As it turned out just by chance, my dish of gelato was my nod to Italy.
Today is June 2, a holiday celebrating the formation of the Republic of Italy in 1946. The Italian flag is referred to as the “Tricolore”, three colors. Whereas, in the U.S. we say “red, white and blue”, in Italy, they do NOT say “red, white and green”! Their colors are always listed “green, white and red”.
So, here’s to the “pistacchio, limone e mirtilli di bosco”, the pistachio, lemon and blueberry!
Brrr! It’s been chilly in Milano much of the last week. For late May, temperatures in the low 50s are quite a surprise. I hadn’t expected it, so I didn’t even pack full length pants! Sitting here in my house trying to get my work done, my fingers were cold, my toes were cold, my ankles were cold. I had to run out and get some cheap, long leggings, and a t-shirt, and then I layered them all together under my calf-length pants and other tops. Brrr!
How does one get warm when it’s unseasonably cold in Milano? One cold day I made a pot of chicken soup, with veggies from the street market.
Better yet, another cold night I went to the nearby osteria along the Naviglio Pavese Canal and watched the soccer game with the locals. (Napoli vs. Torino Juventus) The wood-fired pizza oven warmed the room. Add to that the crowd of soccer fans and a glass of red wine and my fingers finally warmed up for the first time in days.
On Saturday, three blocks from my house, is the weekly street market selling fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, olives, preserved foods, household sundries and clothing. It’s a hub-bub of people buying their provisions for the week.
You have to know “the system” for shopping there. Decide what you want, then go stand in line at the side, and wait your turn to request your purchase. You do NOT pick out your own produce! And you do not simply ask one of the stall vendors out front for what you want; you will be cutting in line in front of others. (I had to learn this a few years ago through observation.)
My big complaint is that although the produce is displayed so beautifully, and the quality is so high, the handling of it all is so rough! Ask for such tender things as tomatoes and apricots and they will arrive home bruised and punctured from having been roughly pitched into the bag.
It still feels like high-pressure shopping to me after several years. But whether I stock up for the week there or not, the Saturday street market is always an opportunity for gathering beautiful images. In addition to the gorgeous berries, lemons, olives and fish, I enjoy the “Street Market Script” used to write out the quick signs. (Some have begun to use computer-generated signs and they’ve lost all character.)
WHERE are these being grown right now?! The tomatoes are like sugar candy and the nespole are exotic after apples and pears alone. And they’re so beautiful together! The food alone could keep me here…
Such dear, dear people. I feel so welcomed by Agnese, Ninni, their son Erik and Ninni’s sister Bea. They greeted me so warmly and then said goodbye with hints of visiting Seattle this year!
It was three years ago that I had “Warm Octopus with Potatoes and Olives” for the first time at the Carlotta Café here along the Naviglio Pavese canal in Milano. I’ve been dreaming about it ever since and longed to know how to make it myself. Almost a year ago, on Friday, the day before leaving to return to Seattle, I had hailed a cab to go to the restaurant for an Octopus-cooking lesson. Ninni and Agnese had offered to teach me sometime.
When I arrived, they were closed up tight. I didn’t know they were away on vacation.
Back here in Milano for these two months, I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and have only gone to the Café for one meal, with a big group of friends. With my departure imminent (next week!), I just had to get down there for my Octopus Lesson!
Today was the day. I packed my apron, hopped on my bike and was there in 10 minutes to hang out in the kitchen for the afternoon. I had called ahead and arrived during a quiet lunch hour. Ninni immediately asked his son, Erik, to pour me a glass of prosecco. Bea, (short for Beatrice), Ninni’s sister, works at the restaurant and showed me step by step what I needed to know.
Piovre Tiepida con Patate e Olive
Warm Octopus with Potatoes and Olives
Octopus – previously frozen, thawed. 2.5 – 3 lbs. each.
Have a BIG pot of water boiling and ready. Put the octopus into the boiling water, tentacles up, with two fistfuls of coarse salt. The octopus will cook for an hour to an hour-and-a-half until it has the tenderness of a cooked roast when poked with a 2-tined fork. No other ingredients are added to the water. (No onions, celery, pepper, etc.)
These octopus are bigger than the ones I’ve found at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.
THE OCTOPUS SHOULD BE COOKED AND THEN COOLED THE DAY BEFORE SERVING (or at least earlier in the day). This is a big key toward its tenderness. (Today, to show me the preparation, Bea used octopus that had been cooked yesterday.)
Potatoes – Moist, yellow potatoes, such as a Yukon Gold, are best.
Cook the potatoes ahead of time and let them cool to room temperature. When ready to prepare the dish, peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and set them aside.
Italian Parsley – Take a handful of Italian Parsley and chop it finely.
Oil/Vinegar Dressing – 1 liter Extra virgin olive oil, about 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar, 1 large clove of garlic, about a Tbsp. of salt. Put all of these ingredients into a deep, narrow mixing jar and use a hand blender (or similar) to pureé it into a smooth dressing. This dressing will suffice for quite a while and can be stored in the fridge for later use.
Olives – Use the very small, distinctive, taggiasche olives (from Liguria).
Assembly – When ready to prepare the meal, take the octopus from the fridge and cut the body/head away from the tentacles and set it aside. If it hasn’t already been cleaned out, at the junction of the body and tentacles is a round sack about the size of a quarter (depending on the size of the Octopus) and the beak, both of which should be removed and thrown away. Cut the tentacles apart from each other up at the thick ends. The skin is NOT peeled off. The thickest part of the tentacle can be cut crosswise if desired. Cut into 1/8″ thick rounds, cutting the whole tentacle, suction cups and all. Take the body/head, like an empty pouch, and peel away the outer skin. Cut into bite-sized pieces.
(The body/head is the rounded, fist-sized piece sitting at the edge of the cutting board in the picture below.)
Depending on the number of people being served, gather octopus chunks, potato chunks and a good handful of olives and place them into a sieve. With a pot of water already boiling on the stove, place the sieve and its contents, into the boiling water. Allow the food to heat for only about 3 or 4 minutes just to warm through.
Remove from the water. Drain well and toss everything into a bowl. Add a handful of chopped parsley and a good glug-glug-glug of the prepared oil/vinegar dressing. Serve with a wedge of lemon, if desired.
Bea finished prepping the octopus, Ninni plated it and gave me a delicious lunch. Out of this world. So very tender. From now on, everyone that comes to my house for dinner will be served octopus.
Surrounded by such kind people: Ninni, Erik, Bea and Agnese
Finding out about Alberobello, I itched to stay in a trullo for a couple of nights! Through an internet search, I found Charming Trulli, and dear Antonella. (“Trulli” is plural for “trullo“.) I had a long, complicated Sunday traveling up from Lecce, and finally arrived in early afternoon by train and bus. On her only day off, Antonella picked me up and took me up the hill to my little trullo, adjoining her parents’ house. We dropped my bags, then went next door for coffee and pastries with her parents, Franco and Dora, and her little daughter, Mara. What a sweet reception!
Here’s my perfect, little trullo, with a kitchen, double bed, living room and bathroom. Franco restored the trullo himself.
When I awoke the next day, Dora and I met out in their garden, and we talked about artichokes, fava beans, lilies and holly as we compared our different gardens. That evening, Antonella called me and invited me to have dinner with them at a local pizzeria. We sampled some fabulous local appetizers and we each ordered our own pizzas. Of course they just had to give me a piece of each of theirs to try, so I carried half of mine home for “train food” the next day. In the morning, a little rain falling, Franco drove me to the breakfast shop and he and I had a long philosophical conversation about life and death and living fully. He gave me a ride to the train station, and waited with me until the train came. We hugged goodbye and waved. What dear people…
– – –
On Monday, my only full day in town, I had set the alarm for 7:00 because of forecast rain. I know from experience in Venezia that tourists usually aren’t up-and-at-em very early, and I wanted morning light and clear streets. After walking for just a few minutes, the sun came out bright and the sky was vivid blue. The white-washed trulli were brilliant. Perfect.
On the long walk up the road to the Trullo Church, I was photographing the cluster of trulli that have more symbols on their peaks than elsewhere in town. A woman was out cleaning in front of her shop and invited me in to go to her upper terrace for a broader view. I did, and when I came back down, we introduced ourselves and talked for about an hour.
Anna Maria is a weaver and runs a business through which she employs several dozen local women to produce materials to sell. I had no idea that Alberobello is know for its woven textiles! (Uh oh. Trouble.)
She showed me the traditional patterns, the table cloths and hand towels. I swooned at the fabric and had to bring a piece home with me. In her shop, she sells the woven goods, as well as hand-made, hand-painted ceramic whistles crafted by artists in the region. She gave me one of the whistles-on-a-string to wear for good luck.
Anna Maria and I had such a remarkable connection so quickly. A little later, I returned to my trullo and wrote her a note telling her that she had made my time in Alberobello a treasure. When I went back to give her the card, and read it aloud to her, she was near tears, and therefore, so was I. She said that meant more to her than any sales, and insisted that I follow her next door into her home. She dished up a delicious and heaping bowl of lentils, vegetables and pasta with fresh bread and grilled eggplant. I could NOT say “no”. (I had, though, JUST eaten lunch at a restaurant nearby.)
We talked about life and love and loss. She invited me to stay at the trullo she keeps for friends, the next time I visit. We hugged each other, looked into each other’s eyes and had a hard time saying goodbye. Wow. Touch my heart.
– – –
Sunday, late afternoon, I was getting a little hungry while wandering around, but wasn’t ready for dinner. I stepped into a little shop selling regional food specialties AND giving taste tests: Trullo degli Antichi Sapori di Marco Maria Concetta. I sampled wine, cheese, meats and chatted with Antonio and Rosa. I tested their “Salsa di Tartufo Nero” – black truffle salsa – and snatched up 4 little jars. They nicknamed me “Maria del Tartufo” – Maureen of the Truffles. When I stopped by the next day just to say “hi”, they called me by my nickname. How funny.
– – –
One of the days, caught in a brief cloudburst, I took my broad scarf out of my bag and wrapped it around my shoulders. An elder woman in a doorway, motioned to me that I should cover my head. I did, and she smiled.
The people of Alberobello, and the region of Puglia, were so warm and unguarded. They opened themselves to me and let me in through conversations and their generosity. They embody the heart of Italy.
It’s no joke that I’m in the “presidential suite” at the Palace Hotel, in the region of Calabria, the town of Catanzaro Lido. The waves of the Ionian Sea are rolling in just off my private balcony. I could throw a stone (hard) and it would land in the water, on the other side of the Via Lungomare – the road along the sea. I will sleep with the sound of incoming saltwater tonight.
When one “leaves their options open” or “plays it by ear” sometimes there aren’t many options left, thus, the Presidential Suite, with it’s brocade-clad, padded walls. But after the raucous three nights in Cefalu and Taormina Sicilia, I needed some quiet and something unlike Disneyland.
Last night I slept a much-needed, holy sleep. Today I amused myself with exploration. First thing, I went to the little travel agency next to my hotel to buy my ticket for a long train ride tomorrow. At the agency, I met Valentina and Aurelia, and a man they know from Naples. We all laughed and talked for half an hour and it was the kind of personal connection I needed. (When I returned to my room tonight, Aurelia dropped by a beautifully packaged gift of some homemade soppressata. How dear! I happened to have brought some “Seattle Spices” along with me in case I needed a gift, plus some personal note cards, so I wrote out some notes to the two women and stopped over to drop them off.)
Aurelia’s Soppressata is delicious, with a slight smokey flavor:
After the travel agency, I hit the road… and then stood there. I found the newsstand where I could buy a city bus ticket, then I found the bus stop and asked a young guy if I was in the right place to go to the city of Catanzaro (the part up on the hill). I was at the right stop and the bus was “10 minutes away”. Hopeful and anxious passengers started gathering, and waiting, and complaining. Congested traffic on narrow streets in Catanzaro Lido was almost comic. (Imagine two cement mixers passing each other! They did so in the extra width of an intersection, likely well-practiced.)
As I waited with everyone else, I was pleased that I was having a snippet of REAL daily life of a Catanzaro citizen. (There wasn’t a tour group in sight.) An hour after waiting, I got on the bus with just a small, general map of the two Catanzaros, and absolutely NO idea where I was going, what I would see or when I would get off. How lost could I get? I could always get a cab if it came to that.
I marvel at the systematic chaos that is traffic in Italy, and especially here in the south. It all seems to work, but slowly. There are very few stop lights and much bravado, and it took forever for the full-size city bus to make it through Catanzaro Lido. We stopped at the train station, then through little pocket towns like beads on a string that seem to comprise greater Catanzaro.
We kept winding up toward the hill top. What was I looking for? People. Curious sights and signs. Something to catch my eye. History. I could find the duomo – cathedral – on my little map, but couldn’t determine where we were in relation to each other.
I rode until the near-northernmost point of the city and got out at lunchtime. In a little grocery, I bought toothpaste, shampoo, 50 grams of mortadella and a sliver wedge of some lovely blue cheese. At the neighboring baker’s, I bought a square of focaccia with tomato sauce, which they heated for me. I carried my stash through the city amidst 10-story apartment buildings and scrawny, stray cats, and found a little park bench in a windy spot. I lay the meat and cheese onto my focaccia, folded the whole thing in half and had an amazing sandwich, washed down with San Pellegrino.
Since it had taken nearly 2 hours to get UP to the top, by 3:00 I figured I’d better start heading back down to the hotel. It was a quicker journey somehow, and I got off at the west end of town to walk, look, shoot and shop for dinner and my train lunch tomorrow. It’ll be a 7-hour journey tomorrow, with one shuttle ride, three coarse, regional trains and two quick train transfers. There’ll be no time or place to buy food, so this afternoon I stopped at the bakery for a couple of fresh rolls, at the meat shop for fresh buffalo mozzarella, at the produce vendor for fresh peas in-the-shell, datterini tomatoes, two mandarins and a pear, and the pastry shop for a couple of biscotti. That ought to be a lovely train lunch!
How did I pick Catanzaro in the first place? I was in Sicilia and just had to get out of Taormina. I was heading east to Puglia and Catanzaro was in between. It’s also the hometown of my first Italian “professoressa”, Enza. And… quite simply, I was able to find a hotel room available.
Tomorrow, from the ball-of-the-foot here in Calabria, to the heel in Puglia.
Journal entry from my lunch table:
“In piccolo Trattoria Tira Casciuni a Palermo. Stare qui in Sicilia, in Italia, e veramente una droga che mi sento in tutto il mio corpo. E perche no? Perche non prendere questa droga?”
In the little Trattoria Tira Casciuni in Palermo. To be here in Sicily, in Italy, is truly a “drug” that I feel in my whole body. And why not? Why not take this drug?
It’s intoxicating to be here, to simply have my eyes open. And the constancy of the dusty city traffic, the impatient accelerations, the gratuitous horns, prevent any sense of calm. There is a frenetic motion to this tight living, these close quarters.
Riding into Palermo from the airport I looked out to the tiny stamp-sized lots, some barren, some isolated garden oases, and thought about the luxury that is my own divine home in Seattle. I truly could not be more blessed by a gift of space, beauty, privacy and silence.
So, is it contrast that makes this energetic buzz so fascinating? It’s also quite exhausting, as I find in Milano. I find that I seek a pause after a time, a respite of stillness.
In this little Trattoria, the daytime TV is hardly a talk show, but rather a shouting match – truly – as scooters whiz by the open door 10 feet away. How is it to know little other than this relentless frenzy?
I ordered Spaghetti allo Scoglio, with mussels, sword fish, clams, squid, parsley and a light broth. The house wine, in this case, was pretty rank, but it’s often a good option.
Every car here in Palermo is covered with a spattered gritty film. Is it the air? Is it the surrounding countryside blowing in? Does the literal gritty nature give hint to a figurative grittiness?
(The restaurant owner just explained, in answer to my question, that they’ve been building a new train station for several years and will finish in 2012. Before the construction, everything was “clean”.)
How fabulous that I can HAVE such conversations!!! I’m thrilled.
I had seen this woman selling fresh eggs at the Saturday Market last year, too, but neglected to shoot a video because I was standing there spellbound.
She grabs a large square of egg carton, slices the needed size, then plucks and places the eggs requested. I marvel at how fast her hands fly and at the intriguing and innovative ways she wraps the rubber bands, which is a bit hard to see because she moves so quickly. Watch for that second little wrap she puts on each short side.
How many sales every Saturday morning? How many times has she made this wrap?
She wraps any combination of 2 eggs. How about 10?
How can there be any other way to eat? The Saturday market is now just one block away from my apartment and it goes on for blocks. The selection of meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, and other delicious things makes the market a must-stop. Apparently everyone local thinks so, too.
Ahh! Grana Padano! Note the pattern on the side of the cheese wheel. When you see that diamond-shaped imprint, you know it’s the real thing.
Why have butter when you can have lard (or olive oil)? Yum! A slice of lard on a good hunk of bread: Yes!
My purchases today included:
I couldn’t wait to get home and shove it all in my mouth!
Oooo! The Mortadella with truffle!
The pickled onions and sweet olives!
I cooked the ravioli while I cut up the tomatoes, basil and some of the mozzarella. When the pasta was finished, I shelled the fresh peas right onto the hot ravioli, then dumped everything together and drizzled it all with bright green extra virgin olive oil and some crema di balsamico, a reduced balsamic vinegar from Modena.
Oh… Wow. Mmm.
…And this food is not “gourmet”. And it’s not being sold at high-priced, specialty grocery stores. This is daily fare.
This is how we should all be eating.