
Pontormo
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Should you care to try something new, here's one online recipe for plain orzotto, suitable for a side dish instead of a first course. Here's the one with sausage I am planning on making tomorrow.
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Barley in Italian is "orzo." So, if your recipe is "authentic" it is probably asking for barley, though it's strange. Usually cookbooks wishing to introduce English-speaking readers to orzotto will specify barley as Deborah Madison does in her recipe for orzotto in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. For more uses of barley in Italian cooking, see ongoing thread on Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
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Kinda off-topic, but if you're down on the Mall (Smithsonian museums, National Gallery of Art, etc.), recall the advice about the museum for Native American art. The architecture, use of interior space in galleries, exhibitions, etc. in new museum itself are all pretty dreadful (though the educational resources available for the public are wonderful; check out the view from a dazzling bank of computers). However, it is the ONE place with really good food....according to critics and reports from others who have checked it out. If you take the Red line to Gallery Place (look for exit sign that directs you to galleries and museums), there are a number of good choices, too. Jaleo is there. So is Zaytina. OT: This restaurant is a couple of blocks away from the Phillips Collection at Dupont Circle. For something cheap and very good, Moby Dick, House of Kabobs, might be perfect for you . It's just south of Dupont Circle, around the corner from Olsson's Bookstore. P.S. Good crab cakes were to be had at 1789, but the chef has left and the restaurant is not conveniently located in Georgetown at the edge of campus with tourists (vs. travelers) shopping nearby.
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Not a fan of the group's vandalism or manners. Its sense of humor is a bit sophomoric and sexist, too, but you gotta give them props for clever publicity when it comes to some of their causes.
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P.S. Dana, I could not have written the post above at a more appropriate time!
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I'll start with a disclaimer since eGullet, by its very nature, attracts a fairly adventurous membership. Nonetheless, eating only white foods and making sure nothing on their plate touches anything else are ways that children express a need for control. However, refusing to try something parents offer often comes from a fear of the unknown. Anything new is suspect even if it's white. Crisp wedge of Jicama root? Icky. Thin slice of the beef they love stuffed with things they don't recognize, rolled, fried, and sauced? Scary. Is it true that girls grow out of these childhood tendencies more than boys do? Are men drawn to steak, cheeseburgers and pizza because they prefer simple, basic foods without the frills? Jokes aside, quiche is pie. It's bacon, cheese and eggs. Milk! It's mac and cheese, really, just with more good stuff replacing the pasta. Yes, there's Mario, Thomas, Jamie, Jacques, Tony and even Charlie. Plenty, plenty more. Just trying to address developmental issues here.
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On a different note, I've tried to convince Amazon.com that Michael Ruhlman wrote the book with Brian Polcyn and that while Thomas Keller wrote the foreword, he is neither the principal author nor the author. I was thanked for corrections that the company would make promptly. If you click the link, you'll see the results. A second note was met with regrets.
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Unfiltered, bitter honey from the Sardinian arbutus-berry produced by Stoics with just enough cream and sugar to draw out the special organoleptic properties of the flavor. Top with a Gorgonzola frico wafer. Check out the first option here.
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Well, Fresser got me all the mood for penne alla gorgonzola after what he wrote last night. Lest my voice deepen even more, I drank a Friulian white and dressed my arugula salad lightly. The blue cheese did have an effect, though. If clipping quotations were comparable to picking up one's clothes from the floor and putting them in the hamper, I can't be bothered. So, let me say thank you Miz Ducky for the hysterical [sic] link to the Alton Brown episode. And Fabulous, I dare you to rise to the occasion!* *Reminder: To stay on topic, you'll have to link attire to culinary theme.
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The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Quite a feast! Since Adam already asked about the beautifully made cjalsons, I'd like to know more about the radicchio. Are those Juniper berries or capers? Anything inside with the prosciutto? Sauce? (As for the book by Root, yes I own the volume from the Time Life series, although the title is actually The Cooking of Italy. F-VG is hardly mentioned at all, and I believe, dismissed because it doesn't have "real" Italian cooking.) * * * While trying to find out more about bread online, I came upon this. If the link restores the main page, click on Food & Wine to left, then Bread and Pasta. (The English seems like a mistranslation at first, but it isn't. Still baffling.) You'll note that one of the possible ingredients they list for breads (do they really mean polentas?) is kummel, a liqueur made with BOTH cumin and caraway. -
What would mythical and extinct animals taste like
Pontormo replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
How's your Hebrew? -
The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Look at what I found: Official Web site of Montasio (in English). The link was discovered by accident, after finding a regional series Faith Willinger composed for epicurious. Click on the link to the Bureau for Tourism. The latter has a wealth of even more specialized links, determined largely by areas where wine is produced. All wineries are listed as well. -
I can't find the original post, but I think it was jackal10 who corrected me when I referred to these British sandwiches of potatoes deep-fried in lard as chip buddies. Name refers to slathering of butter between bread and chip. Yes, I like those, too, but didn't appreciate my stepfather's lack of discrimination when it came to the bread. For SOME men, it seems, Wonder Bread is fine when meat stars: BBQ, Louie's hamburgers (with Velveeta, I seem to recall) or bacon. Now, as for pig's feet, I know there are definitely women who love'em. However, sometimes in addition to an exuberant response to steak and Barolo, I discern a competitive gross-out factor at play. No?
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The women of eGullet have their own special thread where they yearn for chocolate and Carbonara. From time to time Fresser in a Dress shows up along with other amusing, curious men. However, it's really for women. It's about their desires. What about yours, though? As Anna Freud famously asked, "What DO men want?" Not just pizza and beer, surely. There's lots of evidence here that says otherwise. However, it would be interesting to explore what members of the other gender think of as distinctly masculine when it comes to their gastronomic appetites. When do such cravings hit you? What separates boys from men? Girlz Allowed. Okay?
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My children have no choice what so ever in their lunches, they eat the same food that ever child in the city of Yokohama eats. Here is a typical meal salad of bean sprouts and cucumber with a peanut dressing, mabo-nasu (eggplant cooked in the style of mabodofu) with the addition of green peppers and bamboo shoots, sprouted rice with sesame-salt topping and milk I can't rave enough about the lunch system in Japan, the children really enjoy it. My oldest was a very pickier eater and refused to try things. In her first year of elementary school she would come home and say, "Today I tried ~~, andI liked it". Now at the age of 10 she pretty much eats anything. I do think that new system with the buzzer going off, would be quite embarrassing. I don't think I could ban my children from eating foods, hell I get cravings for brownies too! I wish some of these parents would remember that education should always begin at home though.. ← Wow!!! What a lunch! This is an amazing program! National? I know it's hard to generalize, but do you know if the meals in every city are this wonderful? I hope cute offerings in children's Bento boxes are not a thing of the past, though I imagine there are a lot of mothers who feel relieved from the pressure of creating interesting new edible critters on a daily basis. P.S. I agree with you about the brownies, too.
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Poor Chufi! I was in an Alice in Wonderland phase myself the first time I spent a week alone in Rome. Very late at night, it may have been off-season too, the only place I could find open and accommodating to a student budget in the Trastevere was microbiotic (that's another story, I know). So, of course, there were VERY few people eating there. A young man and woman, siblings about my age, struck up a conversation with me. They were visiting from Florence, and so the brother ended up writing out his name and telephone number to use when I returned to their hometown. Being the gentleman that he was, he said good-night to his sister and offered to escort me to my hotel. The demonstration of his skills in palm-reading kind of left me with the impression that I knew where this was going. Yes, indeed. When he got off the tram at my stop, he asked "Come dormi?"--"How are you sleeping?" "With a pillow," I replied.
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I have just discovered this cranky thread and love it. The two words that bother me most in relation to food are "quality" and "healthy." The problem of using nouns as if they were different parts of speech seems to be the biggest gripe here and the use of "quality" as an adjective conforms to that pattern. Since business culture [is this term hypocritical of me?] also gives us Departments of Quality Control, it ought to be sensitive to the need for specifying the nature of the quality. When tables and statistical graphs are not employed, shouldn't "superior," "high," "mediocre," "poor," etc. distinguish different degrees of quality? One or two adjectives sprinkled here and there is not going to transform spare, clean Hemingwavian prose into something purple and overwrought. Speaking of a quality product is meaningless, anyway. Who's going to market something boring, shoddy or disgusting? As far as "healthy" goes, some people eat nutritious diets and shop for healthful foods. When they pick up a bunch of spinach with dark green leaves, it's probably from a healthy plant that did not succomb to bugs or blight. * * * Now, as to the word "grow"--mentioned up-thread I believe--I wish speechwriters would convince their clients to stop growing the economy and leave that task to Chardgirl and Rancho Gordo.
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The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
April: Regarding the bread, I was hoping to find more information than I have thus far; focaccia is the only unsweetened variety mentioned. Perhaps Root elaborates on his brief comment in the longer book that Kevin owns. It would be interesting to find a type of loaf that incorporates a finer cornmeal than polenta since corn is a major crop. Nathan: Yes, gorgeous pictures, indeed. How was the age of the cheese estimated? I was told that the rind of aged Montasio is noticeably harder than it is on younger cheeses and has a distinctly greyish cast. -
20% discount on the quail.
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This thread is a wonderful idea. It would be interesting to compare reports from the same city, state or region to see how different costs are when members shop at different stores, buy in bulk, chose organic over conventional, visit the local farmers's market... Chris's proposal reminds me very much of The Hungry Planet, a book that I would nominate as best food-related publication of 2005.* *Various food writers contribute essays to a project realized by a husband-wife team who traveled throughout the world documenting the food habits of families who they introduce standing next to a week's supply of groceries. Tallied in the margins are the family's weekly expenses, offered in tandem with national statistics. Chad, Greenland, Australia, Germany.... Absolutely fascinating and wonderfully illuminated by the photographs.
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The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
April kindly responded to my question about chicken and supplied a recipe from La Cucina di Lidia. The published recipe for Pollo in Squazet Con Polenta requires chicken livers to flavor the wonderful sauce and recommends plating the pieces of chicken around a mound of fresh polenta. Thanks to comments Adam made earlier, I saved some of the fat from slices of Prosciutto San Daniele and added the scraps along with the bacon. While not conforming to regional specialties, steamed Brussel sprouts accompanied the dish. -
I could not find a step-by-step recipe for musetto, but see this interesting site from Clifford A Wright which does supply a few recipes in addition to definitions and descriptions. * * * Were you interested in a smallish business in D.C., try Brookville, an independent supermarket in Cleveland Park whose gregarious butcher (Pam) has been profiled by The Washington Post...just south of Dino's. (I am being selfish since this would be convenient for me.) I would suggest Vace, too, except they make their own sausage: sweet, hot, and just recently started carrying cotechino.
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Regarding the sentence emphasized above, is this indeed the case? I just bought a can of La Valle, not the DOP, at Balducci's which now carries both types. I know, just a dollar difference in price, but I had just splurged on a lot of Prosciutto San Daniele. I should have read the label more critically. I am looking at my purchase now. While the label for the DOP's, of course, is very explicit about the one place in San Marzano where the tomatoes are grown, this can has the words "San Marzano" plastered across the swelling, sweating bottoms of the tomatoes pictured. Does that just glorify the place's plants? It's a bit like "Bottled at Chateau d'Affite" on wine whose grapes come from hither and Jan? Or is the elongated type of saucing tomato with a pear-like shape being "branded"--sort of like saying "San Marzano" instead of "Italian plum" tomatoes? In small print on the sides it says <<Pomodori pelati prodotti in Italia a norma di legge>> and in large letters on front, those peeled tomatoes are called "Italiani.*" This suggests the tomato and processing plants could be anywhere in Italy and that La Valle is conforming to legal standards of manufacturing their product. *As opposed to the olives in the EVOO imported from Italy that come from Tunisia, Spain, Greece, etc. Someone told me Italy imports more olives than any other country in the world.
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The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
For lunch, I prepared Batali's recipe for Zucco al Forno, using fresh sage instead of the recommended nutmeg. The squash is hollowed out like a pumpkin, then stuffed with layers of crisp fried croutons, mushrooms & onions and a cheesy custard whose principal ingredient is marscapone. After baking, the lid is removed and contents scooped out of the papery, withered shell. Delicious with a salad of arugula & radicchio, Prosciutto San Daniele and a glass of Tocai. (I do recommend the recipe. However, if you have meaty acorn squash, decrease the amount of filling significantly.) -
The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia
Pontormo replied to a topic in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Batali's grapes are there as a nod to the grape must traditionally used to ferment the turnips, of course, as either you or Ludja mentioned earlier in the thread. His versions of brovada and mostarda di Cremona [the recipe in Molto Italiano differs from the one online, FYI] remind me that as much as we have access to so many ingredients not imported a couple of decades ago, it's still necessary to make a few adjustments. I look forward to hearing about the results of your venture. I had no idea the turnips are left whole and not grated first. P.S. I found a copy of Waverly Root's "Foods of Italy" from the Time-Life series recently. Writing in th 60's, he says that families in Friuli still bake their own bread at home. Edited to remove question from postscript above since I just got my hands on copies of The Italian Baker (Field) & La Cucina di Lidia. The only unique breads in either that I notice at first glance are for weddings and Easter, the latter especially rich and like Panettone, essentially a dessert; LMB does offer a recipe for foccacia, however.