Kevin72

Oh, that lardo! Wonderful looking meal. I don't know what it is about saltless bread that it gets so porous: I decided to make my own batch this weekend but added more salt: I'd done my experimentation with that last year and now have it out of my system. This batch wasn't nearly as porous, though I didn't do the overnight age in the fridge with the dough since I ran out of time. It's a demanding bread! Let me know how the bread holds up in subsequent days. Mine turned dry and fell apart over the course of that week.

Looking good, got your trademark chili blanket on the dish, I see! I just remembered this morning that I wanted to do Tuscan saltless this weekend, and now I'm worried it's too late since I usually give the sponge a day to age.

Harry's Farmer's Market in Atlanta in its heyday would get my vote, better even than Texas' Central Market, which was modelled after it. Mostly because of the better range of seafood and meat items, which CM started out strong on but then pared back. Spec's in Houston is a hell of a lot of fun, too.

Your comments on Tuscan cooking are interesting, Franci, since I find both Tuscan and Pugliese cooking appealing for similar reasons: their straightforward, comforting, homey style. Mike's post reminds me of yet another good book: the Florence cookbook from the Williams-Sonoma series on dining cities.

I jumped the gun and began "Tuscan" cooking last night with a bowl of pumpkin soup. On the side, we had crostini with mascarpone, rosemary, and black pepper. We've been discussing pumpkin varieties lately, and I'd like to offer a plug for the Red Kuri variety. They are quite sweet and have a much more pronounced presence than the standard sugar or pie pumpkin. They're dark orange or reddish orange, kind of bumpy, and have tapered ends with a bulging, round middle. I'll try and get a pic of one posted if I use more this month.

November brings one of my favorite regions, Tuscany. It’s another robust, straightforward style of cooking that fits perfectly this time of year. All those soups, bruschette, and roasted or grilled meats fill the house with so many comforting aromas. As I’ve said before, it’s the cooking style I often default to when cooking spontaneously with what’s available. Judging by the bewildering number of books (156) pulled up on an Amazon booksearch, I’m not the only one who enjoys this cuisine! Where to even start? Hell, there’s three books on Tuscany just published this year! Needless to say, I won’t go through the effort of sifting through and replicating such a list here, but I’ll give highlights of what I have: Pino Luongo has written a number of books on growing up in Tuscany. I have A Tuscan In the Kitchen and enjoy it immensely, but all of the other books of his I’ve looked at have appeal as well. As with many cookbooks I enjoy, he gives stories and histories at the start of his recipes, including an eye-opening account as a child of seeing a mushroom forager getting bit by a poisonous snake. Without hesitation, the forager grabbed an axe and lopped off the fingers he was bitten on to prevent the poison from spreading! Another amusing trait is that he, in true Italian form, doesn’t give precise amounts: he merely lists the ingredients and lets the cook decide what proportions to add to make it taste right. Then there’s the Frances Mayes “Tuscan Sun” publishing empire and numerous other similar books, including a recent one by Marlena de Blasi (A Thousand Days in Tuscany). One interesting book I have that I forgot to plug for Umbria as well is Italian Food Artisans by Pamela Sheldon Johns. While she does go to many different regions of Italy in her survey of people still making products “the old way”, she does primarily stick to the center and covers Tuscany, Umbria, and Emilia-Romagna quite well and offers several unique and appealing recipes. Likewise, where to even begin with famous dishes? Well, there’s La Fiorentina, the massive, steak-lover’s fantasy of a porterhouse, cut at least as thick as thick as your hand, grilled slowly and served al sangue. We’ve discussed ribollata at length on the Italian Soups thread already, but I intend to make it soon. There’s a number of other famous Tuscan soups to try out as well. I’ve said it before, but Tuscans seems almost to be more inclined to have a soup as a primo than pasta, and several cookbook authors I’ve read have echoed that sentiment. Nevertheless, I do enjoy their recipes for papardelle with some sort of game. A pot of cannellini beans, cooked with sage, a chili pepper, and a head of garlic would be a good start and can be then used in soups or as a contorno. Likewise, there’s the (in)famous saltless bread here, thought to be a good, neutral compliment to their robust salume. This should be a fun month! Looking forward to it.

The recipe calls for them to be spit roasted but I don't have such an attachment. They smelled amazing coming off the grill, and so did the sauce, actually. That's not a bad idea, to maybe keep them whole and just use one chopped up in the sauce maybe. I've been wanting to make one of these great pastries you keep showing us but didn't get time this month. I saw one recently with an almond pastry crust that caught my eye.

During the fall, our Central Market carries 4 to a package, fresh, sleeve boned quail. Rest of the year, they're frozen. Sometimes they do a bait and switch and give you these pre-marinated, brined kind, though. I gotta say, I'm not sure how much flavor grilling them first gave the final product.

Final Umbrian meal. While I have gotten not too bad at being able to build a meal from what's available at the store, I'm not so good at being able to make one out of stuff we already have. So, yesterday I was in a tizzy about making an antipasto for the final meal. Went to the store, up and down the aisles, trying to find something to inspire me. Finally, I gave up and headed home. Dinner took a while to cook and while we were waiting, my hungry wife dug into the fridge and pulled out some of the salami I used in last week's lentil soup and a wedge of caccio cheese. I can't believe I'd just overlook the most typical, standard of antipasto: good salumi and cheese. Going a step further, I wilted them in the oven over crostini along with a piece of sage leaf: The main was another recipe from the inspiring Umbria en Bocca website posted at the beginning of this thread: Todi-style pigeon (er, quail). The birds are wrapped in pancetta, cooked over an open flame, then tossed in an aromatic red wine braise to cook for a while longer. To go with, I made polenta. I tried to use the several hour long technique in the book Heat but none of the transformations Buford talks about came to pass and it wound up tasting the same as it always does. I thought this was organic polenta I had, but maybe it's still instant.

Welcome, Nishla! Alot of the time, cardoons are separately blanched, then cooked a second time in the finishing sauce. I thought it was to soften them (they can be fibrous), but it may also serve the purpose of getting rid of their bitter edges, as well.

Tuscany is up next. Spectacular looking as always, Elie! I had mentally marked that recipe myself but I don't think I'll be able to get to it this month. When we do Emilia Romagna in December, you should try making piadine as well. I'd be interested to hear your comparisons on the two.

As Pontormo says, cube some of it and freeze it to augment the aromatic base for soups and such. Also, sandwich these cubes between quail or other game birds on a skewer and grill. In his first cookbook (I think) Mario Batali has a recipe for thick slices of pancetta that are grilled and then placed on top crostini along with onions that have been caramelized with red wine and balsamic vinegar. Really outstanding and perfect stuff for the fall.

Yeah, I agree: a bread-based soup is a little too hearty for the dog days of summer. To that end, I'd offer caution in making it: it's great that first time, but being bread-based, the leftovers sat, soaked up all trace of liquid, and lasted forever.

One of those individual 8 inch or so sticks you buy whole instead of getting them to slice it for you. I threw out the wrapper, but they're everywhere. Not the kind with the white rind. As to the della Croce recipe I noticed the picture discrepancy as well. I'd stick to the rolling it between your hands and making them stubby, like pici. You wouldn't think there'd be that much more difference between the stubby and the long, but it adds even more to the prep time and gets tedious fast. Hope you've drafted help!

Also, speaking of rinds, anyone with access to an understanding deli worker needs to implore them to save them the rinds from prosciutto. Toss those bad boys in a pot of beans and be prepared. I've only been so fortunate to have it happen once at our local gourmet outlet; the deli guy working there noted I bought a lot of prosciutto and tossed in some rinds, free of charge, once and told me to try it with beans, which was the first thing that came to my mind too. He moved on shortly afterwards and the new deli crew doesn't understand my requests to save the rind, so I've only got that one sweet memory of a pot of beans that smelled like walking the streets of Bologna at dinnertime.

All this talk of a bean soup laden with porky goodness brings to mind the heavyweight of soups from Friuli, la jota: Beans, bacon or speck, pork shoulder, and sauerkraut of all things cooked in stages separately, then combined. I can't wait for the really cold weather (if we get any) to set in here; this has jumped to the head of my cold weather roster of dishes to make in the coming winter. More discussion of jota in the Friuli thread, starting with April's lovely photo and description on post 13.

Recent cooking exploits: Mushroom and sage frittata (caccio melted over the top). I used chanterelle mushrooms; my second favorite of the exotics after porcini. They, too, have a full, woodsy, autumnal taste and aroma. Trout with more of the Umbrian "salsa" I made at the beginning of the month for fresh pasta: finely minced garlic, mushrooms, olives and salami. Served with a salad and pan-seared lentils on the side. Lentil soup! I make a version that Mario Batali did on his earlier shows. He tops the lentil soup at the end with slices of salami, which melt a little from the heat of the soup underneath. But, taking a cue from last month's Campania cooking, I also add salami at the beginning to the base soffrito for the soup to permeate the lentils.

Mitch, love the shot of the Umbrian product you can get a hold of and your mise. Shaya, good to have your great pics around again as well. That trout is just perfect!

Hey, good idea! It got downright blustery here last night and now suddenly that's all I can think of too. Umbrian lentil soup, here I come!

The lighting in the porchetta picture is perfect. Did you make it or was it bought? On fresh beans: has anyone ever heard they have toxin in them or need to be parboiled first? I've heard it once, can't remember where or when, but not since.

I think the sagne were more of a broad noodle corkscrewed on itself; like maybe papardelle? I've also been meaning to ask if those were a dried pasta? Not hard, per se, but definitely labor-intensive. Maybe having kids helping would make it more fun. But you make a regular batch of fettucine, then fold the noodle in half and roll them between your palms. If they're too long, I cut them in half, though the recipe doesn't say to do it that way; guess I did more or less wind up making pici. And I tried to keep them more "twisty" to catch the sauce better. Yes, but a large batch: 600 grams flour, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup white wine. Probably in hindsight I could've backed down the proportions since I did wind up freezing half, but with these thicker pastas I never quite know what the yield will look like. I used Yukon Golds and sauteed them in olive oil (they promptly stuck, hence the accidental "crust), then added a bunch of regular kale. Then I topped it off with some of the boiling, salted water I was going to use for the pasta, covered the pan, and let it cook on low for about 20 minutes. Remarkably, the potatoes absorbed almost all the liquid in the pan and really took on the flavor of the greens. A little underseasoned, but a good foil overall. Judith: no I didn't braise the grapes on the side there; that was a purely ornamental addition to take up empty space in the photos. See, every now and again I actually do get a sense of visual appeal. My question to you: that folded up sandwich thingie: is it called piadine there or do they call it something else? I may make something like that; I again refer to the awesome pic in della Croce's book of something quite similar looking.

Friday night's meal was sausages and grapes. To make it more Octoberfest-y I added cabbage. Actually, this is a recipe I've been cooking for a long time after seeing it on one of Mario Batali's earlier shows. Grill the sausage, braise the cabbage with a little onion, the grapes, and then finish with vinegar. I used red cabbage this time, but normally napa cabbage goes really well also. Yesterday I spent the rainy afternoon making umbrecelli(?), the handmade pasta in della Croce's book. No claims on authenticity, though, with the final result: The condimento was based on the sausage, lemon, and nutmeg recipe in her book, though I ommitted the cream and egg emulsion stirred in at the end and also added dried porcini to give the whole thing more body. I think I overdid it a little with the lemon, though. For the main, I made pigeons (cornish game hens) Amelia style, from the Umbria en boca site mentioned at the start of this thread. The game hens were brined in and then basted with a mixture of white wine, lemon rind, cloves, garlic, and peppercorns. I also stuffed them with sage which imparted a nearly floral flavor to the meat. My wife really liked it. The contorno was potatoes and greens, back to della Croce again.

Alot of times when they're sold they are displayed split in half to gauge the level of infestation, unfortunately. Yuck. Sorry you're having such a time with them. Just think how good they'll finally be though, when you do actually get to eat one!

Wait, no, that was an unintentional pun, I swear . . .

Echoing Pontormo's comments, when you start planning your return visit (probably, oh, about 3 hours after your plane lands back here), if you decide to do a Bologna/Venice combo, allow for more days and go either at the same time of year or mid to late fall. As someone else said, Venice is a love/hate kinda city and we were absolutely enchanted when we went, during off-season and when it was cool enough that the canals weren't so ripe.