marlena spieler

NOW you're talkin! bread and butter and marmite...... with baked beans! hot baked beans, and the bread is toasted and the marmite is thicker than it seems sane, and the butter even thicker. and thats when the savory nature of canned baked beans can strut their stuff.

don't know why it ran twice, please forgive.

peppermint ice cream: pink and creamy and minty, made by the little old couple hear my childhood home who would give anybody with three As on their report card a free ice cream cone. I always chose pinkpepperment candy ice cream!

of course parmesan is so fabuloso with silky supple pasta or al dente creamy risotto, but my favourite way with parmesan is cut into big shattery chunks of shards, for dessert, with PEARS. PEARS!

hot bean paste, i love it in glass noodles. Hot Bean Paste!

mmmmmm......i love bamboo shoots in a hot and sour Thai-ish clear soup. Thai hot and sour soup!

I use dulce de leche as the toffee layer in a banoffi pie, along with the banana. so i guess i'd say: banana!

tender leafy lettuce, such as butter lettuce......

honey is delicious with vinegar, or fermented into vinegar!

thats what my husband says i am guilty of. i think its a good thing, he thinks it churley (sp?) ......i counter by saying that to criticize if you are being honest and not just nitpicking or ignorant, can facilitate making things better. or if it is in print, at least it serves as a warning to others out there....... as for the animal rights folks and foie gras....just mention foie gras once and a bombardment of nasty letters and worse commences. i would ignore them unless they are being reasonable, and then, well, any reasonable response deserves an answer in my book. still, once i even got a protest letter when i ran a recipe for duck breast or perhaps it was roast duck, anyhow the reader was confused and thought that duck equaled foie gras..... the reader had no limit to the pompousness and self-righteousness with which he/she felt that she owed me with regards to my "foie gras" ........ (as my late cousin marc would say: there is indeed a limit on human intelligence, however there is no limit on ignorance). but perhaps my situation is different from that of critics: i'm not a critic-- i'm a story teller who offers up yummy (that is the aim) things to eat.

the more i know about the structure of Slow, the more i think yes. or at least the people around him......

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i like o thanassis esp on a sunday afternoon. and there is an exquisite restaurant, just exquisite, traditional island foods with a modern twist, i'm thinking papadappoulis? pappadakis? its in kifisias? i ate the best chickpeas of my life there, and the best barbounia......

never eaten pizza there. the dishes that i have eaten, however, have been very very good. am confused about it being a "tourist trap"? i've never seen any other foreigners when i've been there, though once the owners showed me the business card from a group of american food writers........there are many plates and doodahs and tsotskis on the walls, so i guess you could call it touristy that way.........i'm scratching my head thinking about all of the dishes i've eaten over the years that I thought were prepared really beautifully there, and your assessment of the place. but i didn't eat the pizza........ re: the breads of apulia and naples and san francisco. my observation was not based on the microflora, rather on taste assessment. it is of course interesting that the microflora of sf sourdough bears a striking resemblance to bread from Puglia....... still, as much as the bread in puglia is totally wonderful, to my taste the good bread in naples area is closer to s. f bread than pugliese. at its least they are neck in neck. it is the texture of the crust, too, as well as the succulence of the inner crumb.......this has nothing to do with what "people in san francisco want to believe", i'm not sure where you got that from as its only an observation on my part. i've not heard anyone else mention it before,nor did i allude that i had. frankly, i think the bread in puglia and napoli are both so good, that each area is worth the trip for bread alone. san francisco too, but you have to look a little bit harder for the real good stuff in s.f.....when you do, you'll be rewarded. ciao, Marlena

Divina, I am loving this blog! the rush of green-gold fresh olive oil out of the press i can almost smell! i'm just back from a few weeks in piemonte and languishing with a flat flat feeling that comes after being in italy....(and now not). am already thinking: next trip must go here, and there, and not miss....... love the amaretti morbiditi, too, Swisskaese! I think that Sienna had the most delectable ones...somewhere i have a recipe. if i can find it will send it over.....also, whilst shlepping across the langhe countryside in search of dogs and truffles, i met a monk whose convent runs a hotel in la spezia, so if anyone is interested get in touch. the padre said: good food, no cost molto......i'm going to go check out the website right now. i think they only have about 6 rooms....... divina, how i wish i could go to the market with you and cook. and that sandwich looks mighty fine too! thanks for this blog! x marlena

my favourite restaurant in naples, one i keep coming back to, is Europea, across the big street and down a little bit of an alleyway or littleish street, from the naples chamber of commerce......near where they are building one of the subway stops. i'm sure you can google it. it might be l'europea. really delicious homey food, and if you go there when squash blossoms are in season, you MUST get some. i love their pasta con le patate......good mozzarella.....i've never looked at a menu, rather gone with a group of people and simply ordered lotsa stuff. lots of really yummy stuff. marlena ps the bread in campania and especially naples is really excellent. it reminds me of san francisco sourdough at its best.

i spent the weekend in ventnor, isle of wight and had a terrific lunch at hambrough hotel, i think thats the name/spelling. the food was divine. also, the next day we went to the garlic farm which was fab, and to a brewery, i think ventnor brewery which was marvellously quirky, and not only do they welcome visitors, if you want to sign up as a volunteer, you've got a job--they pay you in beer!

I have to ask Marlena, were you there announced or unannounced? ← i was part of a large group, it was a party for the opening, friends of the owners and i just tagged along. i saw no one i knew and no one seemed to know me. but i was sort of announced..... sadly i don't think anyone cared. the owners were really nice but didn't seem to know anything about me. of course i told them, but it was too late to change the risotto then. anyhow i had already eaten two of them and was fork-into the third..... i would hope that the quality of the risotto would not have slipped since then because it hasn't been that long and they seemed so very enthusiastic about risotto..... i'd like to hope that in this short period of time they would still keep to the basics: pretty good rice, stock, not too rich, not too cheesey, quite tasty......nothing fancy but very satisfying. i must admit though that after three samplings of risotto, all i wanted was a pizza when i passed one walking to the tube.....texture, i needed crisp texture! (they do have salad, i just didn't have any). they did get me into a mega risotto moon though..... i came back from amalfi with tons of lemons and its been lemon risotto for marlena....parmigiana risotto....butternet sqauash risotto.....yeah, i'm one of the converted now.

Sounds lovely - what's in that? ← i would say simply a robust risotto made with tomatoes and no cream, prob not cheese either, a marinara-type sauce, garlic, oregano......possibly no onion.......not sure about that last one.....but it tasted deliciously like the mezzogiorno, the south of italy......it was topped with a slice of very rare seared tuna. very nice. why don't you ring and ask for their recipe? they might share.....esp if you don't live in london...if you do, just pop down and have a taste and see what you think might be in it......i don't quite remember any more than that as was drinking quite of bit of champagne through the evening, and did taste a number of the risotti. if i were living in town i'd have a bowl and make a full report. but i'm out in hampshire..... marlena

i know that i'm coming late to this discussion, ie we are all home from the salone del gusto and from terra madre, but if anyone is heading to torino just because (just because it is incredibly beautiful, and incredibly friendly, and the food is incredibly good) i'd like to recommend the restaurant La Badessa, which was divine, as in, it is in a former convent. we had the menu del convento, and switched the tripe for a veal stew with tomatoes served with polenta. it was fabulish-ious. i had to kick my husband under the table as he was reaching for the plate with that light in his eye that said: i gotta lick this plate, i just gotta!. we started the meal with roasted peppers and bagne caouda, which was very good, but the sformato of versa (cabbage) in a puddle of fonduta that was on the vegetarian menu was better. it was amazing. like a pancake of tender cabbage, parmigiana and egg. and so light and so crisp and so delish that we were all--those who hadn't ordered them-- forking away while those who had ordered them just look on helplessly though good naturedly.... the veal stew was amazing. the polenta could make me cry thinking about it. oh and the pasta course: chickpea soup with flat noodles. mmmmmmmmmm. desserts were all bellissima. really exquisite, just as you would imagine good sisters in touch with angels would be able to make. i won't go into the details but even someone who prefers a plate of cheese (me) was swooning over the pastries. but the grapefruit sorbetto was the best: so refreshing. la badessa ristorante piazza carlo emanuele 11, 17h torino tel 011 08 35 940 www.labadessa.net ps: and it was moderately priced! menu del convento and vegetarian menu are both 25 euro per person, and the larger more tasting ish menu is 30. the place is full of happy italians and the scene to watch almost as beautiful as the food. we drank a glorious nebbiolo that was only 17.50 euros a bottle!

marlena

i tried three different risotti: rare grilled steak on top of red wine and roasted onion risotto seared tuna on top of a south of italy zesty red sauced risotto butternut squash and hazelnut risotto with fresh sage. all were good, and the rare steak and seared tuna garnish gave a nice bite of something to contrast with the rest.......i've been sort of obsessed with risotto since my visit.......... marlena

hi judith! echoing pontormo's reply about the mixture being called a blanc. i use it for artichokes. the lemon keeps it from darkening and blackening, but in the process sort of turns the artichoke a little grey-green but the addition of flour keeps it quite white........ marlena

i once spent a week on a wine trail of tuscany eating lunch with about a zillion wine-makers....it was winter, lovely and damp and the air was woodsy smelling.....the funny thing was that during this time of year i was served pappa pommodoro about 5 times! they all said: "go ahead, use the tinned tomatoes, they turn out fine! and we always have them on hand!" i have to say they do turn out well in the soup........ i usually use a combination of both tinned and fresh, the balance being which season it actually is. and i always keep good rustic bread, stale, in my freezer, in case the spirit moves me to make pappa pommodoro......... olive oil is what it was all about at these vineyards as they all grow olives too, and the pappa was a beautiful foil for the individual oils.........good with the wine too!

i don't think that old waffle irons exist here. i have looked as am now somewhat obsessed. i don't know why not--supposedly waffles were created when a knight returned from his crusades early, found his wife out and about, didn't know the flat breads were cooling on the bench, then sat on them. i swear, i read it somewhere. anyhow the indentations were made by his knight gear. i've got adapters for everything else, both physically and spiritually....(what does this mean? am i getting strange, too late for me to be up tapping when i should be doing other things?) anyhow, let me know when you find that waffle iron! and thanks. its really sweet, i can hardly wait. x m ps on the other hand perhaps this is exactly why they don't have waffle irons here. they made them using knight chains, who needed a waffle iron! night night.