Andrew Fenton

If that's the place I'm thinking of-- I've walked by a bunch of times, though I think it's in the Campo de' Fiori area, not the Ghetto-- you'll be sad to learn that it's still closed. I always wondered what was up with it. Fortunately, it's not too hard to get good filetti di baccala in Rome. Lots of places (pizzerie and so forth) that sell fried foods will have filetti in addition to suppli, fiori di zucca, etc. I avoided the baccala for a while, figuring that it would be super-salty. It's not; in fact, it's not too different fish-and-chips style cod, and when it's done right, man, is it ever good...

Heh. Those poor priests! My favorite pasta at the moment are casareccie- which, come to think of it, are pretty similar to strozzapreti, despite coming from the opposite end of Italy. They're short (so easy to eat), grooved (good for catching sauce), and a little thick (nice texture).

And of course the bean can kill other people... pretty dangerous, those favas! (But so so tasty...)

Oh, I hear what you're saying. Indeed, one of the striking aspects of Italian food culture is the abundance of quality prepared foods for take-out. Bakeries, pasticcerie, tavole calde, rosticcerie... this is something that the US (thanks in large part to Whole Foods and the like) is just starting to emulate. The only statement of yours I'd quibble with is dating it to the Middle Ages. Anybody who goes to Ostia or Pompeii or Herculaneum will see the same thing, under the label cauponae, popinae or thermopolia- or, for that matter, just plain ol' bakeries. Which is why these prepackaged colombe are so odd. Given the number of really good pastry shops, at least in a city like Rome, you'd think that you'd see the cakes being sold there. But I just didn't. Maybe it's that they're a Lombard thing, and you'd see them for sale in pasticcerie in Milan. I dunno.

Yeah, I can imagine that it'd be pretty great if made by a really good pasticceria (or a home baker). The recipes I've seen online don't look too tough (finding the bird-shaped mold, especially outside of Italy, might be the toughest part). Maybe I'll give it a go next year. In looking around for recipes, I found a couple of legends of the colomba's origins, from this website: "The dessert has Lombard origins. The story tells that the first person to prepare a sweet bread in the shape of a dove, on Easter in the year 750 was a baker from Pavia. He gave it, as a sign of peace, to the Lombard king Alboino who was destroying with steel and fire the city that had given him strenuous opposition. This humble gesture had the effect of moving the heart of the invader, who ceased from his ferocious program of vengeance. Another tradition has it that the legend was born in the observation of two doves, which during a battle were placed on the symbol of Carroccio, as if to symbolize good luck and protection for the Milanese army, at the time of Frederick Barbarossa and the League of Lombard cities." Oh you Longobardi! Hairy barbarians you may have been- but you gave us pastry.

Here's the really odd thing I've noticed in Italy over Easter... Everybody, and I mean everybody, buys these pre-packaged Easter cakes. Kevin72 described them-- they're sort of like a coffee cake or sweet bread, sometimes dove-shaped, and topped with nuts and sugar. You could probably make a good one yourself, but I don't get the sense that many people do. And I haven't seen them in pasticcerie, either; just these prepackaged, industrial cakes. It blows me away that in a country that prizes good cooking, and good home cooking, as much as the Italians do, there's so much demand for these things. I'm sort of at a loss: there just seems to be an expectation that this is what you do for Pasqua-- whether or not it's something you'd actually want to eat. Very very strange...

You're going to have a great time, lamington. Sicily is my favorite part of Italy: it is beautiful, there are all kinds of interesting things to see, and the food there is the best in Italy. If you're looking for a base in eastern Sicily, Syracuse is your place (it's more interesting than Catania, I think), and my favorite spot on the island, probably. Do go to Da Mariano (Vicolo Zuccola, 9), in Ortigia, spitting distance from the Arethusa fountain. It's a Slow Food joint, very inexpensive, and with a terrific, personable owner- the kind of place where you can just put yourself in his hands and do just great. And be sure to go to the fish market there; it's not as famous as the markets in Venice, but it's a great place to walk around. (And definitely go to the archaeological museum: it's the best in Sicily, and one of the three best in Italy.) (A shame about no fish for you; fish is a staple of Sicilian cooking, of course, and especially in the east part of the island. Basically every kind of fish you find in the Mediterranean gets channeled through the straits of Messina. It's a pretty amazing bounty there.) Taormina is a beautiful spot, but it's overrun by tourists, many of whom never see any part of the island besides that one place. I'm not crazy about it. Still, I can recommend at least one restaurant: Da Franco is on the piazza where the bus drops you off from the main parking lot. It's a solid trattoria (the best part is the seafood... sorry...) In Messina you'll want to eat a lot of granita. October is a little bit out of season, I think, though the basic flavors (almond, lemon, coffee) are still available. Go to Bar Santoro (sorry, don't know the address, but I bet you can find it online) and get the brioche with granita and cream. It's a classic breakfast dish for Messina, especially in the summertime. That said, the best granita I've ever had in Sicily comes from a truck parked outside the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Agrigento. They have other things listed on the side of the truck, but if you ask, all they actually sell is lemon granita, and it's superb. Piazza Armerina is fantastic, and you should go if you can. The local specialty there is roast chicken, and it can be absolutely superb. If you can make it to Palermo, do. And try to eat at Bar Spinnato: it has been around for over 100 years, and was recently announced one of Gambero Rosso's top 100 bars in Italy. Great pastries, superb marzipan, and great food: I had pasta with bottarga there that was just out of sight. What else? October is high season for fichi d'India (aka cactus fruit.) I like it, but it's kind of a hassle to eat. Still, it's kind of mind-blowing to look out over, of all things, cactus orchards. Have fun!

I'm also a fan of their stew, which you can get as part of a platter with beans and stuff. And I really dig on the huevos rancheros, which feature eggs poached in a really good, chunky homemade ranchero sauce. and welcome, neuronix!

Ah, it's just a short slide from "addict" to "enabler"... Anyway, here's the blurb on Rouge: (On an unrelated note: just below the article is Rachael Ray's recipe for "'You Won't Be Single For Long' Vodka Cream Pasta!" The saddest recipe name I've ever read? Why yes, yes it is.)

I've bought the wasabi peanuts (not the cashews, though) at the Wash. Square location. Mmm, wasabi peanuts...

I Sette Consoli is quite good; just had a very nice dinner there this past weekend (including some outstanding veal cheeks with truffled polenta). Also in Orvieto, don't miss Montanucci: it's a bar on the Corso Cavour that has a first-rate pasticceria.

A good point! Maybe there ought to be some sort of systematic attempt to determine the city's best burger. You know, with defined categories and ratings... perhaps it could be some sort of "burger association" or "burger gang". Naaah... it'd never work...

That's about $80 less than the really most expensive cheesesteak in the city. (But it comes with truffles, &c, &c, so your prediction is right. And I don't know if you can get it as room service.)

Not too much to say. I only had a little dab (of the per mio figlio oil); it's complex, not as fruity as some oils, and quite extraordinary.

All I can do is echo what others have said: the Sholapalooza Year-End Blowout/ Livin' Sous-Vida Loca was fantastic. This was my fourth Studiokitchen dinner over the course of a couple of years, and I can say that one of the less obvious, but most satisfying pleasures of SK has been the chance to watch a really creative chef grow and stretch his abilities. New flavor combinations, exotic ingredients, and maybe most of all, new culinary technology, have kept Shola continually on the move. As seems to be pretty typical, the menu expanded, changed and morphed between initial email and ultimate execution. The amuse, for instance, was a nice surprise: a little shot of kohlrabi soup with seaweed (adding a little saltiness) and hazelnut oil: Next up, yuzu kosho roasted hamachi hara; poached Asian pear, scallion oil, golden pea shoots and Sudachi lime "beurre noisette": Surf n' turf (Studiokitchen-style) followed- "Bincho-Tan" grilled foie gras; shime saba, salicornia, matsutake, Nigella sprouts and a smoked "Yosenabe" broth. Shime saba was the real ringer here; it's pickled mackerel, usually found in sushi. The dish presented a mix of sour (the mackerel), saltiness (from the broth) and the richness from the liver that's not like anything I've had before. Salicornia, aka "sea beans" are a nice touch; they're like something that the Little Mermaid would serve at her dinner party: Three of the courses were prepared using a sous-vide cooker. All the cool kids are hopping on the sous-vide train, I guess, and I can see why. This was my introduction to the under-vide world of Jacques Cousteau: langoustine, served with roasted veal sweetbreads, topped with a lemongrass and galanga-infused coconut froth and served with combava leaf nage. What was really striking about the dish was the way that the sous-vide transformed the langoustine. It looked like any other shrimp... but the texture was creamy and custardy. Amazing stuff, and a great pair with the crispy sweetbread. I'm sorry that the picture isn't very good: Katie wanted pork, and pork we had! "72-72" Kurobuta pork "Kakuni" (pork belly cooked sous-vide at 72 degrees-- that's celsius, for the ignorant folk among us. And by "ignorant folk", I mean "me".) Liquid pistachio-anchovy praline, wasabi peas. You can't go wrong with pork belly; this was one of the crowd-pleasingest highlights of the meal. The pistachio was also amazing, too; tasted like Sicily: A wee error in plating (the quail eggs that were supposed to accompany the pork were left off) led to a secret bonus course. (Also, we flashed our Stonecutters rings and entered the cheat code.) Quail egg, truffle sauce, grated Parmesan and shaved truffle. Is there anything wrong with egg and truffle? No, I thought not: Next up was another sous-vide course, something I call the "bionic lamb". As in, "we can rebuild it! We have the technology." Lamb shoulder, de-boned, de-fatted, pounded flat, rolled into a cylinder, frozen, wrapped tight with caul fat, sous-vide'd, and roasted a little. The end result is a perfectly round disc of lamb, tender all the way through, served with a juniper infused tomato-chamomile broth and thin slices of daikon. It's really a striking dish. On the one hand, it's incredibly simple- I mean look at it, just a disc of meat in broth. But it's also the most labor-intensive dish on the menu. It also has a certain... artificiality about it. I don't mean that in a negative way (as if it were a Twinkie): rather, it's something that, through technique and technology, has become something completely different from what it was: complex in its simplicity: Here's the cheese course: Italian goat cheese, and "olives". These are blueberries, cherries and grapes poached in their own juices and redolent with the essence of their own fruitiness. Let's call them "Sholives". The spoon has a dab of funky Manni olive oil: And, dessert: lemon-Chaource "cheesecake", aka lemony-cheese ice cream. Below it is a "terroir" of black olive, Marcona almond and demerara sugar. Sort of a joke there, 'cuz it looks like dirt... Anyway, it was a good blast of sweetness and saltiness, all at once: Here's the menu at the end of the meal. Umm, professor? Is this going to be on the exam? Finally, a random shot of one of the Batcave-esque gadgets that fill the Studiokitchen space. As you can see from the label, this is the "anti-griddle" mentioned above. Sadly, we didn't get to see it in operation... I realize that I haven't said a word about Katie's exemplary wine pairings- somebody else can handle that. I'll just mention the funky-ass Brunello brought by mrbigjas that we had with the lamb. It tasted like feet, in the barnyard... and I LIKED IT. Anyway, word on the street has it that Shola is taking a working vacation in the spring... What new creations will emerge from Studiokitchen Labs then? Time will tell... edit: ah, the anti-griddle has already been discussed. But I note that the second Google hit for "anti-griddle" pulls up this thread. Yow.

Yow, that must have been something else! Dinner on Tuesday was wonderful, and my arteries have just finally started to loosen up a little. I think the chicharrones would have driven me over the edge. It was lots of fun, and big thanks to Katie for putting it together. It's always great to have the chance to dine Dangerously!

Passage to India is still there. Haven't been there recently. ← Oops! Yes, of course I meant Passage to India. I haven't been there for a year (when it was terrific); my wife went in October and liked it.

I've always been pretty happy with Pico de Gallo: it's not the best Mexican in the city, but it ain't bad, either. And it doesn't hurt that it's closest to Center City (1501 South): that fact alone made it a natural for my jet-lagged welcome back to Philly dinner last night. Had the chicken fajitas- the meat was a little dry (I assume they were using breast meat, but it was too dark in the restaurant to see), but it flavorful and cheap, with good guacamole and pico de gallo. Yeah, but only on weekends. I totally could have gone for some menudo last night; oh well.

This is absolutely right; as wonderful as the food is, what really sets it apart is the opportunity to talk with Shola, hear what he's trying to do with his dishes, and see how he puts them together. It really brings out the role of food as a gift from one person to another-- okay, you're paying for the experience, but you have a connection, and as you say, intimacy, with the person who's making it. (And I'm going again in ten days! woo!) Indeed. You da man.

Thanks Greg, I remember reading that now, Vientiane is a province of Laos that borders Thailand, and the Laotian origins explain the mix of things we more readily associate with Thai and Vietnamese. Not only that, but Vientiane is the capital of Laos. Anyway, I've been to Vientiane a couple of times, and have quite enjoyed it. I'm too ignorant to really be able to make a clear distinction between the Lao, Thai and Vietnamese aspects of the menu. But I've had one dish which I'm pretty sure is 100% Lao. First, because it wasn't like anything I've had before, mainly because it was loaded with dill. As in, dill as a vegetable, not an herb. A bowl of stew filled with a tiny seaweed forest of dill fronds. Pretty good, but, well, you have to like dill. (Oh, and secondly, because the name included the word "Lao." I'm a detective, I am.)

And you get other people's saliva as a bonus fixin! Dee-licious! Haven't been back to Maoz since that incident, and doubt I ever will. But Philly Falafel sounds good; I'll try to head over there when I'm in town later in the month...

Taste of India may well be the best Indian restaurant in the state of Pennsylvania. (There's a thread on it around here somewhere.)

Ah, Delorenzo's! I wish I could be there... seriously, I do. Have fun! In the meantime, I've been doing my best to keep in practice, through hard work at Pizza Club, Italy Division. With that in mind, I just got back from a trip to the pizza mothership in Naples. I didn't get to do as much pizza eating as I'd like (instead, I let the director of my program, a native Neapolitan, take me out to a seafood lunch. I don't regret that decision, no sir.) But I did manage to duck out and get this little piece of heaven, which I'll share with y'all: I got this from a tiny place on the Via Tribunali for one euro: cheap! Hard to judge scale from the photo, but it's about the size of a large dinner plate. Just tomato sauce, a little bit of mozzarella di bufala and a single leaf of basil. The crust is floppy, full of air, and it was handed to me folded up, like any slice of street pizza you'd get at Lorenzo's on South Street or wherever. But, oh man, was it good! Not just because it tasted as good as any pizza I've ever had, but because it was pizza direct from the great pizza fount, the source of all things bright and pizzaful, all creatures mozzarella and... well, eating it I couldn't help but think about all of you and wish you were there enjoying it too.

Wow, I'm looking forward to trying Amada in December, when I'm back in Philly. (Anybody want to come along?) I can't speak to relative prices of Spanish and US restaurants, but assuming it's comparable to Italy (maybe a false assumption, I don't know), the price differences can be really remarkable. Sometimes that's something that can be chalked up to the availability of local ingredients (bufala mozzarella or fresh sardines are obvious examples of things that are cheap over here, not so in the US). If you're trying to use those ingredients and do a good job of it, it's gonna cost you, and there's no way around it. Wine, too. Seriously, wine here is so cheap it just makes me want to clap my hands and laugh like a giddy schoolgirl. (Or like a drunken sorority girl; take your pick.) At wine stores, you can get a bottle of wine that would run $30 in the US for under 10 euros. That's true at restaurants, too: even pretty high-end places will have a good selection in the 15-euro neighborhood. (Not to mention house wines; often great, always cheap as free.) I haven't been able to figure out the reason: maybe subsidies for vineyards, more likely just supply and demand. It's easy to grow wine in Italy, and everybody's cousin has a vineyard, so there's a flood of cheap Italian wine. I'm doing my best to drink up the flood, but can't... quite... keep... up... That's just not the case in the US, where the supply is just plain lower; hence, no $4 liters of good wine in US restaurants. This is all very rambling and probably not saying anything that anybody doesn't know already, but it's just to reinforce Katie's point. You can do it in the US, you can do it cheap, or you can do it right: pick any two...

Of course you do. And it was a good joke. (For me to poop on.) Still, you bring up a good point: much like succumbing to heroin addiction, it gets easier and easier to go back to Studiokitchen. First time around, it's kind of intimidating to try to work out a date by email. Plus, you have to make sure you can round up a group of eight, a task that can feel like the beginning of a Mission: Impossible episode ("okay, we've got the explosives expert and the master of disguise. Now, who's gonna bring the wine?") But once you've done it, it's pretty straightforward. And then you want to do it AGAIN and AGAIN, and then you think, hey, maybe I can push forward my flight back from Europe so that I can work in a dinner... And then you have to join Phil A. and Percy in that church basement on Tuesday nights, admitting that you have a problem...