Kevin72

On that note, I snapped up some buratta the other day and made another brushcetta with it and this time an anchovy vinaigrette: four anchovy fillets, one clove of garlic, salt, olive oil, and red wine vinegar whizzed in a blender until emulsified. The zing and sting of the vinaigrette offsets the richness of the cheese and the two worked really, really well together.

You know, I try to give it a pass but it seems like there's a requisite shot of Howie with that sweat blob on the end of his nose in every ep now. Get a bandana! I think on Ted Allen(?)'s blog on Bravo he just started zeroing in on it as well. He pointed out that if someone got sent home in Season 1 for tasting a sauce with their finger, Howie should be getting the boot, too.

Thanks Kent! Definitely going to angle for a return visit soon, then.

This has now become my "must return" spot when I'm in Austin. We split the awe-inspiring antipasto platter and an order of bruschetta with finnochiona salami and goat cheese. More than enough to feed 6. But I will say I was disappointed to see that they've considerably shrunk their groceries and Italian goods down to three shelves. I can't blame them since the place was hopping and they did need the extra space, but was sad to see the more limited availability. I've also heard that Damien's opening a winery and Tuscan-style restaurant up in the hills, which has me very intrigued. Anyone have more details?

I enjoyed a meal here this weekend. I had had a large lunch at Mondola's so it was only an entree (sweetbreads) and a dessert (splitting the trio sampler) for me, but both were very well done. I'd say only maybe the salads are a bit meager for the price you pay. I'd even say it was comparable to York Street up here in Dallas.

I think it's the former. Hung and Howie make for too much drama to cut 'em loose this early. So I thought either Joey or Sara was going to go.

This show is wildly uneven in some areas. The schlub who won last time gets a bottle of wine and the winner this time out gets two tickets to Italy?! One person has to identify lotus root sprouts during Quickfire and the one after them has to identify bowtie pasta?! And I continue to think Lia should absolutely have been around for the long haul, particularly when stacked up against some of who's left. Glad to see that Tre rebounded; I continue to hope he takes it all. But truffle butter was a bit fussy. My guess at this point is that the final five will be Tre, Hung (barring some spectacular ego-fueled meltdown which he comes closer to each week), CJ, Brian, and Casey, who also put in a solid show last night after two previous eps of drama queenery. There's a pretty clear difference between those five and the two Saras and Howie, who I really hope goes soon.

I say this every time a new season starts, but it seems like with each iteration the show becomes more and more food-centered, which I always enjoy. Has he had a bad experience yet in an Asian country? He always seems to be most engaged in those instances.

Look for the cookbook Islands in the Sun; I forget the author. It is a survey of the cuisine of the Italian isles and I know Ustica is mentioned, but I'm not sure how much depth is given. But it's a great cookbook regardless.

Yes, but it's a homemade vincotto: red wine, sugar, cloves, and I think star anise cooked into a syrup.

Dammit, you caught me. I threw in some sundrieds to cut the anchovy-ness.

Come summer, my cooking interests invariably turn Sicilian. The fact that I spent one July making almost exclusively Sicilian dishes is what inspired, eventually, my yearlong cooking project and then by extension, these threads. Here's the chickpea flour fritters so popular in Sicily: To follow, I made pollo all'vin cotto, chicken with "cooked wine", from Mario's Molto Italiano book. Chicken is braised with standard aromatics, chilies, cinnamon, and a cooked red wine syrup, then finished with vinegar and honey. It is such a well-layered dish and the exotic smell it fills your house with on a Sunday is worth the effort alone. I served it with couscous with almonds and raisins and spicy broccoli with lemon:

For a friend's birthday, I did a meal inspired by Roman cooking. We started with an antipasto of mozzarella dressed with anchovies and garlic, and bruschetta to mop up the juices: Bucatini all'Amatriciana: We finished with scottaditti, lamb chops off the grill. When I've made this before, Hathor and I got into a discussion about the type of meat traditionally used, which in Italy is a shoulder chop. That makes for a lot of gristle and fat (the appeal of the dish, apparently) but not something I think would fly with guests and my wife, so I went the safer route and used conventional lamb chops. They still weren't pretty enough to warrant a postable pic, though.

A rather nasty computer virus and hard drive rebuild has limited me from the boards lately, so I have a backlog of meals. First up, and Umbrian-inspired favorite of my wife's, which I've mentioned before. We start with a variation on umbrecelli, which I toss with sheep's milk feta, incredibly pungent wild arugula from a great new farmer's market I found, and grape tomatoes: Then we had "Umbrian style" spareribs. This is a variation on the ribs in Lynne Rossetto Kasper's Italian Country Table cookbook. I punched up her simple seasoning recipe with ground fennel seeds, loads of black pepper, and rosemary, to crust the spareribs. Underneath were some frozen favas I'd lucked upon, tossed with bacon. A problem with frozen favas: they tend to break down very easily, so they're kind of a cross between fresh and the dried kind in flavor and texture.

Things are definitely tightening up here. We went again last night and service was much more brisk and there were no oversights such as missing plates and silverware. We ordered tapas again and they came out at a good clip. Also, it may be my imagination, but the servings seemed to be a bit bigger this time as well.

We went to the India's Bistro place (I forgot the formal name) last night and had some of the better Indian food I've had in a while. The layout of the place, like most of the other restaurants except Little Szichuan, is beautiful and elegant. It looks like they do a buffet at lunch and then offer a menu dinner. The menu, our waiter told us, is still in its rough stages so there weren't descriptions for many of the items. Entrees come either ala cart with Naan and rice or "Thali Dinner" portion which means you get a soup, two curries, a dessert, naan and yogurt salad, and rice, all served in little individual bowls on a platter. I had some kind of lamb curry and my wife had chicken in a creamy spinach sauce. They do have "vegetarian" portion of the menu as well, and the staff there is pretty helpful in walking you through the menu and making recommendations.

I was really surprised and a little sad to see Lia go. I thought that she'd be able to go the distance. Collichio and someone else also "defended" her stuff, which led me to believe she wasn't going, whereas Casey seemed to get roundly criticized for her efforts, particularly again by Collichio. And I guess you shouldn't take previous contests into account, but when you consider that last week Lia won and Casey was in the bottom again, it just seemed like she warranted another chance.

I utterly adored the movie. That's funny that Bourdain was involved since I was wondering what he thought, particularly in light of Collette's speech. It just gets all the passion of cooking right. I love the detail of him "seeing" the flavors. **Spoiler** And, the critic's childhood flashback after his first bite of the ratatouille was so perfect and spot on about how evocative and powerful food can be.

Whew. Good to hear. Thanks.

Wow, congratulations! Now I really need to get to Umbria! So, do you expect much flak from the locals for your cooking choices?

I'm getting more and more jealous everytime I read this.

Last night I noticed on FoodTV that they were doing promos for Discovery Channel shows. Now, normally it seems that networks only promote other networks owned by their parent company, right? So (if that is the case) does that mean FTV and Discovery are now affiliated? And wouldn't this mean potentially not-good things for the quality of Discovery shows, Anthony's in particular? Sorry to take this to such a worrisome extreme, but that's the first thing that popped into my mind.

There's also an Indian place that just opened next to Little Szichuan. I hope to check it out soon.

Rub your hands on it. They sell stainless steal "bars" for such a purpose.

Gorgeous picture of ugly fish. Stainless steel is supposed to be pretty good at getting that funk out. You're on the right track saying that scorpionfish would probably be better as part of a mix, since it is, along with red mullet, considered one of the "essentials" in Mediterranean fish soups and stews. How's the bone content?