Kevin72

Yeah, they were from a CM/HEB hybrid store that just opened in Austin. They always seem to bring out the big guns when they open a store, test the waters on what sells and what doesn't, then scale back. I saw live abalone, scampi, and razor clams at our CM when they opened. Two weeks later, nada. These were frozen and then thawed for sale at the store, not bought frozen. Q3 regions will be announced tomorrow at the start of the Sardinia thread!

Wait, I thought you were supposed to leave the lid open? Start it with the lid open, then when it starts burbling out, close it and lower the heat.

While I've been tempted, I have not one atom of a handyman in me. If I tried this, look for reports on the news either of my city being burned to the ground or some idiot going on a rampage after realizing they'd have to start a building project over from scratch for the third time.

Yeah, I've learned to tone down my expectations and have a category for "Good enough for an electric oven". It was hard not to ramp things into overdrive after eating Lombardi's version in NY last fall, though. Thankfully I read Steingarten's chapter on his quest for perfect pizza right when I was considering the possibilities of throwing the stone on my grill . . .

I just last week made pizza with 00 flour, aged overnight, and then cooked on a pizza stone in an electric oven set to the highest possible temp. I was underwhelmed with the results; they were the same borderline "cracker" consistency you mention, and hardly overdressed: one was just olive oil, prosciutto, and mushrooms. The previous batch of pizza I'd made was with a little bread flour worked in and, while I make no claims to Neapolitan authenticity, it was perhaps one of my favorite pizza making attempts.

Yes, it is.

We went here for our meal Saturday night. Tapas-style, mostly, with a nice outdoor patio seating area and a cozy, elegant, borderline Asian-inspired interior. The menu is divided into a "small plates" and "large plates" portion, with the small section obviously being the tapas-style stuff. A lot of the large plates looked interesting, including a paella for two and a duck breast. We ordered: Fried Brandade Fritters with Aioli Fried goat cheese with onion jam Hummus and eggplant dip platter (it wasn't baba ganoush) Clams with Chorizo Shrimp with pimenton Pickled summer squash salad I think there was another dish but I don't remember it. The summer squash salad was very unusual and had cinnamon or some spice in it that made it refreshing and comforting all at once. Personal favorite was the fried goat cheese and the onion jam. There were no real blunders in the food, though, everything was really good. The sommelier was knowledgeable, chilled our red to "true" room temperature and was eager to discuss our selections. The menu changes seasonally and Fino is the sister restaurant of Asti. On the whole, very enjoyable meal and evening. I'd even put it on par with our equally enjoyable experience at Rouge a few months back. I gotta say, I hadn't had a really good, upscale meal in Austin in several years, but this weekend fixed that. The dining scene really seems to be taking off here and we didn't have one bad meal in the city. Kudos, y'all! Fino Restaurant 2905 San Gabriel St, Austin, TX (512) 474-2905

We hit Rudy's in Waco on the way back from Austin to Dallas. My wife really likes it; I've found it not great, but always reliable and a good fix for the 'cue jones we always work up in the Austin area. This time however, was borderline awful. In my experience, you have to work hard to screw up ribs as badly as they did: they were tough, rubbery, and flavorless. One of the pieces they gave us was I guess the end cap and it had no meat, and was all gristle, bone, and veins. So, what's happening? I think it may be experiencing growing pains from franchising out so rapidly and they're unable to do quality control. This was all teenage kids running the place this time.

We went to Vespaio for brunch on Sunday and had a great meal. I had the breakfast Panino with truffled eggs (and the truffle butter was a major player), prosciutto, and arugula. A few others at our table had the various breakfast bruschettas and enjoyed them, and my dad had a lethal polenta side dish with his eggs. The place was empty though! There was a line out the door for South Congress(?) or some other brunch place a few doors up.

As promised, I made this my first stop in Austin visiting my family over Memorial Day weekend. I was on the whole greatly impressed with this place. They had a number of items I'd never seen in Texas places before: huge jars of preserved porcini in olive oil, also jars of whole tuna loin, little packets of squid ink that look like the soy sauce packets you get from Chinese carryout, powdered bottarga (though still expensive and probably too expensive given that it was pre-ground), and a good stock of various truffle oils, whole truffles, and truffle pastes. My wife had the same sandwich NYTexan has pictured above and it is amazing. I had the hot porchetta sandwich which was really good. Finished it off with a generous bowl of gelato that was sublime. If there was any problem, I'd have to agree with Kent about the cured meat selection. Even more frustratingly, they have a display board of various meats listed that they don't actually carry; it was for decorative purposes. So, I read the board and see guanciale and lardo listed, eagerly ask the woman at the counter about them, and am greeted with an "Eww, no, do you know what's in those?". But they do carry cotechino! Do yourself a favor and buy one next time.

I've never seen borage, either. Good to see you back in pasta making form, Chufi! You're the stuffed pasta master! Nathan, I love fish in cartoccio dishes. Black snapper, eh? What will the snapper marketers think of next?

Over the holiday weekend, we went to Austin for a family get together at my brother's. I made a grigliata mista with Ligurian elements. We went to Whole Foods and loaded up for the night's meal. Afterwards, however, we swung by a grocery store near my brother's house for some other items. This particular store was supposedly the more "mainstream" sister version of Central Market, which I've written about here as my primary shopping resource. I was perusing the seafood case and was shocked to find them selling freshwater prawns, something I've never seen sold anywhere. I snapped them up, for a fairly cheap price. The fish guy was impressed and said that other than a French woman the other day, we were the only ones who'd bought any. For Adam, seafood shots, nowhere near as great as his Fish and Other Seafood thread, of course: I grilled the mussels and clams, then made a mignonette-type dipping sauce consisting of sherry vinegar, shallots, parsley, lemon juice, and the shellfish liquors (liquers?). The prawns were grilled whole, split in half, doused with olive oil and lemon juice, and served. I was, sadly, a little disappointed in the prawns. They had been frozen of course, and the flesh had that compact, mealy, previously frozen texture to it. But it was rich, sweet, and more like lobster meat than shrimp. The primo was trofie with green beans and pesto. I made trofie last year using chestnut flour, and as I mentioned upthread, they were a disaster: undercooked and acrid from the rancid flour I used unknowingly. For these, I reverted to a mistake I'd made previously. When I first read about trofie, they were described simply as "Ligurian gnocchi" and so I made them as a standard potato gnocchi, then rolled them into their customary stubby noodle shape and served them with green beans and pesto, as a play on the trennette with potatoes, green beans, and pesto. I liked that version and fell back on them for this meal, not willing to experiment with the whole wheat version Plotkin also has in his book. They were a little too fragile, actually, and quite a few broke up. Also, like Nathan, my pesto turned black almost instantly (and yes, you mortarheads out there, I did use a blender! ). But everyone else was pretty happy with it. The main was grilled halibut with more salsa verde, served with simply dressed tossed greens. Dessert, not pictured, were baked stuffed peaches.

Friday night's meal. Started with fried calamari and fried pickled herring. I had been craving the fried anchovies listed in Plotkin's book which are traditionally served with a piquant salsa verde. Figuring to combine the two, I bought some pickled herring from our deli case instead. Everyone, myself included, was a little worried how they'd taste. But they wound up being pretty good, and would have been even more so if I'd thought to really get them dry before battering them. Then we had a repeat of one of last year's Ligurian meals, starting with a modification of corzetti, a stamped round pasta unique to this region: As with last year, this year I used my pizelle press instead of the corzetti stamps. As a result, these were fairly large and thick pastas; I served three but even two would've worked as a primo. To top them, the traditional condimento of a marjoram (oregano) and pine nut sauce, which interestingly uses butter as the binding fat instead of olive oil. The main were stuffed zucchini: The zucchini are briefly blanched, whole, in boiling water, then halved, their insides scooped out and added to a filling of sauteed onions and ground veal, basil, breadcrumbs, parmigiano, and eggs. They are then baked in pans with a mixture of tomato sauce and white wine. Dessert was an apple crostata. I don't have Plotkin's book handy but he gives it a different name, saying that in the rest of Italy it's more commonly known as a crostata. I've always had problems with my crostate when I've made them and tried cooking them free-form as traditional: there's so much butter in the recipes I use that mine usually melt before they can set up. Seeing that the dough was heading that way, I baked it in a pie mold instead.

Speaking of overly sweet concoctions, according to Fred Plotkin, marrons glacee were first made in Genoa during French occupation. * * * A plug for Naples: During a browsing session at a bookstore last night I came upon a recipe for chocolate-filled eggplant timbale slathered in a chocolate glaze. Eggplants appear in the market in what, late July? August? ← I think there's a recipe for it in di Blasi's Southern book. And, there's a similar item, albeit a cookie, in Sicilian traditions as well.

How old is this tradition of steeping aromatics in a grain alcohol and then mixing it with sugar? Is this the same process for Nocino/Nocello (the walnut liquor) up north? Where did the originate from? Doesn't Sicily have its own tradition for this practice? I had always surmised that Sicily and Campania had their own traditions for this method, and just that Limoncello from Campania took off first because of all the tourism along the Amalfi coast.

Well, at least they're getting trolled mercilessly for it. Is there one legit signature there?

Oooh, yes! Good call on that one.

Seems like alot of the biscuit-type items don't keep well in my experience, even within a few hours of making them. Welcome back to this thread!

Ah. Our gourmet store here occasionally sells them in late winter/early spring and I've wondered about maybe making a 'cello out of them before.

Right, and forgive my ignorance here, but what's cedro?

And cedrocello would be . . . ? (too lazy to look it up).

You guys are in for a treat! Hopefully they'll make one a flagship of a similar mold to their downtown Houston location. Now, if they could just consider Dallas . . .

That's a really smart idea for a resolution. My go-tos: Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cookbook Mario Batali's Simple Italian Food The New Basics Cookbook

I'll add to the chorus of compliments on a good, very well-timed episode. But, shame on you, Tony, for swigging Shiner Bock and calling it "Mexican Beer" in the voiceover.

Well, part of it is that it's alot of fruit and tarts for desserts. I've not been in a pastry mood lately, so am having difficulties finding something. There's sciumette (sp?), little merengue (clouds) poached in fruit juice, but I wasn't so wild about them when I made them before.