After La Montanara, Why Eat Again?

After La Montanara, Why Eat Again?

“I don’t have to eat anything the entire rest of my life. Nothing could be better than this meal”, said Sally.

It’s worth a trip to Bologna just to eat at Trattoria La Montanara. This small restaurant serves food that will make you swoon. (Be sure to reserve a table ahead of time so you’re not disappointed.)

Sally and I took the train from Milano to Bologna, just a little over an hour. After sightseeing, our day’s highlight was the delicious dinner, seated next to the open doors at the sidewalk’s edge.

The antipasti plate included a prosciutto mousse, quiche of zucchini and smoked scamorza cheese, eggplant pudding with olive tapenade, and a spinach/sausage combo (already devoured by the time I shot this photo.)

Creamy, cheesy, risotto of asparagus and zucchini flowers. Oh my!!! Divine.

Tortelloni of potato and pancetta with a butter and sage sauce.

If you’re a meat eater, what could be better than a perfectly cooked filet with a thick, balsamic vinegar sauce?

Trattoria La Montanara
Via Augusto Righi, 15
40126 Bologna, Italia
Tel: 051 221583

Sally in Milano

Sally in Milano

Sally flew over from Seattle a week ago to share the sights of Milano, the wonderful food treats available and the simple efficiency of my apartment. She came off the plane and out of customs beaming.

We took the Malpensa Express train from the airport into town, and got out at the Cadorna station. We walked out in front so she could see the “Needle, Thread and Knot” sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The knot is across the street, as if the needle had taken a stitch under the roadway.

Our first breakfast was a caprese salad with mozzarella from the farm, lovely ripe tomatos, just-picked basil, served on a bed of songino – watercress – and some freshly sliced proscuitto. Not a bad welcome to Milano!

On Sally’s first day in Milano, we walked over to the Saturday street market where the vendors were selling fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, clothes and a few household goods. We stocked our kitchen with fresh basil, red pepper, asparagus, spicy salame with fennel, fresh eggs, cherry tomatoes, blood oranges, pickled onions, both “sweet” and spicy olives, burratina cheese, smoked mozzarella, dried figs from Calabria, prosciutto and bresaola.

With hot weather, we opened the french doors and sat on my “shelf”, as Sally called it. Not quite big enough to be called a deck, or veranda, or lanai, it held our two chairs while we put our feet up on the railing. We chatted in the sun and greeted neighbors as they walked past to go dump their garbage in the room below us.

No trip to Milano would be complete without going out for aperitivi. We walked along the Naviglio Pavese Canal and stopped into one of the many restaurants that were hopping and lively on the hot, muggy night. We selected from their buffet of pasta, cheese, meats, pizza squares… and ribs (of all things). Sally’s martini was oddly sweet and not at all martini-like.

Sally enjoyed online communications, keeping in touch with family through Skype and e-mail.

There’s a wonderful graffiti wall outside of a garden center between Corso Como and the Monumental Cemetery. What a great backdrop! This is one of my favorite photos of Sally in Milano.

We just had to take a stroll through 10 Corso Como, the city’s legendary fashion, accessories, art and design boutique. This is NOT the place to pull out your credit card, but rather just harvest ideas for garment design and construction.

We made reservations for dinner on Saturday at Malavoglia where you ring the doorbell to get in and are greeted by bow-tie-adorned owner, Aldo, and a complementary glass of bubbly prosecco. We shared a primo of fresh pasta with black squid ink sauce. It was delicious.

One of the highlights of Sally’s time in Milano was her visit to the Duomo. We spent time in the piazza, “the living room of the city”. We walked its circumference marveling at the variation in details and gloried at the cathedral’s interior. We topped off the tour with time on the rooftop, getting up close to the sculptures, finials and gargoyles, and looking out over the city.

Head Cheese & Olive Bread

Head Cheese & Olive Bread

After the flea market at Piazza dei Ciompi in Firenze last Sunday, I walked a few blocks further and saw yellow-tented stalls. Hmm. A food market: cheeses, meats, breads and a few other goodies. Some from Toscana (Tuscany), Firenze’s region. Some spicier ones from the south.

‘Nduja is a casing-stuffed meat that is spicy and spreadable. Very nice with good bread.

“Do you have a problem with cholesterol? Diet? The solution is Tometta (cheese) of 100% pure goats milk. Lower fat content.”

How about some deer meat salame?

I sampled gorgonzola mixed with black truffle and bought a little tub of that to take home. Sampled from a big round of pecorino. Then walked up to a meat vendor that fed me enough samples that I didn’t need lunch. They offered huge, cased, cured meats from which they’d shave a piece and use the knife to hand it to me: prosciutto, porchetta, salame, soppressata. I tried them all, peppered and mild, whole, ground and chunked and knew I wanted to buy a piece. After all the samples, I was indecisive because I liked them all, but I bought soppressata.

In the photo below, soppresatta is the large-chunk round near the black-rind cheese.

In nine months this is one meat I hadn’t tried yet because it’s a Tuscan meat and not so common up north. My markets don’t offer it. Soppressata is made of the left over parts of the pig: cartilage, tongue, head scraps… you name it, nothing’s wasted. The head is boiled for a few hours then picked of meat, skin and all “edible parts”. All of the picked bits are chopped large, seasoned, and stuffed into a casing about 10″ across. The broth from cooking is poured into the casing to cover the meat parts. It is then hung and the liquid thickens and binds everything into a solid. (In the U.S., it might be called “head cheese”.)

The soppresatta that this vendor offered had a nice peppery bite to it. Soppressata omelette? Soppressata burger? “They” are saying that soppressata pizza is the new big thing. I believe it.

Here’s the front end of the porchetta – roast pig.

With gorgonzola and soppressata in my bag, I continued walking. I should have bought a nice Tuscan bread to bring home on the train, but didn’t. I’ve always marveled at these HUGE loaves I see at the markets. Ask for some bread and they just whack off a chunk. These loaves are about 4 feet long.

And look at this green olive bread!

This Toma cheese is so beautiful to look at.

Heart of the Renaissance

Heart of the Renaissance

If you haven’t been to Firenze (Florence), put it on your “life list” of must-see places in the world. Really.

Two years ago I spent a couple of afternoons exploring Firenze, but I hadn’t been back since I returned to Italy last June. So I hopped on the train late last Friday morning, and less than two hours later, at 1:00, I arrived in Firenze and smiled. I walked from the train station to my hotel shooting photos along the way because I couldn’t wait until I put my bags down. I checked in, changed my clothes for the bit of humidity under the partly sunny skies, then left and took off walking for the next five hours.

If I were to move to Italy NOW, or want to relocate to another spot, I would pick Firenze.

Excerpts from my journal Friday night, 26 March 2010 , while resting my feet and having a delicious dinner:

“I love Firenze! At this point, with what I know and with my familiarity and my language, I’d move to Firenze. Milan was a great place to land and gave me anchors. I find much to interest me there. My camera is always at my side and I can stay as busy as I wish, but in just an afternoon, Firenze has thrilled me with its visuals, much the way that Venezia does.

“It’s very definitely a tourist town! I think that Spring/Easter vacations have begun because the clustering tour groups are everywhere and unavoidable. (I thought that, late March, I’d still be missing them all.)

“Firenze – Florence – is ‘tighter’. Narrower streets close into the center of town around the Duomo, and many ‘pedestrian-only’. the selection of little shops, restaurants and curious places gives much to explore without going far. The antiquity is a saturated wash over the town and gives it a texture that is lush across-the-board. Like Venezia, I could photograph here forever.

“I’m sitting at a table for two at Zá-Zá, a lovely, dar, funky, delicious trattoria just blocks from my Hotel Caravaggio. There’s been a table of four sitting near me having their meal, their drinks and their desserts. I smiled at them once… As they were leaving, the woman that had been nearest to me said goodbye – ‘Arrivederci‘. That tickles me.” (I highly recommend both the restaurant and the hotel.)

Excerpts from my journal Sunday afternoon, 28 March 2010 , on the train heading home to Milano:

“I had an incredible, full time in Firenze. So glad to have gone back, and with only an hour and 45-minute train ride, I could come for a day if I wanted to, or just an overnight.

“The city of Firenze, though packed with tourists, seems to have a quite comfortable parallel world of locals that go about their days and their work. With transportation and services so readily available, Firenze seems quite livable and pleasant.

“I very quickly got the-lay-of-the-land and covered much of the “Centro Storico” – the historic center of town – in my two days there, walking close to 20 hours overall.”

Yesterday evening, a friend asked by e-mail, “Should Florence be on my to-do list? What did you especially like about it?” I responded with an off-the-cuff, spontaneous list:

Everyone’s on foot or bike! The whole historic center, large radius, is almost all pedestrian-only with very few cars and some half-size, mini-buses. Walk everywhere. (I don’t think there IS a subway, but lots of public transportation.) Streets are narrow and closer in for easy strolling. NO traffic to even have to think about.

Absolutely fascinating art, history, culture, architecture at EVERY turn!

Historic sites. Historic art: Michelangelo’s David. Botticelli. Caravaggio. Dürer. Giotto. Leonardo. Lippi. Raphael. Rembrandt. Rubens. Titian. And so many more!

Visually lush. Vital, Small-city-energy.

VERY tourist-oriented (which I didn’t like having the vacation tours already swarming) but it felt like there was a parallel universe happening of people just going about their lives.

Florence doesn’t have the crazed-busy-frenzy of business-minded Milan.

Cool stuff for curious kids and adults alike. Sundials and crenulated towers.

Good gelato.

Neat bridges.

Street markets selling you-name-it.

Good cow-stomach sandwiches. (Lampredotto.)

The heartland of the Renaissance.

Oh. And they have curb-cuts designed for uninterrupted walking.

Prosciutto Soup

The other day I noticed the section in the meat department at the grocery store where they sell the “ends” of the prosciutto, mortadella, salami and other meats. I bought a prosciutto end for just a couple of euro; it was about the size of my fist.

Much of the meat was pretty dry, so without being sliced paper thin as is typical, it wasn’t optimal for eating. So: Prosciutto Soup! Besides. It was Sunday night and I hadn’t gotten to the grocery store in time so the pickins in my cupboard were slim.

I sauteed an onion and some garlic in olive oil. Cubed the prosciutto and threw it in the pan. I opened a can of fagioli borlotti, a bean that is white and speckled with deep magenta when freshly-shelled. I added a spoonful of vegetable bullion, but probably wouldn’t have needed to; it was WAY too salty, especially with the salt of the prosciutto. So I just kept adding water to the pot until the salt leveled out.

Everything simmered for about 3 hours and melded nicely while I sat here at the computer. The meat softened up. The beans thickened the broth a bit.

I’m probably breaking a lot of “rules” here, putting foods together in combinations quite atypical. But I came here without the food foreknowledge and preconceptions, so I simply see everything as an ingredient free-for-all. (That’s just how I cook, wherever I am.) Would a traditional cook make a soup such as this? I don’t know. If you know, please tell me!

Going German

I harkened back to my German roots today and cooked sausage in a kraut of red cabbage, beets and onions. I could post a photo, but it really is just a mass of purple-brown and doesn’t look like much. But it tasted good. It shouldn’t seem odd for me to cook such a thing. Half of me is German, and Germany is just up and over the hill. And I always cook a wild-and-crazy blend of who-knows-what kind of food origin. Just because I’m in Italy, you think I’m going to cook “Italian” all the time? (What is that, anyway?)

I have enough leftovers for two more meals, sigh. Need to have my appreciative brother close by to eat what I make.

A Ligurian Lunch

A Ligurian Lunch

Dinner the night before was followed by a long lunch the next day. Renata and Angelo, who live in a town within walking distance from Sanremo, were having some friends over on Sunday and I was invited to come along. So gracious! It’s a real treasure to have people open their doors and ask me to join them in their homes.

By a little before one o’clock, 8 people had clustered in the kitchen and around the dining table. Renata and Angelo had been cooking all day for us and piled the table high:

  • Genovese focaccia – plain, with oil.
  • Sardenara – Ligurian specialty focaccia with tomato sauce,
    anchovies, olives, oregano and garlic.
  • Carciofi Impanati Friti – breaded, deep-fried, small young artichokes.
  • Maiale Cicioli – breaded, deep-fried pieces of pig fat.
  • Patate – little baby potatoes, roasted with olive oil.
  • Polenta Taragna Concia – a regional style of polenta with ground buckwheat and 1 kilo of cheese. It cooked over the stove in a copper kettle for more than an hour, with a motorized stirring paddle to mix it and keep it from sticking.
  • T-Bone Steaks – the thickest t-bones I’ve ever seen were grilled outside ’til rare. The meat was cut away from the bone, then sliced and served.

The sweets at the end of the meal included:

  • Bugie – (which means “lies”) crispy, fried, sugar-dusted twists of dough.
  • Nutella-topped sweet buns
  • Baked Pears – Angelo got up from the table several hours into the afternoon and prepared baked pears by crushing amaretto cookies, mixing them with chocolate and liqueur, and pouring this blend onto the pears before quick baking.

The food went around. The home-bottled chianti, extra-proof, flowed, as did the conversation. I understood most of it and jumped in when I had something to add. Though I had shot photos of Renata in the kitchen when I first arrived (feeling comfortable since we’d had dinner together the night before), I kept my camera tucked away for the first couple hours of the meal. These people didn’t know me and I didn’t want to be rude.

To lubricate the conversation, we had begun with the chianti, then moved on to champagne, grappa, rum and caffé. Time was passing and everyone was loosening up. I was treated to a display of classic Italian hand gestures, mannerisms and animated speech. So theatrical, you would have thought it had been scripted. Eventually, my camera came back out and I had fun snagging images as the hours ticked by.

The first part of the day had been blue-sky serene, the kind of day that brings the crowds to the Ligurian* seaside. As we passed the afternoon in lively discussion at the table, the sky had darkened, a wind picked up and waves were crashing at Renata and Angelo’s bulkhead. It was time to go home at close to 7:00.

*Liguria is the “Italian Riviera”, that northern region of Italy that includes Cinque Terre at its southeastern end and arcs from there northwesterly to France.

Dinner with Sanremo Friends

Dinner with Sanremo Friends

It’s a natural for friends to gather for food and conversation. This is worldwide, but I find that the Italians do it well and do it often.

Last weekend, in Sanremo, seven of us got together for dinner around the table: my landlady, Sandra, and her husband, Mauro, and their friend, Sandro (all of whom I had spent the weekend with two weeks earlier), plus two friends of theirs, Renata and Angelo, and another friend of Sandro’s, Livio. Everyone came with food in hand, and we had a lively time.

Below, left to right: Livio, Angelo, Mauro, Renata, Sandra, Sandro.

We started with some salame that Livio had made. (Yes. Those are chunks of fat.) I had made a loaf of mixed-grain Irish Soda Bread that we ate with it.

Sandro had cooked a fabulous mix of seafood, including mussels, shrimp, squid, pescatrice (that funny, deep-water fish with the “lure” hanging off the front of its head), and tiny 3 inch fillets of a local, sand-versus-mud fish. There was just a tad of hot pepper oil in this dish which added a touch of zing.

Renata had baked a fresh tart, beautiful with apple wedges emerging from the deep gold, dense, pound cake. This was pretty darned good with some of the array of gelato that Sandra and Mauro had picked up at the town’s best Gelateria. We ate and talked for close to three hours. (Yes. All in Italian.)

Pureéd Rabbit Livers

Pureéd Rabbit Livers

It’s an old time, secret family recipe and I took an oath not to reveal the ingredients, but I can show a couple of photos and give just a sketchy description.

Essentially, you cut up a rabbit, brown the chunks, simmer them in all the right liquids* with all the right seasonings* ’til the meat is tender*.

In the meantime, you take a big fistful of raw rabbit livers and pureé them with all the appropriate Italian ingredients* until you’ve got a smooth, pink slurry.

When the meat chunks are done just right*, and with the heat OFF, pour the rabbit liver slurry into the pan with the meat and stir it all around. The remaining heat in the pan and in the meat will “cook” the liver “enough”. The liver will actually coagulate rather than remain saucy.

Scoop up some of the thickened “sauce” and serve it over fresh tagliatelle pasta. It’s appropriate to eat the chunks of rabbit with your hands.

If you’re a fan of liver, this is fabulous! If not, well…

I’m grateful to chef Sandro, in Sanremo, for preparing this for me and letting me watch and take notes!

*If you’ve had enough experience in the kitchen, you can use your imagination to figure out what these things MIGHT be.

Sorry. No Fettucine Alfredo

Sorry. No Fettucine Alfredo

In reading my blog posts about what I’m eating here, I hope that you’ll realize how much broader the Italian culinary range is than the stereotypical American concept of “Italian Food”. There is SO much more than pizza, spaghetti, lasagna and ravioli. “Fettucine Alfredo” is a figment of the American imagination, and I’ve been told emphatically, “NEVER serve tomato sauce on spaghetti!” Italians have laughed at that idea.

You can travel a mere 100 kilometers and encounter regional, traditional foods you couldn’t have found at your last stop. There are foods unique to specific communities!

As an example, depending on the region, the starch base will be different. You may encounter polenta, pasta (of a shape specific to that region), rice (risotto), focaccia or other bread. Wines, meats, cheeses and seasonings all vary by region.

For instance, in my last visits to Sanremo, I was treated to:

  • Sardenara – a focaccia bread with tomato sauce, anchovies, garlic and olives (no cheese), specific to Liguria.
  • “Branda Cugnon” – A delicious mash of salted, dried white fish (cod?), potato, parsley, olive oil and garlic. (Don’t ask about the bawdy origin of the name.)
  • Rabbit with Sauce of Pureéd Rabbit Livers – A secret, family recipe in which the rabbit livers are pureéd with other ingredients (I’m not supposed to tell) until they become a thick, pink slurry. The sauce is then stirred onto the hot, stewed rabbit parts, and is “cooked” only from the residual heat.
  • Polenta Taragna Concia – Yellow, coarse polenta (cornmeal) with ground buckwheat and a kilo of cheese stirred and cooked into it over the stove for an hour.

The next time you want to go out for “Italian Food”, stretch beyond what you’re familiar with and either go to a restaurant that offers more authentically prepared foods, or pick something off the menu other than your tried-and-true favorite. Order something you can’t identify. I do it all the time!

Below is a map that I saw on the wall at Ristorante Re Enzo in Bologna. It mentions just a few of the noted food and wine specialties for each region.