DaleJ

I had the pleasure of dining a couple of times at Il Rossellino last spring. When I ate there the husband was in the kitchen. They must be ambidextrous. At any rate, my entree the first night was one large sauted porcino that almost brought a tear to my eyes. A fun expereince.

OMG! Bob's your uncle! When I was working in Boston forty years ago one of my fellow architects was Andrew Rudovski (a member of the Polish army overrun in '39) who went to school in London after the war. At any rate, "Bob's your uncle" refers to Robere Peale, of London "bobbie" fame and meant that you were untouchable. And that was the only time I ever heard the phrase. Bob's your uncle indeed!

I ran into a young man working near Charleston, SC a couple of weeks ago. He recently "retired" from a similar position and is now writing a book about his experiences. Incredibly fascinating since his last post was private chef for a really big Hollywood luminary. I listened to his stories for some time absolutely rapt. Can't wait for the book.

As a resident of one of the flyover states, sweetbreads are no where to be found. In a "town" of 40,000 there is not one butcher save in supermarkets. Fortunately, I have a friend who works for a large purveyor to restaurants and he gets them for me in ten pound boxes (frozen). I don't perceive any negative effect from them being frozen.

I think that paella pic would make a great jigsaw puzzle!

As I noted above, I construct ragu often. From the slow, slow cooking emphasis from the above post, I am lead to wonder if ragu could be made in a slow cooker, say, overnight or all day. Any opinions?

No fight here, Kevin. I suppose that I make ragu once a month or so. Since there are only two of us, the process makes more than one meal and bags of the stuff go into the freezer. I have followed Marcella's recipe with some variants, such as using ground pork, veal and beef and sometimes some chicken livers. I'm pretty diligent about reducing wine then milk and adding canned tomatoes. I cook the stuff at least four hours, stirring occasionally and being careful not to let things burn. Ragu Bolognese requires substantial pasta like penne, not sissy shapes or fine spaghetti. And although I've been to Italy thirteen times since '98 I can't remember ever having ragu there at all. Shame, and will correct in March. Am addicted to your year's work (pleasure).

I guess that I make pizza once a month and the Cooks Illustrated recipe of a few years ago changed for the better my pizza. When the dough is ready I roll it out with a rolling pin with parchment paper on the bottom and plastic wrap on top and bake at 500 with the parchment paper in place. Works every time.

Ada Boni's book is the treasure of my library and worth the search. Nice prose, good pics and very detailed recipes.

This will display my ignorance. I have just purchased, through eBay, an imersion heater circulator from a lab in New Jersey. I intend to clean it as well as I can. But if all cooking is done sous vide do I need to be super duper careful with the cleaning? Thanks.

Finished reading yesterday. Thank you Steven.

In a recently received American Institute of Architects Bookstore pamphlet there is liosted a book on concrete countertops. It is written by Fu-Tung Cheng and Eric Olsen and published by Taunton Press. It can be purchased from the AIA for $29.95 (202 pages, paperback, 2001).

I've eaten at 'Gusto several times. Besides its formaggio and salumi plates and wine bargains, its worth it just to be a part of the organized bedlam and for viewing Rome's glitterati.

FWIW, there is a recipe from Mario Batali on the FoodTV website. I've made it several times and think its pretty good. You should also get a posting from Divina from Florence, since she has a recipe thats manufactured in Italy.

Geez, I thought I had Italian cookbooks. BTW, your bookcase has significant deflection.

OK, here's my concrete story. Built our house about eight years ago with a friend and concrete specialist as GC. We poured 4,000 lb. mix right on the fresh floor of my new garage with wood forms. The counter was heavily reinforced with rebars and 6x6' mesh (because of the sink cutout). It was colored (by me) with concrete stain and finished with several heavy coats of polyurethane. After eight years it is supremely structuraly sound but the finish has failed miserably. The poly just does not stand up to day in day out use. I have never cut directly on it but simply moving things around on it after time wears it out. Were I to do it again I would integrally color the mix and the poly the surface. My surface coloring cannot be blended with later coloring attempts. Integral color would be easy to maintain with periodic application of polyurethane. Redoing the entire kitchen as we speak (with granite countertops).

You can get Aglianico at Winesearcher or Winezap. I drank no other wine in Basilicata and the prices varied from 6E to 90E (at aclassier restaurant). BTW, a really nice and inexpensive Primitivo is A Mano, The winery was covered in the NYTimes a few months ago. One of the guys is US and they don't grow the grapes, rather they purchase them locally, apparently with great success because they pay cash on the barrelhead (so to speak) unlike most of the local producers who dangle the growers' payment. A Manno can be bought at the above places, too at under ten bucks. Whil I felt Basilicata was not as varied nor interesting as Puglia, Matera is mystical. The sassi (previously abandoned cave dwellings) are incredibly densly packed in the center of the city. They are now being restored and gentrified. We stayed in a lovely hotel in the sassi and truly enjoyed the time.

Glad this was resurected. I notice that I was a contributor and would like to update my "recipe". The past few batches of fresh pasta have been made with no bench flour. I have maintained the 2 to 1 ratio of unbleached flour to cake flour, added two eggs and whizzed in the FP. While operating, I have added water almost by the drop to form a very stiff mix. Then cover the mass with a bowl for ten or so minutes. The first cranks in the manual machine produces a crumbly product, but bu the third or fourth pass it becomes more pasta like. Then, as before, I do two passes per setting and one at the last. Hang it on the back of a chair for fifteen or so minutes and pass it through the rollers. There now is no cleanup at all.

I spent three days in Matera earlier this year. Ate in three different places evenings. All featured a mixed grille of pork, lamb and kid or boar. Can't forget the aglianico, though.

nathanm: I'm missing something, I'm sure. When I look at your first four settings I see that if I cook at 133F the cooking time is 19 minutes. If I cook at 140F the cooking time is 53 minutes. I'm at a loss to understand this. Help. Thanks.

Its the name. I've rotisserized a few and will buy nothing else. And living as I do in one of the flyover states I'm amazed and pleased that my market carries then.

Kevin, I made the shrimp dish last weekend and was very pleased. Mario's one of my current idols.

Didn't mean to imply that he move to FTV. He's fine where he is on PBS.

I believe if one wanted true thirty minute meals one would have to look no further than Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way. (I bought the book.)

We live on the east coast, but try to make SFO yearly and have eaten in the Cafe twice. We enjoy its informality, to say nothing about the exquisite food and wine offerings. Besides, last time the Goddess herself walked by our table and I kissed her hand!