I’ve gone out a few times with this really interesting man who’s got a greenhouse. On our date last night, he brought me a gift of herbs: mint, rosemary and bay leaves. Oh dear. I was inspired to use the rosemary in a risotto. It was the best one I’ve made in months. Here goes:

B2 Risotto – with butternut squash and butter beans

Saute chopped shallots in a bit of oil and butter until softened.

Add copious amounts of chopped rosemary, and marvel at the aroma.

Throw in a few handfuls of cubed, uncooked butternut squash

Then a handful per serving of carnaroli rice.

Cover with homemade chicken (or vegetable) stock and cook away until the rice is both glutinous and al dente.

Shave on some parmigiano reggiano and call it a meal.

I ate this alone tonight, wondering if I could modify it for the man who brought me the rosemary. He’s a vegan. And he doesn’t eat pasta. I still don’t understand the not eating pasta thing, but will get to the bottom of it if he’ll let me. I’m really surprised I genuinely like him anyway.

I’m really looking forward to my trip to Italy in December. Will go to Eataly and buy some more rice from this Piemontese producer.

According to the web pages of Eataly, Falasco rice is produced by the Cirio family, who’ve been cultivating rice for six generations.  Planted in April and harvested between September and October, Falasco carnaroli rice is dried and stored for about a year before it’s prepared for the vacuum pack. Traditionalists agree that Falasco makes the best carnaroli in Italy. This year I’m going to buy some Falasco venere nero rice as well.

Driving from Malpensa a Milano to Torino takes you right through the rice fields. When I first arrived in Italy in ‘89, I remember being surprised to learn that Italy produces more rice than anywhere in Europe. I don’t know why I can’t buy Falasco rice in the States. Still feel duped that the Eataly in New York did not open as planned, but read earlier this year that it is supposed to open by late 2009. We’ll see!

One of Grom’s signature flavors is “crema di Grom”, an egg custard gelato with pieces of ‘pasta di meliga’ – cornmeal cookies. Grom’s website describes this as including chocolate, but the variety sold at the NY store contained none.

Omage grabbed from Grom's website: http://www.grom.it/ita/prodotto.php?ID_cat=1&SUB_cat=6&gusto=Crema%20di%20GROM

In my small scoop, I got only one bite of the cookie. Pazienza! Curious to learn more, I bought a bag of them, from a baker in Battifollo, a small town in provincia di Cuneo. Made with stone ground corn meal, butter, egg yolks, honey, yeast and vanilla, they’re a perfect combination of texture and flavor.

According to the Sapori del Piemonte website, these cookies have been around since about 1850, before Italy was unified into one state. Passed down through generations of family recipes, these cookies used to be made only in people’s homes, typically for chrisstening celebrations. In piemontese, they’re called le “batiaje”.

These days, bakeries across the region make paste di meliga, with local varieties of stone ground corn. Though recognized by Slow Food, I wonder if and when the native corn varieties will disappear, and whether these would retain their characteristic flavor with the GM varieties we find in the States. Lots of recipes for these exist online. Perhaps I’ll try making some when cooking season returns in the fall?

Took the Bolt bus up to NYC this morning to meet up with Simona, my sorellina italiana, and learned her good news just moments after seeing her in the W lobby: she’s pregnant! Due in November, just in time for a Christmas visit. Che belle notizie!

Hungry after a morning of shopping, she wanted to eat lunch right away, so we chose a restaurant a block away from her hotel near Times Square: Scarlatto. With a somewhat uninspired ‘northern’ Italian menu, she asked that they make her a simple dish off the menu: pasta with tomato sauce. Moments before ordering, I had told the waiter she was pregnant, so he really couldn’t refuse the request. LOL. What arrived was just what she wanted (with too much garlic for my tastes). I ordered nothing worth writing about. Honest food served at honest prices.

Post-pasta, she was craving gelato and looking to buy her husband books about the moon, so we headed to the Upper West Side where Grom and Barnes and Noble are only a few blocks away from each other.

Originally from Torino, Grom sells the flavor of Italy for $5 a pop. From the English version of their website:

The idea is to apply a principle that is common to all the best restaurants in the world to the production of artisanal ice cream: buying raw materials of absolute top quality.

It was for this purpose that at the end of 2002 Guido Martinetti and Federico Grom set off on their quest, from the Langhe to Sicily, for the best that agricultural Italy but not only, could offer.

The principles are very strict: only fresh fruit and when it is in season from the best consortia in Italy, no colouring or additives that are not natural, Lurisia mountain water as a base for sorbets and high quality full-fat fresh milk for the creams; eggs from organic chickens and selections of the best cocoa and coffees from central America.

With shops now open all over northern Italy, Paris, New York and Tokyo, they’ve got a good thing going. By centralizing their production in Piemonte, they assure all stores uphold their high quality standards.  They’ve even founded a farm (Mura Mura) to grow their own fruit. These guys are on a mission…and I love them for it. Thank you, Guido e Federico, for bringing Italy to the United States….and thank you, Simo, for making the trip and giving me good reason to escape my windowless office.

 Had dinner at Osteria tonight and was impressed once again at how well they execute the simple. The homemade grissini (breadsticks) were fabulous – crunchy yet not too dry, with a slight sprinkle of corn meal on their edges and just the right amount of salt. We promptly ate the three or four given to us with the homemade bread (also quite good), effused about how much we liked them and got even more excited when our server Paul brought us a whole glassful. Smart man. Wish all waitstaff were so responsive to small talk. 

Found in just about every bakery I ever visited while living near Torino, where grissini originated, these breadsticks come in all sizes, from super long and fat to pencil then. In casual restaurants all over Italy, they’re served in paper packages placed on the table as you arrive and wait for your food. 

I bet these are super easy to make, but in these moments of crunchtime at work, I’d like it much more if I could just stop by Osteria and buy a bunch. But then again, though excited to learn that Parc was selling its baguettes, I’ve actually never made the trip down to Rittenhouse to buy one.  

In any case, I think it’s really interesting that noted Philly restaurants take on the breadmaking themselves rather than rely on the established breadmakers (Metropolitan, Sarcone’s, Le Bus). Would love to see Vetri’s pastry chef open a retail panetteria — someone’s gotta bring a modern authentic Italian bakery to this red gravy town.  :-)

Did not at all expect to find Italian influence at Blackfish, a fabulous progressive American BYOB in Conshohocken, about a 30 minute drive out of the city. Though the carnaroli risotto with spring herbs and mascarpone failed to intrigue me, the parmesan panna cotta did. Its seduction continued the moment it arrived.  Look at it (sorry for the bad light). Wouldn’t you fall for its elegant design? 

Parmesan panna cotta

I really love that these “American” restaurants can’t resist ‘fusing’ Italian influence. Panna cotta is typically served as a simple ‘cooked cream’ dessert, but its savory variations have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years.  It’s ridiculously simple to make, with only four ingredients – heavy cream, sugar, vanilla and gelatin. Of the many variations on the theme I’ve eaten over the years, this one was particularly delicious! 

The rest of the meal we ate, while not Italian, ranked as one of the best I’ve enjoyed in recent months. See my review on Urbanspoon for details.

When your friends are great, you like to brag about them any way you can, so I’ve got another thank you Jack and Kate post tonight.

Jack's choice

Le collesione di Matteo Ascheri, 1993

Bric Mileui, The Hill of Thousand Eyes

Red table wine of Piedmont, produced with 80% barbera grapes from La Morra and 20% nebbiolo grapes from Verduno

Bottled by Cantine Ascheri Giacomo, Bra, Italia, Estate Bottled, 13% alcohol

While he shared a lovely story about how he got this bottle of wine, I no longer recall its details. (Could drinking the wine have actually contributed to erasing what I learned before drinking it? or am I simply getting old?) Maybe he’ll share them in a comment to this entry? 

In the meantime, I can share what I learned about the Ascheri vineyards. According to their website, the Giacomo Ascheri cellars started off in La Morra in the early 19th century. At that time, the Ascheri vine cultivation method was considered modern for its technical innovations (click here for more). Soon they moved to Bra, a larger center for production/distribution. With several estates, the company is now known for its high quality wines and its attention to traditional methods of cultivation and production. They’ve also got an Osteria with a menu that changes weekly (wish I could work in one of those!) and a four star hotel with a sleek design.

I love that Italy has so many of these family enterprises, built over generations with dedication and passion. And I love in my own “family” of friends, that our shared experiences, new and old, connect us through time and place, whether or not there’s something ‘tangible’ to show for it.

Met Pittsburgh friends for dinner at L’Oca tonight, and was pleased to have the opportunity to share my last bottle of wine: a Piemontese bonarda, brought by Carla and Alberto in Novemeber.

The story of bonarda is a bit convoluted in the various web sources I’ve seen, so I’m not really sure how to describe it here other than that it is a DOC red wine that’s slightly frizzante. According to the Regione Piemonte’s web site, many wines are known by the name of bonarda, but these are distinct from the bonarda piemontese, which is produced exclusively in several regions of Piemonte:

La Bonarda è coltivata esclusivamente in Piemonte, e soprattutto sulle colline del Torinese (Chierese) e dell’Astigiano ad esse adiacenti (Castelnuovo don Bosco, Albugnano, Pino, ecc.). È presente anche nel Pinerolese, in Bassa Val Susa e sporadicamente nel Canavese.

I got to wondering if/how I could explore the bonarda wines, but quickly discovered that the government agency that controls alcohol in my state sells only one Argentine bonarda. Hmmm. Moore Brothers doesn’t sell it either. Guess I’ll have to wait until my next visit to Italy?

Che bello to see Italian wines featured in the NYT: 

The Piedmont region is home to the noble and expensive Barolos and Barbarescos. Nonetheless, myriad inexpensive reds are still available. Of the everyday reds, I generally prefer the tart, raspy barberas, like a 2007 from Renato Ratti and a 2006 from Oddero, to the pleasingly bitter dolcettos.

Sometimes, though, nothing takes the place of nebbiolo, the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco. At a time when practically unknown nebbiolo wines from Valtellina generally cost $25 to $30, it’s astounding to me that Produttori del Barbaresco, a great cooperative, can produce a nebbiolo wine for $19. But yes, its 2006 Langhe nebbiolo, made from young vines or lesser grapes, is just $19. It doesn’t have the stuffing of a Barbaresco, but it’s all there in a most pleasant microcosm.

For dessert, perhaps a light and frothy moscato d’Asti? G. D. Vajra, a good Barolo producer, makes an exceptionally delicious, sweet and peachy version for about $19.

I wonder if I can get that nineteen dollar nebbiolo at the State Store in Philly? Still have my birthday moscato in the fridge, six months after the fact. How sad is that?

Of the many food gifts that Carla and Alberto brought on their visit (lucky me!), the one most tempting tonight is the bag of Sebaste Tenerelli: soft hazelnut nougat. Made simply with hazelnuts (42%), sugar, honey, glucose syrup, potato starch, egg whites and ‘aromi’, these little bites are a fabulous reminder of the ‘Tonda Gentile delle Langhe’, Piemonte’s – and Italy’s – most prized variety of hazelnut. 

According to the Consorzio Tutela Nocciola Piemonte’s website, though they produce less than 10% of the country’s production, the Piemontese are serious about their hazelnuts, declaring those in the Cuneo region to have IGP (Indicazione Geographica Protetta) status.

Sebaste, like many family-owned businesses, has been making their nougat since 1885. Their website describes the history of the company, indicating that while modernization in production has occurred over the years, the original recipe has remained more or less the same for four generations. 

How do these family business models work?  While I can’t trace my family back four generations, I doubt that I’d have found shoemaking, my grandfather’s trade, one that I would wish to pursue … but then again, immigrant shoemakers weren’t exactly creating empires.

Who wouldn’t love grilled vegetables, especially when they include grilled fennel and radicchio? Dipping them in bagna cauda made them all the more tasty. Last time I tasted Luca’s bagna cauda, I thought the bitter garlic overpowered its other flavors. This time around it was just right. 

So, what is bagna cauda, you wonder? A traditional sauce from Piemonte containing anchovies, garlic, olive oil, butter and cream (optional). It’s typically served hot, often in what looks like a potpourri burner, with a candle underneath to help keep the temperature. It’s really delicious (and not photographed)! I first remember having in Italy (of course), served under a vegetable flan. 

Good to know that I can eat garlic with pleasure after all. It had been a long time since I enjoyed it, mostly because few chefs really know how to balance it with other flavors. Balance, I imagine, is the key to any a reversal of position. Perhaps my attempts at the plow and shoulder stands this evening affected much more than my muscles.