Pontormo

While in the cookbook section of the library this evening, I consulted a few volumes and thought I'd pass on the following information: DINELLI, Deborah A Taste of Lucca. Hosting a Northern Italian Dinner Party. Sacramento, Tzedakah Publications: 1994 -Scarpaccia, Viareggio's zucchini cake is basically the same as others you'll find on the internet: flat, unadorned. No pastry. -Torta coi becchi: this responds more to Franci's suggestions, a holiday treat made with chard, parsely, panettone or ladyfingers, raisins & pine nuts with milk, sugar, eggs & sweet cordials. The panettone or ladyfingers are soaked in milk and added to a rather dense filling (i.e. not the liquid consistency of a quiche's custard before it bakes). There is not a lid in this version or others I've seen. CASELLA, Cesare & Eileen Daspin Diary of a Tuscan Chef -Torta di Fernanda, p. 193, Lucchese. Similar to Dinelli's version, with cubes of bread and only one egg instead of her three, but chard, pine nuts & raisins all in a pastry crust. ANDREWS, Colman Flavors of the Riviera. Book treats inter-relationship between Italian & French coasts. Nothing from Genoa or other parts of Liguria remotely like the nonna's dolce. However, his Sweet Swiss Chard Torte on pp. 162-3 is even more quiche-like than the small sampling of Lucchese recipes I saw. Richer. 2 entire pounds of chard. Golden raisins, marc or grappa, pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano (if you could believe it), EVOO, apples, 5 eggs, flour, sugar and butter. Adapted from Chez Barale, Nice. I love Italy, but I gotta say this one intrigues me the most thus far. Carol Field's *The Italian Baker* had nothing; same with *Great Italian Desserts* by Nicholas Malgieri. (There are a lot of recipes for savory torte with spinach, herbs or greens.)

Clarified butter on the Highlands: McGhee Announcing clarified butter on the Highlands to tourists: To herald McGhee

P.S. Beautiful plate, Adam. I see there's something more appealing about squash blossoms in eggs than in risotto, at least, in light of my experience of the latter which I found disappointingly bland.

Thank you, all. Actually, I've been cooking what Russ refers to as the male flowers, I gather, for quite some time. My preference is for very simple preparations: battered and fried until lightly golden, eaten as is, especially when stuffed, or upon occasion, slipped into a thin sandwich with a slice of ham...maybe a little melted mozzarella, too. What I was most interested in was the aesthetic virtue of keeping the tiny blossoms attached to the small bodies of the squash. I thought of the possibility of cooking a soupy pilaf with tomatoes in a shallow pan and then nesting the little thingies securely in the middle and covering them with a lid. I may try that some day...basically the same principle as Mr. BJ's gratin which also came to mind. However, I was craving the crisp batter on the flowers. It had been a year since my last batch. So I found one internet source (Colivita) that suggested slicing the zucchini just to the base of the blossom, then dipping them in the batter...sort of the way small eggplant are split and stuffed in Indian dishes before being stewed in rich sauces. I tried that. Problem was that the squash really did need at least a bit of a steam bath first (would the blossoms wilt and be impossible to stuff afterwards?). When zucchini is deep-fried for tempera, the batter coats the inner flesh and it softens more than mine did. By the time the flowers were done, the bodies were still rather crisp, the skin slick and batter-free.

Shalmanese, don't sell yourself short. The categories you set up at the beginning of your post are great! Thank you and Lilija, both, for very thoughtful, in-depth commentary. Lindsay Ann & Jdtofbna express a kind of ambivalence or preference for conscientious moderation. The first post is especially interesting since it addresses the issue of weight which I deliberately avoided; J also voiced my own sense of how receptive people are when it comes to hearing about nutrition. Nonetheless, look at the success Alice Waters and cooks or chefs in special school lunch programs are having when it comes to getting children to eat an increasing range of food. People over the age of sixty have been trained to change their eating habits; I see them pick up kale and whole-grain cereals while shopping, convinced they'll enjoy longer, healthier lives. Is there anyway to reach the in-between ages? I don't know that the "eat more colors" campaign is influencing much change.

Short-grained brown rice is wonderful with certain foods, especially in cool weather with roasted vegetables, brussel sprouts, sauteed greens or winter squash and a simply prepared bird or chop. I like adding a generous sliver of butter to the water after it comes to a boil and always follow Madhur Jaffrey's advice, putting a cloth towel under the lid when it's done and letting the pot sit for 10 minutes. I'm indifferent when it comes to long-grain brown rice; while it's chewy it doesn't have the same starchy, clinging effect that makes one person say it's good as a hot breakfast cereal. I would never give up white, polished short grain rice for risotto, medium grain for Asian dishes or white Basmati. On the other hand, even supermarkets are starting to carry "exotic" red and black rices. For nutritional benefits of brown rice, here's one source.

I just discovered this new thread and am in awe of the inaugural images in your post and on this first page! Thanks for starting this forum. The husband of a couple I've known for ages adores cheese. His priorities: 1) family; 2) collecting odd things from around the world or yard sales, no difference; 3) Paris; 4) cheese, number 3 being largely determined by number 4. At a large celebration at their house in a small town in Maine, he set out a spread of somewhere between 50-75 different cheeses, all labeled, some quite small, thanks to an extraordinarily patient, generous soul in Portland. It is wonderful to see just how much more is available to us these days. I grew up eating bright orange, individually wrapped slices of processed American cheese. They were in my lunch box nearly every single day. Now it is hard to imagine a life without real Parmigiano-Reggiano, and American cheese includes not only the British-inspired blocks and rounds such as Cheddars, but all kinds of goat cheeses. At the moment, I can't think of domestic cheeses made from ewe's milk. Do we have any? If I had to choose one favorite newly discovered cheese it would have to be Montasio. It took me a while to find a local source, but now I love frico.

Thanks, Franci, for the images and vocabulary. I'll have to check out that web site. I've never seen what you call catalogna here in Washington, D.C., though thanks to people like Heinz, the Swiss farmer I mentioned in my original post, we are starting to see more and more varities. I have a weakness for strong tasting greens whether bitter, tangy or sour. NYC Mike, glad you're back with us at the end of the month. I only knew about shattered glass at Jewish weddings, not moves. And Mark, I look forward to a report on a meal inspired by one of the two books you endorse should you feel inclined.

OH!

Since we've actually had a couple of bearable days here--only a break--I kept the a/c off to make a more authentic Sicilian primo: pasta con i mazzareddi e ricotta from The Flavors of Sicily (Tasca Lanza). My bitter greens were from the market rather than the wild, something called Italian dandelion greens in the US, a kind of chicory with vivid red spindly stalks that I can't find pictured in a quick google search, though I did discover that Bearded Dragons will eat them, courtesy of The Reptile Room. I also picked up an experiment from the same Swiss organic farmer: Radicchio di Treviso. The link does not provide an exact resemblance, but it suits my find since I wondered why my purchase was magenta and pale green instead of white, if the same elegant tapered shape of the version we've all seen. According to Elizabeth Schneider, the plant does not mature gracefully in the heat and is best in cooler months; in the summer it remains green and is extremely bitter. So be it. I boiled the two together, chopped and sauteed them with chili peppers and garlic and cooked the perciatelli in the deep purple water that held the greens until they became the shade of unvarnished oak. Tossed both with a combination of fresh ricotta, ricotta salata and Romano to approximate the preferred sheep's milk ricotta. Silky, not at all too bitter. Fine prelude to roasted chicken and sauteed red peppers.

Do you care about nutrition? Do thoughts about getting a full range and desirable amounts of vitamins, minerals, protein, etc. affect the choices you make shopping, cooking or eating? In what ways? Do you simply trust that you'll make the right decisions and it will all balance out? Do you find the whole business so PBS Fund Raiser meets Oprah Dietician & goes Berkeley-Earnest that you simply don't care? —Or do you rebel? How? (Please, answers longer than one word preferred. I know you like bacon. ) FINALLY , and this is what interests me the most: If you believe there is such a thing as Good Food that is good for you, how do you talk about it without preaching? Can you promote nutrition without sounding patronizing,* dull, pious, gloomy or artificially spunky and bright? *Superior, judgmental, priggish, uppity, elitist, self-righteous…

P.S. Gorgeous, Hathor, especially the granite!

The idea of a rule seems to respond to the number of dishes that top dried pasta with toasted breadcrumbs instead of grated cheese when a featured ingredient is seafood. However, see post 109 here in Kevin's blog last year where a North/South divide is questioned. And there's this discussion here.

Here's something in English on Modica's chocolate & the Sicilian eggplant dolci Adam names: Antica Dolceria Bonajuto (Herald Tribune).

Makes up for the summer weather in Texas? Nice birthday tradition, Kevin. Great choice of words this year and the polpettini look especially good.

Cime di rape. In Florence, I knew a graduate student/teacher who lived very modestly. He kept an enormous sack of ceci in his closet and bought pre-cooked beet greens all the time and that was dinner with bread unless he went out. (He married someone who cooks very well, so his repertoire has expanded.)

P.S. Knew this sounded vaguely familiar! Patricia Wells has a recipe for a tourte aux blettes, or dessert made with chard and raisins in her *Bistro Cooking* book. Pastry has no sugar and uses olive oil instead of butter. From Nice, so maybe in Liguria you'd find counterparts. Try Colman Andrews, book on the cooking of the Riviera.

Maggie: This is just the first thing that came up on a google search that wasn't an antipasto with anchovies: Crostata di Spinaci. ETA: I just bothered to read through the recipe to discover it ISN'T a dessert--there are only 3 spoonfuls of sugar in the filling (amaretto cookies are found in a number of savory dishes such as meatballs and stuffed pasta) and none in a crust made with margarine. I searched using the words "crostata" (a kind of double-crust or lattice-topped pie, unless made with jam, often with ingredients that aren't too sweet) and "spinaci" and "dolci" (desserts or pastries & other sweets). " Zucchero" is sugar and "rape" is a kind of green that is often purchased pre-cooked (boiled) in tight balls in some places in Italy and then sauteed or chopped up by home cooks for a variety of purposes. Sometimes interchangeable for spinach, especially here in US. Also try "bietole" (chard). If googling your words in English results in nothing, you might try using some of these words instead and we'll help you with translations. I'm sure there is someone here with first-hand knowledge who could provide greater service. Meanwhile, though, it would help to know where your FIL's mother lived or learned how to cook. There's a Sicilian crostata from Valverde copied by Mimmetta Lo Monte from a nun's notes that includes romaine lettuce and pistachios. Spinach appears in a number of torte (torta, singular, either a cake or pie, depending) including one for Easter in Genoa (torta pasqualina), but I believe this is savory, with boiled eggs inside.

Torakris: This has got to be one of the richest teaser photos, given your explanation. I think many of us would identify when comparing the foods we ate growing up to the foods we prepare ourselves. Any further comments you'd like to share would be interesing. For example, I'm curious about the influence you and your immediate family might have had on parents, siblings or other relatives, especially if they've been able to visit you in Japan for extended periods of time. Judging by the comparison of olives in the photograph, distinctions are not simply due to your move to Asia. Also, I wonder what your family in Cleveland thinks about what you're doing right now in front of the computer.

I am bumping this up for ease of consultation. I just made chicken stock from wings and drumsticks, capping most of the legs to reserve the meat from the thighs for other uses. I skimmed the fat and still have the very fatty skin on the thighs, some of which might be rendered depending on what I make. Feel free to pipe up if you wish to lend guidance. I was not raised to consider chicken fat food or a gift from the gods either; later on I developed my own conflicted notion of what's healthful and what's not and this golden stuff scooped from the surface of the gelled stock has always been discarded for this reason, too. However, I am curious.

Famous Florentine from the Quattrocento? Michelozzo, the one-time partner of Donatello? Yes, because of the chocolate which I realize is used with savory, main-course dishes in Mexico. I made the connection also because Sicilian caponata combines eggplant with cocoa. As far as "unmolded" goes, there is a book on Naples by Giuliano Bugialli that makes something like your dish, only it is molded in a large bowl and after cooking, it is coated with a shiny chocolate glaze. I looked at the publication once in a bookstore, so I cannot be certain of the recipe, but I do not believe the eggplant slices were fried in a batter.

P.S. Elie: congratulations on making the first successful batch of cannoli here. Love the Texas-inspired technique.

My jaw drops & I throw my hands up in the air :palms forward, fingers spread, both sides of head about level with ears:. Andrew, you must have a great air-conditioning system to prepare and eat a feast worthy of a Sicilian aristocrat with growing leftist tendencies and fluffy sideburns. The rice coating of the timbale looks like a great idea. Adam, as always, stellar presentation. The pastry is beautifully decorated. And Elie, I am also intrigued by the ricotta salata you made and would like to know more when you have the chance. If others here have the April edition of Gourmet, there were instructions for making ricotta. However, I think readers were advised to use it up within 2-3 days since it spoils quickly. * * * "City ladies do not like octopus."--Evil merchant to exploited Sicilian fisherman in La Terra Trema "Fish are born to be caught by the fisherman. Man is born to be caught by woman."--Visconti as narrator, paraphrased. Nothing quite so lavish to report since I've been making stock, baking and cooking French. (So far I simply have not come across references to sorrel in Italian sources, though I still have a little of this very tart puree left for a frittata that I might serve with something sweet.) I finally did get around to preparing perciatelli con sarde. Excellent with a salad Hathor mentioned: oranges with red chili flakes, slivers of red onion and some chopped cured olives and fresh mint. I notice that photographs of the wild fennel used in Sicily bear small, flat bulbs, resembling the type found in the farmers markets more than the ones in the supermarket. It's interesting to have a variety of sources to consult this time around to learn more about a dish that Elizabeth David apparently documented with prejudice, adding tomatoes and noting it was unheard of outside Sicily or Naples, and according to the writer who scolds her for lacking first-hand experience, implying that there are qualitative reasons why the regional dish never gained broader popularity. Wright says tomato paste might be used, but it's optional along with almonds which Peter Robb shuns as untraditional in Midnight in Sicily, an Australian journalist's account of a year on the island, title lifted from a song by the Everly Brothers. Nonetheless, almonds appear in several versions outside of Palermo. One version, as many of you already know, is basically vegetables with the "sardines still at sea" according to its Sicilian name. All are baked during final minutes, a step that is sometimes prolonged in a layered casserole, if the resulting "torta" lacks an outer layer of rice or pastry. Mary Taylor Simeti says there's nothing better except perhaps leftovers cold. I'm about to investigate her claim.

Since Hathor added a useful link to the Ligurian thread from the NYT, I'd like to mention a terrific article on zucchini that Russ Parsons wrote for the LATimes in this week's food section. It includes a recipe for zucchini in agradolce. Just in case the article does not appear with this link, it's called "The Bloom is still on" and dated July 19, 2006. * * * For escapism, okay men and the serious-minded, laugh, but here's some relevant recent Chick Lit: La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture * * * Finally: this relates to Franci's veal dolce: Modican Chocolate.

Hathor 1) In fact, Clifford Wright's book says that your dessert is a kind of zirriddu, a confectionary pasta made with honey. Sicilian words for orange water(nanfia) and orange blossoms (zagara) are close to Arabic nafhah and zahar. His recipe is Pasta a vento barba di San Benedetto and includes saffron, pistachios & candied orange peel in addition to the two forementioned ingredients. This is made with an egg pasta as per his instructions. There are also the nidi di scuma I also mentioned some time back due to evocative name. Again, the flavor's orange with some cinnamon. Capellini nests (like the ones De Cecchio manufactures) are deed-fried. Mimmetta Lo Monte simply calls them capellini fritti al miele, also fries them in olive oil and sprinkles them with pistachios. 2)Maybe Franci could pose your question on her Sicilian forum. BTW I just picked up *Pomp & Sustenance* for a dollar at my public library, so it's got to show up at second-hand stores and other booksales for a lot less than what is asked on Amazon.com. Franci: Your dolce made with chocolate and ground veal reminds me of a Neapolitan dish I would like to try later: a chocolate filled eggplant timbale that is slathered with chocolate once unmolded. Do you know if this is due to cultural exchanges between the southern coastal city and the island, or....? It also reminds me of the British mincemeat pie as an almost medieval combination of sweet and savory ingredients. As far as Sicily is concerned, there's also a crostata called pasticcio di maiale (also in M lo Monte's book), calling for 1 3/4 pounds of ground pork loin, 2 cups of cocoa, almonds, and a conserva di zucca. I'd be happy to send the recipe to someone braver than I. FYI: For others using watermelon for granita, etc., I noticed that at least one cookbook recommends using the rind to approximate the type of long, tapered Sicilian squash that the conserva (zuccata?) requires. * * * It's not worth a long write-up since others have photographed and made the following, however I tried the Batali recipe for involtini that Shaya enjoyed. I broiled the beef and liked the simple fillng, rosemary spears & lack of a coating that strikes me as more suited for fragile fish. I also had my first arancini, made with a leftover tomato risotto (cf. Dinner thread) with pancetta. I mixed in fresh shredded basil and filled them with peas and several cheeses. Instead of deep-frying, I simply sauteed them in olive oil, using a combination of fresh breadcrumbs and the last of a bag of Panko as the coating. Henry, if you're still reading this thread, this closely, I now understand your craving. Risotto fritters are wonderful, but these are even better.