QUICK BITES: Sgroppino

Il Bel Paese in the summertime: there's no place quite like it on earth. When the temperatures rise in Italy, we tend to spend entire leisurely days in the sun, and close to water. Around Rome, the quickest escape is to the beaches of Ostia and Torvaianica, only about 15 miles from the heart of the city.

One of my favorite memories of life in Italy is the feeling I'd have, returning from a day at the beach: suntanned skin, salt in my hair, I'd clean off under a quick shower and then dress and head out to dinner with friends. This meal needed to be light and fresh, so as not to weigh me down in the intense Italian heat and humidity. Inevitably, this meant seafood. And nothing is more refreshing after a meal of fish tartare and carpaccio, pasta alle vongole or branzino baked in a salt crust, than a sgroppino served in a frosted champagne flute.

For the record, I'm not big on Italian desserts. There are only a handful in the repertoire anyway. And I've always believed in the idea of cocktail-as-dessert: it makes sense, aids in the digestion process, and keeps the drinks flowing even after the meal is technically over. The sgroppino is this wonderful combination of refreshing dessert with liquor that acts as a digestivo: perfect! Of course, like any Italian invention there is the original (said to hail from the area around Venice, also where tiramisu' originates -- quite the elegant epicures, those Venetians!)...and then there are the other versions. A true sgroppino should not be a drink with a ball of sorbetto plopped into it. Nor should it be a 'slushie' with a champagne floater. It is the perfect equilibrium of lemon sorbetto (that means it's made without dairy) + vodka + prosecco. Punto. 

Now, there are those who add a bit of limoncello to the recipe, and actually it's an addition that I don't protest, since I am of the school of "everything is better with limoncello." It's kind of a southern Italian tweak to the northern original, and I can't argue with that. The lemons from the Amalfi coast are big and beautiful and lend their particular variety of concentrated citrus flavor to the liquor, and therefore any drink containing it. But on the whole, the basic recipe, on which it's hard to improve, is comprised of just three ingredients. And like Italian cuisine, with Italian drinks, the high quality of the handful of ingredients is of the utmost importance.

1. Sorbetto al limone: You should use either homemade sorbet or a brand you trust to use all-natural ingredients, without chemicals or loads of stabilizers. Ciao Bella and Il Laboratorio del Gelato are great Italian-style options available stateside. You'll want to make sure this is thawed a little bit so it can be mixed with the other ingredients. Let it sit out at room temperature for 15 minutes before using it.

2.) Vodka: Of course this should be high-quality too, even though it's going to be mixed with other ingredients. Think well-produced, clean vodkas like Belvedere, Ketel One, or a locally-produced option. Although I'm a fan of Grey Goose, I left it off of the list because it's French...out of respect for the Italians, who would prefer not to have the French mixed up in their Italian cocktails, grazie.

3.) Prosecco: This is not sparkling wine, not spumante, even -- it's prosecco. That's the name of the grape and the name of the drink made from that grape, and that's what should be used in this cocktail/digestivo. It's drier, crisper than other sparkling white wines and since it's made in the Veneto, it goes into this Veneto-created mix. I adore most prosecchi, but Nino Franco happens to put out an excellent product. He's also a cool guy -- I visited his estate and tasted his product over the course of 30-plus years, and it's incredibly well-made. Bottoms up.

Once you have all of these ingredients at the right temperatures (sorbetto softened, vodka and prosecco well-chilled), you mix them together, either with a whisk in a chilled bowl, or quickly in a blender. E basta. It should be the consistency of a slushie or a loose granita: liquid enough to drink from the glass, but thick enough to be able to use a spoon as well. Serve in frosted champagne flutes or tall shot glasses -- even an icy martini glass would work, though it's not classic. The important thing is that the consistency is right, you can taste the alcohol...and that it's consumed subito, right away.

Buon estate a tutti! Happy summer, everyone!

LOCAL INGREDIENT: Gambero Rosso

Il Gambero Rosso. The Red Prawn. It's the name of Italy's most important dining and wine guide (and now culinary center and TV cooking channel). It's the name of the legendary osteria in the story of Pinocchio, to which the Fox and the Cat lead Pinocchio, where they eat a huge meal. And most importantly, it's the variety of red shrimp in the Mediterranean, especially common off the coast of Sicily and southern Italy, that's one of the most delicate and delicious flavors that exists in these waters. The gambero rosso del Mediterraneo (Aristaeomorpha foliacea) is a fiery crimson color before it's cooked, and remains this bright red after it's been exposed to heat, unlike most other shrimp that turn from gray to orangey-pink.  

For me, the first time I tried gamberi rossi in Italy, it was love at first sight. Its flavor is much more delicate than that of any other shrimp, its color beautiful on the plate. This was my entrata into understanding the importance and beauty of eating simply-prepared, high-quality local seafood that one might not be able to find in other parts of the world. I've never seen the gambero rosso in America, though perhaps some upscale seafood eateries are importing it somewhere stateside. But it's a go-to whenever I'm in any coastal area in southern Italy. I seek it out. I always order it when I find it on a menu. I prefer it uncooked. And since the Mediterranean red prawn lives at a depth of between 200 - 1000 meters beneath the sea -- deeper waters tend to be cleaner waters -- its wonderfully delicate flesh is amazing when eaten raw.

The flavor is briny and lacks the iodine punch that some shrimp deliver, and the texture is melt-in-your-mouth. When I was in Puglia recently, in the southernmost part of the heel of the "boot" of Italy, my friend and I headed to Gallipoli, an adorable whitewashed-and-pastel town surrounded by sandy beaches with Caribbean-colored water. We headed into town after a day at the beach, to get a gelato and nose around the shops. And as we walked up to the gelateria, along the water, I saw below us a small piazza where fisherman were coming in with their catches, and tables were being set up for a makeshift evening fish market. 

My friend Monica, who moved down to Puglia from Rome with her husband Marcello, and has lived in the area for a few years, had told me earlier that Gallipoli was renowned for its gamberi rossi -- possibly the best on the Italian peninsula (I'm excluding the island-region of Sicily, as they'd claim to have the best on the planet!) Naturally my priority was to head to the fish market directly after finishing our gelati. There, among the varieties of fish and various sizes of calamari, were the beautiful ruby-colored shellfish I'd been hoping to find. I asked how much they cost, knowing that their price tag in Rome can run as high as 40 euros per kilo. "Dodici" said the fishmonger, and I tried to hide my smile. 12 euros, less than 8 U.S. dollars a pound! I bought a kilo and we headed back to our friends' house for aperitivi. When my friend Jessica had asked earlier in the day what a gambero rosso tastes like, I told her it was delicate and rich, basically "the burrata of the shrimp world" -- and having feasted on burrata a-plenty of late (the cheese originated in Puglia), she knew exactly what that meant. 

When we got back, our 4 friends were already sipping vino rosato poolside in the cortile. So I quickly showered and dressed for dinner, then headed directly to the kitchen to prepare the red shrimp for us. This is a simple preparation that highlights the shrimp's rich flavor and texture, leaving it uncomplicated and allowing you to taste the true gambero rosso flavor. 

To prepare: I cleaned the shrimp, removing the shells (don't discard! Keep the heads and shells to make a wonderfully flavorful shellfish stock!)...and cleaning out the intestinal line with a knife. Then I split the shrimp in half lengthwise. I rinsed the shrimp very briefly under water and dried them before spreading them out on two plates to make a layer of what is essentially shrimp carpaccio. Then, I very simply squeezed a bit of fresh lemon over top (and if I'd had a microplane, I would've added some zest, too), topped with some herbed salt (you can mix sea salt or kosher salt in a food processor with your favorite herbs to make your own), and sprinkled some of the wonderfully buttery and green Pugliese olive oil on top. And that's it. We enjoyed it with some local rose wine, and it was the perfect treat to accompany our lively conversation as the warm southern Italian sun sank behind the walls of the courtyard. 

A Toast To Dads, And To You, Patrick!

I met Patrick just weeks before his 27th birthday. Looking back on that now, it amazes me: we were both so young and optimistic and the city of Rome held so much potential for us. We'd make it our oyster. And for years, it felt like we had done just that.
 
Being back in Italy this year for another June, another one of Patrick's birthdays, without him -- it feels strange, surreal. It's been two years since we organized his memorial party here in Rome, and though time does help soften the pain of missing him to some extent, these vie and vicoli, piazze and passaggi are imbued with the history of all of us. Patrick was such a big part of my life in Rome that it always seemed half-empty to me whenever he wasn't here. 

Today, I'm in Florence as I write this. Firenze: the beautiful, small gem of a city where I first lived as a student. It's the place that made me fall in love with Italy, and Italian food and culture and art and the people. And it's where Patrick's older sister still lives with her family, and where his mother Barb lived for many years while we were all in Rome. We'd spend Christmas Eve in chilly Florence with Barb and Erica and the family, enjoying some home cooking and exchanging gifts, drinking eggnog (my first taste of the dangerous elixir!), and laughing into the wee hours. Of course these streets, too, hold countless memories for me. It's strange to think how just being in Florence or Rome makes me about as happy -- both content and elated -- as I can possibly be, and at the same time, as forlorn as I can imagine feeling. 

Patrick and his boys

Still, when I think of June in Italy, Patrick embodies this time and place. His birthday, and now Father's Day, are bittersweet holidays, as I'm reminded of what a wonderful father he was to his two boys, how he saved them and did everything he could to give them a wonderful childhood in the time that he had. And I'm reminded of the birthday celebrations we shared on many June tenths in the warm heat, and on the numerous terraces of Roman friends, and in the back streets of Trastevere (indeed, it felt like "our" neighborhood, as if we owned it).

The gang at Patrick's farewell Roma dinner

I fondly remember the farewell dinner I prepared for Patrick when he decided to leave Rome and move back to the States. It was a series of Patrick's favorite dishes -- simple, hearty fare like steak and potatoes and salad. Lots of cocktails, of course. And for dessert? I used a little creativity to come up with something that said Patrick, in a nutshell: Jack Daniels ice cream, with a coke-and-chocolate sauce. Jack and coke was his drink of choice. 

Patrick, guitar, bottle of Jack

I kept a bottle of Jack at my apartment on permanent "rotation" for our many happy hours we'd have each week. So I thought it was only right, in the heat of the approaching summer, that everyone share Patrick's drink of choice for dessert. With a cherry on top.

Try it. It's actually delicious, and a perfect way to toast to Patrick -- to wonderful Junes remembered, and to beloved fathers the world over, who deserve to have their cocktail and eat it too, in one delicious cup.

JACK-AND-COKE SUNDAE

For the ice cream:
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup Jack Daniels whiskey
pinch of salt

-In a sauce pot, heat the milk, cream, and 1/4 cup sugar over low heat until bubbles form around the edges.
-In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar.
-When the milk mixture starts to simmer, pour half of it into the yolk mixture, and whisk quickly to incorporate (you're trying to avoid scrambled eggs here). 
-Pour that mixture back into the sauce pot, whisk to incorporate, and heat on low, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of the wooden spoon.
-Take off of the heat, add the Jack Daniels and the salt, and stir.
-Set the sauce pot in an ice bath to cool. Once cooled significantly, cover the surface of the cream mixture with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Place in fridge overnight.
-The following day, spin cold mixture in an ice cream maker and freeze.

For the coke-and-chocolate sauce:
half liter of Coca Cola (not diet!)
6 ounces of dark or semi-sweet chocolate, in chips or chopped

-In a small pot, heat the coke and reduce to 1/3 of its volume.
-Add the chocolate, cover for a minute, then whisk to smooth.

Serve the Jack Daniels ice cream with the warm coke-and-chocolate sauce and top with a maraschino cherry. Cin-cin!

Portuguese Pasteis de Nata + Recipe

How good could it possibly be? I mean, it's a dessert that contains no chocolate. So went my thinking, after all I'd read and heard about the Portuguese cooked custard and filo-thin pastry-crusted tarts, pasteis de nata. 

I'll admit, I was smitten with the food in Lisbon, at first bite. In my experience, the food in Portugal -- the basic, raw ingredients -- have more flavor than one would ever expect, a phenomenon with which I was quite familiar from all of my time spent eating up and down the Italian peninsula. Call it culinary terroir. I ate a simple boiled potato in a simple casual lunch spot, served alongside a piece of carrot, broccoli florets, cabbage, and a few octopus tendrils...and it was one of the most flavorful potatoes I've consumed, all earthy, spuddy goodness. Ditto its veggie and aquatic sidekicks. 

I dined on some salted and grilled sliced Iberian pata negra pig for dinner, and it was the single best piece of pork I've ever eaten (and I've even butchered my own locally raised hog in Italy). Even the plump, smoky grilled sardines we bought from street sellers during a patron saint festival were packed with briny flavor like nothing else. But somehow, the idea of these little pastries didn't thrill me.

So one Saturday afternoon in June, my friends and I hopped onto Lisbon's canary-yellow streetcar to head out to Belém, the western Lisbon neighborhood that boasted many tourist sites and a gorgeous view of the Teja River, the other side of the city, and west to the Atlantic. We shared a delicious seafood lunch outdoors in the shade, walked along the water, visited Cathedrals and towers and the tomb of Vasco de Gama.

At the end of the afternnoon, we stopped in to the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém,founded in 1837. I'd been told by various sources that this was a must-try. And the thing to get, of course, was the pastel de nata, here called pasteis de belem, as they were supposedly invented in a monastery a few doors down from this pastry kitchen. So, we waited on the ever-present line. We pointed to the pastries and held up 4 fingers, and the mandarin-sized pastries were put on cardboard, wrapped in the signature blue-and-white paper, and placed in a bag with some packets and napkins. We got back on the tram and once I sat down with the bag on my lap, I realized the pastries were still warm from the oven. This started to entice me.

We returned to our apartment to relax, shower, and freshen up before cocktail hour, World Cup viewing, and dinner. We unwrapped the pastries, and I admired their eggy yellow custard fillings and golden, blistered tops. I realized the colorful packets they included in our bag were powdered sugar and cinnamon. We sprinkled their contents on top of the pastries and as I picked up the pastry, some of its crispy shell flaked off and fell to the plate. And then I had a bite....and another. A few more bites and the pastry was gone. I looked up at my friend who had just devoured her pastry as well. And then my friend Matt, who wasn't interested in trying them. Wow. They were ethereal, light, full of flavor and the crackling outer pastry shell was an amazing textural contrast to the sweet, creamy custard contained within. Matt simply said "It looks like I may be hopping on the trolley tomorrow morning to get these for breakfast, ay ladies?" At the very least! I replied: "I'm thinking of sending you back right now." What a treat.

Though nothing beats these pastries fresh out of the oven of Antiga Confeitaria de Belem, the recipe below has been adapted from NYC's Alfama restaurant, and approximates the pastry. You know, a placeholder while you plan your trip to Lisbon...

Portuguese Pasteis de Nata Recipe

The secrets to a crispy, flaky pastry are to make sure the butter is evenly layered, all excess flour is removed, and the dough is rolled very thin and folded neatly. A thermometer will help you to accurately gauge the custard. 
Note: Because home ovens can’t match the heat of those at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, where these treats were first made, your pasteis may not get the beautiful golden color like those in the photo. They'll still be delicious, though, and best eaten warm, same day as they're made.

Special Equipment: a mini-muffin tin with 2-by 5/8-inch wells

• 2 H, 30 M
• Makes about 40 pastries

Ingredients

For the dough

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 cup plus two tablespoons water
• 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, stirred until smooth

For the custard

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk, divided
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2/3 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 large egg yolks, whisked
• Powdered sugar
• Cinnamon

Directions

Make the dough:

• 1. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour, salt, and water until a soft, pillowy dough forms that cleans the side of the bowl, about 30 seconds.
• 2. Generously flour a work surface and pat the dough into a 6-inch square using a pastry scraper as a guide. Flour the dough, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for 15 minutes.
• 3. Roll the dough into an 18-inch square. As you work, use the scraper to lift the dough to make sure the underside isn’t sticking.
• 4. Brush excess flour off the top, trim any uneven edges, and using a small offset spatula dot and then spread the left two-thirds of the dough with a little less than one-third of the butter to within 1 inch of the edge.
• 5. Neatly fold over the unbuttered right third of the dough (using the pastry scraper to loosen it if it sticks), brush off any excess flour, then fold over the left third. Starting from the top, pat down the packet with your hand to release air bubbles, then pinch the edges closed. Brush off any excess flour.
• 6. Turn the dough packet 90 degrees to the left so the fold is facing you. Lift the packet and flour the work surface. Once again roll out to an 18-inch square, then dot and spread the left two-thirds of the dough with one-third of the butter, and fold the dough as in steps 4 and 5.
• 7. For the last rolling, turn the packet 90 degrees to the left and roll out the dough to an 18-by-21-inch rectangle, with the shorter side facing you. Spread the remaining butter over the entire surface.
• 8. Using the spatula as an aid, lift the edge closest to you and roll the dough away from you into a tight log, brushing the excess flour from the underside as you go. Trim the ends and cut the log in half. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours or preferably overnight.

Make the custard:

• 9. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour and 1/4 cup of the milk until smooth. Set aside.
• 10. Bring the sugar, cinnamon, and water to a boil in a small saucepan and cook until an instant-read thermometer registers 220°F (100°C). Do not stir.
• 11. Meanwhile, in another small saucepan, scald the remaining 1 cup milk. Whisk the hot milk into the flour mixture.
• 12. Remove the cinnamon stick then pour the sugar syrup in a thin stream into the hot milk-and-flour mixture, whisking briskly. Add the vanilla and stir for a minute until very warm but not hot. Whisk in the yolks, strain the mixture into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside.

Assemble and bake the pastries:

• 13. Heat the oven to 550°F (290°C). Remove a pastry log from the refrigerator and roll it back and forth on a lightly floured surface until it’s about an inch in diameter and 16 inches long. Cut it into scant 3/4-inch pieces. Place a piece cut-side down in each well of a nonstick 12-cup mini-muffin pan (2-by-5/8-inch size). Allow the dough pieces to soften several minutes until pliable.
• 14. Have a small cup of water nearby. Dip your thumbs into the water, then straight down into the middle of the dough spiral. Flatten it against the bottom of the cup to a thickness of about 1/8 inch, then smooth the dough up the sides and create a raised lip about 1/8 inch above the pan. The pastry sides should be thinner than the bottom.
• 15. Fill each cup 3/4 full with the slightly warm custard. Bake the pasteis until the edges of the dough are frilled and brown, about 8 to 9 minutes.
• 16. Remove from the oven and allow the pasteis to cool a few minutes in the pan, then transfer to a rack and cool until just warm. Sprinkle the pasteis generously with powdered sugar, then cinnamon and serve. Repeat with the remaining pastry and custard. If you prefer, the components can be refrigerated up to three days. The pastry can be frozen up to three months.

MARKETS: Campo de' Fiori, Rome

For the first of my posts focusing on great MARKETS around the world, I feel compelled to start with what feels most like my "home market": Campo de' Fiori in Rome. I know there are those who claim that the Campo is a market for tourists, and increasingly over the years, the market has indeed started to cater to travelers and tourists, selling phallic pastas and aprons emblazoned with "anatomical" images of Michelangelo's David statue. But it's also most definitely a market for locals, and provides produce for some of the top restaurants in the city as well. I should know. I was a local there for many years, and have been shopping the market in Campo de' Fiori since I first moved to the 'hood in 1999. My ex-boyfriend is one of the top toques in Rome, and he bought produce there for his restaurant. As one of the first chefs to teach cooking classes in the city, I took students there to buy ingredients for our menus. I saw elderly Italian nonne picking over produce, and I ran into chef friends ordering cases of specialty baby peppers or fresh porcini mushrooms for their ristoranti. There were tourists, sure. But as with any market in Italy, the mercato di Campo de' Fiori is a central meeting place where people of all varieties come to enjoy the aromas and the scenery, to catch up with friends and gossip, and of course to buy food: home cooks, professionals, and tourists alike.

Campo de' Fiori, in Italian, means field of flowers, which this piazza once was. And it was here in 1600 that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy, and where, six years later, Caravaggio (the first bad-boy Italian artist) killed a young man in a sword fight that ended in Caravaggio fleeing Rome for the rest of his life (sadly, only another 4 years). Today there's no statue for the murderous master of chiaroscuro, but there is one for Bruno, who overlooks the square from its center. These days, though, the only fights you'll see in the piazza are people haggling over the price of pomodori, or inebriated twenty-somethings fighting over young female tourists' attentions in the piazza's bars.

The market is a riot of color and noise, with the season's offerings on tempting display. As I always explained to my cooking students, Italy as a united country is a century younger than the U.S. Of course, as a place and a culture it's been around for thousands of years. But Italians tend to think of themselves even today as they always have, historically. They think locally. Regions and cities and towns have always had rivalries, teamed up to fight common enemies, killed each other's kings and overthrown each other's governments. And though all of these places, these regions, these kingdoms are technically united under the Italian flag and its government today (troubled as it is), these historic differences run deep. So instead of conjuring a coup, in modern times, these rivalries are translated to two places: the soccer pitches and kitchens -- for the most part, less dangerous than government overthrow. For the most part.

So, what does this all mean for food? Well, it's on display at the Campo market. Italians haven;t experienced the locavore movement like America has, because Italians never really strayed from eating and cooking locally in the first place. What you will see in the market are Roman artichokes, globe-shaped beauties instead of the tulip-shaped variety you'd find in Venice. (Venice! chu-puh!). The greens are local, bitter greens for which Rome is famous. The fiori di zucca are found at the end of the zucchine romanesche, which have vertical striations that make them different -- and better, of course! -- than zucchine from elsewhere in Italy. In fact, most everything you see here is grown within Lazio, Rome's region.

The vendors prefer to sell strawberries from nearby Terracina. They want arugula ("rughetta" in Roman dialect) that grows wild along the road heading out of the city. They want to sell you pecorino Romano, not that other sheep's milk cheese from Sardegna or Tuscany. No. Here, you get what this wonderful city gives, and it gives a bounty. 

I have so many great memories associated with this market and its vendors, and the countless wonderful meals I was able to make from purchasing items from here. There's the charming father-son fruit and veggie sellers, always quick with a compliment, who have great puntarelle in cooler months. There's the woman with great tomatoes, in all shapes and sizes, that perfume the whole piazza when the sun warms their tender skins. There was the elderly "donna del bosco" as I dubbed her: she sold everything from the forest (bosco), from berries to earthy mushrooms. She must have passed away a few years ago, as she's no longer at her stand. I miss her. There's Anna and Erasmo, the couple who took me in as one of their own, feeding me delicious cheeses and salumi over the years (they're forever my source of the best ricotta di bufala around), and chatting away with me and my family and clients, offering hugs to everyone. And there are the butchers in the center of the piazza, who have always been warm to me, and always impressed clients with their capacity to cut the most tender, paper-thin slices of veal scaloppine for saltimbocca: no pounding needed.

But the ones I call "my guys"? The ones who will deliver to my home, and to my restaurant,
the most exquisite ingredients (lots of) money can buy? The ones who let me film with a crew any time, 7 am or 2 pm, to get the shots we needed for various food shows over the years? The guys I'd sometimes pass by on my way home from a late night out, when they were setting up at 4:30 a.m., and we'd wave at each other and say "a dopo!" (see you later)? The ones who listened to me when I requested that they stock "strange" ingredients like cranberries at Thanksgiving, and lemongrass and cilantro throughout the year? The ones who offer me tastings of jewel-like fruits and baby cherry tomatoes so sweet they're like popping candies? Da Claudio, of course. Some Romans call this place "Da Bulgari" because it's pricey. But sometimes, you need to pay to get the good stuff. That's Claudio behind me in the photo, hamming it up for my Mom who was taking the picture ("Is this your beautiful sister?!") -- he's a real character, always yelling and selling and making a scene. But he's a good guy, and I've been a client for more time than I care to admit. And still, every time I go back, whether I've been away 6 days or 6 months, I always get a "bentornata!" (welcome back). The Campo will always feel like home to me.

ESCAPES: L.A. Eats Part 1: Hollywood and WeHo

It's no secret that I'm a true east-coaster: I love the fast pace and multiculturalism of New York City, the lights of Broadway, the densely-populated Eastern seaboard, the cool waves of the Atlantic, intellectualism, brunettes, and sarcasm. But I've always maintained that the west coast is a nice place to visit. I've been vacationing there since I can remember, but the food was never the most memorable part of my trips out there. We all know the importance of food and wine in Northern California, and they've got some great restaurants, vineyards, and food purveyors up north, no doubt. But Los Angeles has only recently come into its own as a culinary destination. Now, don't get me wrong: it's no New York, despite the numerous New York dining establishments that have opened L.A. branches. But strategic planning can get you some very good food -- both low-brow grub and haute cuisine -- in the varied and sprawling nabes of the City of Angels. 

I began my L.A. stay at the Hotel Roosevelt, a revamped iconic spot on Hollywood Boulevard, in the thick of the city's most kitschy, touristy neighborhood. But it's hotels like this one that have made the area a destination for locals as well: there's a hot bar scene, some good restaurants, and a pool and pool bar that -- I shit you not -- is cordoned off by a velvet rope and bouncers with a guest list. The food at the poolside Tropicana Bar is perfectly refreshing for a lunch lounging by the pool, or a little happy hour ceviche-and-mojito deal. But if you're not on the guest list, the burgers and fries in the hotel's 24/7 burger spot, 25 Degrees, are pretty damned delicious. 

My next move was to a design loft apartment in wonderful West Hollywood. This is as close as a New Yorker can come to a semi-walkable neighborhood, where I could avoid renting a car and could walk to a great selection of top restaurants, bars, and shopping (think Manhattan's West Village). I highly recommend chef Suzanne Goin's Lucques, where a warm dining room awaits beyond the ivy-covered entrance...and a gorgeous back patio beyond that. Goin is renowned for her comfort food elevated to elegant, and her "Sunday Suppers" are a great prix fixe value. Another great spot is David Myers' Comme Ca, also in WeHo. The classically French-trained chef-surfer has created a spot that is both laid-back California and European luxe, serving everything from burgers to bouillaibaisse to bone marrow. The mood changes dramatically from lunch to dinner, so it's worth stopping in for both.

My college friend Deb, a former pastry chef and fellow food lover, moved to L.A. from New York about 5 years ago. She gets excited when I come to town, since she knows I'm always interested in hitting some great dining spots. At her recommendation, we headed to Hatfield's, owned and operated by a husband-and-wife team with experience in some of the top kitchens in New York (Jean-George, Gramercy Tavern). Quinn is the chef and Karen is the pastry chef, and they work with a team behind the glass of an "open" kitchen, where diners can observe the cooks at work. 

Since I've been on the other side of that glass, I prefer to enjoy the dining room -- here, a soaring space made to feel intimate with lots of booths and banquettes in a neutral room with greens and oversized honeycomb light fixtures.
There is always an a la carte menu, but we chose seasonal tasting menus, which offer lots of flexibility.

Highlights included a raw Hawaiian kampachi with jicama, avocado, roasted peanuts, and black lime creme fraiche. The paprika-dusted shrimp with white beans was light and tasty, and the black cod with asparagus cream, roasted asparagus, and mushrooms truly tasted of spring (and the Pacific Northwest).

Desserts ended the meal on a high note, with a caramel semifreddo with Mexican chocolate sorbet, its warm-spice and chile pepper kick pairing nicely with the rich, decadent flavors of caramel and chocolate. 

Similar flavors were used in a very different way in the cinnamon sugar-dusted bomboloni (little donuts), served with dark chocolate sauce for dipping, and a vanilla date shake, in a nod to Southern California and its many date palms. In all, the meal was very satisfying without stuffing us, and the cocktails and great wine list proved the perfect accompaniment. I was a little jet-lagged and ready for a good night's sleep.

One spot I'd been looking forward to trying since I'd read about its opening was Red O. Mexican cuisine is not necessarily at the top of my list of favorites, as it is for many people I know, but then again we don't have the variety and authenticity of places on the east coast like those that exist in California, particularly Southern Cal. And now, perhaps the most revered American expert on Mexican cuisine, Rick Bayless (based in Chicago), has opened a spot in L.A. I'd taken an insider's chef's class from Bayless at an IACP Conference in Dallas years ago, and he always left an impression on me. His food is delicious, his knowledge of regional Mexican food encyclopedic. And I wanted a really good Mexican meal of the variety that's hard to find in New York. The decor of Red O was gorgeous: full-length windows and glass ceilings with gossamer white curtains and white canvas draping that resembles boat sails, wrought-iron details and artful dining room dividers.

The lighting was perfect, spot-lit walls surrounding tables with candles and low-hanging mod wicker chandeliers. Potted palms are everywhere. We sidled up to the bar while our table was being prepared, and I started on the first of many delicious cocktails. I'm not much of a tequila drinker, but the La Dama cocktail was quite more-ish, as the English say.

The mix of top-shelf tequila with mango grenadine, serrano chiles, pomegranate liqueur, and pomegranate seeds was perfectly balanced between sour, spicy, and sweet. Once we sat down, it was in extremely comfortable surroundings, on a banquette with lots of pillows and low-lying tables -- and of course as is the norm in WeHo hot spots, we were surrounded by plenty of beautiful people. 

One of my all-time, hands-down, favorite things in life? Ceviche. So starting off with the ceviche trio was a no-brainer. My friend and I spent a good 15 minutes trying to decide which of the three was our favorite: the albacore, ahi, or yellowtail (in the end it was a tie -- we'll need to try several more to pronounce a winner!). 

The menu is vast so we asked our server for some guidance, and in the end we selected courses from each menu category, as it's not really organized in courses as we know them. After the ceviche we went with a classic tamale, made contemporary with goat cheese. We followed that up with some beef short rib sopes, kind of a fried pastry base, formed into a cuplet and filled with pulled short ribs in a rich red tomato-chile sauce and topped with queso anejo. 

We were also tempted enough by the Oaxacan offerings to try an Alaskan halibut cooked in the style of this famous Southern Mexican town. The fish was perfectly seared and served with a chile sauce, oyster mushrooms, and a tomatillo-radish salsa. Light, spicy, and interesting.

Of course, if you want some inexpensive and authentic Mexican street food, you can always head, as we did, to roadside taco stand Pinches Tacos, right across Sunset Boulevard from the Chateau Marmont and retro-fabulous Bar Marmont. It really is a little shack where you order your tacos, get a tray, and wait for your number to be called. The small tacos are all under $3 a pop, and the larger entrees of burritos and enchiladas and sandwiches are all under $10, so it's hard to go wrong here. You can fill your belly and save your cash for tippling across the street.

Where else can I recommend in this part of L.A.? I did meet an old friend for drinks at Fig & Olive on Melrose Place (note: I'm well over Fig & Olive in New York, but its L.A. counterpart is a real scene), and had a girls' night out at Koi, which had some very tasty sushi -- something I'm always excited to get on the west coast. And of course, no stay in West Hollywood would be complete without a smoothie from Urth Caffe', location of many an Entourage scene, and the spot where everyone in this part of L.A. heads for coffee, shakes, and some major star gazing: L.A. Style.

Lucques

8474 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  900
(323)
www.lucques.com

Comme Ca
8479 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90069
(323) 782.1104
www.commecarestaurant.com/los-angeles

Hatfield's
6703 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90038
www.hatfieldsrestaurant.com
(323) 935.2977

Red O
8155 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90046
(323) 655.5009
www.redorestaurant.com

Pinches Tacos
8200 West Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA  90046
(323) 650-0614
www.pinchestacos.com

Fig & Olive
8490 Melrose Place
West Hollywood, CA  90069
(310) 360.9100
www.figandolive.com

Koi
730 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(310) 659.9449
www.koirestaurant.com/los_angeles/about

Urth Caffe
8565 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90069
(310) 659.0628


ROOSEVELT HOLLYWOOD
7000 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA  90028
(323) 466.7000
www.thompsonhotels.com
25 Degrees
Tropicana Pool and Bar

SPRING HOLIDAYS: Passover, Pasqua, & Pasquetta

Springtime holidays celebrate a renewal of life, reinvention, rebirth. Both Passover and Easter have Biblical stories behind them, though historically there's always been a spring solstice celebration of fertility and life. Personally, I grew up going to family Passover seders as a sort of obligation. But as an adult, I've grown to enjoy the holiday, and really came to appreciate it when I began hosting my own seders in Rome. I would invite friends over, both English speakers and Italians, and everyone would participate in the reading of the haggadah (the book that contains the story of Exodus and the prayers said before, during, and after the Passover meal). There were rarely other Jews present. For my friends, this was simply an interesting twist on one of my dinner parties.

But it was a fun cultural experience for everyone, and friends got to explore and enjoy some traditional Passover foods, things they'd never tried before. Another plus? Everyone loved the idea of the requirement of consuming lots of wine throughout the meal. And there were so many passages to be read and prayers to be said before we actually got to eat the dinner that one of my friends, upon spreading the apple-nut mixture haroset on a piece of (tasteless) matzo, proclaimed, "This is the best thing I've ever eaten!" Yes, he was starving and half-drunk. But it was a happy moment nonetheless!

Easter, while not a holiday I generally celebrate, is a day of great importance in Italy. Still, I could always appreciate the trappings of Easter in Rome (to wit: people camping out alongside the Coliseum to witness the Pope's Stations of the Cross, and the accompanying sound checks, was more reminiscent of desperate fans scalping tickets to a rock concert than devout Catholics hoping to glimpse their religious leader). And I've certainly enjoyed my fair share of the Easter feasts with friends and loved ones. 

In Rome, it's a celebration of spring itself, La Primavera: lamb, artichokes, asparagus, eggs, cheesy parmigiano Easter bread, salumi and formaggi...the list goes on.There's a saying in Italy that states: Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi...which basically means Christmas with your family, Easter with whomever you want. I like that it's a more community-friendly holiday in Italy. People certainly turn out for church, but beyond that, the Easter meal can be with family, friends, or out in a restaurant. Eating well is the priority. 

And the next day, Easter Monday, or "Pasquetta," is basically national picnic day. In Rome we'd head to the vast and beautiful park, Villa Pamphili, for vino and nibbles and sun and frisbee. It was always packed, but this was the perfect gathering spot for everyone in Rome to soak up some springtime sun and get out of doors without trekking to the beach just yet. And a picnic is a wonderful excuse to eat up leftovers, make delicious panini and frittate and drink crisp vino bianco in the afternoon...

This year, I catered clients' Passover seders, and today is barely warm enough in New York City to make a picnic tolerable. Lovely as Central Park is, it's no Villa Pamphili, there are no umbrella pines, and precious few people in the U.S. celebrate Pasquetta. I miss Rome in the springtime. But I brought a little bit of The Eternal City along this season in my Passover carciofi alla romana (Roman style braised artichokes) and sauteed greens "Jewish Ghetto style" with sultanas and pine nuts. Preparing them brought me back to my 17th century apartment in Largo Arenula, to my Passover seders in my large living room with the wood beam 15-foot-high ceilings, the noise of the city's cars and vespas passing beneath my windows.

It brought me back to preparing for Pasquetta picnics, chilling bottles of Falanghina, and packing up the coolers to hop on the tram outside my door, which took me across the river to Trastevere where I'd meet my friends. We'd head in a caravan to Villa Pamphili, to our spot, to our own "famiglia romana" in the park, eating and drinking wine, laughing, tossing the frisbee until our shadows grew long and we headed back out along the walled Via Aurelia Antica, through Monteverde Vecchio, down the hill into Trastevere, at dusk.

 Buona Pasquetta a tutti.

QUICK BITE: Sachlav

The last few days of 2012, and the first few of the new year, were gorgeous in Israel. I was having leisurely lunches on the beach in flip-flops and a t-shirt. I swam in the Dead Sea and toured Massada in summer gear. It was all very mild Mediterranean. And then, suddenly, the weather changed. Storms blew throughout the country. It snowed in Jerusalem. I was caught in a hail storm in Haifa. And I experienced torrential downpour in Tel Aviv for days on end. Every Israeli assured me that the weather was never like this. It hadn't been this cold and rainy in 50 years, said everyone. Lucky me!

But in a way...lucky me. I'd always been in Israel during the summertime or early autumn. I got to experience something different. Hot spots in Tel Aviv were a little less crowded, and the stormy weather drove everyone indoors: to museums, theaters, intimate bars and cute cafes where one could enjoy languid conversation and numerous glasses of superb Israeli wine.

And so it happened, after one of these rainy nights I stayed out too late and imbibed a little too much, I slept in the next morning, disinclined to arise from under the cozy covers, in my adorable apartment in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood. But my friend had promised to treat me to a wonderfully warming drink in Jaffa that morning, followed by brunch in a local cafe. And since it was just a 10-minute walk away to the oldest port in the Western world, I was soon inspired to dress and venture out. Jaffa is historically a very Arab part of Tel Aviv, and this drink my Israeli friend wanted to introduce me to has Arab roots, so we were headed to the right part of town. Ironically, the drink also proved to be an excellent hangover salve, warming us on that cold, gusty day. The drink? SACHLAV

This thick milk-based drink was originally made with orchid tubers (called sahlabin Arabic). Its preparation varies a bit from country to country: some versions add rose water or orange blossom water, and some add coconut and cinnamon. Many are topped with nuts and dried fruit. In Turkey (possibly where it originated), its consistency is thick like pudding. In Israel, it's more of a drink, though often served with a spoon. It's warm. It's comforting. It was perfect on that cold morning in January.

Sachlav, beyond its capacity to comfort, has always been considered an aphrodisiac. Maimonides even comments that one should drink it “to revive the spirits and to arouse sexual desire.”

It's true that there is something wonderfully romantic about the drink's origins, the preciousness and exoticism of the orchid tubers that are the base of the drink in its original form. But in modern times, these orchids have become rare and prohibitively expensive, so they've mostly been replaced with thickening agents like corn or potato starch in today's versions. Less romantic, perhaps, but still really delicious.

Some claim that sachlav dates back to the Romans. Others argue that the orchid used to make the drink -- most likely indigenous to the tropics -- would not have arrived in the region until the Middle Ages. Regardless, the Medieval Arabs and Turks adopted the culinary tradition. The Germans and English got on board as well in the 17th century, replacing the milk with water and calling the beverage saloop. It even made an appearance in colonial America, but with the rising popularity of tea and coffee in the U.S. and Europe, the drink faded from the scene rather quickly. Their loss, our loss.

Sachlav is still a beloved drink in the Middle East, kind of what hot chocolate is to Europeans and Americans. It's often sold out of metal samovars at outdoor markets to warm shoppers, which is exactly how my friend and I enjoyed it in Jaffa. Various toppings are set out for you to choose from, including cinnamon, dried fruits, nuts, and coconut flakes. We enjoyed the sachlav as a precursor to brunch, though it could be considered a meal in itself. And as I drank the warm vanilla, coconut, and cinnamon-infused treat, those clouds hovering over Tel Aviv seemed to blow away for a few minutes, allowing us to stroll the streets of the ancient port village -- no longer under the cover of an umbrella, but out enjoying the animated street life that's colored this corner of the world for thousands of years.

ITALIAN CLASSICS + RECIPE: Cicoria

A little about one of my favorite vegetables in Italy, wild chicory, called cicoria in Italian: we are not talking about curly endive. We are not talking about the root of the plant that is grown, roasted, and ground as a coffee substitute in areas like Louisiana.  We're talking about the lovely leaves of the wild chicory plant, native to Europe, its bitter leafy stalks calling out to be tamed by caring cooks, particularly around Rome, in Liguria, and Puglia, where famous dishes like cicoria e fave (with fava beans) are staples. It's also popular in Catalonia, Turkey, and Greece, and is one of the first plants cited in literature: Horace mentions chicory as being a principal part of his diet. Egyptians used chicory to treat liver and gallbladder problems.The blue chicory flower is considered a romantic inspiration, and in European folklore was believed to have the power to open locked doors.

  Now, if you find the notion of a sauteed green eliciting pure joy in grown adults to be strange, then you haven't been to Italy during the cooler months of the year. It's more exciting than spinach, more delicate than various wild greens like dandelion or collard. As Gordon Gekko might proclaim: wild chicory, for lack of a better word, is GOOD.  
And in trattorie all over Rome, it's prepared ripassata in padella: once the greens are parboiled to remove some of the bitterness, they're tossed back in a hot pan with garlic, olive oil, and a healthy pinch of spicy peperoncino. This produces a side dish so simple in its awesomeness as to render most other green vegetables...unimportant. When restaurants run out of the dish before all of their customers have ordered, you will hear sighs and gasps coming from tables when they're told the bad news, "la cicoria e' terminata." Faces are long, hopes are lost. Nothing can replace it. At least until the following day, or until the springtime when artichokes are in season...

CICORIA RIPASSATA IN PADELLA 
(4 people)

2 large bunches of chicory

extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic

hot pepper flakes

salt to taste

Water

-Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

-Cut stems off chicory and rinse the leaves. (Discard stems or slice and use for puntarelle). Add to pot and boil until soft and cooked through.

-Prepare a bowl of ice water. Remove chicory from boiling water and “shock” in ice water to stop cooking.

-Once cold, remove from ice water, drain, and pat dry.

-Heat a thin layer of olive oil in a skillet. Add peeled whole garlic cloves and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes. Remove garlic.

-Add chicory and toss to coat.

-Add red pepper flakes to desired “heat”, and salt to taste.

-Cook for about 3 minutes to heat through, and so chicory absorbs flavor of the garlic oil. Serve at once or at room temperature drizzled with red wine vinegar.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Salinas -- New York, NY

Iberian cuisine in New York City has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years, following in line with its emergence in the aughts as cutting-edge, its chefs as leaders in the gastronomical world. But even as El Bulli has served its last liquid olive, and foodie followers have moved on to Foraged Nordic Nouveau (copyright pending) as their food trend-of-the-minute...Iberian cuisine deserves a continued closer look, more menu perusals, deeper discovery by interested diners. My love of Mediterranean cuisines and exploring the subtle differences between one regional dish in coastal Spain and another version in Southern France...the similar threads between Greek moussaka, Bolognese lasagna, and Neapolitan eggplant parmigiana, and on and on...it knows no bounds. And of these Mediterranean cuisines, I find Spanish food to be one of he most interesting. One place to explore all things Iberian, Mediterranean, and delicious is SALINAS, a gorgeous, somewhat-hidden gem of a Spanish spot in Chelsea.

The entrance is a bit subtle, shall we say, but when you walk through the front door, the warmth of the space immediately hits you. There is a small bar area and lounge up front, but to dine you are whisked down a narrow corridor to a gorgeous dining room that is intimate but spacious. Nothing here screams 'Spanish restaurant decor,' especially not of the kitschy variety we're used to from decades past, all wrought iron railings, red tablecloths and posters of bullfighters and flamenco dancers. In fact, the dining room has more of a zen Asian feel, with dim lighting and a fireplace in cool weather, a retractable roof that allows for semi-alfresco dining in warmer weather.

All of this atmosphere sets a tone for the sophisticated, urbane cuisine that comes out of chef Luis Bollo's kitchen. Chef Bollo hails from San Sebastián, a town in the north of Spain that boasts more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other place on the planet. Bollo is a much-lauded chef who helmed Meigas, which opened in '99 in Manhattan (since relocated to Connecticut, along with another place called Ibiza: both named by critics as some of the country's best Spanish restaurants). He also partnered with the Meigas owners on launching Mediterra, one of my favorite hometown dining spots in Princeton, NJ.

SALINAS opened in 2011 with a focus on Spanish cuisine and that of the Balearic Islands. The name refers to the many open-air salt flats along the Mediterranean coast of Spain and its islands. As such, seafood plays an important role on the menu, which features various iterations, including fresh ceviche of seasonal fish, seared octopus, boquerones (white anchovies) with avocado on multi-grain toasts, and a tuna escabeche (a Spanish version of fish "cured" in acid -- often vinegar instead of citrus juice) with chickpeas and cauliflower. Depending on the season, you can also find Patagonian baby calamari with purple potato salad and pumpkin, and other various vegetable-based tapas. And of course, as any good Spaniard knows, the restaurant must also offer great Spanish charcuterias, including the famed Iberian cured hams that are considered the world's best (mi dispiace, Italia!) 

Squid ink fideos with shaved seppia and saffron aioli foam

As for larger courses, there is a separate category for fideos, the Catalonian version of paella made with broken vermicelli noodles. If you're not familiar with it...EAT. IT. NOW. It's addictive and delicious and I highly recommend the squid ink version, which comes topped with shaved seppia (cuttlefish), saffron foam, watercress, and beet powder. My dining companions who tried fideos for the first time were completely enamored of this dish. Other versions include the pasta with braised lamb shank, wild mushrooms, and goat cheese aioli, as well as a vegetarian vegetable version and one with chicken, chorizo, fava beans and a poached egg. These are seasonal, so expect these fideos to change according to the best of the market's offerings.

Among the platos principales, the house-cured bacalao (codfish) with Galician octopus, cockles, sweet potatoes and artichokes in a parsley broth is a standout. There's a delicious grilled chicken, a fairly traditional mixed paella (with delicious bites from sea and land), and a fish of the day. But probably the most famous main course, the dish for which Salinas is mentioned in the food press most often, is the porcella, the slow roasted suckling pig.And it's prepared just as it should be, with a crispy skin you could shatter with your fork, and meltingly tender and juicy pork meat underneath. It's served with light watercress and frisee lettuce to cut the fat, grilled quince to bring out the sweetness, and drizzled with a PX sherry reduction. Spain, in a nutshell -- or rather, on a plate. 

The sides are reliably delicious, if fairly basic: a mixed salad, sauteed garlic greens, addictive patatas bravas (spiced crispy potatoes), and a confit of piquillo peppers that just screams out to be sopped up by some crusty bread. 

Dessert is not really the point in Spanish restaurants, though there are always sure to be a few good pastries: the ubiquitous flan, a decadent chocolate dessert of some kind...Here there is a profiterole with passion fruit pastry cream and a rum and coconut panna cotta -- whisking you away to Mallorca or Ibiza for an island-breezy finishing touch to the meal. Or, do as I like to do and indulge in a "dessert cocktail" in place of an actual sweet. The Morena is a chocolate martini made with organic mezcal and passion fruit. Si, por favor! 

SALINAS 136 9th Ave 
New York, NY 10011
(212) 776-1990
www.salinasnyc.com
Monday 6pm-10pm
Tuesday – Saturday 6pm-11pm
Sunday 5pm-8pm

QUICK BITE: Provencal Treats

In the Old Town section of Nice, on the Cote d'Azur, there is a wonderful jewel box of a confectionery shop called L'Art Gourmand. The place features beautiful French confections like an assortment of chocolates au lait, noir, and blanc (milk, dark, and white), marzipan fruits and animals that are well known in southern France, and various cookies and baked goods. 

Perhaps one of the most special of the spécialité are the fruit gelées. Made from intense, natural fruit flavors like raspberry, grapefruit, and apricot, these fruits are pureed and mixed with some fruit pectin (a plant-derived gelling agent) and sometimes a bit of sweetener and citric acid to maintain the flavor balance and brightness of color. These jellied strips are rolled in some sugar for crunch, and...voilà! You have a delicious candy that contains all the ripe juiciness of the fruit, in concentrated, delicious, portable form.

Another of the local specialties is torrone, a culinary remnant from the days when Nice was better known as Nizza, part of the Italian kingdom of Savoy and thereby ruled by the Italians, on and off until 1860. The nougat-with-nuts, of which there are various famous versions from northern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia (all territories ruled by the Duke of Savoy at some point), comes with various combinations of nuts and is sometimes covered in chocolate. Alongside the torrone you can find candied fruit, another specialty dating back to the 14th century, with its origin muddled between Spain, Italy, and France, when borders were more fluid. Probably a gift from the Arabs who dominated areas of Southern Europe at the time, candied fruit became an important part of many of the region's most famous desserts, including the Piemontese panettone and Sicilian cassata. 

Of course for real chocolate lovers (and I count myself firmly among the true chocoholics of the world), chocolate is always in season and always the thing to get. And L'Art Gourmand has a great selection of chocolates and truffles from which to choose. From chocolate-covered nuts and praline-filled chocolate squares to chocolate-dipped candied fruits and peels and cocoa-dusted truffles, there's an almost embarrassing variety of chocolate treats. It's easy to fill up your bag quickly from the offerings on hand.

During the spring, summer, and early fall in this temperate part of the Mediterranean, the crème glacés and sorbets are particularly delicious here. Artisanally-made flavors like a deep, dark chocolate, a delectably tart passion fruit, a toasted nutty pistachio, and an aromatic raspberry-violet are so satisfying that a small cup will do...though you may not be able to resist a larger portion. And when the weather is pleasant and the Nice sky is a cloudless celestial blue, there's nothing more enjoyable than a stroll through the old town with a cup of that glace in hand, taking in the scenery.

L'ART GOURMAND
21 Rue du Marche'
Vielle Ville de Nice
Nice, France 06300
+33 493 62 5179

ESCAPES: Tel Aviv. White Hot, Part 1

Israel has been in the news a lot lately, unfortunately for the violence happening in Gaza and beyond. But Israel as a country, and an idea, is such an amazing place -- one I think is difficult to fully understand until you've spent time there. 

I've always felt an affinity for Israel and Israelis. This started in the late '70s when I was a little girl, and we lived down the street from a house that was always lived in by Israelis, passed down from family to family as they came to America to work for one host company. Some of the kids living in that house were playmates, and some became long-term family friends (Amir, Irit and Ron, the list goes on...). I also have cousins who moved to the Negev Desert for kibbutz life, several decades ago -- I even had my bat mitzvah there on the kibbutz. Their children, now grown and married themselves, are Sabras. And suffice it to say I've dated my fair share of Israeli men. I don't know. We're simpatico. 

So when I felt the need to get away and escape some difficult times in Rome a while ago, I decided to head to the place that I knew, besides Italy, made me feel happiness in my chest, in my head, and in my heart. And not incidentally, in my belly.

Tel Aviv is one of many cities around the world known as a "white city," here for its many whitewashed buildings and Bauhaus architecture, particularly concentrated in the city center along Rothschild Boulevard. Even the view from my point of first arrival (a deluxe hotel on the beach in the north of the city) was of a cityscape with a white haze about it. Part of this was the sweltering July heat that inched above 100 degrees on most days, with excessive humidity. But this was also the overwhelming color of the city itself: sandy-white, Mediterranean in feel, and now with an actual skyline. It had been 13 years since the last time I'd visited Israel, and Tel Aviv had really changed since then.

One thing that hadn't changed much, though, was the beach, and its focal role in locals' lives. On the whole, it's amazingly well-kept and clean for a city beach. During warmer months, this is the place Tel Avivans come to cool off, relax, play matkot (beach racquet ball), and maybe grab breakfast, lunch, a snack, or a cool drink. 

And speaking of, Israelis are a casual people when it comes to most meals, and they're big on local street treats -- foods they've adapted from various cultures that comprise their population, perfected, and made their own. We're talking about falafel, hummus, shawarma, sabich, and the like. So for the uninitiated, a little background info.

Hummus is a chickpea puree made with tahina or tahini, a sesame paste also eaten on its own and frequently used as a condiment in Israeli cuisine. 

Falafel is a middle eastern deep-fried vegetable fritter, in Israel most often made from ground chickpeas, herbs and spices. They are served tucked into sandwiches in pita or lafa bread or served on their own with hummus and other dips and salads.  

Shawarma is a spit-roasted meat, often turkey or lamb in Israel, seasoned with spices and basted in its own juices as it roasts, and is shaved to order in thin slices and piled into a pita sandwich or served in a platter. 

Sabich is a simple dish of Iraqi origin, most often in pita sandwich form and containing some or all of the following ingredients: fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, tahini, chopped Israeli salad, potato, parsley, and amba (a mango pickle sauce). Most of these street foods are available in cafes, fast-food-style shops, or from street carts, and are served with a variety of homemade pickles and salads that are a wonderful contrast, and a wake-up call to the eyes and palate. 

And since Israelis tend to worship at the altar of eggplant, as I do, I must give a little space to the local preparation of a roasted or baked whole eggplant. I had it served to me on the beach -- cold, with chickpeas, tomatoes, parsley, and tahina...

or as presented to us at Abraxas North, Chef Eyal Shani's wonderful restaurant where fire and a few choice ingredients turn vegetables into something transcendent: cut in half and served warm, with burnished skin, and a swirl of tahina and tomato sauce, olive oil and egg. I can never really get enough of the eggplant dishes and their iterations, just as I can never really seem to get enough of Tel Aviv itself. Each time I go, it gets harder for me to leave. The energy of this metropolitan city, the beach side location and warm weather, the fabulous food, and not least of all the people themselves: these combine to create an irresistible pull. And I will be back, again and again.

More to come: Israel's cool city and hot restaurant scene + night life in my next Escapes: Tel Aviv.

RECIPE: Feeling Bleu -- Salsa di Gorgonzola

When the weather outside is frigid, as it's been in New York and in many places around the globe in recent weeks, we crave comfort food. Foods that are rich, packed with flavor, and remind us of home tend to fit the bill when all we want is to curl up on the sofa with a movie, a blanket, and a plateful of "yum." One of my go-to dishes in cold weather reminds me of long dinners in cozy trattorie in Florence when I was a student there. For 8,000 lire, or about $4, we could order a large plate of gnocchi al gorgonzola, potato dumplings bathed in a creamy, pungent sauce topped with parmigiano, and it was heaven. Sometimes my Florentine "mamma," Cristina, prepared the dish at home. And now, when I crave the comfort of my home-away-from-home in winter months, this is one of a handful of dishes that I make to bring me back to bell'Italia.

I've been a fan of strong, stinky cheeses since I was a young girl, precociously ordering blue cheese dressing at every restaurant my parents took me to at the age of 7. Waiters did double-takes. As a teenager, I developed a deep love for well-prepared buffalo wings, particularly those from Chuck's in Princeton -- and the extra blue cheese dressing I'd use for dunking the wings and celery sticks was half the reason for eating the wings in the first place. So when I discovered gnocchi al gorgonzola as a 20 year-old student in Florence, of course I flipped. My love for this dish has not waned over the years, though I know it's not something in which I can indulge too frequently. It's not exactly diet food. But sometimes, indulge we must. Weather that stings your face when you step outside qualifies as motive enough.

Note that this sauce is classically paired with gnocchi, which are best when homemade and ethereally light and airy, though you can also toss a short pasta with the sauce, like a penne or rigatoni. You can use conchiglie, or shells, and even bake this topped with bread crumbs and parmigiano for a rich, Italian, adult version of mac-and-cheese. And keep in mind the classic Italian pairings that work well with gorgonzola: pear, radicchio, prosciutto, and pancetta.

You can toss cooked pancetta or strips of prosciutto in with the pasta. You can add the sauce to a cooking risotto and finish it with chopped radicchio. You can grill some radicchio and pour the sauce on top for a great winter antipasto. And you can toss pear slices in with the gnocchi, pasta, or risotto. Or use the sauce for a pizza in bianco, topped with pear slices and cooked in a pizza oven...and finish with some sliced radicchio and prosciutto. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

GORGONZOLA SAUCE

Makes about 2 cups

 

6 oz. gorgonzola cheese

2 cups heavy cream

4 TBSP. unsalted butter

Salt & pepper to taste

Chopped parsley, chives, or basil

- In a sauce pot, on medium heat, warm the gorgonzola cheese together with the heavy cream.

- Cook 4-5 minutes on medium heat,  until the cheese softens and melts into the cream a bit.

- Using a whisk, gently stir the mixture together so the chunks of cheese melt down and the sauce is relatively smooth.

- Add the butter and whisk gently to incorporate it into the sauce. Cook for another 5 minutes or so, over low heat, to blend the flavors. Add salt and pepper to taste.

- Taste and adjust for seasoning. Add chopped parsley, chives, or basil if you like.

 

SEASONAL EATS: Latkes for Hanukkah

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. For me, this holds true for the classic potato latke. It's a Hanukkah staple; all fried foods are (8 days of dieting this is not). And while I love fried chicken and fried rice balls and fried doughnuts in which many indulge during the Jewish Festival of Lights, I will take the lovely latke over all of them, any day.

Socca street vendor in Nice, France

The latke (the word is Yiddish) is a basic pancake or fritter, something most cuisine cultures share -- think Swiss rosti, French pommes anna, and German kartoffelpuffer. On a larger scale, savory pancakes and fritters are found all over the world, from Chinese scallion pancakes to South American corn arepas, from Russian blini to chickpea pancakes in Sicily (called panelle) and Nice (socca). 

Chinese scallion pancakes

And we haven't even crossed over into sweet versions. 

But back to the latke. The potato pancake seems to have originated in Eastern and Central Europe, where basically every country has its own version, though versions can be found north to the UK and Scandinavia as well. It's even considered the national dish of Belarus! Before the potato -- a New World food item -- arrived in the Old World, these pancakes were made with various other types of legumes, vegetables, and tubers. But once the lowly, most basic of ingredients was introduced, the potato brought fame to this fritter and put it on the map, so to speak.  And on Hanukkah menus the world over.

I had a cooking instructor in culinary school who once called potato-salt-fat "the holy trinity of food" (thanks, Erica). And it's true: as long as the proportions are right, there's nothing better. My straightforward, classic potato latkes are damned good. But I think it's best not to put this into recipe form...I'd rather tell you as a grandmother might explain how to prepare a favorite dish. Then you can decide on quantity.

So. You're going to want to make a pretty big batch of these babies. No one goes through the process to make a couple of latkes, mostly because no one can eat just a couple of latkes. To start, let's say for every 3 large russet potatoes, you want one medium onion. Both need to be peeled and grated on a box grater, into the same bowl. 

Once this is done (and work swiftly, to keep the potatoes from turning dark), squeeze the potato-onion mixture either in a dish towel or with just your hands, to get the water content out. Once the mixture is fairly dry, add 2 eggs and about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of a half-flour-half-matzoh meal mixture. Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste.

Use a good skillet -- cast iron is always great, but any seasoned skillet will do, even non-stick. I like a combination of vegetable and olive oil mixed (that Italian influence again) with a little shmaltz (chicken fat), though you can use anything from all-veggie oil to duck fat or lard, or whatever your little heart desires. Obviously, if you're using lard, kosher eating is not your lifestyle choice. But hey, everyone loves latkes.

So, fry the latkes in patties by dropping the mixture by spoonfuls into the hot oil (it should sizzle when it hits the skillet). A couple of minutes each side, drain on paper towel-lined plates, and you're done. The best way to see if they're seasoned to taste is to make one, fry it, then taste and adjust accordingly. Once you've logged some latke-making time, it will become instinctual.

These are traditionally eaten with sour cream and some scallions, and apple sauce. But I make all kinds of toppings for my latkes. (for an elegant party app, try creme fraiche, smoked salmon, and caviar). I also make a sweet potato version that's kick-ass. But that version's recipe is for next year...  

HAPPY HANUKKAH, everyone!

SEASONAL FOODS: Pumpkin

Autumn is represented by many things: colorful leaves, apples, jackets and sweaters and boots for cooler weather. But perhaps most representative of the change in the kitchen from summer garden to fall's harvest bounty? The pumpkin. 

In the U.S., the image we have of pumpkins is often of the jack-o-lantern. The members of the pumpkin family that we generally consider good eating fall under the "squash" moniker: butternut, acorn, spaghetti...but they're all members of the gourd family, which also incidentally includes cucumbers, melons, and zucchini. 

These plants are all native to The Americas -- particularly Central America and Mexico -- which is why pumpkin and squash are often featured in our traditional Thanksgiving meal. Pumpkin can go savory or sweet (or straddle the line between the two): served as a vegetable dish, roasted with garlic, onions, and savory herbs...or in the traditional pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, doughnuts, even ice cream. 

It's said that Columbus brought pumpkin back to Spain from the New World, introducing this (among many other food items) into the European culinary vernacular. Like so many other vegetables and fruits that have become integral to Italian cooking, pumpkin landed on the Italian peninsula with Spanish and Portuguese Jews after the Inquisition. Venice, the city that invented the word ghetto (stemming from gettare, to throw or toss aside) to describe the neighborhoods where Jews were "thrown out", also gave rise to numerous dishes that include pumpkin, and the Jewish population of Mantua is often credited with creating the much-loved ravioli con la zucca. In the Jewish-Italian tradition, pumpkin pastas often combine savory and sweet elements. 

Ravioli are stuffed with a pumpkin puree and are served with sage and butter sauce, and topped either with parmigiano (savory) or crumbled amaretti cookies (sweet) -- and sometimes with mostarda di Cremona, from the town of Cremona -- candied fruit in a mustard-flavored syrup that accents the sweetness of the pumpkin filling. 

Any way you slice it, these pumpkin dishes are of a northern Italian bent. But pumpkin is also popular in Rome, where the country's largest Jewish population resides. I often purchased chunks of zucca gialla at the market in Campo de' Fiori, instructing my "guy" Claudio to cut me the perfect size slice for what I was making. Sometimes the pumpkin would get roasted, or thinly sliced and grilled. 

Sometimes I would turn the pumpkin into a warming risotto, like they often do in the Veneto in colder months. Sometimes I would also buy the zucchine flowers. A favorite Roman antipasto is fiori di zucca fritti, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, and battered and fried, found in every pizzeria worth its sale in Rome. I'd often prepare them stuffed with an herbed ricotta and goat cheese mixture, topped with a butter and herb sauce. I've done my fair share of cooking with pumpkin products.

One of my favorite dishes to make is a simple pasta dish. I often taught it during my autumn and winter cooking classes in Rome, and it's remained a favorite of mine since I started cooking professionally. The sous chef at San Domenico NY once made a similar version as a special on the menu. I remember loving it, and over the years I tweaked it and made it my own. I like to think it's something that's a little bit Roman, a little bit northern Italian and Italian-Jewish, a little bit New York, a little bit New World. A little bit like me -- at heart, anyway.


PASTA ALLA ZUCCA (4 people)

3-4 TBS extra-virgin olive oil
4 TBS. unsalted butter
1 clove garlic
1 small-medium-sized butternut squash or other creamy pumpkin variety
8 oz. heavy cream
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lb. ziti, bombolotti, or short pasta of choice
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano (for the Roman touch) or parmigiano reggiano
Fresh thyme or chiffonade of basil

- Bring a large pot of water and one medium pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add a generous dash of salt to the water.

- Peel the squash and/or pumpkin and cut into 1-2-inch dice.

- Boil squash in large pot of boiling water until tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes. Drain...OR roast the pumpkin on a sheet pan in the oven, tossed with olive oil and salt and pepper, until tender, 30 minutes or so.

- Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add the oil and butter together, until bubbling. Add garlic clove (whole) and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

- Add squash/pumpkin and saute over medium heat for 5 minutes. Turn down heat and cook covered for another 10 minutes.

- Add cream and cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring. The squash/pumpkin flesh should break down into a chunky sauce.

- Cook the pasta until tender but firm, al dente.

- Remove pasta from the water with tongs, or drain in a colander and add it to the pan.

- Turn pasta to coat, add the pecorino, and turn to mix thoroughly. Add fresh thyme and/or basil and serve.

 

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Primo -- Rockland, Maine

Primo, in Italian, can be a double entendre: it means first (and often the best), but also primary, as in ingredients. And at PRIMO restaurant in Rockland, Maine, where the growing season is shorter than in many places in America, chef Melissa Kelly has managed to draw on the natural resources of the land. She runs what she dubs a "full circle kitchen," the idea of which I love. 

Like most kitchens that understand the restaurant business model for turning a profit, the idea of not wasting anything figures heavily. But Chef Kelly also raises animals for food, from hens to pigs, collecting eggs, curing meat -- and grows vegetables on acres of land and in greenhouses, harvesting edible flowers and collecting honey produced on-site. Not everything she uses comes from her land, but everything that comes from her land gets used. The rest is filled in by local producers she knows and trusts. In a time when so many chefs throw around terms like "locavore" and "farm-to-table," Primo is really doing it, as they've done for years, and the end result is a happy place to eat and drink. 

Primo encompasses both an American culinary ethos and an Italian adherence to tradition. Seasonality is obviously paramount in a kitchen so reliant on produce and proteins that are grown and raised locally: this has always been the way Italians cook, and eat. The idea of vegetables and fruits playing pivotal roles in a cuisine -- also Italian. So is the custom of serving cheeses and salumi and artisanal pizza, all center stage here. What's American about Primo is the dedication and hard work that are behind making this restaurant a success despite the odds, and that the driving force behind this is a woman -- something all too rare in the restaurant industry, though the U.S leads the way in this department.

So here, I'm writing less of a review of the restaurant's menu -- that changes a little too frequently -- and more of the restaurant on the whole. Though I can tell you that it's worth trying their house-made salumi and local cheeses. It's definitely worth considering one of their homemade pizzas, and often there's a pizza bianca with some seasonal greens, local tomatoes, and delicious, gooey cheese.

Quite often you can find a great foie gras appetizer, like the one pictured here, seared to perfection over garlic toast with champagne grapes and a frisee salad with figs and a sour-sweet port sauce. Who can argue with classic flavor pairings and high-quality ingredients, especially when it's so lovingly presented on colorful dishes?

Primi -- that's Italian for first courses, mostly pastas -- are expertly-prepared at Primo. And the pasta is homemade, like the fettucine served with shrimp, arugula pesto, roasted tomatoes, and lots of parmigiano (though most seafood pastas do not get cheese under any circumstances, shrimp is the one sometime-exception to that rule. I'm assuming Chef Kelly knows this about Italian food...)

Main courses include various iterations of local seafood, like cod, or dayboat scallops, sometimes even the ubiquitous Maine lobster. But chances are, even if the ingredients are common in these parts, the preparations won't be. Seared duck breast gets paired with an earthy warm farro salad and grilled cipollini, and grilled swordfish gets a spicy tomato-and-chile broth over charred vegetables. And all dishes get a flourish of homegrown greens and edible flowers so they look picture-perfect. 

Sometimes the dishes are a little heavy-handed in their presentation. Sometimes one too many ingredients are used in a dish. Not everything is perfect. But that's also part of the charm here. You can't find fault with the quality of the ingredients, nor the provenance. The flavor is there, as is the love in the preparation. And pride in the whole operation. When our attentive waiter found out I am a chef, he pulled me aside on my way back from the ladies' room and offered me a tour of the establishment. He showed me the other dining rooms and more casual bar where locals come to order pizza, appetizers, and share a bottle of wine. He brought me into the kitchen and explained how things work, where their in-house primary ingredients become their homemade menu items. It was a general and thorough behind-the-scenes: transparency, and pride in what they do as a team. They were happy to share all of this with a colleague, and I really appreciated it. 

We all loved our meal, some of us visitors from Manhattan, others relative natives who live nearby and can call Primo a top-notch local spot. Lucky them. In this restaurant they have a warm and wonderful place where they can eat, and dine (we know these are two different things), welcomed to a homey spot where the food is a bit more formal than the service, but neither is overbearing. And they can rest assured that the food they're eating has been raised, cultivated, butchered, caught, cooked, and served with love and pride. We need more places like this in America, and everywhere.


PRIMO
2 South Main Street 
Rockland, Maine
(207) 596.0770
www.primorestaurant.com 

*Additional locations now in Orlando, FL and Tuscon, AZ

Have Knives, Will Travel

Cradling my beloved Sicilian pachino tomatoes at Da Claudio, my favorite stand in the Campo de' Fiori market

I don't want to be boastful here, but it's not every day that you have an article written about you and your work in The New York Times. So, like a special birthday or anniversary, a milestone, I am going to celebrate this occasion. I'm showing my appreciation for the profile in this week's Frequent Flier column by re-posting the link to the article that ran this past Tuesday, October 16th in the business section of The Times, page B8. 

The column is dedicated to those who travel a lot, for business and/or pleasure. And I certainly do travel, and overall, I love it. The flying part of it? Not as much. Those who know me know I've had my fair share of travel drama (and missed flights -- particularly when going to or coming from London. Not sure what it is with that place and me missing my plane!). Flying has become considerably less fun since 9/11, and ever more complicated when traveling with knives, as one might imagine. For me, bringing my knife roll along is like a business person carrying a briefcase: it is my work stuff. But try convincing an overworked and cranky TSA agent of that. Anyway, the article sheds a little light on how it is to travel when your business is cooking for clients. 

This column, however, is not long enough to discuss all the fun I've had traveling and cooking for clients along the way, and over the past nearly-10 years that my company, Blu Aubergine, has been in existence. From teaching cooking classes and giving culinary tours in Rome when it was my full-time home, to traveling outside of the city to teach in a gorgeous villa in Tuscany, or a beautiful home in Westchester, to working with corporate clients on team-building cooking classes among international employees, I've loved teaching others about the food I love. And I've loved traveling to cook for others all over the world, whether it was for clients from New York City to Martha's Vineyard to South Florida, or overseas, from up and down the Italian peninsula to raucous dinner parties in London, to cooking for friends in the French countryside or in southern Spain. And while eating during the course of all of my travels around the world, I've gained enormous inspiration that informs my cooking, from Thailand to Argentina, Sardegna to Croatia, Israel to Brazil, the Greek Islands to the Caribbean islands. I explore so that wherever I might be, in whatever kitchen I find myself, I bring a taste of the world to my cuisine. And I hope to keep doing so for a very long time. 

If you need a hand in the kitchen, anywhere around the world, I have the answer: I have knives. And I will travel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/business/a-chefs-travel-adventures-in-pursuit-of-culinary-inspiration.html

Passion. Fruit. Passionfruit!

It's one of my favorite flavors in the world, and one of the best names for any food, in almost any language: passion fruit. Frutta della passione in Italian. Maracuja in Portuguese. Hawaiians call it lilikoi. Beautiful. The taste is sour and sweet at once, and the small black seeds lend a crunch to the pulpy fruit. It's used in savory and sweet preparations all over South and Central America and the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and in Portugal and South Africa. The fruit is one of many species of the passion flower. And though one might assume the name came from the passion this tasty fruit can elicit from those who adore it as I do, it was actually named by missionaries who thought parts of the flower resembled devices used in the "passion" (torture) of Christ prior to his crucifixion.

But I'd prefer to equate the fruit and the flower with passion and love -- definitely a more romantic notion. The flower is the official flower of Paraguay, by the way, so I'm not the only one who prefers to romanticize the passiflora.

When I'm in countries of the world that feel as passionately as I do about passion fruit, I try to indulge in the fruit in all its forms. I equate the fruit with tropical climes and vacations I've taken to far-flung islands and south-of-the-equator escapes. I definitely enjoyed passion fruit in Thailand, where locals sell fruit juices and salads from pushcarts all along the coast and on the islands in the Andaman Sea. I indulged in a refreshing frozen passion fruit smoothie on the beach in Tel Aviv last summer: perfection.

But where I came closest to overdosing on passion fruit has been in Portuguese-speaking countries: Brazil and Portugal. One of my long-time favorite cocktails has been the caipiroska, the sister drink to Brazil's national drink, the caipirinha.

The "-oska" uses vodka in place of the rot-gut sugarcane liquor, cachaca (also known to fuel a Brazilian car in place of gas in a pinch. I kid you not). When I'm in Brazil, make mine maracuja! I remember lolling on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and in restaurants and bars in the evenings on the island of Morro de Sao Paolo, in northern Bahia...a place where you never have to wear shoes if you don't want to, where all the bars have tables sunken into the sand, and you can while away the hours listening to amazing Brazilian music, sipping your caipiroska while chatting with the locals. Pretty heavenly.

In Portugal (we're talking about the mother country of Brazil, after all), passion fruit is just as ubiquitous. Here I am at right, enjoying a passion fruit popsicle on a hot day by the water in Lisbon. It was humid and incredibly sunny that June afternoon, and I spotted an ice cream truck by the park where my friends and I were strolling -- and jumped at the chance to indulge my passion, and to cool off.  

In many of the delicious restaurants of Portugal's capital city, passion fruit figures in various custom cocktails, in sauces for meats, in salad dressings, and of course in dessert as well. I couldn't resist a very Portuguese pairing of passion fruit sorbet with a glass of port.

If you've not yet developed a passion for a particular food -- and I don't mean a food group, like chocolate (wink-wink), or a prepared food, like french fries -- I mean one ingredient, one fruit or vegetable...well, I highly recommend it. To have (at least) one food item that you can enjoy in numerous forms, in various preparations, collected from cultures around the globe that cultivate and celebrate this food, is a wonderful thing. And lucky for me, and my travels, and my work, passion fruit is one of my top 5 single ingredients about which I'm passionate. (And when I have a passion fruit caipiroska, I'm drinking two of my most beloved ingredients at once!). Passion is great. Passionfruit is fabulous. It inspired the dessert below, into which I poured a whole lotta love: passion fruit cheesecake topped with fresh summer fruits.

What food are you passionate about? Do share....
    

RECIPE: Spaghetti alle vongole

What's the perfect seafood dish for seaside summer dining? In Italy, a peninsula surrounded by gorgeous Mediterranean waters and beautiful beaches, it's hard to choose just one. But at all the restaurants at all the stabilimenti (beachside establishments) in the country, and trattorie up and down the coasts, the top answer just might be SPAGHETTI ALLE VONGOLE. 

Now, the classic Italian version of this is not what many Americans are used to in various red sauce joints in America. This dish, in Italy, is prepared in a manner called "in bianco" -- "in white," meaning without tomatoes, just some olive oil and white wine. 

And in this case, it's prepared with the addition of the natural briny "liquor" from the clams as they cook, plus plenty of garlic and butter to finish it off. Lots of fresh chopped parsley keeps it clean-tasting, though you can mix it up and add another fresh herb at the end: basil for a hit of anise flavor, a little thyme or chervil for a French touch, or freshly chopped cilantro for a Portuguese twist. But we're doing it all'italiana today, so we'll stick to flat-leaf (Italian) parsley.  

If I were preparing this in Italy, as I've done countless times, I would be using the Italian vongole veraci which are the tiny little clams perfect for this pasta dish, because they're small (so you can put lots in with the pasta), lightweight (their shells are thinner so they cook quickly), and deliciously sweet and saline. But since I've never been able to find them on this side of the Atlantic, we have to do as the Italians would do and use local ingredients -- in this case, cooking in New York, I'm using Littleneck clams from Long Island. I'm also lending  a little color to the dish with fresh spinach tagliolini, just for fun. Feel free to play with this basic recipe as you like: once you have the process down, you can swap out various wines and liqueurs for the white wine, use various kinds of oils, herbs, and spices to change the end result. Adding a little chorizo or spicy sausage, for example,though not for purists, does bring the pasta dish to a new level. 

So, like most classic cooking, I say this: learn the dish in its original, purest form first. Get that under your belt. And then, feel free to riff and play as you like. All true artists learn the classics first...then they branch out and become the fauves and the cubists, the Twyla Tharps, the improvisational jazz musicians, the comedians with perfect timing, like Italy's own Alberto Sordi...

Buon appetito.

SPAGHETTI ALLA VONGOLE

3-4 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil

1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped roughly

2-3 lbs fresh clams

½ cup white wine

bunch of parsley (Italian flat-leaf variety)

Pinch of red pepper flakes

Salt & pepper to taste

1 lb. spaghetti (or pasta of choice, usually long pasta)

- In a large bowl/pot of water, add the clams and a healthy bit of salt or cornmeal. Let sit for 10 minutes. Then, using your hands, pick up a handful of clams in each hand, lift them out of the water a bit, and scrub together using the clams themselves to clean the outer shells. Repeat several times.

-Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

-Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add the garlic and chile flakes to cook for one minute.

- Add the clams and stir a bit. Add the white wine, and cover, cooking over medium-low heat for 3 minutes. Add the salt and pepper to taste, and continue cooking until the shells of the clams have fully opened.

 - Add the chopped parsley and the butter to finish the sauce.

-Add a generous toss of salt to the boiling water, and cook the pasta until tender but firm, al dente. Remove pasta from the water with tongs, or drain in a colander and add it to the pan.

- Turn pasta to coat, adding olive oil and/or salt and pepper to taste, and turn to mix thoroughly. Serve at once.

QUICK BITE: Cremolata

 

It's not sorbetto,it's definitely not gelato, and it's not granita, either. So what in the world is cremolata, anyway?

The short answer is that it's like a fruit sorbetto but made with the pulp of the fruit and all the good bits mixed in, not strained to make a juice-only base like most sorbetti use. The result? Something a little chunkier, and more substantial -- and less creamy -- than sorbetto. But fewer ice crystals than granita. No dairy, so not gelato. 

But enough about what it's not. What is IS: delicious. And refreshing, particularly on a hot summer day in Rome. Which brings us to a nondescript little bar/gelateria right down the street from my apartment in the Jewish ghetto, and famous among those in-the-know frozen treat lovers in Rome: Alberto Pica. This bar, featuring some of the grumpiest counter help and cashiers on the Italian peninsula, does one thing very well: frozen desserts. Their gelato flavors change all the time, but they're most renowned for their riso alla cannella gelato, which is basically a cinammon-scented frozen rice pudding. Yeah. Pretty delicious. Their sorbetti feature a range of unusual flavors as well, including rosa, flavored with rose petals.

But the cremolate: it can be hard to select among the flavors, their juicy, bright fruity colors beckoning you to add a scoop of wild cherry, or Amalfi lemon to your cup...but choose I did. Watermelon and peach-spumante, as featured in the photo above. On a long afternoon passeggiata (stroll) through the center of Rome, it's just the ticket to refresh and revive.

Bar Alberto Pica; via Della Seggiola, 12 (corner of Via Arenula); +39-06-686-8405