Spring in Tuscany is finally upon us. The markets are filling up with my favorite April produce, fresh peas, agretti, asparagus, and fava beans. I begin to fill my kitchen with the fresh ingredients and look to creating lighter, brighter dishes then the winter soups and stews of Tuscany.
However, this year, April has been wet and cold. So, with nostalgia I linger in the winter foods, remembering cozy evening of cooking ribollita.
When I first moved to Italy nearly seven years ago I had heard of ribollita, I had even learned to cook it in my very first Italian cooking class nearly ten years ago, but I had not yet understood it. To me, with my American eyes, it was a fairly tasty, exceedingly simple, but somewhat boring Tuscan soup.
Ribollita, meaning re-boiled, is essentially winter vegetables, including most prominently Tuscan kale, and white beans, boiled together with yesterday’s bread, and topped with a generous drizzle of olive oil. As I have discovered over the years there are many different versions, some so good they can comfort both your hunger and your soul, and some so bad they make you wonder if it’s possible that the various versions can be considered the same food.
I have made ribollita almost every winter since I have been here, but it was not until this winter that I finally began to find my own version, and with it another lesson in my never ending quest to becoming a chef.
Ribollita, more than anything, takes patience. Each step is not to be rushed, it is to be enjoyed and coddled along gently. It is the most comforting of comfort foods, and so therefore, as common sense dictates, it must come from a place of comfort. I think I made the soup five or six times this winter, and every time it came out just slightly different. It wasn’t necessarily that the ingredients were different, or that I had done something differently than the first time, which was the best time, it was that each time I had made it afterwards I had had slightly less time, and therefore I rushed a step or two. It was evident.
I couldn’t believe the difference rushing things even just slightly made. It is an important lesson for me. And now I am forever on the quest to perfect my ribollita and comfort my soul. Or at least keep myself warm on a cold winter night.
My Ribollita:
Ingredients:
1 cup of dried zolfini beans (Tuscan white beans will do as well)
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Sea salt
2 red onions
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 small bunch of Tuscan kale
2 potatoes
5-7 cherry tomatoes
1-2tbsp. Tomato concentrate
5-6 thick slices of Tuscan bread
Black pepper
For the beans:
Leave the beans to soak overnight. Drain.
Lightly brown two cloves of garlic in a pot with some olive oil. Add the beans and stir until coated in oil. Cover beans with water plus about an inch. Add salt to taste. Heat until gently boiling and then turn down and leave at a simmer. Cover. Cook until beans are tender but not overly soft. Taste often. This process depends a lot on how long the beans have soaked, how high the heat is, and the type of bean, so it is important to taste. Usually it takes anywhere between a half hour and an hour and a half.
Once cooked turn off the heat and leave beans in the water until you are ready to use them.
To start the ribollita slice the garlic and dice the onions, carrot, celery. I usually do a fairly small dice, but this is up to you. Then sauté all together in a large heavy pot until the vegetables begin to soften. Do not brown. Add a small amount of salt.
Slice kale into quarter inch slices, and peel and cube the potatoes, add to the sautéed vegetables. Add a few ladles of the bean water, enough to keep the vegetables moist and not let them brown. Cover the pot and cook ten to fifteen minutes. Halve the cherry tomatoes and add to the pot. Add the tomato concentrate and some more bean water. Cook covered over low heat.
Meanwhile toast the bread. Over a fire would be best, but in a grill pan or a toaster oven will work as well. The bread should be lightly charred. Then cut into pieces about one inch by one inch Add enough bean water or tap water if you have run out of bean water to dissolve the bread into the soup. Cook covered another ten minutes.
Add half the beans to the soup. Puree the other half and add to the soup as well. Stir well and cook another few minutes. Taste for salt.
Serve with lots of olive oil and black pepper.
From the black pitted ones that come from tins and can be worn as finger puppets, to the marinated versions often found in the salad bars of grocery stores, olives have always held a special place in my heart.
Great for snacking, but also delicious mixed into many dishes including the tanginess of northern Africa, the fish and pasta dishes of southern Italy, the stews and poultry dishes of northern Italy, and of course the famous salad that hails from Greece.
This fall the two tiny olive trees outside my house filled their branches with the tiny black Tuscan version. We were astounded by the bounty. Not wanting to let them go to waste, but also not having enough to make oil, I decided to try my hand at curing. After doing some research on the internet, I decided to begin the curing in three separate ways.
A portion of the olives were rinsed and then packed in rock salt and put in a jar. Every day for the next several weeks I shook the jar, poured out any bitter liquid that had been drawn out, and added more salt. The end result, four weeks later, were tiny dried olives with little bitterness and a strong woody flavor. 
For the second step of the “jar salt” olives, as I began to call them, I divided them in half. One part I put in a sterilized jar under olive oil, and the other part I put in a sterilized jar with a few spoons of oil, slices of garlic, and the grated skin of both lemons and tangerines.
The results, a week later, were delicious. The ones under oil had plumped back up a bit and have a slightly earthy taste. The flavored ones were pleasantly salty and had a nice zing to them.
I rinsed the second portions of olives from the tree, placed them in a salad spinner with a cheese cloth, and covered them with regular table salt. Then I left them in the sun to dry. After a few weeks they had shriveled to almost nothing, but the flavor was still pretty bitter. Not wanting them to shrivel even further I decided to move on to the second part of the curing. 
I divided the “colander olives” into three separate jars, one covered with a mixture of water and vinegar, and a spoon of salt. This mixture I did simply by taste, a light vinegar flavor with a hint of salt. The salt is to keep the bacteria at bay, which is necessary in a water solution. To the second jar I added a few spoon of olive oil, lemon rind, and chili flakes, and the third I covered in olive oil with garlic and chili flakes.
The results for the “colander olives” were so-so. The jar with the vinegar-water solution was basically inedible. The jar with some oil was a little too bitter to be pleasant tasting, and the jar covered in oil was pretty good; woody in flavor, and quite spicy.
The last curing method I tried was brine. I rinsed the olives once again, and then made tiny slits from the top to the bottom, making sure not to cut the pits. Then I made a solution of 1 part salt to 10 parts water. When the salt fully dissolved from stirring I poured the solution over the olives and weighed them down with a plate. Once a week for the next three weeks I changed the solution and tasted the olives until they had lost most of their bitterness. At that point the olives had become too salty so I soaked them over night in fresh cold water and the saltiness was gone.
The “brined olives” went into a vinegar water solution which was 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water with enough salt to make the water taste slightly salty, but not as salty as seawater. 
After one week they were the best of the bunch. Tangy and meaty despite their tiny size. I’m still eating them for a snack every night. 
Thanksgiving, ah, that wonderful, wholly American holiday of gathering around the table and sharing an abundance of food and laughter between friends and family. It is, without a doubt, my favorite of all the holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas with its special cheer, Fourth of July with its spectacular soul shaking fireworks and Halloween with its ability to transform and free people, but my heart, well I give my heart to Thanksgiving.
Most of my family’s Thanksgivings were spent in Oxford, Maryland with another family who owns a house there. In that tiny, wonderfully charming town on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay we built a traditional day grounded in our joy of spending time together.
My family always arrived on Wednesday evening after a few hours fighting traffic on the eastern highways between Philly and Maryland. Usually, Mary, the mother of the other family had prepared a rustic bean soup full of good vegetables, and just perfect on a chilly fall evening the night before a day of feasting.
Then, we, the three daughters, of the respective families were ushered off to bed. Amelia, the other daughter, handed my sister and I her latest Archie comic books and we snuggled down into bed, warm and completely content.
In the morning we awoke to the smells of scrapple frying in the old cast iron pans, and we made our way, through the cold hallway which wasn’t heated, into the warm living room where the Macy’s day parade was inevitably playing on the television. When everyone had appeared from various corners of the house it was time to gather round the table and devour the delicious scrapple which was basically a once a year treat on Thanksgiving.
During breakfast the Moms planned the cooking for the day, and the Dads discussed the walks they would take. We three girls discussed our Thanksgiving Day entertainment, usually a poem or skit we would perform for the parents before or after dinner. Throughout the day walks in the chilly November air along the Chesapeake to collect sea glass, acorns, and pinecones for our table’s centerpiece were taken. The dads brought along binoculars and identified birds.
Back at the house we girls drank Swiss Miss hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows and helped the Moms peel chestnuts, roll Jimmy Dean sausage into tiny balls, and cut leaves out of pastry to cover an apple, pecan, or pumpkin pie. Later, when we were older, we made the desserts, Amelia became especially good at cheesecake. The football games were on the television throughout the afternoon. Books were read, fires were made, and life was good.
Then the table was set, my Mom’s centerpiece placed in the center, the turkey came out of the oven all golden and crackled, and Mary made luscious gravy with the drippings. The turkey was carved and the buffet table laid with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, vegetables, yams or sweet potatoes, and sometimes jello.
We heaped food onto our plates and settled in at the table, we joined hands and had a moment of silence. We gave thanks. And then we ate.
Yup, my heart is with Thanksgiving.
I have now missed out on these wonderful Oxford Thanksgivings for the past six years. Two of those years I made Thanksgiving here in Italy, and three of them I had to work on Thanksgiving. This year I just didn’t want to miss it again, so I made an early Thanksgiving on Monday.
In the past I have struggled a little with what to serve at an Italian Thanksgiving. Italians do not traditionally eat their food all piled on to one plate and so it is a little strange to serve a whole bunch of things. This year I decided to keep it simple, and serve really in season foods.
To start, since I knew Sandro’s sister was bringing a pumpkin cake, I made a pumpkin soup complete with crunchy sage. Then I filled out the rest of the meal with potato puree, roast turkey, stuffing filled with chestnuts, fennel sausage balls, and sage, artichokes tossed with mint, and light white wine gravy.
Gravy, Potato Puree, and Pumpkin Soup
On Monday morning when I went to pick up the turkey, which we had specially ordered from the butcher, I was aghast. It was enormous; the butcher asked me if I had brought a truck to take it home. There were only going to be six of us for dinner.
After Lugging the Turkey Home.
Amazingly the turkey came out really well. It was both tender in the breast and the thigh, a feat which I usually find difficult to accomplish. This time I used a thermometer and kept a very close eye on the temperatures, trying not to let the breast get above 155F, and the thigh to be above 175F, also known as a balancing act.
The Turkey Barely Fit in the Oven.
It all turned out pretty well, though I think my Mom and Mary do a better job. But, my Italian guests seemed happy enough, and having family gathered around the table was a true pleasure. But, I sure do miss those Oxford Thanksgiving. Maybe next year.
The Table is Set.
For the present I better go eat some more leftover turkey!
Since being back in Italy after the usual August vacation I have been in a bit of a quandary. Sandro and I are not sure exactly how much longer we are going to be here, since we don’t know how long it will take for him to sell his taxi license. Therefore I am not sure what to do about work. I have been looking for a job in a new restaurant so that I may continue my culinary education, but so far all the kitchens I have asked are already full. There are not that many high level cuisine restaurants in Florence, and I don’t really want to go back to traditional.
So, for now, I am bouncing between the kitchen and dining room. At least I can do something in the restaurant world, and on the plus side this gives me plenty of time to work on my own cooking at home. I can cook all day if I want!
I have decided to really concentrate on fine tuning various recipes for a future business, and this month has been all about Gelato/Ice Cream.
Gelato may just seem like the Italian word for ice cream, but it is actually a slightly different product. The biggest difference being that it is actually lower in fat. That’s right, gelato is better for you then ice cream. It has higher milk to cream ratio then traditional American ice cream. On the other hand, gelato does have more sugar which helps to give it that soft, frozen yogurt- like, texture. Gelato is also mixed at a slower setting and therefore incorporates more air giving it a higher volume to weight ratio then the tightly packed ice cream we usually eat out of pints in the States.
I, for my Gelato/Ice cream Project, am using all types of milk, cream, sugar ratios in search of a satisfying texture. I am also using various types of milk, and then of course different flavors. So far I have made six different types of gelato with varying results. I always use the same machine, which is a cheap little machine I bought at the local grocery store. It has a disk filled with some sort of gel which you freeze and then a thin plastic spinner that pushes the milk base around the disk. I will be updating this post as I make more gelatos for now I will be giving you the results of what I’ve done so far. Hope this helps in any gelato/ice cream making aspirations you may have.
What I’ve tried so far:
Blueberry and Brown Sugar Ice Cream made with high milk to cream ratio and corn starch. The corn starch was supposed to give it a smoother, more united texture, but for some reason this gelato did not work out well for me. It came out crumbly and I could feel the ice particles on my tongue. Not pleasant.
Next I tried the same base, the one with milk, cream, and cornstarch, but also with a few spoons of cream cheese. I used honey instead of the corn syrup the original recipe called for and vanilla sugar (leave a vanilla bean in a jar of sugar and you have vanilla sugar) instead of sugar. The result was a beautiful, rich, incredibly smooth texture. But, it melted very fast. The recipe follows:
Modified from a recipe in Saveur Magazine No. 140 from the book Jeni’s Splended Ice Creams at Home (Artisan, 2011)
2 c. milk
4tsp. cornstarch
1 ¼ c. heavy cream
½ c. vanilla sugar
2 tbsp honey
Pinch of kosher salt
3 tbsp cream cheese
Mix a few spoon of milk with the corn starch until you have a smooth texture. Set aside. Whisk together the rest of the milk, cream, sugar, honey and salt in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 4 minutes. Be careful not to scorch! Add cornstarch and stir until thickened, about two minutes. Turn off heat and add cream cheese. Cool the whole mixture and then finish in ice cream machine.
The next type of gelato I made was goat’s milk gelato. I thought it would be a fun experiment because goat’s milk has an interesting flavor and also smaller fat globules which effects texture. It worked out really well! I did not have enough goats’ milk for the recipe I found so I changed the recipe completely and used part cream, part goat’s milk. The end result was a fluffy, sweet, smooth gelato. The best yet! I divided the base and made three different flavors, original which tasted of honey and goat’s milk, lemon peel, and earl grey tea. All of them were delicious.
Goat’s Milk Gelato
2c. goat’s milk
1c. heavy cream
1/4 c. honey(I think you could also use sugar, i just really like honey)
4 egg yolks
Heat the goat’s milk, cream, and honey until just below boiling point. Turn off heat. Whip egg yolk until lemony in color. Add milk-cream mixture a little at a time, stirring constantly. Cool. For the lemon flavor I left lemon peels in the mixture overnight (refrigerated) and for the tea I simply dipped a tea bag in the hot mixture and left it to seep for awhile. Then use ice cream machine.
I will add more gelato and ice cream as I continue on this sweet project!
My favorite part of the year, passed on my favorite place in the world, has once again come and gone. Block Island was as wonderful as it always is, especially with the amount of good food we consumed and the lovely company we consumed it in.
The trip officially began when we picked up some fresh steamers, otherwise known as soft shell clams, and a filet of cod at the Ferry Wharf Fish Market which is conveniently located next to the ferry in Point Judith. The steamers were incredibly fresh and were said to have come from nearby.
The one hour ferry ride, with the wind blowing and the sun setting, was a refreshing treat after the five hour car ride; the bloody mary helped too.
As usual my heart was pounding, and my skin crawling with excitement when we finally pulled into old harbor and the familiar announcement came that it was time for people with vehicles to return to them.
Just the smell of Block Island, the wind carrying the remnants of sun baked seaweed and grey rocks, is enough to calm all of who I am. Contentment sets in.
The drive to the house was over in a few minutes and we unpacked the car, claimed bedrooms, and began cooking. The steamers were heaven. Sweet and plump and dipped in butter. The cod was okay, though I over cooked it a little when I got distracted by the deliciousness of the steamers. After a quick walk down to the beach to see the almost full moon with one of my best friends in the world, I snuggled up in bed, my feet already permanently sandy, and my husband already sleeping soundly.
The first night set the stage for what would be plenty of good eating of local ingredients. Our days centered around hunting for our meals, working for our meals, or taking care of the land. Blackberry picking was our very first activity. Spear fishing, for the first time, was our second. Alex, my good friend, was lucky enough to spear a black fish on our expedition. We filleted it and had it for dinner. We also had lobster bought straight from the boat, and blackberry cobbler straight from the land.
We went to the farmer’s market. Island farming, which for a while fell to the wayside, but was originally very prevalent, has returned. Every year the market is filled with more and more food tables alongside the craft tables. The one stipulation of the Block Island farmer’s market is that whatever you are selling must be made on Block Island.
Walking around the market we always see lots of people we know selling all kinds of things. The special thing about islanders is that they all do many jobs, and therefore turn up in all kinds of places.
We bought BI oysters from Chris Wharfol, who is also an energy expert.
Produce came from Scott Commings of Blazing Star Farm, who is also a director for the Nature Conservancy. Scott was also nice enough to let us come and visit Blazing Star Farm which is run by him and his wife. It was a beautiful evening, and seeing all the wonderful things that Scott and Suzanne are producing organically was a truly unique experience.
Honey from the Littlefield’s who do countless other things around the island, a sculpture of a striped bass made by Stuart Littlefield, the son of the honey making family, and a necklace made of drilled stones put together by the son of the director of the historical society.
There are also countless baked good, and canned things. This year there was also seaweed. Fried seaweed and seaweed salad were our favorites.
We were off and running. Days began to blend together. Island life took over.
We walked. We ate. We clipped the trails. We made a beach fire.
We swam. We played cribbage. We munched on sandwiches. We watched a storm.
We went clamming. We didn’t make it to the mussel beds. We went out to dinner. We stayed in for dinner.
We watched the sunset. We played monopoly. We chased the moon. We saw a movie at the old empire theater.
We played bocce. We went to a lecture on Block Island 50 years in the future. We watched for shooting stars.
We lived with the island, we ate from the island. I fell in love with the island all over again.
It has been a slow summer for the restaurant, very slow indeed. The first of July week we had zero clients on Tuesday, eight on Wednesday, two on Thursday, zero on Friday, and five on Saturday.
Therefore, as we say in the business, I moved from the back of the house to the front. The usual waitress quit last month, and the night after she left the restaurant was fairly busy. Takeru, the head of the dining room, and the only person left as a waiter asked me if I could help out for the night. The next day the chef asked me if I would like to help out for the month. I had been extremely bored in the kitchen since it had been slow so I thought, why not?
I figured it was a good opportunity to learn about service since I don’t have much experience in that area, and if I want to open a restaurant I will need to be able to train a wait staff. It has been an interesting experience.
I now remember why I prefer to be in the hot kitchen, sweating away, stressing, running, and cooking up a storm. Talking to clients is difficult; it requires a lot of patience. Talking to clients in another language is even more difficult, but it has also been fun.
I really enjoy working with Takeru who is probably the most interesting and graceful waiter a diner might come across. He is in fact so good that many people tell him they want to take him home to show their friends, that he is the best waiter in the world, and that his service is unique. One time Sandro was driving two clients who were discussing how amazing their waiter had been the night before, and that he was the best they had ever had. Sandro asked them if they were talking about Cenacolo del Pescatore and of course the answer was yes.
Dressed in black pants, a black button down shirt, and Italian white leather shoes, Takeru, with his tall thin frame and spiky black hair, glides across the dining room lighting candles, spinning on his heels, and silently conducting a beautiful dinner for guests. The first time Sandro and I ate at Cenacolo we were incredibly impressed and I never forgot those white shoes.
Keeping up with Takeru is not an option for me, I’m just too awkward and bumbling, but learning from him is great. How to clear crumbs off the table, how to gently push clients towards the tasting menu, how to present dishes without over doing it. I don’t do any of Takeru’s whirling moves I just concentrate on not dropping knives in people’s laps, or breaking even more glasses than I already have.
There have been some interesting moments in the last month. The table of eight people who ate a five course tasting menu and announced after the forth course that one of them couldn’t eat fish and could we please make something else. Not sure where the first four courses went? The gay couple who ordered a three course tasting menu, and immediately became nervous that it wouldn’t be enough food. They ended up adding two extra courses and by the end were so full that they scoffed at me when I tried to hand over the desert menu. The American couple who talked to me for twenty minutes about how amazing the restaurant was, and then slyly shook my hand squashing a bill into it, and saying they hoped this would help with my dreams of opening a restaurant of my very own. When I opened my palm after they had left to find five euros I wondered why they had to secretly passed it to me. They could have left it with the bill. I bought a kebab instead of a restaurant.
From this experience I will try to be nicer to waiters in the future when I am working as a chef. Chefs tend to expect waiters to be able to go and come the second they snap their fingers, but waiter are the ones standing in front of the clients, they can’t act the way chefs do. They are the face of the restaurant, the calm on the surface of turbulent waters. Even when the chefs are running and the waiters need to run to they still have to walk. People are watching.
Just want to say thank you to all the waiters and waitresses out there that have served me or worked with me. It’s not as easy as you make it look.
If you’ve been to Florence you have probably eaten pappa al pomodoro, ribolitta, and Florentine steak. These are the famous Florentine foods, especially the mighty steak, which can cost as much as 50 euro a kilo.
Just as loved by Florentines, but lesser known by tourists, is the humble lampredotto. Lampredotto, like tripe, is a cow’s stomach, the fourth stomach of the cow to be exact. The soft, light brown flaps of the inside of the cow’s fourth stomach are incredibly tender and delicate in their meaty flavor.
For first timers it can cause a bit of squeamishness, but if you can get past the thought and onto the taste, it really is a wonderful flavor.
All around the city of Florence lampredottai, street vendors of lampredotto, sell this traditional peasant specialty and Florentines flock to the stands for lunch. For a few euro you can grab a stool and watch as the steam rises from the boiled stomach before being sliced and piled onto a white roll which may or may not being dipped in broth. You can specify salsa piccante (spicy sauce), salsa verde (green sauce), or both. 
Accompanied by a small plastic cup of red wine it is the perfect lunch. If you’re in Florence don’t miss this specialty.
Elise Smith Lapham, my incredibly wonderful ninety-nine year old grandmother, passed away this week. I started thinking I’d like write a little something about her and began turning phrases over my head, musing about her personality and life. For some reason the phrase “true blue” kept popping into my mind, even though I wasn’t exactly sure of its meaning. I decided to look it up, and what I found fits perfectly.
“Loyal and unwavering in one’s opinions or support for a cause”*
Hunna, as my family called her, was one of the strongest, most determined, generous women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Throughout my life I have constantly found myself astonished to be related to her.
Everything she did, she did with gusto; whether it was crawling across the fields of Block Island on he hands and knees to plant thousands of daffodils, learning the trade of banding birds, traveling the world with an open and curious mind, pioneering land conservation in Block Island, raising four children, or playing word games and card games.
These are just a few of the things she enjoyed and accomplished in her long life. I, as her granddaughter and as a person, am awed and amazed when I think of it all. I can only hope that in my lifetime I will be able to accomplish and encompass even a tenth of what she did and who she was.
She also had an incredible sense of humor; her laugh was infectious and frequent. A few years ago, on one of her last trips to Block Island, we were sitting at the old checkers table building towers out of smooth ivory dominoes when someone put a handful of walnuts on the table for us to enjoy. Her sight not being so great, Hunna picked up one of the walnuts and felt it for a moment before moving it towards her face. To my surprise, instead of eating it, she started to put it in her ear. In a loud voice, as her hearing was also not so great, I asked her why she was putting the walnut in her ear. She stopped and looked at it more closely. Then she burst out laughing.
“I thought it was my hearing aid.”
We laughed and laughed uncontrollable little girl laughter. We couldn’t get a hold of ourselves.
Every time I laugh that laugh, that deep, gut wrenching, the world is wonderful kind of laugh I will think of her, and her unwavering support for causes far and near, and will remember what a true blue woman she was.
*http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/true-blue.html
Switzerland is soul searchingly beautiful in a completely different way than Tuscany is. Tuscany has those soft rolling hills, and pure gold light that creeps and slides over the silvery olives trees, and twisted vines. It is sweet and quiet, shy.
Switzerland is dramatic, its beauty is glaring. It is precise and modern, yet old and regal. When you imagine what life must have been like before modern invention it seems harsh, but then again it also seems immensely satisfying.
Last week my parents came to visit and with Sandro we set off for a traditional Italian vacation, una settimana bianca, a white week, or a ski holiday. Sandro and I had been to Zermatt, Switzerland for a few days about seven years ago and we had always wanted to go back.
Zermatt is the ideal ski town, set in a valley at the foot of the Matterhorn and a range of other Swiss Alps, it is tiny, traditional, and quite. The skiing is unbelievable, especially for someone who grew up skiing in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Zermatt is an electric town, which means it can only be reached by train, or by a taxi, and then it must be traversed by electric taxi, horse and carriage, or on foot. Sigh. How lovely.
Perhaps the loveliest thing of all is the quality of food. We had taken an apartment which meant that we not only were able to explore the restaurants, but also the two large grocery stores, which were filled with the highest quality of vegetables, dairy products, meat, and fish.
As soon as we settled into our apartment on the first night my mission was to read everything about food in the area. I soon had a restaurant picked out for the following night, which was Valentine’s, and a list of others to try out during the week.
Ironically the restaurant I had picked out for its good fondue reviews, and cozy looking atmosphere turned out to be the very same restaurant in which Sandro and I had eaten seven years earlier. The atmosphere was perfect for Valentine’s, dark wooden walls, sheep skin pillows on the chairs, and the smell of melting cheese drifting through the air.
Sandro ordered a cordon blue style cheese over spinach. It was delicious. The cheese was gooey, pungent, and utterly sinful, while the ham was of the highest quality, and the crisp bread crumb crust was perfectly crunchy. The sautéed spinach underneath was a nice contrast in both flavor and texture.
Then we had Fondue Bourguignon, chunks of beef, to be cooked in hot oil. We were also given plates with departments filled with various sauces, pickled vegetables, fruit, and French fries. It was wonderful, just what I’d been craving for months. Fondue just might be my choice for a last meal on earth.
Dessert was also quite good, Sandro had a coconut panna cotta and I had a yogurt terrine with raspberry sauce. Nothing exceptional, but solid flavor and beautiful presentation left us with goofy smiles on our faces as we trudged up the steep hill back to our apartment.
The eating had begun. And, as it soon became apparent, some of our best meals would be on the slopes, and they would be the highlight of the already incredible week. The ski lines, from the Italian side of Cervinia to the far Swiss side of Zermatt are packed full of both rustic and elegant choices for dining while skiing.
It would be too long to write about all the meals at all the lunch spots so I will simply describe a few of our favorite dishes.
Rosti. A potato specialty common to the region, was by far one of our most popular choices of the week. Grated potatoes sautéed in butter (which my mom discovered by looking it up online), and served with different toppings, which usually included melted cheese and ham, or smoked salmon and sour cream.
Soup. Is there anything more satisfying then sitting outside on a terrace on top of the world as the sun warms you from above and soup warms you from the inside. Bloody Mary soup with vodka and crème fresh, chicken broth soup with crunchy “pancakes”, fish soup, spicy fish soup, tomato and basil soup, lentil and curry soup, onion soup. We had a lot of soup.
Some of the best soups I’ve ever had.
Cheese fondue. I had to have cheese fondue at least once while we were in Switzerland. I wasn’t disappointed. The fondue Sandro and I ordered one day at lunch was filled with smelly cheese that had been perfectly balanced in flavor with white wine. I was in heaven.
We ended our wonderful week full of exercise, eating, reading, and sleeping with another meat fondue. This time served with broth and thin slices of veal, but also accompanied by an array of sauces, fruit and French fries. After we had finished our piles of meat the waitress offered a bottle of sherry and we spiked the broth and sipped it down. Wow. What a week in my food driven life.
The view wasn’t bad either.
I do have to say that the best part of all was spending time with my wonderful parents and husband. Thanks for all the banana grams Mommy and Poppy.
For a full list of Zermatt restaurants we tried please see Restaurant Lists.
It has been a rough couple of weeks. Yuichi, my partner/teacher, on the pasta side of the restaurant went off to Japan for a month. The chef reduced the menu a bit, and I was left in charge of two soups (potato and cauliflower), calamari lasagna, and artichoke and baccala risotto.
There were some struggles. The first night Yuichi was away we went from 3 reservations to 30 in less than an hour. That is very rare for our restaurant and I was in a panic before service. There wasn’t enough soup, enough pasta, or enough time. Ahhh. But, luck was on my side and everything ended up alright.
Things went along smoothly for the rest of the week, but Saturday was a rough service, quite chaotic, and full of small mistakes. I ran out of calamari for the lasagna, I didn’t know I should be covering the lasagna with saran wrap; I wasn’t really cooking the cauliflower garnish for the soup correctly. Chef became frustrated with both the kitchen and the dining room, but went home without saying much to us. On Sunday we awaited his return to see how we might better organize for the upcoming weeks. However, he never showed up.
Chef had come down with a very serious case of bronchitis and was in and out of the doctor’s office many times over the following weeks. He was ordered to stay in bed, and therefore only came to the restaurant when it was absolutely necessary. That left Toshiya in charge of appetizers and entrees, and me in charge of hors d’oeurves and pasta. We were both nervous.
Though I have been working at Cenacolo for the past ten months I have spent most of my time during service plating and organizing for Yuichi. I had never, for example, actually made the soups. Chef was supposed to make the soups while Yuichi was gone and I was supposed to cook the garnishes and plate them.
With much concentration, and much tasting I made the soups every night, and then waited with baited breath for the plates to come back from the dining room. I was terrified that people wouldn’t like it, that a bowl would come back half full. Toshiya was scared too. When chef was away in November for a month we got some negative comments on Italy’s main restaurant review website. We were hoping that wouldn’t happen again.
It didn’t. Thankfully the month went efficiently and I learned a lot. I don’t think I could possibly have been given a better opportunity. With Chef and Yuichi away Toshiya and I felt that we really needed to work hard and not let the restaurant down. We concentrated, tasted, re-tasted, made everyone taste, communicated, and finally sent out the best dishes that we could do. We may not be at the same level as Yuichi and Chef, but we sure had a heck of a time trying.
