, adding the salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Using your hands great toss the florets until they are covered with the oil and seasonings. Spread onto a large baking sheet making sure the florets are not crowded, otherwise they will steam more than they will roast. (For better roasting, I like to place the cut side of the florets down to make direct contact with the sheet.)

 

Roast for 10 minutes and check to see if the cut sides of the florets are browning. If not,  continue to roast (about an additional 5 mintues) until the sides in contact with the sheet are nicely browned. Remove the sheet from the oven, and using tongs, turn the florets over to roast an additional side. Place the sheet back into the oven and continue roasting for another 10-15minutes until side two is nicely browned. Remove the sheet again and let the florets cool on the sheet while you prepare the “sauce.”

 

For the “sauce”:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, finely minced

1 cup low-sodium boxed chicken, or vegetable, broth, divided

½ teaspoon Kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

 

In a large sauce pan over medium-high heat, add the oil to the hot pan and stir in the onions, coating well with the oil. Stir for one minute, making sure that the onions do not brown, and add ¼ cup of the broth. Stir occasionally, until the broth is almost evaporated, 3 to 5 minutes. Add another ¼ cup of the broth and continue stirring until the liquid has almost evaporated a second time. Repeat this step with the next ¼ cup of broth. When the third batch of broth is almost evaporated, stir in the salt, pepper, and remaining ¼ cup of broth. Still until well combined, remove from the heat, and set aside. This is the “sauce.”

 

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of boiling water to boil. Once boiling, add 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 pound of penne pasta. Cook the pasta as directed on the box.

 

While the pasta cooks, grate ¾ cup fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus an additional ¼ cup for garnish, and chop ¼ cup fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley. Set both aside for assembly.

 

Two or three minutes before the pasta is done, place the pan with the onion mixture back over low heat until it starts to simmer. When the pasta is al dente—tender but still has a bite, drain and add it to the simmering onions. Stir until well combined. Taste and adjust the salt and black pepper here (this is where I fell short in Minneapolis). Stir the roasted cauliflower and all of the dripping from the sheet into the sauced pasta. Again, taste for seasoning, and adjust as necessary.

 

Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the cheese, parsley, and drizzle with another tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.  Plate and serve warm, garnishing with additional cheese.

 

**If you really want to turn up the heat, you can serve this with pepper sauce (peppers in white vinegar) on the side. Let people add dashes of the pepper sauce to their personal level of endurance.

 

Serves 8.

 

Hope this turns out well.

 

Buon appetitto!

 

Mark

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Posted via email from Beyond the Pasta

Behind the magic door~

"And behind door number 3..."

Often we imagine how grand it must be to sit in a piazza eating gelato, while enjoying the rushing sound of water as it cascades down an enormous carved horse, water nymph, or sea god. But those sights are for the masses, the peasants, the common rabble, as they hurriedly get about their lives.

 

Behind weathered, ancient walls, out of sight of the public’s purview, there exists a peaceful, calm, and private oasis. For all of Italy’s very apparent public beauty, there is a hidden world even more decorous. It is a private world of interior courtyards, porches, and loges.

 

Tucked away behind an unassuming set of doors along a very busy street in Siena, a cobblestone courtyard, complete with a wellhead and a very ornate loge, waits to be discovered. Busts of men fill niches that are staggered throughout the covered loge, the ceiling of which is frescoed within an inch of its life. Birds, fruit, creatures of mythological origins, and twisting vines are painted in plaster to capture and inspire one’s imagination. Here is where private beauty exceeds what is offered to the general public. These kinds of private treasures are abundant in Italy. But how can they be discovered?

 

Walk along the busy neighborhood streets of Rome and look for a flashing yellow light next to a weathered wooden door or gate. The flashing light warns the passerby that the door will be opening to let a car exit, providing a brief glimpse of the private beauty within.

 

Initially, when the light would start to flash, I would scuttle ahead of the slowly opening doors, hurrying to get out of the car’s way as it pulled forward and joined the bustling Roman traffic. Soon I learned to stop and wait before passing the opening door—giving me a chance to lean into the doorway, as the car passed, to see what hidden gem might be behind this door. Sometimes the Peeping Tom at the door—me—would see tall courtyard walls thickly covered in ivy, or a palm tree centered in the doorway, or statuary and a fountain surrounded by large terracotta pots overflowing with multicolored flowers.

 

At first, I found myself slightly ashamed by my brazen public peeping, but soon I got over that, and acted as if the exiting car and the people inside were a nuisance to me, an obstacle barring me from a pristine view. There were times when the hidden courtyard, or porch, or loge that came into view was so beautiful that I, for a moment, became indignant that the owners of this property were keeping it hidden from me.

 

I wanted to raise my fist in protest and shout at the tinted windows of the car, “How dare you lock up this beauty with its spouting water, potted flowers, vines, and nymph statuary?!!”

 

But I knew that might look too threatening and get me into trouble—some of the opening doorways were actually government buildings, and now is not the time to be screaming at a motorcade as it passes. I don’t imagine prison showers to be too enjoyable.

 

In Siena, I have walked along the same streets year after year; never realizing what was hidden from view. Richard and I happened upon the opened doors of the courtyard pictured above in 2006 and we have yet to discover it a second time. I am not certain why the doors were open to the public that day in particular. Each year, we walk the street looking for the opened doors, but for as individually beautiful as all of the doors are, once closed, they soon become a sea of sameness.

 

“Wait, I think it is over here,” I’ll say to Richard.

 

“No, it was farther up this direction.”

 

He stands in the middle of the crowded pedestrian street pointing uphill, while moving out of the way for the occasional car that is now slowly pressing its way through the throng. From above, I imagine this sight as resembling ants moving a large leave across the rainforest floor. A mass of ants moves like flowing water while a large green leaf slowly inches its way in the opposite direction, giving the illusion that it is swimming upstream against the rushing tide of ants. That is how a car inches through the ancient streets of Siena.

 

“Are you sure it isn’t here?” I reply, frustrated, as we continue our trek up and down the hillside avenue failing to rediscover our lost courtyard.

 

Someday, maybe, the owner of the courtyard will buy a car and install a flashing yellow light and, if they do, I hope I am standing there to peep as it opens!

 

Buona giornata~

 

Mark

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Posted via email from Beyond the Pasta

"Roll Torre!"

And who says there is no connection between Italy and college football?!

 

Being from Chicago almost automatically makes me a Chicago Bears fan. We have options when it comes to baseball in Chicago—the Cubs or the White Socks. But when it comes to football there is no other but—“da Bears.”  Proudly declared with a thick, downtown accent “da Bears” is not a false parody of jersey wearing, heavy-set men, with bad 1970s’ porn moustaches, sitting around a table knocking back some beers in a Saturday Night Live sketch. Unless you are from Chicago, you have no idea how true to life that sketch is.

 

My partner Richard during college spent a summer in Italy, based out of Cortona, with a University of Georgia program for the Arts. Alton Brown, of Food Network fame, was one of his roommates that summer and Richard has some rather humorous photos—oh to be in college and in Italy. The program still exists and it takes no time to notice the UofG Bulldog stickers proudly displayed in the windows of many of Cortona’s shops and ristorante. Funny, those were never mentioned in Under the Tuscan Sun.

 

In the South, college football reigns supreme and, though Richard and I never quite pay attention to it, Richard’s brother and nephew do. For them, there is only one football team—the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide with its mascot Big Al, the elephant.

 

While I lived with the Stefanis in 2005, I was fortunate enough to experience Il Palio, the famous horse race that is run bareback around the campo, Siena’s main piazza. Thousands of people pack the piazza under the looming clock tower, la Torre del Mangia, of the Palazzo Pubblico to watch 10 riders, each representing one of the original neighborhood families of Siena, race their horses around the outer ring of this ancient piazza to secure the city’s highest honor and to ensure bragging rights for the months to follow.

 

The Palio is a quick and, often times, disastrous race where riders, horses, and spectators have been severely injured or killed. To be standing at the rail of the inner ring must be an exhilarating and insane experience. It was exhilarating and insane enough just watching it on television with Nonna in the den of the house in Viterbo. I tell the story of the race in the book so I won’t give anything away now, but I will say that watching it with Nonna was a ride all unto itself.

 

Nonna’s son, Luca, lives in Siena and belongs to the Torre (Tower) neighborhood. Each neighborhood has a name and a mascot. La Torre’s is a tower on the back of an elephant. Nonna and the rest of the family were beside themselves when La Torre won il Palio that summer. It was as if they had won the Super Bowl and their son/brother/uncle had been the QB. Football is passion, il Palio is passion, and Italians are nothing if not passionate.      

 

Richard’s nephew Paul has been to Italy twice with us and in 2007 while visiting Siena I made sure that we hunted down the headquarters of la Torre. Tucked in the neighborhood behind the Palazzo Pubblico, the headquarters is a large meeting room on the ground floor of building tucked at the end of a long row of structures. Imagine a Moose Lodge, but in a brick building 600-years-old. Adjacent to the building was a modern art sculpture, which involved a fountain and a statue of an elephant bearing a tower on its back. Paul was quick and insistent that we take his photo with the elephant so he could show all of his buddies back home that there were Tide fans world wide, particularly in Siena, Italy.

 

It has only been in the last few months that I have learned Luca’s last name, so I never asked the group of men hanging around the headquarters that day, back in 2007, if Luca was there. I figured asking for a man named “Luca” in Italy would be like asking for a man named John in America, so, without knowing a last name, I was too timid to ask.  I was probably standing right next to Luca the whole time but, alas.

 

So the next time you are in Italy, don’t be surprised if you stumble upon some good old American college football mascots—proudly displayed in the statuary and door stickers of elephants and bulldogs, some literal and others only metaphorical.

 

Now if I could just find “da Bears,” I’d be all set!

 

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

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Posted via email from Beyond the Pasta

"M"..."I"..."C"...

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