Kevin72

This may be unique to our CM. There's the one kind they make, in the plastic tub with liquid in the cheese section. But last summer they brought some Italian guy in to make it at some little display for guests on the weekends. He must've trained the rest of their staff because now they have it done daily. It's that much better than the other kind. Hey, at least you can bury your misery at Spec's on the way home! They aren't enoki. Too big.

Thanks for the compliments. The skinny things are another kind of mushroom, but I can't remember what their name is. They are all attached together at the base and then you lop that part off and separate them. They stay chewy despite the long cooking time.

Saturday, I recreated one of my favorite meals from my 2005 cooking project. First I started with a new appetizer. Ever since our Central Market started making and selling its own mozzarella, I can't get enough of it. So I did and antipasto of mozzarella with marinated grilled striped bass: I wanted a strong, oily fish to contrast with the mild mozarella, but no dice at the fish counter. Not too bad, however. Then we had bucatini with chili paste: This had a long, slow heat build to it. Didn't seem hot at first, but you got a whallop a few seconds later. We then had homemade grilled "lucania" style sausage and potatoes with spicy mushrooms: Bah, I should've gotten a picture of it in one nice long coil before I cooked it off. I used de Blasi's recipe, which calls for garlic, ginger, and chilies. Even though I used three Arbol chiles, the heat wasn't as pronounced as I was briefly worried it would be. To cool the palate after the meal, orange and mint granita.

If I recall, there's a leafy green used in the cooking of Friuli Venezia-Giulia called slopit. I'll try and confirm it and gather what it tastes like.

I've not seen eggplant parmigiana associated with Basilicata, only from Calabria. Good looking dish, Chufi. Thanks for all the research and recipes, Ludja!

Weinoo's got my frittata method. For chilies, being in Texas, I sub the chiles de Arbol that are often sold bulk. One problem though: they attract moths.

Awww, Mario. I know Lecce, in Puglia, has been called "The Florence of the South". And maybe the whole carrots and celery bit is because those are in his tomato sauce, which is being used in the pastas as well.

I just found the Mario site in the last month, too. It's gotta be fairly new. But yes, one fun part is that he has writeups on each region.

Well, while we're on the topic, Basilicata's claim to fame recently has been that parts of Passion of the Christ was shot there. Erica de Mane's book Flavors of Southern Italy isn't a strict reading of these regions but is influenced by them and has a number of fun recipes. Also, Micol Negrin's Rustico had notable chapters on each region as well. On eggplant parm: the origins are debatable with these things as Campania also lays claim to having invented it. Alberto and I discussed origins of alot of these dishes when I covered the regions previously in my 2005 cooking thread.

Our last two regions to cover are Calabria and Basilicata, forming the “toe” and the “arch” of The Boot, respectively. As always, it should be pointed out that combining these two regions is not in any way trying to imply that their cuisines are limited or interchangeable. It’s just that there is little information on them both. There’s Cucina di Calabria by Mary Amabile Palmer, and cookbooks on Basilicata are nonexistent, as far as I know. Cucina di Calabria begins with a heartbreaking historical account of not just Calabria, but all of the mezzogiorno (the regions south of Rome: Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, Sicily, and Calabria) and their generations of oppression at the hands of one group or another. She details the massive immigration wave from Italy to the U.S. in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, which included her grandparents, and the families torn apart and left behind as a result. Throughout the rest of the book are essays on the cuisine (coming closer to the end, when it would have made more sense to include it in the introduction), travel and geography of Calabria, and various traditions, songs, dances, and stories. At first I thought that a lot of the recipes were just the same old, same old, but then I realized they all seemed so familiar because Calabrians (Calabrese?) formed the largest percentage of Italians coming to America in that turn of the 20th Century Immigration wave. (Did I hear that here, on eGullet?) So a lot of Italian-American mainstays are Calabrese in origin. Two immediately recognizeable dishes claim to be calabrese: puttanesca, a quick-cooked pasta condimento of olives, tomatoes, capers, and chilies, and eggplant parmigiana. There is also some overlap with Sicilian dishes, though the Calabrese versions are a little more pared back. As for Basilicata, the poorest region with supposedly the spiciest cooking of Italy, there is very little to go by. Waverly Root's chapter on this region is less than 5 pages long, and he says that it is fairly similar to the cooking of Puglia. Stock up on chilies, then, and let's dive in!

Oof, didn't we say that about Abruzzo last month after having such a hard time with Le Marche? Anyways, I'll take the Baby defense on this one. Next month doesn't look much better for me on that front.

Man, that's frustrating to hear. LOLA is so close to nailing it and being a top-tier experience but there seems to be service issues that interfere with it. When they get it right, it just absolutely sings. But those errors in service and a few dish executions or oversights just become glaring.

Sunday night's meal was necessarily from but inspired by . . . yada yada yada. Anways, after an antipasto of fresh mozzarella with toasted almonds, arugula, and a pomegranata reduction, we moved on to baked tagliatelle with peas and ham: Then a Sunday Roast lamb on bed of potatoes: The lamb was stuffed with an herb mixture of garlic, mint, marjoram, and rosemary, and the rest of the filling was tossed with the potatoes. Lamb is of course heavily used in Abruzzo, so I can't imagine too many Abruzzesse being put out by this meal! Dessert was a cherry and custard tart, something I've made many times previously and always crave most in the spring.

Here's some previous travel threads on Puglia: Restaurants in Marina di Leuca, Otranto, Taranto A Nice Place to Eat In Lecce A Week in Puglia On the Tip of The Heel Top 5 Meals from My Trip to Rome and Puglia Tips for Puglia Anyone? The Cooking and Cuisine of Puglia Additionally, Franci, a regular poster on this board, is from Puglia and may be worth shooting a PM to to hear her input and insights.

Previous mostarda thread. Divina posts frequently here but she's also in the thread linked above, including a link to her website in her sig and you can also PM her by clicking on her name.

Man, I remember you lamenting that you were almost out of it two years ago! You hung onto it that long? I dunno where to find it. I've been on a tear looking for it but no luck. In fact I've only seen it once in Italy. I'd imagine though that if it's anywhere in the US, your neck of the woods would be most likely to have it.

Is Cremona the kind with the whole fruit or the paste? There was a discussion on this a few years back on these boards. The main problem is that it requires a mustard essence, if I recall, that is hard to come by (at least in the U.S.). Divina weighed in an recommended using wasabi powder for similar effects. She may also have a recipe available. Otherwise, the only mostarda recipe I've seen is in Molto Italiano by Mario Batali.

There's been grumbles here and there about the service but I've not encountered it. I think, too, that the appeal to this place for me at least is its simplicity: they present things as they are or not tampered with (a plate of imported cured meat for example, and nothing else), so sometimes I guess people may go expecting more.

Ooh, I forgot about that. When we went there it was cold and rainy. We went into Ostuni for dinner and some drinks and came back fairly late at night. Yet they had the fire stoked and waiting for us and a little tray of digestiivos with their own label on each glass. Wonderful touch.

I forgot to post that my last foray here on our most recent Houston trip was as stellar as the first time. I'm bowled over by the mushroom, ricotta, and mint antipasto. They had culatello (yay!), the "heart" of the prosciutto that's very hard to come by stateside. Pizzas were also great. We had a version of the Margherita but with buratta instead. Love, love, love this place.

So despite some of the disapointments last time, I've had Lola on my mind for a while and we decided to go here for a last hurrah before our baby was born (just three days later, it turned out!). This time we went to the restaurant portion, not the tasting room, and ordered off the menu. And as before, there were moments of utter brilliance and then some disappointments and service stutters. A long wait again between courses and after wine was ordered, but not quite as epic as the waits last time were. If you go, I highly recommend any item that features their house-cured meats. On the menu this time was a lonza (Spanish-style pork loin that was very rich and meaty tasting), blood sausage, and a grilled, cinnamon-laced cotechino. Also, they continue to knock their pastas out of the park and had a wonderful fava-stuffed ravioli with chives and mascarpone sauce. Among the disappointments were the oyster apps I ordered (thinking they would be the same as last time) and was disappointed that they were cooked with a pork crepinette instead. Also, it seems that all our entrees were underwhelming. Portions, too, seem a bit off: sometimes you get a plate with a few items on it, other times you get enough food for two to split. In this case, my mom ordered a chicken basquese that was half a chicken and ample helpings of chorizo braised with it. Good, but far too rich to eat with that portion size. Still, my parents were really impressed and said that this was the best restaurant they'd been to in Dallas.

Little Szichuan(sp?) continues to impress. Did takeout here for dinner Sunday night and there wasn't a subpar thing I ate out of 6 items ordered. Check out the spicy eggplant for sure. I also had sweet and sour pork that didn't have that nuclear red goopy sauce and was very tasty and subtle instead. They have a cold shredded chicken app that is ferociously spicy and laced with a sesame tang afterwards.

I'm living off of freezer food for the time being and taking a bit of a break, so I'll definitely be limited in my contributions this and next month. Still, before everything went down, I did cook something I think that seemed Abruzzese: pork and lentil soup: This is cribbed from Italian Two Easy(?), the new cookbook by the River Cafe team. I really enjoyed their PBS show a few years back (featuring a then unknown Jamie Oliver on the cooking line!). The recipes, though prose-free, are compelling and have very basic, but effective combinations of primo ingredients. Certainly worth checking out if you can. At any rate, it's a soup of chickpeas, garlic, chilies, tomato paste, rosemary, and bacon standing in for pancetta, then with pork country-style ribs tucked in and cooked slowly. Nice, rich, and full of fatty goodness to chase off the evening chills that even we're still having in Dallas.

Shaya's off and running! Great stuff. I also like Rustichella when I decide to splurge for it. Unfortunately, it also seems more brittle than normal dried pasta and often when I do get it, the pasta seems to have been pulverized. At any rate, I'm afraid my cooking is about to get more limited in the near term at least. Baby Dowling has arrived 5 weeks early, so I have some adjusting to do to take care of them both!

I went two years ago and had a wonderful time. We did Ostuni, which is stunningly beautiful and Lecce. In Ostuni we ate at Tempo Perso and then ate/stayed at Masseria Il Frantoio, a farmstead about three miles up the road. If you go to Ostuni, I highly recommend a splurge of one or several nights at Il Frantoio. They are an organic farmstead and grow the food used for their meals on site. Lecce was also a great experience. It's a quiet, laid back city that was alot of fun to explore. The old city is surrounded by a modern shopping district. We ate at Due Corti and Trattoria Cassareccia. Pugliese cooking is fairly simple, straightforward, and driven by local and seasonal ingredients. It has interesting elements of Spanish and Greek cooking as well. It is the top producer of olive oil in Italy and routinely one of the top wine producers as well. I like to imagine it as what Tuscany was in the early 80s: an undiscovered paradise. I think it'll probably get its moment in the sun in the next decade or so. If you go, though, since it is off the beaten track, you will probably need to rent a car, particularly in getting to Ostuni. There's been a number of threads on travel and eating in Puglia on this board over the past couple years, I'll try and dig up a few.