Kevin72

Congrats again Franci. I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon here and announce that we're also expecting our first in May. It's funny to see the differences in what to avoid during pregancy across cultures. My wife's been told to avoid cold cuts and lunch meat unless it's zapped in the microwave first. I keep telling her that thousands of pregnant women in Italy eat prosciutto (and drink wine! ) daily but no go.

Franci, did I read that right? You're pregnant? Congratulations!

I made the canederli for my 2005 project when I was cooking from Friuli. To be honest, I was less than impressed with them. They got tedious halfway through; there's a reason they're served in broth. Keeps them moist or else they'd really be a bleak affair. Alberto and I got into a discussion about them. They are huge, like the size of a tangerine, and from experience they need to be that big. I made them smaller, like standard gnocchi sized, once and they just fell apart in the water. So, while I've been tempted to make them again for TAA, I think I'll refrain.

Cento is usually my go to brand because it is available at the store I shop at regularly (HEB) and it is pretty good. Although whenever I go to Central MArket I try to buy a few cans of Carmelina brand, I think it is better. Actually Kevin I almost picked up a can of the cherry tomatoes from Cento because I remember you said you used them on your pizza. Then I noticed the price, about 3 times that of the regular San Marzano variety canned plum tomatoes! ← Ah Cento. I may have to throw out a bit of caution on the cherry tomatoes: they come with their skins still on and you have to sieve or put them through a mill to get rid of those papery husks. Thanks for the compliments, Franci, and welcome back! We missed you!

Any particular brand of San Marzanos you used or really like?

It was already too warm here when we did FVG in March to do this dish, but with our coldest weather yet finally here, I whipped up a batch of jota: I know it doesn't look it in the pic, but like the goulash meal I made on the TAA thread, I got everything out of balance. There wasn't enough sauerkraut to leave that faint tang to the soup that I like, and there was far too much liquid for all the solids. I really had to fish to get all that in there, and now I think I might have used up a significant proportion of the solids for the leftovers: last night's reheated servings were pretty long on liquid.

With the coldest weather of the season setting in on us (26F! Brrrr! ) I decided to make a couple rib-sticker meals over the weekend. First up was beef goulash from the first TAA link Pontormo posted. The seasoning was out of whack, and the beef maybe hadn't cooked long enough to be fall-apart tender: it was too firm and thready, still. I didn't have lemon zest, which the recipe calls for and probably would have provided an interesting flavor lift. Still it was different, at least, than the beef braises I'd been complaining about lately since there was no red wine involved: just broth, tomatoes, and paprika.

Did a little window shopping at the brand-new Asian center in Plano, just a few blocks from my house. Went to the Asia World Market first. While not as big as it appears on the outside (like the one at Park and Coit, there's little kiosks and such when you get inside, before you get to the grocery store) it's still more spacious than the Park/Coit one, I think. Much better organized: one whole aisle is just soy sauces! The meat and seafood counters are really amazing. There's large aquariums with labels on them for each kind of seafood they'll be keeping live: one tank had abalone written on it, another was for clams, another for live scallops! When we were there, they had a tank of crabs, lobster, perch (I think) and, ulp, live softshell turtles. Poor guys. Afterwards we had lunch at the Pho place a few doors down. I guess it must be some sort of chain since the place was really done up and had a glossy menu with photos of each menu item. I had (my first) Vietnamese sandwich with pork and it was tasty. My wife samples another stock Vietnamese fave of ours: vermicelli with barbecued pork and egg roll. Unfortunately, the noodles here were ice cold, overcooked, and mushy. Mixed bag. Finally, we enjoyed another first for us, some bubble tea next door. Two more restaurants are about to open up: Little Szechuan and a sushi place. A few more storefronts haven't been filled. But this looks like it'll be a neat place to spend a weekend afternoon.

Yeah, I like Franci's ideas. Maybe like a Sicilian-themed party with just a bunch of appetizers? Arancini, the swordfish mini-pies, caponata . . .

What about making them into individual, appetizer-sized pies? Either fried or baked.

I don't know about ginger being used in TAA, but it is in the Veneto and Friuli regions. And, the marinade, or at least the ginger part, didn't seem to carry through.

You're not getting any help next year if we don't get pics soon!

The marinade, including the ginger is similar to one used for venison in Friuli, or at least in Mario's shows about Friuli. As is all too typical, however, not all the flavor elements of the marinade carried through.

Great start to the season so far. Each season, the show seems to get leaner and better paced. I didn't expect to enjoy the Ghana ep as much as I did or be as tantalized about the food. My wife asked me this last night, and I couldn't think of the answer off the top of my head: has Tony visited a place where they don't consume alcohol? I know in parts of Morocco on the FoodTV shows they didn't. I haven't seen all the NR episodes, however.

Whew, glad to see this thread was started. Enjoyed reading everyone's so far! Top 10 Meals 2006 1. The General’s Daughter--Sonoma, CA: Just a great total experience. Professional, courteous service, wonderful generosity from Chef Dishman (I contacted him through eG and made reservations), and not a single off dish or flavor of the night. This place should be huge. 2. Gravitas—Houston, TX: The roasted duck entrée with crackling skin and meltingly tender meat is a craving I can’t shake. A whole mouthful of fall. Too, the fries served with their mussels are some of the best I’ve had in a long time. 3. Dolce Vita—Houston, TX: A casual antipasto and pizza place, an offshoot of the more upscale Da Marco. Loads of fun to be had here. 4. Lanny’s Alta Cocina Mexicana—Ft. Worth, TX: My one regret of the meal is that I didn’t do the chef’s tasting menu, which I hope to remedy some day soon. Braised pork belly with chipotle spaetzle was another top dish of the year. 5. Topolobampo—Chicago, IL: A brief and regret-plagued trip to Chicago (Alinea was out of our price range; Schwa was closed) still turned up one gem: Rick Bayless’s upscale Mexican sister to Frontera. That guacamole! 6. laidback manor—Houston, TX: Now regrettably closed, Houston’s first and only stab at the molecular gastronomy movement deserved much better. Fun, unique and memorable evening. Hopefully chef Rucker will stick around the Houston dining scene. 7. Tasting Room at Lola—Dallas, TX: A few sputters, particularly in service, held it off from being higher. But when it hit, this was some outstanding stuff. Yet another single dish highlight: a lone, raw oyster, its briny liquors mixed with only the faintest hint of citrus. 8. Rouge—Dallas, TX: Another great place that deserves better business in Dallas. Ate there twice this year and both times it was depressingly empty. But the food (tapas with a Basque influence) is solid and service is helpful. 9. Fino—Austin, TX: Another tapas place. Several great meals in Austin on our trip over Memorial Day weekend and this was the highlight. 10. Jasmine—Plano, TX: I might be overlooking a more deserving place, but this Thai restaurant right down the street from us consistently knocks it out of the park. It’s overtaken our Greek restaurant as the place we eat at most often; I’ve even happily eaten there twice in one week. Never had a bad or even disappointing dish there. The food positively sings.

Another "inspired by" to kick off the month for me again, it seems. We started with gnocchi with roasted brussel sprouts and speck: Then we had pork tenderloin "alla venison" and turnips sauteed in black butter (from a Mario episode on Friuli). The tenderloin stood in for venison and was marinated as maybe game meat would be: red wine, juniper, rosemary, and ginger. I grilled it off. There was a blueberry and ginger compote to dip the meat in alongside. ETA: No luck finding a TAA cheese to top the gnocchi so I used Asiago from neighboring Veneto. Our Central Market was, however, surprisingly well-stocked with Alto Adige whites and I got a Muller something or other; fully germanic name. It was crisp and appley and went very well with the meal, especially the robust main.

You'll love it! It's one of my favorite recipes. It needs about 4 hours or so; don't get nervous if it doesn't seem like the pork is getting soft; somewhere around hour 3 it starts collapsing. Take the time to puree the sauce so it isn't so chunky and unappealing looking. Use whole milk, not skim or 1%. Aromatics, like caramelized onions if you like them, or just garlic and carrots, help make the sauce even sweeter.

The Houston dining scene just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Those bonbons sound awesome. I'm chomping at the bit to check this place out; it's by part of the Ibiza team, correct?

That is interesting. I've often wondered how a more strictly regional and somewhat challenging to our preconceptions type of restaurant would do here. One of the great revalations I had about Italian cooking was "discovering" the cooking of Friuli back when I was cocky enough to think I knew it all.

And again, with so few regions left, I took the liberty of just planning out the remainder of them for the first half of this year: February: The Veneto March: Le Marche April: Abruzzo-Molise May: Basilicata and Calabria

The Holidays and New Year caused me to lapse in my planning for this thread, hence the delay and subsequently shoddy initial post. Trentino Alto Adige is one of the Northernmost regions of Italy, above the Veneto and bordering Friuli Venezia Giulia. The cuisines share some similarities and key ingredients. TAA is equally informed by Austria in its cooking and culture. Dark, whole grain breads are a key staple. When they get too stale, one use for these breads is to make them into canederli, a type of gnocchi or dumpling. Sauerkraut also can be found used here, as can perhaps the best-known export of the region, speck or smoked prosciutto. Game abounds, and beef is used quite a bit in the cooking as well. This is one of the thinnest referenced regions we've covered, unfortunately. No books devoted exlcusively to it turn up in an Amazon booksearch. Ada Boni roles up the Veneto, Trentino Alto Adige, and Friuli Venezia Giulia into one whole chapter. Marlena di Blasi leaves the region out entirely from her Northern cookbook, dismissing it as "too Germanic". That leaves a thin chapter on it from Ada Boni's book, and the chapter from Culinaria. If I recall correctly, Lynne Rossetto Kasper also imparts a few reigional recipes in her Italian Country Table cookbook as well. There's a not-terribly enlightening article on it in the new all-Italy edition of Gourmet magazine. Hopefully, Pontormo will be able to help us with online resources, and of course others' knowledge and input are welcome as well.

Well, my deli was closed on New Year's Day, but I was still off yesterday so I made a side trip there and scored a cotechino to make for last night's dinner. "A day too late, but I think you'll still get some luck!" The guy at the checkout counter said when he saw me walk up with a bag of lentils and a sausage.

The traditional New Year's Eve meal at our house. For the ap, the same calzoncielli that Shaya enthused about back on page 2 of this thread, stuffed with erm, ricotta, pecorino, parmigiano, oregano, and anchovies. Once again, when I brought out the heaping platter to my parents, brother, and his wife, they were shocked at how many there were. Ten minutes later, they were equally shocked that we had managed to gobble them all down! Followed by my version of timpano: Rather messy affair this year, as you can see. I guess I could have been more regionally appropriate and jumped over to one of the timbale from Emilia-Romagna to cap off the year, but that was too much of a production even for me.

Bravo! Perfect, Elie! And one more time: where did you score the pig skin? How long did it have to cook? For a while, Ling had grilled cotechino in her sig as the dish she was currently in love with. And I really want to give the cotechino wrapped in beef a try. But it's so damn good just with lentils that I can never venture out and try other methods. You nailed the textural part as being the main appeal. I'm hoping our Italian deli is open today so I can try to score some cotechino for our dinner tonight.

No great E-R Holiday feasts on my end, either, this year I'm afraid. Although, ultimately I think this meal will become our traditional Christmas feast. But, in between the two big holiday meals, we were feeling in need of something a little austere for a break and I whipped up tortellini en brodo last night after getting in: Yeah, I guess there's nothing too "austere" about homemade pasta stuffed with three kinds of roasted or cured meats in a homemade broth, but when everything's just sitting idle in the freezer, its' ease of preparation is part of the comfort as well.