kellytree

My 10 year old made dinner the other night. ... she did a great job but I am hiding all the cookbooks from now on so she will stick to things that are a little easier (and allow us to eat before 10pm!!) - a few of the ingredients we didn't have so she made some modifications.

pics here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=mo...lbum&album=5276 if it works!

When in Montone or anywhere near Montone go to Erba Luna. The first thing that gets you is the silence - it is so silent that you can hear it. A very nice silence. Almost like listening one of those new agey type CD's where you only here a few birds chirping and feel almost like you are being vacuum packed.... and then you walk into the restaurant and there is some loungy-cool- just the right volume music playing giving everything a really hip feeling. The restaurant is amazingly perfect. Just the right music, beautiful table settings, cool little things here and there. We decided to eat outside (only after deciding did I think about those 100 meters from the kitchen to our table- sorry!) The food was perfect - I'll post pics later. Everything was perfectly executed - not one single flaw. All of the flavors complemented each other - you could taste every single ingredient in each dish. Perfect pairings- perfect platings. The nicest thing about this whole perfect place is that when I was sitting there eating my meal and enjoying the company it didn't feel "perfect" - it just felt right. Go as soon as you can because I can imagine that very soon Erba Luna will be featured in the New Yorker or Condé Nast and then you will have to beg or bribe to get a seat.

Hathor - do you prefer that people make reservations or just show up???

Looks great! In fact I have all the ingredients in my fridge so now I know what to make for dinner!

The sauce was made with our canned tomatos sauce ( just tomato and a pinch of salt), 2 sausages - whole , a piece of some kind of beef, a carrot, celery, a clove of garlic, and a little oregano. The whole thing is quite simply thrown together and boiled for a couple hours. I take out all the chunks of meat and veggies and due to my darling mate I have to pass it through a sieve to get out all traces of tiny pieces of meat that may linger. His version ends up very soupy (but good) or as he says " the gnocchi must swim in the sauce"- I usually put a spoonful of what remains in the seive (which is mostly just thick tomato sauce with a few tiny pieces of meat). A LITTLE TRICK FOR WHEN YOU MAKE THE FORK MARKS: Cut your gnocchi worms into the desired size. Pick up a piece and pass the fork on the side of the gnocchi (not on the top which would seem the most obvious way). The sides are still a little wettish so it is easier to make the indent marks.

They sell boatloads of bread senza sale here in the Marche. Tell me what you want ( because the prosciutto is salty, the cheese is salty .......) but it is simply "schifo". I like bread with salt

I made gnocchi today and thanks to all of your tips and tricks I whipped my italian boyfriends butt in the homemade gnocchi department (having said tha, he made the tomato sauce hich as perfect.)

Friday night dinner.....

Now, my experience in Italy is that 99% of Italians cook all vegetables into a pile of mush and when I've tried more 'al dente' vegetables, the tourists eat them, and the Italians don't. Italians want their vegetables to be pre-chewed On a side note to this. A German friend of mine has her new-agey theory on the fact of most italians boiling the shit outta veggies. Basically italians yell and scream all day and are very emotional people so when they eat they need something soft and soothing. Germans, on the other hand, are uptight and don't let their feelings out so they eat lots of hard raw vegetables to get some of the angry energy out. (obviously not all italians/germans are like this). Hathor - finding a balance is not an easy task. Some restaurants around here have the regular menu but then they have a few tricks up their sleeves for "traditional" tastebuds or "contemporary" tastbuds" - depending on which type of restaurant it is.

Italy's big selling point is "We cook the same food our grandparents cooked, we hate change, our food is simple and old-fashioned, if you walk ten feet your're in a different region, hooray for Slow Food . . . sounds about right to me. hathor made a good point that your everyday normal italian doesn't know about the Slow Food movement and would probably look at you with a "BFD" expression on their face if you told them about it. It means nothing to them because it is a totally normal fact of life for them. Fortdei seems to say it all with his comment. Or at least my experience has been the same. Some italians will eat contemporary things but only about 3 max 4 times a year, the rest of the time they just want normal italian food ( 5 ingredients or less) - this goes from the really rich globtrotting top manager to the little old lady living down the street to the really super cool "don't touch my sunglasses and of course I have 4 cell phone" dudes.

How about a simple, yet tasty, upside down pineapple cake. A pineapple sorbet? Why ruin the pineapple flavor that this girl likes so much with cocunt or rum or anything else? Then again maybe she likes her pineapple mixed with other things.

If you want to take a photo of your plate just go ahead and do it. Some people will thing you are weird, some will think you are rude but at the end of the day who gives a crap it's not like you are blowing smoke in their faces - it's just a damn picture.

That grainy situation will happen if the milk stays too hot during the incubation time. I've heard in Lebanon they specially make a type of yogurt to have this consistency. It won't kill you if you eat it - you could also just stick it in a blender to make it smooth or make a yogurt icecream where you won't notice the lumps. Or you could strain it through a cheese cloth and then stick it in the blender - add some strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, and a dash of vanilla - and chill it.

ok - you go and make your ravioli and I will go home and make your future signature dish "erbaluna" with the pumpkin and sage situation above. Now that you have a restaurant do you find lots of people coming to and telling you "oh my gawd, I have the best recipe for.... blah blah " you should put it on the menu......... ???

Short menu please. Menu's in other languages - if I'm visiting a place for a day or two I just point my finger and pray that I won't get some nasty dish. Multi language menu's are fine -- sometimes they are damn funny too with the way things are translated. I think if you have a restaurant where you know a lot of languages will be coming in you are probably doing yourself a favor by having them in different languages but all on the same menu.

if they were zucca as in pumpkin I would make some pumpkin tempura/ fritto situation - like a little antipasto with a couple "luna" shaped pumpkins and some sage leaves to give it the erba and I would have a little pot of slightly thinned down stracchino cheese so if they got really crazy they could dip it in the sauce. Now with the other 9/10ths of the case I (personally) would make pumpkin soup - or I would make ravioli. If I was feeling really energetic I would boil the crap out of one and can it or freeze it for Thanksgiving so I could make a pumpkin pie (which everyone hates - including myself - so I usually end up dumping it).

My stepdad roasts them and then sticks them in the freezer. I make my kids eat them anytime they whine "I'm hunggrryyyyy, there is nothing to eat in this house"

450 bucks to have your restaurant reviewed? I would spend the money in real advertising instead.

That is exactly how I make my sauce. It is simple and tastes just like pizza sauce should taste.

I would bring some fruit teas and some sort of dried drink mix like lemonade or tang or hell, even koolaid!! Not things you may normally drink but it may be "refreshing" once in a while to down a pitcher of something sweet with a taste that you know.

Tomorrow I have to go to the airport in Bologna to drop off one of the sprogs. I have a feeling that on the way back to Ancona traffic is going to be a nightmare so I would like to stop anywhere along the way for lunch. Any suggestions for a restaurant (the only criteria being that the food has to be good and not too expensive) along the way from Ravenna - Fano??

If you send me the numbers, dates, names etc. I can call for you since I live in Italy - a phone call costs me about nothing and I speak italian.

I have heard that the new restaurant Hooked - in Dulles Town Center - Sterling is suppose to be really good.

We use beer bottles and have a little tool to tap the bottles. Once the bottles are full we put them in an old metal drum , fill it with water and boil them. The second from the right is just a pic of the bottles getting ready to be boiled. The kids are a big help and actually like to do it (since it is only once a year!). Wow, now those pictures bring back great memories! They look remarkably like tomato day on my grandparent's farm. It is so good for those kids to be hands on, congrats. I am having trouble figuring out what is going on in that picture on the bottom row, second from right? Are you storing in bottles, is that what I am seeing there? What kind of seal do those take, bail and gasket? My eyes are just not what they used to be. Very nice tomato press as well. It all makes me smile! ←