Kevin72

Well, crud. Though their regular menu sounds pretty good as well. Maybe call and ask if you can still do a tasting menu? All the chefs reading that suggestion are probably taking down my name.

It's also called a rottolo, though you may have to tinker with my spelling there. Mario has made one on his show as well.

You specified the Tasting Room, right?

This is the first I'm hearing about either one; I know they were planning an Austin-style installment to take the place of the one on lower Greenville but I didn't know they were doing one in Plano, too. And didn't they just redo the one in Plano a couple years ago?

Thanks for the compliments, everyone. I qualified "rock cod" because I'd never seen it before and I wonder if it's one of those marketing names capitalizing on the seeming popularity of cod right now. Several years back when everything was being designated "snapper" I ran across "rock snapper" which was of similar flavor and texture, so I wonder if they're the same thing. Where's Adam Balic, when you need him, dammit?! FM, I had the same observation about a lack of Veneto breads a few years back when I covered the region. I ultimately made "rossette Veneziana" from Field's book. They were dinner rolls, but I made a full-sized loaf that way. Franci, I think the topinambur name may come from the variety of sunflower the 'chokes derive from. I'm more curious how "Jerusalem" got in there.

Sorry for the gender error there! York St. is kinda in the Chez Panisse mold: seasonal, arch-regional ingredients. It's good, reliable food. Friday when we went there I had an oyster sampler and braised beef shortrib, my wife had a crab salad and Berkshire pork chop. I can't speak for Nana or Bijoux (apparently the chef is a vet of Lola, though), but Lola is a bit more of an "experience": multi-course tasting, several hours, really nice setting, etc. I've been there once and there were some stumbles, but I've also found myself craving a return visit ever since. I think for an out of town visit with limited nights to try places, Lola would be the most bang for your buck, particularly with a professional culinary background, though again I can't compare it to the similarly themed Nana or Bijoux.

We made a day trip out here on Saturday, walking around that whole development and then capping things off with a visit to CM. I used to work out near there 4 years ago and none of this was there. Really taken off. Anyways, I guess I'm turning into a CM snob. This one's definitely smaller than the Ft. Worth and Plano branches and mayber smaller than the Dallas one. Slightly different layout as well. The seafood department may be smaller and I agree that the wine/beer aisles are smaller. My wife scoped out the prepared foods section and said it was more impressive than the Plano one, however. They did carry fresh (unfrozen) duck, which is routinely hard to come by at the Plano CM, however.

Saturday's inaugural meal was a "let the market dictate" affair, with me going to our Central Market with Venetian themes in mind but then picking out the specific ingredients based on availability. Spaghetti with crab: The main was baked "rock cod" (?) with potatoes and jerusalem artichokes: I've made up a tentative list of ideas for meals this month and just now realized that they're all Venetian and so don't really branch out to other areas of the Veneto, my opening post in the thread notwithstanding.

Our third visit here on Friday night was the best outing yet and this time even my wife enjoyed it. She had a crab salad, followed by a spice-rubbed pork chop that was one of the best chops I've eaten in a long time. I had a half dozen oysters, followed by a braised beef shortrib; I had ordered a lamb entree originally but they were out of it (at 6:30? ).

Coincidentally, we had our best meal yet at York Street just this past Friday. With dtilson being a culinary school grad, though, he might be more impressed by the efforts of Bijoux or Lola.

Mark Stuertz gives one of his slightly irksome, did-he-like-it-or-not? reviews in the latest observer: Hate Crime.

Tiramisu is claimed to have been invented here, though Lombardia, Piemonte, and Rome also make the same claim. I'll root through my books and see what I find. While I'm with you on not being too keen on liver and onions, I'll bet the smell of it cooking was amazing.

Ah, the legendary en saor preparations of Venice. Of course, the version with sole is perfectly good. However, for a different take, there's a version in the da Fiore cookbook that uses citrus as its sour basis instead of vinegar. I really liked it and it almost seemed Asian in some ways. There's also, ahem, my own concoction that I really like using shrimp instead of fish.

And now our look ahead for the next few months: March: Le Marche April: Abruzzo Molise May: Basilicata and Calabria

For February we'll be covering the region of the Veneto. As when we covered Lazio and Campania, most cookbook literature available in the U.S. at least is dominated by its best-known city, Venice. A number of the eating guides to Italy I've read lament at how hard it is to find truly Venetian food anymore as the city has become more and more dominated by tourist-friendly locales. And that's too bad, since Venetian food certainly has an appeal to it. We went there for our honeymoon and I spent most of my efforts researching ideal places. We went to al Covo, which judging by the Venice thread stickied at the top of the Italy page isn't too well thought of, but it was everything I find appealing about Venetian food. We started with a platter of steamed shellfish, continued with a pasta with cannocce (mantis shrimp) and gnocchi with baby mullets, and finished with fried fish. The next night we wandered into the far eastern section of the city (if you go into the peripheries of the city the restaraunts seems to get more strictly local) and ate at some humble trattoria, again serving good, honest seafood dishes. There's a strange interplay of elegance and yet simplicity to Venetian food that I really enjoy. And of course, one great food tradition in Venice is cicchetti(sp?); snack type food usually eaten standing up with a small glass of wine (ombra). One great place to experience this is at Cantina do Mori, a 500 year old wine bar near the Rialto market, but numerous bars all over the city specialize in them. I particularly enjoy the seafood versions. Another fun place was Bar da Fiore (no relation to the famous Osteria da Fiore that I know of) where we had a platter of shrimp the size of your thumbnail, tossed in hot oil, shell, head and all, that you then ate whole. But outside Venice there's alot of great eating to be had in the Veneto. Once you get inland, away from the sea, the food of the hill and mountain towns becomes more hearty and rib-sticking again, with polenta and gnocchi playing a key staple. Verona is known for its gnocchi, as well as a vast repetoire of dishes based on horsemeat. Wild fowl, particularly duck, plays a role in a number of dishes in the region. Bigoli are a rough, thick homemade spaghetti, usually made from wheat flour, that are laboriously extruded through a special tool used only for that purpose (although Mario Batali has made them with the meat grinder attachment of the KitchenAid mixer, which I may give a try). Radicchio is eaten with relish here, with varieties all named after cities they are grown in or near: Treviso, Verona, etc. Cookbook resources are not terribly plentiful. A search for "Veneto" on Amazon only turns up one book, but a search for Venice yields more, usually with other regions of the Veneto thrown in. Chow Venice: Savoring the Food and Wine of La Serenissima, by Shannon Essa and Ruth Edenbaum Food of Venice, The: Authentic Recipes from the City of Romance by Luigi Veronelli and Luca Invernizzi Tettoni Veneto : Authentic Recipes from Venice and the Italian Northeast by Julia della Croce The Da Fiore Cookbook: Recipes from Venice's Best Restaurant by Damiano Martin The Cooking of Venice and the North-East The Cuisine of Venice and Surrounding Northern Regions by Hedy Giusti-Lanham LA Cucina Veneziana: The Food and Cooking of Venice by Gino Santin and Anthony Blake Harry's Bar Cookbook by Harry Cipriani I have the Veneto book by della Croce, the food of Venice by Veronelli, and the da Fiore cookbook. I really enjoy the da Fiore book; it is beautiful to look at and has a number of enticing recipes. The Food of Venice presents a nice survey of the best dishes of its local restaurants. Della Croce's book is notable since it does span the other cities of the Veneto beyond just Venice, although a couple other books I listed above look like they do the same. I really like the cooking of this region; it frequently gets unfairly overlooked or underestimated. Hope we all have fun this month.

Well, admittedly not a surprise, but this thread wound up being our shortest regional treatment. Hopefully everyone's interest will pick back up for next month's region, the Veneto. I won't be able to get a writeup up until later today or tomorrow morning, however. Anyways, for lunches for it looks like the next two weeks, I made the barley soup again from one of Pontormo's links: When I was making the soup, after I added the barley there wasn't enough left to warrant keeping, so I threw that in as well. Predictably, it set up like Quik-crete and sucked up every drop of liquid in the pot. It's quite the starch bomb, what with potatoes in there as well. I used smocked pork hocks instead of the ham bone called for and the barley really soaked up their flavor so it's a satisfying, meaty tasting soup, perfect to slurp on yesterday as I watched snow(!) fall outside the window at work.

Allowing for differences in the type of bean used and some of the flavoring elements, versions of the dish can be found throughout the peninsula.

I had forgotten to plug that they carried the pig's blood which was very impressive to me, also. Business appears to be robust there; the parking lot has been packed every time I go by. Yesterday I bought some boneless pork shanks for dinner there and they were quite cheap! They also are alot more accepting of payment methods than the one at Park and Coit, where they've given me a hard time before for not paying cash for something less than $20.

Thank you both. Very recently our Central Market started selling a more specifically TAA-labelled speck as opposed to a more generic product, usually from Austria or Germany. I find it more subtle and appealing than the kinds we previously had. This was the first time I'd seen boned shanks as well; I'm curious to know what Asian dishes in particular call for it. But the market is amazing; they even carry pork blood!

Saturday night, I made the onion and speck pie from, I think, the about.com site Pontormo posted at the beginning of the thread. When it came time to make it, I couldn't find it again until afterwards, so I winged it. I caramelized the onions instead of just getting them golden, and threw in some rosemary, but otherwise I was surprised that I was pretty close to the recipe. Oh, and I did make the pastry (but it wasn't puff pastry). A tart salad worked to cut the richness. Sunday's meal began with another concocted dish, baked buckwheat polenta with ricotta sauce: So here again I couldn't resist Friulifying a TAA dish; those of you with Terra Fortunata will recognize the ricotta sauce from Plotkin's book. The buckwheat polenta also had speck and cheese stirred in. I was going to do the brown butter/anchovy sauce again from one of Pontormo's links but then decided that the flavors and smells might be too strong for my wife. She really enjoyed this version, though: "the speck makes it!". For the main it was stinco di maile, braised pork shanks. I got them at a superb new Asian market that opened very close to where I live. The only kind they had available were boned out, so they had to be secured in rather unappealing looking lumpy bundles. Bonus: they came skin-on, which I removed and tossed in the freezer for potential cotechino making! Anyways, the recipe is from Mario's first book. Served with it was blaukraut, sweet and sour red cabbage. For dessert I whipped up a strudel-type thingie with fresh apples, nuts, and dried fruits. I was using gubana as the guide, but I don't like the cocoa that goes into them, so I left it out and minimally spiced the fruit mixture. And no, I didn't make a lovely dough like Franci!

Franci, that pastry dough is amazing. So thin and shear. Bravo. On the polenta topic, I've not had much luck with Buford's enticing method in Heat. I'm using what's labelled "organic polenta" at our gourmet store; it comes bulk. I'd assume then, that it's not the quick-cooking kind. But anyways, none of the changes he describes occur: the gradual swelling and expanding beyond the initial phase when it hits the water; the visible transformation and smells, etc. It just winds up being alot of scorched, hard polenta with a liquid center. I know there's alot of factors that may be contributing to my lack of success, and that you do want some of that "crust" but this seems overkill. The closest to success I actually had was in fact when I covered it and put it in the oven and stirred it occasionally, which I know someone above wasn't too keen on.

While I haven't used them, slkinsey vouched for them when I asked about guanciale sources as well. Was this place in Atlanta the E 48th Street Market, by any chance?

Judith, you live in New York for crying out loud! Get guanciale instead!

Cumin pops up occasionally in a very few Italian recipes here and there. I always wonder if that's a mis-translation somewhere since "cumino" is Italian for carraway, which is used alot more extensively, particularly in these Germanic/Autstrian influenced Italian cuisines. As for the Italian versions of goulasch that I've made, yeah, they are mostly flavored with paprika and this version with cumin is an exception.

Dammit you're not helping! Let's just keep that quiet then, shall we?