by Maureen | Dec 15, 2021 | Apartment, Blog, Canals, Christmas & New Year's Eve, Church, Featured Articles, Food!, Italy, Milano - Milan, Photos, Travel Blog
13 December 2021
“Stanca morta” – Dead tired.
Just arrived this morning after complex travel prep due to Covid-19, two days of almost no sleep, and 24 hours of travel. Door-to-door.
But so content as I sit here in my canal-side appartamento, hearing the apperitivo hub-bub along the Naviglio Grande (Grand Canal) through the double-pane windows. The Christmas light decorations illuminate my apartment.
I’m on the third floor, as Americans would call it. “Secondo Piano” as Italians would say. What we call the first floor is the “terra piano“, the ground floor. The “first floor” is the floor up from that.
“Ho messo tutto a posto. Tutto in ordine. Sistemato. Organizzato.” I put everything just right. Everything in order. Systematized. Organized.
A great flat with a quite ample kitchen, dining table (desk), living room, and non-scary stairs that go up to the loft bedroom and bathroom. (Going up the stairs during the day to use the bathroom is better than having to navigate the stairs down…and back up…in the dark middle of the night.)
I’m on the north side of the canal, so I will get morning and daylight sun streaming in from the canal-side, tall, balcony doors. That thrills me.
And I’m in my traditional neighborhood: “Zona Navigli“. The Canal Zone. I’ve always been in this area and it feels like home. Only a couple of times smack ON the canal, but this has become my default spot. I have friends, favorite restaurants, grocery stores, little shops that I frequent.
Two years have passed since I was last here. It feels like ages, but also like no time at all. Feels like almost yesterday as I move through town to get “home” to my apartment.
But also, the world has changed. Milano has changed. I’ve changed. Italy… and the whole world, bore horrible onslaught from the Covid pandemic… and we still bear it, and likely will for who knows how long.
Italy has “strict regulations” in place, not wanting to endure the loss they bore when the pandemic began. But I do see caution being set aside more than I imagined. So I have to navigate and create my own personal safety as I am comfortable.
I am so glad to be here. This place…Milano…Italia…has been feeding my heart, my brain, my soul, since 2008, every year adding to the bank of inspiration, reference and memory.
I just couldn’t imagine staying away another year. My time here feeds me. Feeds my being.
My Apartment Along the Grand Canal
My “block” along the canal
My apartment along the canal, with it’s bedroom dormer
Entering my apartment, into the kitchen
My living room with high doors that open to a balcony with the canal view
My bathroom, with a big shower
Classic “ringhiera” courtyard, outside my apartment
The stairway up to my apartment
My Neighborhood in the “Zona Navigli”, Canal Zone
The view from my balcony, looking out along the “Naviglio Grande”, the Grand Canal.
Looking west along the canal, past my apartment
Market stalls at La Darsena.
Looking south down the Naviglio Pavese.
Linguine with teeny, tiny “seppiolini”, little squid
Bread platter at Al Pont de Ferr
Cauliflower. Foamy, and neither soup
Gnocchi with black truffle
Warm “salad” of octopus, potato and taggiasche olives. My favorite
Shrimp, tomatoes, pane carasau
“Alici”, fresh anchovies with lemon juice and EVOO
Pane carasau, octopus and potato, smoked tuna, scallop
Mirto and Sardegnan pastry
Tortelli di zucca (squash) with butter and sage
Around town in the evening.
Christmas street decorations
San Lorenzo Maggiore and columns
by Maureen | Jun 7, 2012 | Cheese, Featured Articles, Firenze - Florence, Food!, Italy, Journal, Meals, Milano - Milan, Photos, Shopping & Markets, Travel Blog
This is real Italian food. They’re not over here just eating pizza and spaghetti. And they’re NOT eating “Fettucine Alfredo”! (If you see it on a menu, it’s only there for the tourists.) The range of Italian food is so vast. It truly does change every hundred kilometers. And most of it is nothing like seen in “Italian Restaurants” in the U.S.
When here, I eat everything that’s regional and typical to an area. I eat what I can’t get in Seattle. As I travel and seek out a meal, I always ask what the local specialties are and then expand my view of “Italian Food”. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve eaten in the last three weeks.
Soprassata Fiorentina • “Head Cheese” from Florence. I had this when living here a couple of years ago. Found it at a street market with no refrigeration, no running water. This is made of all the extra “head parts” that are cooked and congealed together with seasoning. Mmm. Yummy on a slice of bread. Must be 99% fat.
Fragolini • Little, wild strawberries found growing in the weeds in my courtyard. Actually, they had very little flavor, but I have seen them being sold at the market.
Lardo di Colonnata and Gorgonzola Dolce • Aged, seasoned lard (below, with a streak of meat), and creamy, mild “Sweet” Gorgonzola cheese (above). Both fantastic on a good hunk of bread. (Who needs butter?!)
Torta di Mele, con Gelato di Vaniglia • Apple Tart with Vanilla Gelato. A rare, sweet splurge for me.
Insalata di songino, pomodori e burratina con olio e aceto • Salad of “lamb’s lettuce”, cherry tomatoes and “burratina” cheese, drizzled with olive oil and a thick balsamic “cream”. Burratina is a small version of “Burrata”, a fist-sized ball with an outer layer like fresh mozzarella about 1/8″ thick, containing soft, creamy/runny, semi-solid cheese within. Heaven on a bed of greens!
Panzerotto Luini • Deep-fried bread pocket (filled with spinach and ricotta) from Luini’s by the Duomo. Inexpensive, hand-food that the locals all know about. Carry it around and eat it while walking.
Ribollita • Tuscan bread and vegetable soup, eaten in Firenze (Florence). The name means, literally “reboiled”.
Spiedina di carne mista • It WAS a skewer of mixed meats, in this case sausage and pork, eaten in Firenze.
Porcini • Two porcini mushrooms for 12 Euro at the street market (about $15!) All the time that I had lived here I never bought fresh porcini! I had to splurge at least once.
Porcini e Pomodori • Porcini and tomatoes (and brooms), cooking in my 35″ wide kitchen/broom closet. I brought the porcini home and cooked them up; also sauteéd some fresh cherry tomatoes.
Porcini with vegetable ravioli, and sauteéd fresh cherry tomatoes with meat ravioli, fresh from the street market.
Pastries from Spezia Pasticceria. My favorites are the Babá in the upper right: sponge cakes absolutely drenched with sweetened rum, with sweet ricotta filling in the middle. One bite and the rum sauce runs down your arm.
My favorite meats (clockwise from the top): Prosciutto (Crudo, di Parma), Bresaola, Mortadella with pistachios. It’s an art ordering your prosciutto cut! The bresaola is 100% lean (also available in horse meat). Mortadella: think “baloney” from when you were a kid, then multiply by 100. This mortadella has pistachios and peppercorns in it, and yes those are chunks of (white) fat.
Here’s the receipt for the meats above: 50 grams of Bresaola for 1,50 euro; 100 grams (“un etto”) Mortadella for 1,29 euro; 50 grams of Prosciutto di Parma for 1,35 euro. I had also bought “Gorgonzola Dolce”, the gooey, creamy, mild gorgonzola for 1,88 euro, and “Vitello Tonnato”, thin-sliced, roasted veal with a pureed tuna mayonnaise sauce on top for 2,47 euro. This was several days’ food for a girlfriend and me for 8,49 euro, about $10.66. (Makes up for the cost of the porcini.)
Bresaola, my favorite. An air-dried, salted beef that has been aged 2-3 months. Almost completely lean, no fat. Sliced paper thin, and when it’s very good, it is moist and supple, not dry and leathery. Note how translucent it is! I can’t buy Italian Bresaola in the U.S. Too many fears of “mad cow disease”.
Insalata con mozzarella di bufala, pomodori e basilico. Vitello tonnato • A salad with fresh mozarella di bufala (yes, buffalo milk), tomatoes, basil, served with “vitello tonnato”, the thin-sliced veal with pureed tuna/mayonnaise sauce.
Salsiccia e fagioli • Sausage and beans, a very Tuscan meal eaten in Firenze.
Verdure al forno • Tuscan oven-roasted vegetables, in Firenze.
by Maureen | May 17, 2012 | Apartment, Featured Articles, Italy, Milano - Milan, Photo of the Day, Photos, Travel Blog
The mid-afternoon sunlight is coming into my almost-three-foot-wide, skinny kitchen and it strikes me as so beautiful. It’s almost a black and white shot, except for that delicious green mug, a sprinkling of red, painted petals on another mug, and red pepper lip stains on the cotton napkin. Nothing contrived or set up, yet it is all so perfect. I smile.
by Maureen | Jun 15, 2011 | Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, Milano - Milan, People, Photos, Travel Blog
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
by Maureen | May 19, 2011 | Apartment, Featured Articles, Journal, Milano - Milan, Photos, Travel Blog
A pigeon wandered into the other bedroom, twice, off the balcony.
A child was practicing lessons on a recorder flute, playing “Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us)”. The sound was amplified through the courtyard, allowing us all to “enjoy” the practice. It actually wasn’t too bad.
The neighbors next door must be good cooks, or at least they use aromatic ingredients. Our corner balconies are just 10 feet apart and I’ve been enjoying the scent of their meals wafting through the balcony doors at lunch and dinner.
– – –
I arrived in Milano yesterday after my southern tour, and got into my apartment at 5:00. After a bit of a breather, I launched into nesting, making it mine. This is a “student-grade” apartment, for 19-to-22-year-olds, and they’ve cleaned it about like one would expect of 19-to-22-year-olds. I scrubbed grime until 1:30 in the morning. I had bought groceries, but couldn’t put them away until I cleaned the fridge. I couldn’t clean the fridge until I had a clean sink and counters to work on. And so it went. I couldn’t go to sleep until I had a clean bed to sleep in.
This apartment building is two blocks away from the apartment I had when I lived here, but that one was on a quieter, dead-end street. This first floor (one floor up from the ground) apartment has one balcony that looks out onto a four-lane road that dumps right onto and off of the highway. At 1:15 in the morning, just before heading off to sleep, sure enough, the street cleaners – my nemeses – were out pressure-washing the streets and sidewalks, as if to say “Welcome Back.” The traffic noise is a constant “white” in the background, but I actually slept well last night.
Everything got scoured: floors, counters, stove, dishes, fridge, desktops, sheets, bathroom fixtures, shelves. I couldn’t put things away until I had clean places to put them. I took all of the unneeded items and stashed them out of sight in the other bedroom, or decoratively on the wall storage units. I rearranged. Then I bought some string and tied the two scrawny-thin beds together to get an approximately queen sized bed. Ahh. Room to turn over at night! I also bought a new shower curtain, and a few other cheap details that add a little character.
“My Room”, with shelves, desks, string-tied beds, closets:
The other bedroom, with my attempt at “art” of 4 fans and 3 lights. (My towels and toilet paper are similarly arranged in “My” room.) The poster was already on the wall, and I decided to leave it:
Of the shower curtains readily-available for cheap, this was the best option. (The old one was torn and mildewed. Being here for 5 weeks, I can afford to buy a new shower curtain for the pleasure – relief – it will give me!)
I’m 4 doors away from the best pastry shop in the city, Pasticceria Spezia Milano. Too bad I generally don’t like pastries. I make an exception for their “Babá” though. That’s the sponge cake that’s soaked in rum such that the rum runs down my arm to my elbow when I take a bite.
The apartment’s also only 2 blocks away from my treasured Naviglio Pavese Canal, along which the paved bike path runs! I’ve got a bike in the other room waiting for a ride tomorrow.
(If I told anyone that I have a two-bedroom apartment with 4 beds, 2 balconies, fabulous kitchen, full bathroom and ideal city location I’d probably have a crowd flying into Milano Malpensa Airport for a visit! What a great apartment, all to myself. Shhh. Don’t tell.)
Now that I’ve cleaned, organized and gotten settled in for my 5 weeks here, I can breathe easy and get back to work on my clients’ projects, and I can post some of the 1600 photos I’ve shot in the last 3 weeks. Stay tuned.
by Maureen | Dec 8, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, Photos, Seattle, Shopping & Markets, Travel Blog
Saturday. Past 10:00 in the evening and the house smells good of octopus cooking since 9:26. A few garlic cloves, a dozen peppercorns, a tablespoon of salt and maybe a gallon of water in a pot with an octopus that stretches out a couple of feet.
How DOES one cook an octopus? Yearning for my favorite dish at the Carlotta Cafe in Milano, the Piovra con Patate (Octopus with Potatoes. Octopus is also called “polpo“.), I set off on my first octopus-cooking experience. I’ve been watching videos on YouTube to get a sense of technique and the general consensus is, like squid, either cook it really short, or cook it really long. In between would be like eating rubber bands.
I trundled into holiday crowds at the Pike Place Market today to my favorite fishmonger, Pure Food Fish. (Ask for Rich and tell him I sent you.) For $3.99 per pound, I went home with a small octopus and excitement to try my hand at the simple, yet delicious, Sicilian dish. (When I got home and unwrapped my catch, I found a tiny little octopus in the bundle.)
While at the Market, I bought Yukon Gold Potatoes and Italian Parsley at a vegetable stall. I had a wonderful conversation with Theresa, the seller, and we exchanged some contact information and wild stories about my bold decision to pick up and move to Italy for a year.
Next, I went to Seattle’s Italian food fixture, DeLaurenti, and bought a few other ingredients. I needed taggiasche olives, which they didn’t have except in a jar, so I bought the celina olives instead. I stepped upstairs and sampled vibrant, green olive oils at their tasting bar and selected the Partanna Sicilian oil for its full flavor. While I was at the store, I couldn’t help but buy two fresh mozzarella balls… (even though they’re from Wisconsin.)
It’s now 10:37 and the octopus has cooked for a little over an hour. I put the timer on for another 15 minutes. Better tender than not. What I’m thinking is that I’ll pull it out of the cook pot and let it cool. Tomorrow, I’ll cook the potatoes, and will cut up the octopus parts and maybe sauté them a bit. (Yes? No?) Then I’ll toss everything together and hope that it looks and tastes something like what I had at Ninni and Agnese’s fabulous little café, named after their daughter, Carlotta.
Ninni and Agnese had offered to let me come into their kitchen to learn how to cook this, my favorite meal. Friday, the day before I left Milano to return to the U.S., I hired a taxi to take me to the café. (It’s not very walkable.) When I arrived on Friday at lunchtime, they were closed! I was so disappointed, and rode the same taxi home. I never got my chance for a lesson from them but will always remember their incredible meal.
11:06 p.m. The octopus is out of the pot after about an hour and 15 minutes. It cooked down to not much, really. I think I could select a bigger octopus next time, or one-per-person. It’s tender and perhaps needs only one hour. The outer skin is loose and slippery, so I’ve fingered most of it away.
Guess what’s for dinner tomorrow? I’ll cook my potatoes, lightly warm my octopus in a sauté pan, drizzle my oil and some fresh-squeezed lemon, and add my olives and parsley. A little sea salt and some pepper. Done! Maybe it’ll approximate Ninni and Agnese’s dish, and if I close my eyes I’ll think I’m at their cafe alongside the canal, sipping a Sicilian wine and whiling away the time.
Wednesday morning. Post-Octopus…twice! I prepped the octopus as I described, for my dinner late on Sunday. A girlfriend stopped by just in time and we both relished it.
My hunch-of-a-method approximated that of the Carlotta Café enough so that I decided to cook it for two friends on Monday night, too. I went back to the Pike Place Market, got two octopus from Rich and started all over again. This time I threw more veggies into the cooking broth and cooked the octopus whole. It ended as a deep aubergine color, but the skin was more troublesome this time. I may need to do more research, but my friends devoured it, nonetheless. Piovra con Patate may be my new “potluck dish”.
Mark Bittman, “The Minimalist” chef for the New York Times, wrote a concise, yet thorough, ditty on buying and cooking octopus, “Octopus Demystified”.
And here are guide on Cooking Small Octopi and Cooking Large Octopi including cooking charts with times and results.
Here’s a recipe, in Italian: Insalata Tiepida di Polpo e Patate
or, roughly translated into English: Warm Salad of Octopus and Potatoes
A little side note:
One friend was puzzled by the long, pale gray, glistening octopus that I bought (seen above) and the deeply-colored, ruddy-purple, curled, firm octopus seen below. It’s “before and after”! Before cooking, the octopus is limp and pale. One web site recommended holding it by the head and dipping the tentacles a few times into the boiling water so that they curl uniformly, then dropping the whole animal into the pot to cook. Almost immediately, the skin color darkens, and by the end of cooking, (in this case about an hour), the octopus has taken on this dark coloration. Some enjoy eating the skin, some do not. Depending on the length of time in the boiling pot, the dark skin can be brushed or scrubbed off, ideally leaving white cylinders of meat. Personally, I like to have the suction cups remain because they are the clue to the meat on the plate! But the skin at the top of the tentacles and around the body/head is thick and viscous and I haven’t developed that preference yet.
by Maureen | Sep 6, 2010 | Cheese, Featured Articles, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Meals, People, Photos, Seattle, Shopping & Markets, Travel Blog
Seattle’s chilly summertime is winding down with scattered sunshine following cloudy mornings. Warm evenings are rare, but, once again, the waterside neighbors initiated a dinnertime potluck along the shoreline last Friday, the start of a holiday weekend. I vowed to bring “something Italianesque”, and told them I likely wouldn’t know what it would be until mere hours before I headed out my back door to cross the street.
I wanted to try my hand at making homemade pasta. Regrettably, over the course of more than a year in Italy, I never took a cooking class! No one ever took me aside to show me how to whisk an egg into a well of flour, bring it up into a dough, knead it sufficiently, roll it out and slice it into handcut noodles.
Feeling intrepid, I located “Uncle Bill’s” web site offering an ingredient list and method for “Homemades” (noodles), and found a YouTube video showing a quicker process, “How to Make Pasta from Scratch in 5 Minutes“ (using a food processor instead of the time-honored flour well). I then called my friend, Sally, and asked to “steal” her hand-crank Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Maker.
It really did only take 5 minutes to mix up my first ever pasta dough and handcut a bundle of tagliatelle.
Thinking about our neighborhood dinner, I conjured a “Farmers Market Lasagna“? The day before, umbrellaed market stalls had filled the street at Burien’s Town Square and I browsed for a tasty collection of veggies to nestle between wide sheets of fresh pasta. I scouted the best of each vegetable, added them to my shopping bag, then went home to cut, grill, simmer and prepare the following:
- Grilled eggplant
- Roasted, thick-walled, red peppers
- Roma & beefsteak tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cooked down to a chunky sauce
- Caramelized Walla Walla sweet onions
- Freshly-made pesto Genovese of basil, pine nuts, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, salt and some grana padano cheese that I brought back from Milano
- Fresh mozzarella and ricotta
Fresh pesto is vivid green and always scents the kitchen (and the cook’s hands) with the smell of a summer garden. Making a batch, you might as well make enough for friends and the freezer! (Clean the interior surface of the jar after you’ve dished it out, then cover the pesto with a skiff of olive oil. This keeps the pesto from oxidizing and turning black, and from getting moldy. Store it for a week or so in the fridge; for longer storage, keep it in the freezer.)
Not quite jam, pesto is still good when smeared lightly on a slice of Tuscan-style bread!
Look at the silky smooth, beautiful ribbon of pasta, just waiting to be laid down into the lasagne dish! Just a couple more turns through the finer settings on the Atlas and it was ready to go. The Milanese “Amaretti di Saronno” tin has been my flour can for close to 30 years. Prescient.
My maiden noodles were set out to dry a bit while I finished rolling and cutting. I don’t have noodle drying racks, so occasional flipping on the cookie sheets was going to have to suffice. (I love the big mess of a fully-involved kitchen!)
I cooked my pasta sheets in salted, boiling water for only about 2 minutes, drained them, oiled them a bit to prevent their sticking, then started the layering of vegetables and cheeses. (The smaller lasagna went into my freezer for another day. Mmm.)
Since everything was already cooked before it went into the pan, the Farmers Market Lasagna only needed enough heat to melt the cheeses and blend the flavors. When it came out of the oven, I wrapped the dish in my apron, and carried it over to the neighbors. Eight of us enjoyed appetizers in the upper yard before winding down the wooded trail to the bulkhead beach and the rest of our dinner.
Over the course of the evening, we enjoyed an outstanding selection of Italian wines, including a Chianti Classico Riserva, Brunello di Montalcino and a Barolo! The sunset couldn’t have been much prettier.
There’s nothing like a bunch of “grown-ups” sitting around a fire singing camp songs and old hymns. Barbara tried to get us headed in the right direction when singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as a round.
I’ve talked to many people around Seattle that don’t even know their neighbors (let alone eat and sing camp songs with them)! Returning to my neighborhood, and the friends around me here, has been one of the big joys of my homecoming.
by Maureen | Jul 15, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, People, Photos
Octopus as tender as a dream, served warm and simply, with potatoes, olives and olive oil. Fish and pasta prepared and presented with an expert hand. Warm-hearted hosts, all family, welcome their guests into an easy, comfortable dining room in their restaurant alongside the Naviglio Pavese canal: Carlotta Café Bar & Restaurant. If you want to eat at all in Milano, EAT HERE.
During my year here, I have eaten at the Carlotta Café 5 times, and each time I have swooned and savored my meal. The fish could not be fresher. The light seasonings could not be more perfected. The preparation of every dish has never been pretentiously grand; it is simple, pure and complete. It’s no wonder I keep going back.
Carlotta Café owners, Ninni and Agnese, have had the restaurant since 1997.
Daughter Carlotta (after whom the restaurant is named) works with her mother Agnese and Chef Erik, in serving the café patrons. Agnese is as attentive and welcoming as one could wish for when out for a nice meal.
Here are a few of the dishes I’ve enjoyed in my times at the restaurant.
(The photos were taken in varying lighting conditions, evening and daytime.)
Pane Carasau, also called “Paper Music”, is a wispy-thin cracker served hot, generously drizzled with a flavorful olive oil and brightened with salt. This bread starts the meal and wakes up the mouth.
The dish that keeps bringing me back for more: Piovra con Patate – Octopus with Potatoes.
I can’t even descibe how delicious it is.
Gamberi Rossi Crudi della Mediterranea – Mediterranean Red Shrimp, served raw – are a delicacy and a gift to the palate.
This shrimp will be splashed with lime and relished.
Spaghetti con Vongole e Bottarga – Spaghetti with clams and grated, dried fish roe.
Bottarga is a southern Italian gourmet specialty.
Branzino Vernaccia con Olive – Baked seabass with olives and olive oil.
Look at how beautiful those filets are. Ninni knows how to handle fish!
Carpaccio di Spada – Thinly sliced, raw swordfish, served with rucola – arugula – and tomato.
Paccheri all’Isolana – Paccheri pasta with tuna, basil and tomato.
Gnocchi con Speck e Rucola – Potato Gnocchi with lightly smoked speck (cured meat somewhat similar to prosciutto), arugula and a creamy sauce.
The Carlotta Café offers a full bar, wine list and caffé. Order an ice-cold bottle of Mirto, a Sardegnan specialty from myrtle leaves and berries, as a digestif to sip after your meal.
The Red Room is the quiet, more intimate room set off from the bar and main dining area.
There’s also a north-facing Terrazo Room with it’s pleasant light.
The café is not in the central hub-bub of town, and unlikely to be found by tourists. It’s not close to a subway stop and, for me without a car or scooter, it would be a long walk on a hot day. So I gladly take a quick cab ride to the restaurant and it is oh-so worth it.
Ninni and Agnese offer a “Cena a Base di Pesce“, dinner based on fish, at an incredibly reasonable price. Make it simple for yourself: order this special dinner and a nice bottle of wine then sit back and enjoy the steady stream of expertly prepared foods that arrive at your table. You will go home happily satisfied. And you, too, will dream about the octopus. (Tell them “Maureen” sent you.)
(Check with them on their current pricing, since it may change.)
Carlotta Café Bar & Restaurant
Alzaia Naviglio Pavese, 274
20142 Milano, Italia
TEL: 02.89546028
E-MAIL: carlottacafe@gmail.com
by Maureen | Jul 11, 2010 | Introspection, Journal, Quips
This is not a scholarly blog with a foundation in formal Art or European History. I’m the first to admit my ignorance in those realms. And on the web, one can find formal information and imagery on just about any topic. I have no desire to regurgitate what’s readily available out there, although I do provide links now and then to informative sites.
Rather, this is a collection of sometimes-knee-jerk, sometimes-thoughtful observations and responses to having plopped myself down in Milano for a year. I write about the jaw-droppingly beautiful, the quirky and questionable, the forefront, the frustrating and the fulfilling.
Living here is “the stuff of dreams”, but it is not “glamorous” as so many seem to believe. It is daily life in a place where they speak a different language and do things differently, all against a backdrop that sometimes takes my breath away from either beauty or cigarette smoke.
I write about ants in my kitchen and hardwater in my pipes. About an old lady in her pajamas on New Year’s Day, and an old man gathering fire wood along the canal. There’ve been stories about feeding fresh ricotta cheese to farm cats, buying old linens at the flea market, and eating pureéd rabbit livers and raw meat.
This blog is simply about what catches my eye, my mind and my heart. It is increasingly populated with stories of the people that have stepped into my days. I’ve filled my mind with enough imagery to inspire me for a lifetime.
This is no movie set. The Lombardia sun is usually obscured by haze. The winter was interminably gray. There is “dog do” on the sidewalks and no one else to handle the details for me. But the struggles have been authentic. The food is remarkably unlike an Italian restaurant menu in the U.S. The people have been slowly responsive. And I’ve started to “talk with my hands”, especially when in an animated conversation in Italian with a friend.
Having been here now for over a year, and facing an imminent departure and return to The States, I feel mixed and wistful… and deeply full.
by Maureen | Jul 11, 2010 | Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, Photo of the Day, Photos, Quips
I have caught and cooked a LOT of fish in my life and I cook it well enough that I’m a snob about eating fish at a restaurant. My friends know this about me. I’ve sent fish back to the kitchen when we’ve eaten together. If we’re at a restaurant that touts itself as a fish-cooking wonder, it’d damn-well better be.
Segue. I’ve eaten some incredibly delicious fish at restaurants here in Italy. Heaven on my plate. Divinity. But I’m still perplexed by something I’ve seen a number of times.
I have ordered, and seen ordered, succulent “pan fish”, either roasted or grilled: branzino, orata, trota, etc. After whatever masterful preparation, the tuxedoed waiter arrives at the table with the fish on a platter and presents it with a flourish to the hungry diner. He then steps aside with the fish and proceeds to mangle it in offering his services of deboning the poor beast. Ten minutes later, the fish is cold and lies in a heap looking as if it has already been masticated. It resembles little of a fish.
Fish snob that I am, it baffles me when I see this abomination of fish-delivery.
Please tell me, WHY doesn’t the man-in-the-tuxedo simply lift the tail and let the lower filet slip away from the bones? He can then flip the remaining filet over, lift the tail again, and have two entire, appetizing filets ready and waiting. The rib bones are all attached at the spine and lifted away in one piece. The whole maneuver, in experienced hands, can take just a couple flicks of the wrists and leave the fish still-hot and appealing.
My dinner tonight, granted, is of a finer-textured fish (trout) and hasn’t been cleaned of edges and fins for a beautiful presentation, but, boom-boom, it took just seconds to lift the bones away. Since the fish hasn’t been cooked ’til dry, the delicate meat lifts off the skin with a wisp.
Last October I cooked a delicious branzino meal, my first time cooking that fish. Mmm.
