hathor

2 questions: a) why???? b) what else do you put into balloons???

But...then it wouldn't be scotto ditto. You have to munch and gnaw your away around the bits and pieces and get grimy and black grit under your fingernails. Uhmmm...its not a first-date meal... if you know what I mean..wink..wink...

Ciao! Kevin: I don't have a handle on the salt free bread thing. I've heard a few different theories (hello, this is Italy...there is bound to be different theories) on why there is no salt. Salt tax, the food is already salty so the bread should not compound it. But, honestly, that dense, heavy, doorstop bread is prevelant all over Italy. Crunchy crusts are viewed with suspicion. Today we ate some of the Calabrese round hard bagel shaped breads that need to be dipped in water before being eaten (Puglia has this type of bread as well). But. as it was explained to us today, bread was only made once a month or so, back in the 'olden' days, so by the time you got around to the end of the month, you had hard as a rock bread that needed to be dipped. I love the history and development of food traditions. De Cecco does use bronze dies, and it is a good, but industrialized product. It was dried in large ovens about a city block long. Not particularly slow. Too bad we were not permitted to take pictures inside the facility, but the spaghetti looked like it was dancing as it went into the dryers...then it came out all stiff and still. Today was fritta mista day! Fried zuchini flowers, anchovies, whitebait, etc. etc. Lovely baked swordfish. Delicious fried bacala on a bed of super sweet terapa onions and leeks, chickpea soup with octopus. All that mixed in with a salume tasting in the morning and cheeses with various marmelades (green tomato, eggplant, prune, onion, zucca & cocanut, pear) in the afternoon. All in all, I'm enamored with the cuisine of Calabria. I love the vegetables, the piccante peppers, and just the overall preperation of the food. If you come across these dried picante sausages somewhere, buy them! Here are the zuchinin flowers, before and after. These florets were stuffed with a small piece of mozzarella and anchovy. Then coated with a yeasted batter and fried. These are spiced anchovies. They were cleaned and split, then layered with mildy spicy paprika and lots of oregano. Then quickly fried in some oil, garlic and wicked hot green chili peppers. Surprisingly the end result was not that hot, but very delicious. Tommorow we leave at 6:00 a.m. for Fruili, and don't get back until Saturday evening. So, ci vediamo dopo!

Good lord, if you locked 6 Italian foodies in a room, there is absolutely no telling what would happnen, as each one is completely assured that they are 1000% correct on any given subject. I have a whole new appreciation for the minutae of food origins... Back to scottoditto: in my Umbrian neck of the woods, the lamb is very thinly cut, think half the width of a normal chop, and much more rough cut so that fat, gristle, bone are worked thru each piece and you have no choice but to burn your fingers and eat it. And your fennel and shrimp looked superb! Its a revelation to me how much fennel is used in Italy, its certainly undervalued in the U.S. Secondo me!

Kellytree: very smart! Your kids must be young if they settled for a gelato...ah, I remember the day when my son could be bought off so cheaply.... Last week turned out to be pretty hectic. We prepared and served a dinner for sommeliers on Wes night. This dinner was prepared with the Piemonte chef, Beppe Barbero who is a gentle and lovely man, as well as an excellent chef. The menu was all about meat: there was a raw meat salad, a meat filled agnolotti plin (those are very fun to make, you take the meat filling and pipe out little dots filling onto a stip of pasta, fold over into a thin tube, may 1 1/2" wide, pinch little bits together all down the tube and then cut) which was served with a rosemary sauce, then a boiled manzo with potato puree and and zucchini. Desert was an outstanding grappa parfait. I was a sceptic, but now I'm a convert. I also didn't like grappa so much, but I'm learning to like it...I think I'm going native. However, I still don't have a taste for that salt free bread...that is just something you have to have been brought up on. Friday, we went to the DeCecco pasta factory in Abruzzo. I have mixed feelings about this trip as I'm not sure why this was a Slow Food outing. Granted DeCecco makes very good pasta and they are very proud of their product, and understandably so. That said, the man who took us on the tour spent quite a lot of time explaining how they bought wheat from all over the world to ensure a consistent product. Everytime you buy De Cecco spaghetti, it will be exactly the same as the last time you bought it. OK, fair enough. But earlier on in the course, we had a representative from Mancini pasta come to talk to us (I've seen the pasta in NY, comes in a bright yellow bag, and its an artisinal product). Now, when he lined up the pasta, he showed us the difference in color because there had been such a hot summer one year, and so much rain another year. Frankly, that interests me a lot more than consistency in product. Another interesting point: DeCecco pasta is the same worldwide, meaning they do not alert the product to suit regional tastes...EXCEPT for the U.S. market where they are required to add certain vitamins. Come on!! Are we as Americans so stupid that we can't get our vitamins anywhere else, that the product is required to be enriched? I just think thats ridiculous and patronizing and pandering. Unless of course someone in the U.S stands to make a profit off of vitamin enrichment, in which case it makes total sense. End of rant. Today and tommorow we are 'in' Calabria. Today we made outstanding vegetables that were roasted in a bed of salt. And we made "scilatelle" pasta, which is made by rolling a hunk of pasta around a wheat stalk. Normally, I'm not a fan of thick spaghetti, but this was delicious. The chef, Antonio Romeo, also brought along some fantastic picante salumi, everything tastes better with a little bit of this added. You had to be pretty quick to get any of the broccoli with the salumi as it never even made out to the lunch table! Tommorow we will make some fish Calabrian style and have a salume and formaggio tasting. How we suffer.... If my images ever load, I'll come back in and add them. Its taking over 20 minutes to load 3 images! I know I'm not on high speed, but this seems very long to me. And advice?

Ciao Kevin! Hah! I ate first before looking at your thread....I'm learning. Slowly. But surely! And now for my eternal questions: What's on the artichokes? Parsley or mint? There is a restaurant in NY, Col Legno, that makes the most incredible fried artichokes. I can eat many, many of them, but they finish them with chopped mint. At first I thought that was a strange combo, but its marvelous. Beautiful job on the scotto ditto! That is also one of my all time favorite dishes, only I could never get my butcher in NY to cut it properly for me, and he was from Naples. Go figure. And eggs vs. tripe? Works for me! I have had enough organ meat and stray body parts in the last few weeks to last me for a good long time. Personally, I think its good to be the king! I want the cuts reserved for nobility!

If Judy's Divina Cucina class is anything but as warm, friendly, generous and knowledgeable as she is on this forum, I would be surprised! She is the go-to person for lots and lots of us, and she is very, very generous with her time and patience.

Ciao! Have no fear, you will eat very well in Umbria. We tend to get short notice in cook books, but trust me, we eat very, very well! Vigna: where exactly in Citta is il Potale?? We are there all the time and I just can't seem to find it. Ridiculous I know! If you wind up near Citta, stop in to Montone. Its a very beautiful, walled medival village, and you can eat extremely well at Erbe Luna which is one of the 2 bars in the Piazza. The front is a regular, but very fun and colorful bar, with a restaurant in the back. Depending on what's happening in town, lunch in the piazza is entertaining as well as tasty! My husband has a long pony tail, and speaks terrible Italian to everyone, you can't miss him!!

ahh...honesty! Well, good for you for at least making the pasta! It really does make a difference and its just not all that hard or time consumming. Looking forward to whatever is next!

That alfredo looks divine...and of course, you made your own fresh pasta, right?? My fellow studente are all convinced that only rolling will do, no machines for this group! And, inspired by you, I carmelized some fennel this weekend, and it was excellent. Thanks for the inspiration.

Kellytree: if only you had stopped for a few moments! It was indeed a lovely morning, and who knew a fellow eG'er was so close! Our herb guide was a very nice man, dressed in big rubber boots, hunting vest and carrying a classic herb basket and a great trowel. He obviously knows his stuff, and also owns a restaurant called "La Pianella". We gathered up lots and lots of wild fennel, wild mint and then I'm really not clear on what the rest of the herbs were, I think one was borage and one was something that sounded like 'pianella'. Its a little hard when you are told the name while you are in the field, and then have to hope you can ID later in either Italian or English. We also very enthusiastically hunted for wild asparagus, but a nice lady (who was obviously amused by us) informed us that many people had been there on Sunday, and there was very little asparagus left. The 'pinella', if that's what it is called is a long slender leaf that grows very close to the ground. I thought it was bitter when raw, but we cooked it into a risotto that was really quite mild and nice. The wild mint wound up in a fritatta, with a welcome addition of wild mint pesto. Raul or Roberto (I"m not sure of our guide's name), took pity on us and gave us a large bunch of the wild asparagus. . This was also cooked up into a fritatta. All in all, it was a great morning to be out poking around in a field, but I wish I had better info on what herbs we actually picked and what were the health benefits (if any). I'm wondering about this because you never saw such a sleepy bunch after lunch...it felt as if we had been to the Wizard of Oz's poppy field! Not sure if it was the fresh air, or something we ate. Here is a photo of our booty as we begin cleaning it. Today, and for the next 2 days, we are studying Piemonte. So far there are lots of vegetables and lots of garlic, so I'm happy. Today was antipasto type dishes: roasted peppers stuffed with tuna, cabbage leaves stuffed with a delicious beef sausage with just a touch of pork, that can actually be eaten raw, a leek and potato flan served with a seriously good Raschera cheese sauce, some Bagna Caoda, and a starter course of melted Brandalis cheese on toast with salad and Balsamic vinegar. Now, given that I'm genetically flawed when it comes to goat cheese, it usually just tastes like tar to me, this cheese was excellent. Tommorow we cook for ourselves and also for a dinner for sommeliers, so this should be interesting. Ciao! Edited to add some background atmosphere: the church bells are ringing like crazy. Seems we have a new Pope....

Kellytree: that would be the million dollar question, now wouldn't it?? My story in a nutshell: my husband and I, after almost 20 years in our own business in NY, decided we had had enough. We bought a house in Italy, in a small medieval village in Umbria, made friends with a couple who bought a ruin of a watch tower outside of our town of Montone. One thing led to another, and we bacame partners with Chris and Seonaid, and we are in the process of turning this very medieval tower into a contemporay 7 room b&b/albergho/bijoux hotel. We have no idea what to actually call this hybrid of a project! At some point, it was decided I would be the chef of the operation (it could have been me jumping up and down and begging that indicated I wanted to be the chef...hard to say.... ) At the same time, I was following Ore's thread, and it seemed like a very good way to learn about regional Italian cooking, meet producers, and do things the Slow Food way. So, now, I'm a woman of a certain age, living in a small apartment, sharing a communal kitchen with 7 other warm, friendly, fun ragazzi (who clean the apartment out of everything edible by Sunday night!! I came back from Montone to Jesi, starving and found myself eating some dead celery, raddichio and hardboiled eggs with anchovies...which actually was not that bad!). And that's the story of how I wound in Jesi. Cliff Notes version! Tommorow morning, we are scheduled to go wild herb picking in the countryside, which I'm very much looking forward to. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. Its been a cold, windy, rainy weekend. There is a mountain range that divides Umbria and le Marche, and the mountains all around Gubbio were actually snow covered today! Ciao tutti and buona notte!

This is the story of Ore’s incredible journey in Italy with the Slow Food program, and shortly he will be moving on. Ore, who I have finally had the pleasure of meeting in person, is a charismatic, warm, fun and respectful person and I will keep my eye out for your backpack. How odd! I wish him all the luck and happiness in his next project! Ore, we fully expect you to keep us informed of all your adventures. See what you have started?? As far as trees go… they planted, they being my husband and one of our partners, Seonaid, some sort of ‘landius” trees, and all I know is that one of them is crooked!! Anyway, back to the food: So, as proposed I started a new thread about the Slow Food program, this way other students who have either been thru the program or are currently in the program can contribute. Tutto bene?

Welcome to the Ital.cook thread! Just in case you missed any of Ore's fantastic thread, the Slow Food organization and the city of Jesi, have created a Master Course in regional Italian cooking. It’s a 10 week course dedicated to teaching chefs the traditions and styles of the different regions using that regions ingredients. What that means is: in Lombardia one shakes his risotto not stirs, the Abruzzo chef insists on using only his potatoes (and stirs his risotto), the tomatoes from Compagna are superior to any other tomato etc. etc. etc! We are a class of 12, with the common thread being a love of Italian food, after that the reasons that we are here are very, very diverse. In our class we have Americans, Japanese, one lonely Brit who gets teased about saying toe-mah-to, and a Mexican and a Filipino. More important, we have people who are accomplished chefs in their own countries, student chefs rounding out their education, and home cooks who were so passionate about food that they are changing careers. Everyone of us is making some sort of sacrifice to be here, even if its just being away from our loved ones, but the level of commitiment to the course is amazing and inspiring. Ok, enough intro. We are already into our 4th week of the program! Yesterday was exceptional! We took a ‘class trip’ up to Parma and the Modena area to see how parmigiana and balsamic vinegar is produced. The producer that we were taken to is an entirely ‘veritcal’ operation, meaning that on the premises there is everything from the cows in the barn right straight thru to the nice lady selling cheese in the shop. The making of the parmigiana is a strictly regulated process as this is a D.O.P. product. Even the feed that is fed to the cows is controlled, and it is only hay and herbs from the region. This is a labor intensive cheese. Evening milk is mixed with morning milk to obtain the best fat content, then the mixed milks are poured into a sort of copper cauldron and a small amount of enzyme is added. After a few hours, this enormous ball of rubbery, ricotta like, cheese substance is fished out of the caldron, cut in half and left to drain. Then its taken and placed in a form where it will dry for a few days, after that its in a saline bath. These tanks were amazing, to me they almost looked like a trout breeding tank (if you’ve ever seen a trout breeding tank), only high tech. The cheese wheels are stacked 5 deep and flipped once a day to get an even and consistent salt content and crust. Then into the drying room for the next few years. You could spend a long time in the drying room….the cheese wheels are stacked 22 high and a block long. Its gorgeous! The color of the wheels go from pale yellow, to deep, rich gold. The smell is aromatic, sharp, intense. Once again I was wishing my camera could capture smells as well as sights. Then we went to a traditional balsamic vinegar producer. This has to be seen to be truly appreciated. The time, the history, the care, the love, its all a bit overwhelming. Balsamic cannot even be touched until its been in a succession of barrels for 12 years. Today we are back in Jesi and worked on a group of lasagna made the Marchigiani way. An interesting variation of the traditional meat ragu that used all the left over bits pieces and organs in a lasagna called Vincigrassi. Then two other lasagna that were made in individual portions using spring vegetables and rabbit. We’ve eaten a lot of bunnies in the last few weeks…. Good thing I like bunny. Someone, I think it was Docsconz was wondering what it looked and smelled like right now. Well, today was a gorgeous spring day! The fruit trees are finished flowering and are fully leafed, most of the fields are this intense, bursting green, and on my bike ride today, the smell of manure in the fields was particularly strong. I’m very lucky to have my bicycle here, and in about a 2 minute ride, I’m out in the rolling countryside. I’m hoping that other participants in this program will chime in at any time! Ciao tutti!

Just my two cents: all Italians think regionally, so don't look for a bible to cover Italian cooking. You've got to look at individual regions. Unfortunately, most of my library is being built with books written in Italian, so I can only add that very small 2 cents. Mi dispicace. P.S. Marcella is a good place to start to grasp regional Emilia Romagna cooking, although she represents herself as covering all of Italy, she has a very strong bias. That's not a bad thing, its just something to be aware of.

Complimenti!! The kitchen looks fabulous, and just when I was wanting a before and after...there it was! What a treat. Enjoy yourself!! So much good info on this thread. Many thanks for sharing.

Everything looks wonderful as ususal. Also, as usual, now I'm hungry. Its all your fault! I love what you have been doing with fennel. (Not to make you cry or anything but both the carcofi and fava beans are all over the markets right now. Its just amazing how many varieties of artichokes are available in Italy, and you basically only have one stand by type in the U.S. ) That fish also looked very, very good (and orata like). Ciao!!

Ciao tutti! I will try and get some sort of update/photos whatever in the next week or so. But...I'm having really rotten, horrible, very bad computer problems and am currently working off of a computerabout the size of a file card. And I'm too damn old to be looking at a screen this small. We just finished 2 days of working with the chef from Locanda di Bu, and he was great. Wonderful sense of food and a really love for his 'terroire'. We had fun. Eat your heart out. Lunch was: the best eggplant parmigiana ever (sounds like a goofy dish to make from an American perspecptive, but it was light and wonderful), a potato/cheese dish, and pasta with fresh tomato, anchovies and fresh ricotta. Then came the baccala with tomatoes...and pork with some sort of bitter peppers. After lunch we ate some rabbit that had deep, concentrated flavors and baba au rhum. Most of the crew has gone off to play some soccer and work off the meal. I'm off to Umbria to plant some trees. Enjoy the weekend!

That fennel looks superb! I'm always on the lookout for something new to do with fennel. That dish has all the elements! We might even have some laying around in the kitchen..... The lamb dish also sounds excellent. Its been awhile since I've been to Rome...but now, I'm longing to go.... Yes, right now I'm in school. I guess my husband and I are having complete mid life crisis or rejuvination depending on how you look at it. We've chucked our former, office life for a grand adventure here in Italy. With some other friends, we're restoring a medieval guard tower in Umbria, and will turn it into a small hotel-bed & breakfast. Oh, and guess who will be doing the cooking? You think Varmint has a kitchen renovation on his hands? I'm looking at a dirt floor, no windows and a stunning rock that makes up the back wall. So, for now, I'm heartily enjoying your journey thru Italy. Many thanks!

.....mmmm......carciofi...... Post away!! Adam's Ligurian stew looks pretty good as well. Today I feasted on fish from the Adriatic....just wonderful. Looking forward to Kevin's Roma Adventure!

Where have you 2 been staying? No, seriously in all our years of hotel staying, except for a very cheap albergho in Bologna, we've never run into that... Maybe its something recent...or just part of the Parmalatt scandal.....

Adam, that trout looks fantastic!! So pink inside...almost makes me want to leave Italy and come to Edinburgh...at least for the weekend!

I wasn't even hungry until I checked in on you. Now I have to go rummage around for something to eat!! Where to next?? You know I'm impatient!!

Ore, will you be stopping by Jesi before you leave? Seems you are quite the celebrity here. Wishing you lots and lots of good luck on your next adventure!!