Category: Cucina

New York Times: “Taste my prosciutto,” he said with a drawl. Southern country ham producers are waking up to the similarities between their products (selling at $4-5 a pound) and Italian prosciuttos (selling for $20-30 a pound). I always knew country ham was ambrosia, but I’ll have to find a way to try it thin cut to see if it really jumps across categories this way.

I know one thing: red-eye gravy and prosciutto di parma scares me a bit. Though, on days when I’m not watching my diet, a breakfast of a fried egg over a prosciutto slice is pretty damn ambrosial (making matters worse, you fry the prosciutto in butter). So maybe red eye gravy wouldn’t be such an odd addition.

Four months after Julie Powell finished her lamb feast, I’m trying my own. Here it’s just me eating, but it’s a whole butterflied leg of lamb, rubbed with fresh rosemary, parsley, basil, and oregano from my garden, and done on the grill for (so claims The Joy of Cooking twelve minutes on a side. So for twenty-four minutes of non-rainy Seattle suburban bliss, I’m blogging from the patio on the new PowerBook, mint julep by my side…

…Sorry, I’m back. The fat on the back of the lamb had dripped down into the grill, which is a bit scary already, and so the grill was doing a reasonable imitation of The Towering Inferno. It was time to flip the lamb anyway, which I managed with something close to aplomb and something like 60% of the hairs on my hand intact. Mind, this is after the handy little spray bottle put out most of the flames. Man, it’s tough out here tonight.

(Twelve minutes later) The smaller portion of the lamb finished cooking in the prescribed 12 minutes a side, but the major part of the leg was about 15 degrees too cool. Hope this finishes in time to catch Alton Brown.

(After) Not bad, but would have been better with garlic. Still, it gives me hope that, through the magic of butterflying, everything can be grilled! Next up: wildebeest!

An article at Wired reports on research in a Milan pharmacology center that reports that eating one or more pizzas a week can reduce the risk of esophageal cancer by 59% and colon cancer by 26%. No link in the article, but the New York Times has the full story, and there are dozens of links in Google News.

Great meal tonight. After the iChat experience, I did some pork chops on the grill. Quick brush with garlic, black pepper, and soy sauce, grilled, and brushed with lemon juice, lemon zest, and chopped sage leaves.

And I thought about how I haven’t been eating so many vegetables lately, and decided to try a new green bean recipe from Marcella Hazan: steam the green beans, then toss them in butter and a quarter cup of grated parmigiano. Mmm, vegetables. —What? I figure that Julie Powell shouldn’t be the only one taking a cholesterol bullet for her readers. I do this for you, my friends.

And I thought about how when I cook elaborate meals and then sit on my ass and read the web and listen to music and drink a beer, and then go to bed feeling vaguely dissatisfied with myself…

…Wait a minute, I thought to myself. It’s like when you’re working when you’re depressed. And when have I had nights that haven’t been like that, when I’m cooking for myself while Lisa’s on the road? Man, I’ve got to find better things to do with myself.

One of the best photoblogs around, for my money, is 101-365. In addition to some stunning photography, Chris Heilman has posted several investigations into the color of wine, and postulates that you can uniquely describe the shape of a wine sample’s transmission spectrum with two parameters, warmth and brightness. (He also looks at absorption spectra.) The next question is, does knowing the shape of the spectral curve help predict the flavor?

Pike and Western held a tasting last night to sample the wines created by Ricardo Cotarella, the Italian winemaker behind Falesco, who helped lead a revolution in Italian viniculture by convincing grape growers to experiment with new grapes such as Merlot and improve old grapes like the Sicilian Nero d’Avola. Over the course of the evening (and seven wines from Sicily, Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany), we learned quite a lot about the industry, such as the importance of decreasing plant yield to provide intense flavor.

Afterwards Lisa asked Cotarella if he had consulted at any Campagnian vineyards. “Yes, several,” he said. “Feudi…”

“Mastroberardino?” Lisa asked.

“No, no,” he replied, and held his hands apart palm up. “If you consult for Feudi, is no longer possible to work for Mastroberardino.” (The two winemakers split in a family feud about ten years ago.)

He told us that his favorite Campagnian varietal was probably Greco di Tufo. Lisa challenged him, asking about Fiano di Avellino, but he said he preferred Greco because while Fiano might be mistaken for other indigenous white wines such as Falenghina, Greco always was clearly Greco.

Lisa doesn’t come back from Boulder until about 9 tonight, so I was taking dinner solo. So I improvised. Sauteed onions in butter and olive oil; added broccoli florets, lima beans, and a pinch of salt. Added a splash more olive oil and two cups of arborio. Started stirring in the obligatory chicken broth a half cup at a time. About ten minutes in, added cubed chicken thigh meat, and at the same time started browning larger thigh chunks in a separate pan. Five minutes later: about 3/4 cup white Bordeaux. More broth. Lemon zest. Then, off the heat, stir in a touch more butter and grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and top with the browned chicken breasts.

What is it about cooking that makes me feel so competent? I guess it’s the eating.

It appears that there’s some contention over where in Philadelphia the first sub sandwich (aka “hoagie”) was invented. Hogwash. It must have been invented in the North End of Boston. Or, erm, New York.

In no particular order, great sammiches of all time:

• Turkey-breast pastrami with gouda and special sauce on fresh-baked whole wheat from Take It Away (Charlottesville, VA)
• Grilled cheese (cheddar and havarti) on thick “Texas toast” style white bread from the late Corner Grill (Charlottesville, VA)
• Toss up: either fresh roast beef with horseradish and cheddar or freshly roasted turkey breast with lettuce and tomato, both on sourdough bread (a deli in Rosslyn, VA)
• The chicken parm sandwich at Oreste’s: breaded chicken breast, cheese, sauce, a little hot pepper relish (Rosslyn and Fairfax, VA)
• Dino Special: capicola, fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, oil, and balsamic vinegar on a soft sub roll (Dino’s, Boston)
• Italian sub: salami, capicola, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, hot peppers on a hard sub roll (Monica’s Pizza, Boston)
• Lamb gyro with hot sauce from the Moishe’s Chicken truck at MIT (Cambridge, MA)

Lisa and I went to an event last night at the Dahlia Lounge in celebration of Micol Negrin’s new cookbook, Rustico Cooking. The seating was billed as “festival,” which usually means you get seated with either an alarming assortment of loners or a party intent on making a good time by ignoring you. Not last night: our table-mates included the proprietor of a lavender farm in eastern Washington, the wife of a wine maker from Chateau Ste Michelle and her charming mother, and a salesman and collector of cookbooks (“I’m up to over a thousand now. I need to buy some more bookshelves. But on the plus side, I don’t have to buy other new furniture, I just sit on the books”). A fabulous night, and a fabulous meal composed of recipes from the book.

Appetizers: Sicilian olives marinated in olive oil, lemon, parsley, and garlic; fresh fried sardines with slow cooked onions and sultana raisins; a seafood salad with scallops, scampi, potato, cauliflower, and egg covered in a salsa verde. First course: three-meat agnolotti (rabbit, lamb, and veal). Second course: rabbit with pancetta stuffed fennel over kale. Sweets: chestnut fritters with honey and mascarpone. Cheeses: taleggio, a truffle cheese, and gorgonzola. Each course had Italian wines selected by the proprietor of the Pike and Western Wine Shop (whose mailing list alerted us to the event).

Perks: getting to meet Tom Douglas. Getting reintroduced to Micol, whom we had met previously at a similar event in Washington DC sponsored by La Cucina Italiana, her previous employer. Meeting our tablemates. Tasting the Col Solare that one of our table mates brought from her husband. Convincing Micol that, despite her not having had any food, she had to try a glass with some of the taleggio. A good night all in all.