by Maureen | Dec 25, 2009 | Cheese, Christmas & New Year's Eve, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, Paris, Shopping & Markets
What was for dinner on Christmas Eve in Paris? Fast food, Parisian-style!
From my journal yesterday:
5:30 P.M. Christmas Eve, Paris.
I’m eating in my hotel room, after spending all afternoon at Musée D’Orsay absorbing the impressionists and Art Nouveau and before heading to Notre Dame for Midnight Mass. At the Maubert-Mutualité exit for the metro, there’s a charcuterie, fromagerie, boulangerie and wine shop that I stopped at to buy dinner. The ultimate “fast food”! On tonight’s menu, (eaten in my room with Christmas music on “shuffle” on iTunes on my laptop):
– Escargots in puff pastry with garlic herb butter. 3 pieces for 3,00 €
– Foie gras roll with pistachios. 1 slice for 3,40 €
– A sort of Chevre cheese, donut-shaped and very moldy. 6,80 €
– Flan de Legumes (with broccoli). 3,80 €
– Puff pastry rounds, (eggy and moist). 4 small pieces 1,30 €
– Bordeaux. (1/2 bottle remaining from before). 4,50 €
TOTAL COST OF CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 22,80 €
(With today’s exchange rate, that’s about $33.00, but I figured that was fine for my Christmas dinner.)
…and it was delicious.
by Maureen | Nov 17, 2009 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Ireland, Journal
One thing that I brought back with me from my time in Ireland this year was enjoyment of traditional Irish Soda Bread! Here in Italy I’ve been on a constant lookout for dense, moist, flavorful bread with some nutritional value. So much of what I’ve found is white, light, fluffy and dries out in a day. Believe me… I check every bakery I walk past, and there are many!
I did finally find a “delicatessen” offering foods of the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy. (This area is along the northern border of Italy, adjacent to and influenced by neighboring Austria.) When I first walked up to the streetside-window of this deli, I thought they should be ashamed of themselves for displaying pastries such as they have. How dare they! But I went in, glanced around and hit the jackpot. They offer dense, multi-grain seeded breads of lush, flavorful varieties. I bought several hunks and walked a mile home. (You can buy a quarter loaf of bread, or less!)
So I’ve been on a mission, and my family back home has helped out. I just received packages full of baking soda and baking powder, brown sugar, measuring cups and spoons, (a few sewing supplies, which have nothing to do with this story)… and today an oven thermometer arrived from my big bro.
Today was my maiden bake-off. In 5 months I’ve never used my oven! I found a recipe online (waiting for my girlfriend to send me her real, traditional Irish recipe). I bought white flour and some sort of flour I can only guess about. I faked the buttermilk with some vinegar and made a mess in my kitchen. (Ahh, I’ve been missing that!) Soda bread is not yeasted, so it goes together quickly and easily; just don’t overwork it!
It cooked in about half an hour and looked beautiful through the oven window. Hot out of the oven, I had a slice with the first butter I’ve eaten in 5 months. (Truth be told, I picked the butter brand because I like the tin it comes in.) The next slice I ate with soft Italian goat cheese. Mmm. I could top it with some sliced tomato, too!
OK. I’ve established for myself how readily I can have the hearty bread I’m looking for, but I’ll have to start finding friends that like it, too. Either give half a loaf away each time, or conjure a half-recipe and make just enough to last three days.
Next, I’ll start experimenting with grain content and other variations. Mmm. A grilled soda bread sandwich with bresaola and gorgonzola? Perhaps.
by Maureen | Nov 9, 2009 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos
Always pack along tools when moving to another country!
Point One: This is the land of calcium deposits from the water. After boiling water just once in my stainless steel pan, the bottom and sides are covered with a white calcium film. The sinks and shower build up deposits from any standing water. The cleanser aisle at the grocery store is full of acids for “anticalcare”. Once a week I have to clean out the shower head and remove the rock-salt sized grains of coarse grit.
Point Two: I had just a slow trickle of water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and an even slower trickle, of cold water only, at the bidet.
Point Three: My hot water heater is an “on-demand” water heater, (only heating the water when I need it).
It occurred to me that all three points are related! Calcium and grit had likely built up in the faucet aerators and caused the slow trickle of water. The slow trickle wasn’t enough to cue the water heater to kick on, so I only had a dribble of cold water. If I could just get the aerators off and replace them, I’d have water flow AND hot water! But they were so crusted on, that I needed tools.
I shot photos of my crusted faucet aerators and went on Google Images and found photos of pipe wrenches and crescent wrenches. I printed them out and wandered off for the nearest Ferramenta Hardware Store. I bought a cheap pipe wrench for 4 euro and a nicer metric crescent wrench for 10 euro, plus 3 aerators for 1,60 euro each. I couldn’t wait to get home and test my theory!
The first aerator came off and with it a teaspoon of very coarse grit. Wow! No wonder there was only a trickle! I took the others off and flushed all the faucets. Incredible! With freshly flushed lines and new aerators, I had free flowing water for the first time in 5 months, AND hot water at the bidet! (It was such a simple fix!)
In the 5 months that I’ve been here, I have fixed or done maintenance on the following:
- replaced all the faucet aerators
- enlarged the holes on the shower head (they blocked up so regularly that the o-ring blew out once a week)
- tightened all the hinges on the kitchen cabinets (they lift UP and would fall on my head if I left them open)
- remounted a stray kitchen cabinet door whose hinge screws had “disappeared”
- taken the shower enclosure apart and scraped the whole thing down with a single edge razor blade
- oiled a drawer slide on an otherwise unusable bathroom drawer
- defrosted the unusable freezer
These are all little things, but they make a difference in the quality of daily life.
My minor little tool collection now includes:
- magnetic screwdriver with interchangeable bits of different sizes and types (from Seattle)
- single edge razor blades (unheard of here) and a scraper (from Seattle)
- leatherman multi-purpose tool with pliers and you-name-it (from Seattle)
- fine, jeweler’s needle nose pliers (from Seattle)
- steel wool (from Seattle)
- a shiny new crescent wrench
- an inexpensive pipe wrench
- a 3 euro hammer
I can fix and/or adjust a lot of things with this assortment! (Thankfully, I was well-trained at an early age.) By the time I leave this place, it’ll be in tip-top shape.
by Maureen | Nov 2, 2009 | Introspection, Journal, Quips
I’m smiling, amused. I just walked home in the pouring rain. Gym bag and groceries hanging heavy from my shoulder. My black-and-white polka dot umbrella amidst the sea of umbrellas. This was no tourist moment. I was just heading home like everyone else, and put my new leather boots on the radiator to dry out. Now I’m eating some of Mom’s-recipe-chicken-with-rice-and-gravy that I had put in the freezer a couple of weeks ago. It’s November and I’m cozy in Milano.
by Maureen | Oct 17, 2009 | Cheese, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photos, Shopping & Markets
After a little afternoon nap, I booted myself out the door for a stroll. It was just after 3:00, the quiet time of the day in the city. A mostly gray sky with a little chill in the air. Nice to head out and wander.
Just two blocks from home, I saw my Fashion Design instructor, Lee, from a year and a half ago. I hadn’t seen her since this summer session and it was nice to chat a bit. As it turns out, she recently moved to just around the corner for me, so we may meet for coffee sometime.
I needed a few groceries, but not much. The Saturday market was likely over, but I headed in that direction anyway, and am glad that I did. There was a stillness, an ease that is certainly not there in the height of the market selling. Many vendors had already left, but the others were slowly putting away their vegetables and fruits, their cheeses, meats and household sundries. They were still just as happy to make one last sale and end the day with a few extra euro in their pockets.
The fennel looked good, and I wanted to take one home with me. No. The minimum was three. “Oh, really? OK fine. Give me three. I’ll take some cherry tomatoes, too.” And of course, he THREW them into a bag. At another stall, the green beans looked fabulous and I wanted one of the two baskets full. He heaped a “fruta e verdura” paper bag with the beans from BOTH baskets, more than I could eat in a month. Fine. I love beans. I’ll eat them every day this week. (I guess they just didn’t want to pack up anything they could possibly send down the road.)
The man that had sold me bresaola the last time I went to this market was there again. I asked for “cento grammi“, 100 grams which he sliced right then, plus some brie. Then I saw a curious, smoked something-or-other, and asked for two. It’s cheese wrapped around prosciutto and olives, with some sort of creamy sauce inside, then smoked. (Front edge of the plate in the photo.)
The flower stall still had a few options, so I bought four colors of fragrant freesia to bring home.
I left the street market and went to the main street. As I approached the grocery store, there was a vendor out front roasting chestnuts. Yes, please! I added a big handful of those to my shopping bag. A few feet away, I spotted Justin, the woman from Kenya that works behind the meat counter at the grocery. She and I have chatted a number of times, and is the biggest reason for me to shop there. Her pleasant manner and conversation make me smile. Inside, I bought a package of cheese crackers that I had discovered when I first arrived four months ago, and some chicken thighs (for which I had big plans).
Next came the Bakery. There was a pizza square with mushrooms, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, sauce and cheese that clamored to come home with me. Plus, I bought a little bun with chunks of green olives. Basta! Plenty! That was enough for one shopping spree.
Along the way home, an elderly woman in a purple jacket stopped me to ask where I had bought the freesia. Unfortunately for her, the market was long over, but we chatted about freesia and tulips and springtime and I was pleased that we could have such a conversation.
And those chicken thighs? I cooked them just like Mom used to when we were kids (60s Americana): dredged in flour with salt and pepper. Browned in (olive) oil, then drowned in water and left to simmer for almost two hours ’til they were falling-off-the-bones tender. The chicken produced the classic gravy I was looking for and was ladled over (brown) rice, served with a few of those many green beans.
It was a simple afternoon, really. Just buying a few groceries. But the fact that I see familiar faces while out-and-about-town, and can just chat with people means the world to me. These are first steps toward being IN this community even if only in a small way.
by Maureen | Oct 11, 2009 | Canals, Featured Articles, Journal, Meals, Shopping & Markets
Nope. It’s not a Vespa-type scooter or a little car. It’s a little fish.
A couple of months ago, while at the Saturday market, I was overwhelmed by the seafood choices I had no familiarity with. No halibut, salmon or rock cod here. There was fish I knew nothing about except for a couple I had ordered from menus: orata and branzino. “But what do I do with it?” Besides. I had neither a filet knife nor knife sharpener, so I was ill-prepared.
Having just returned from a visit to Seattle this week, (filet knife and EZE-Lap sharpener in hand), hankerin’ for fish*, and doing a “fast stroll” near the Naviglio Grande (the big canal) I found a street-side fish market in my path. “Uno branzino”, I said to the guy. He wrapped it up. I paid 4 Euro, 6 bucks. I threw it in my bag and went on to shop for fabric. (Fabric and fish in the same bag? Hmm.)
(*By the way, can one ” have a hankerin’ ” in Italy. I’m not sure the translation works.)
Saturday evening. Canal-side. The place was lively with people strolling at a slow pace. Here I was, trying to keep my usual 4.5 mile-per-hour Indian Trail pace. (Fat chance, Maureen. Take it easy! Relax for once.) Maybe that’s something Italy will teach me: how to stroll properly, without being “on a mission”.
At 7:00, I stepped into the little fabric store NOT like those in the U.S.! Dark, jammed floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, and much of it had probably been there a long time. I was looking for, and found, fabric for a baby quilt. (Just try buying quilting supplies in Italian!) I left moments before they closed at 7:30.
It was the first time in 4 months I had gone out in public wearing blue jeans (!) and tennis shoes (not quite blinding white). I had been cleaning all day and felt like being comfy. At 8:00 in the evening, sleeveless, it was muggy enough that I was working up a sticky sweat. (All the more reason to slow down.) Most everyone else was either paired up or on-the-make, so blue jeans and tennis shoes never entered their minds, I’m sure!
Meanwhile, I had a scantily-wrapped branzino in my bag with baby quilt fabric, so I figured I’d better hustle to the grocery store, buy whatever else I needed, and get home and cook!
I hadn’t noticed at the fish stall that the fish had not been gutted. No problem. I’ve gutted many a fish in my day. And I found out that branzino, (which is actually a European Seabass), has a pretty wicked, spiny dorsal fin! A pair of scissors made short work of those half dozen thorns.
Based on it’s size, roughly 11″ stem-to-stern, I figured I could cook a branzino much like a nice-sized rainbow trout. Flour, salt, pepper, mixed herbs…and since I had just been in Seattle, I threw in some of Chef Tom Douglas’ Salmon Rub (Brown Sugar, Paprika and thyme). A little extra virgin in my new grill pan, crank up the heat and throw on the fish. Veggies searing in the pan next door promised a lovely dinner.
(By the way, note the pan in the upper left. I’ve boiled water for coffee twice and that’s the amount of white, calcium build-up that occurs! I have to scrub the pan hard every day.)
Ahh. The smell of fish cooking with oil. One would think it’s a good time to open the windows, especially on a muggy night! No way! I wouldn’t sleep all night; the mosquitos would eat me alive. I opted for the fishy smell and a good night’s sleep.
“Mr. Branzino” cooked for about 20 minutes or so. Perfection. A glass of Grillo from Sicilia, a couple slices of cornmeal bread and at 9:30 I was ready to eat. Note that the branzino is served up right alongside my Mac, my updated to-do list, the utility bill from the landlady, a job ticket, trip receipts and hardware warranty info.
Delicately flavored. White. Moist. Cooked perfectly. Mmm. In trout fashion, I lifted the tail and peeled the spine and upper half away from the lower. I didn’t eat the skin because trying to scale the fish earlier had been making more of a mess than necessary, so I simply lifted the fish flakes away from the skin and gobbled them. Then I flipped the other half, easily lifted the skeleton and enjoyed the rest of the fish. What a delicious meal!
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax, also known as Morone labrax, is a primarily ocean-going fish that sometimes enters brackish and fresh water. It is also known as the sea dace. As a food fish, it is often marketed as mediterranean seabass, bronzini or branzini(“branzino” is the name of the fish in Northern Italy; in other parts of the country it is called “spigola” or “ragno”). In Spain, it is called “lubina”. It has silver sides and a white belly. Juvenile fish maintain black spots on the back and sides, a feature that can create confusion with Dicentrarchus punctatus. This fish’s operculum is serrated and spined. It can grow to a total length of over 1 m (3.3 ft) and 15 kg of weight.
Its habitats include estuaries, lagoons, coastal waters and rivers. It is found in the waters in and around Europe, including the eastern Atlantic Ocean (from Norway to Senegal), the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
It is mostly a night hunter, feeding on small fish, polychaetes, cephalopods and crustaceans.
The fish has come under increasing pressure from commercial fishing and has recently become the focus in the United Kingdom of a conservation effort by recreational anglers. In Italy the seabass is subject of intensive breeding in salt waters.
by Maureen | Sep 5, 2009 | Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Shopping & Markets
I’m not joking when I say that one of my consistent sources of stress here is in grocery shopping. It’s easy to take for granted the comfort of knowing WHAT I’m shopping for and HOW to shop for it. And when I don’t know those two things there’s an absolute and certain anxiety aroused. That may sound ridiculous, but it’s true.
It’s one thing to shop at the grocery store. I’ve greatly improved in that realm. At least there are labels and I can pick up the items to read and figure out what I’m looking at, what to do with it and whether I want it. I’ve gotten better at discerning ingredients listed in Italian, and labels these days often feature a photo which gives a hint of ingredients and serving suggestions.
Someone finally told me how to order my favorite, bresaola. It’s not ordered from the meat counter by the slice, it’s ordered by the gram. OK. Fine. But how many grams do I need? I was raised with ounces and pounds. How big of a pile of paper thin bresaola would 100 grams amount to? As it turns out, 80 to 100 grams is about right for me to order, and I now know what it amounts to. I can order bresaola and prosciutto with the rest of them and not sound completely like I’m from outer space.
In the produce department, it’s absolutely forbidden to handle the fruit and veggies with bare hands. There’s a ritual in buying produce and I had to learn that first thing! I go to the little stand to get my wispy thin plastic gloves. THEN I select my fruit and put it in a plastic bag. THEN I make note of the code number for my item and take it to the scale. I punch in the code and the machine spits out a UPC label. Very simple. But if someone hadn’t told me about that, or if I forget and get up to the checkout stand with unmarked produce, heaven help me!
There are handy tote-along plastic bins on wheels at the entrance to the store. Pretty handy because I usually don’t need a big cart. They have a compact “footprint” and are pretty deep. Therein lies the problem. The produce is at the entrance to the store. I go in, get my tomatoes, peaches, plums, rucola and other delicate, soft fruits and vegetables and put them in my bin. As I continue shopping for yogurt, milk, cheese, wine, bottled water, the heavy things either get piled on top of the fragile things, or I have to constantly shuffle the contents in my cart to put the heaviest at the bottom. I could get my cart, walk immediately to the end of the store, shop in reverse, end in the produce department, then walk back to the cashier at the opposite side of the store. I suppose I could try that and see how it goes.
Then there’s the checkout! This is when I need heaven to help me. I think the checkout stand at the grocery store is the epitome example of Italian speed-demon impatience. I walk up and stand in line with “all the other Italians” (ha ha ha). When it’s my turn, I empty my cart onto the conveyor belt trying to get the heaviest items out from the bottom of the pile and put them on the belt first. The cashier asks me if I want a bag and if I do its extra cost gets added to the tab. (Take note, Seattle.) Well-trained, I always have my own bags, so I say “no”. While I’m still unloading my little cart, my grocery items are flying out the other end and rolling down on top of each other into a big pile. Believe me, I unload as fast as I can so I can immediately start loading up my bags as fast as I can. Invariably, the cashier finishes the race before I do, there’s a line of people waiting, my total is rattled quickly in Italian (I’m getting better all the time at hearing and understanding euro totals), I don’t have my reading glasses on, I can’t see the still-unfamiliar coins to know their denominations, and I haven’t even finished loading up my groceries! It would almost be funny if it weren’t so anxiety-producing!
I’m always glad to get out of the grocery store.
Ahh. Then there’s the Saturday Market I discovered for the first time today. Open air. Lovely, end-of-summer weather. Picture-perfect produce, meats, seafood, cheeses, breads and sundries. This market makes Seattle’s Pike Place Market look like nothing. (Really. Sorry, but it’s true.) Everything is arrayed so beautifully, all so artful. I shot photos for the first hour or so. All so gorgeous.Idyllic, right?
Then it was time to shop. Uh oh. Trouble. New rules here. No labels. No handling the products to investigate. And it wasn’t clear what the buying process was. Who do I talk to and when is it my turn?
After wandering around dazed and afraid for a while, I got bold. What I wanted was simple and recognizable: tomatoes on the vine, fresh figs, prunes, green beans, onions. I told the guy at the front, but then he told me I had to go off to the side to pay for it first. OK. But when standing in line, I watched them fill bags with other people’s orders. They take this beautifully displayed fruit and THROW it into a paper bag! There go those nice tomatoes, those ripe peaches, those soft, fresh figs. After watching this for a couple of minutes, I walked away, telling the guy I decided not to buy any. After having been a farmer for so many years, I just can’t bring myself to buy fruit and veggies from someone that is throwing my food. And I don’t get to select it myself, so don’t know until I get home that the figs are overripe and smashed open, the tomatoes punctured and the prunes bruised. Let alone not yet having the vocabulary to tell them I want just one vine of tomatoes, not a whole basket, etc. When they don’t allow us to pick up the food, I don’t have the opportunity to select 4 nice tomatoes and gently place them in a bag to be coddled during my walk home.
Yearning for good seafood, I found the fish booths down at the very end of the street. (Maybe other vendors don’t like the smell at the end of a hot day so the fish vendors are ostracized.) But I don’t recognize any of the fish, (only the shrimp, octopus and squid). I don’t have a good filet knife in the apartment and I don’t know the flavors of what’s in front of me. (Is it strong and “fishy”?) By this time I was feeling paralysis rather than excitement, so I ordered what the little old lady in front of me ordered: fresh shrimp. I can deal with that for now. I guess that, next time, I’ll just buy myself a fish, drag it home, throw it on the fire and see what it tastes like. (And maybe I should pick up a good filet knife in the meantime!)
I must say that the cheese displays were beyond belief and I finally stopped at one on the side street, not the main drag of the market. This little shop was extensive and more personable and homey. I asked the cheesemonger “which one should I try?” He replied “all of them!”, and we both laughed. He gave me a little sliver of a soft cheese, but it was more mild than I had in mind. He had a huge round of pecorino with several bands of black peppercorns through its middle. He gave me a sliver of that one, and it had power to it. I bought the small wedge that had been sitting waiting for me. He weighed it and said it was 2,40. “2,40?”, I asked, wanting to make sure I heard correctly. “Yes, dear” he said in Italian, and he waited patiently while I squinted at my coins to count out change. I decided, then, to have him slice some bresaola, too.
by Maureen | Jun 25, 2009 | Cheese, Food!, Shopping & Markets
Took my long walk to the grocery store today, up along Corso San Gottardo, where the little specialty shops are, as well as a few “bigger” stores. The grocery store has a good variety and good quality.
In my shopping bag today was: a big red pepper, a half dozen on-the-vine tomatoes, green beans, garlic, red onion, chicken thighs, fresh little mozzarelline, grana padano hard cheese, ricotta forno (which, I think, is a roasted ricotta), tomato sauce, rucola (arugula), cannellini and borlotti beans and a box of plastic bags. A half a block away at the little corner store, I bought a half dozen bottles of “Acqua Frizzante“, sparkling mineral water, a staple. I don’t have a menu planned, but I’ll whip up something…
Along San Gottardo I can’t tell you how many little “pasticerie” there are, tempting passersby – and me – with their displays of pastries, breads and other delicious foods. I succumbed and stepped in to buy a little something. I came out with a half dozen, bite-sized “biscotti al coco” (coconut macaroons) and “frollini al cioccolato” (a dry little cookie with chocolate bits in it).
by Maureen | Jun 21, 2009 | Cheese, Discoveries, Food!, Shopping & Markets
There’s a really great grocery store that I walk to about a mile away. It’s a good thing that it’s two miles there and back and that I walk because I keep finding really delicious cheeses to try out! (Uh oh! I’m much more of a sucker for the cheeses than the photogenic pastries here. Either one’s a danger!)
Here’s one that I just had to test: tomino prataiola mignon. It’s got a thin, brie-like exterior, with a subtly-flavored center and firm as if brie had aged and dried.
(I can see I’m going to need to learn some descriptive foodie terms to describe what I’m eating!)
