ITALY - Lulu's food notes

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lulu

lulu

Head Chef
Joined
May 29, 2006
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Location
England
I know what you mean Snoop...I'm 27 so am slightly behind the lambrusco scorning crowd, my generation just rediscovered Mateus for goodness sake! I am a big rose fan, so the last few years of good quality pinks of all sorts being easily available has tickled me pink! But, now I am learning about srious Italian wine. DH has friends who have a well known Tuscan vineyard and they have extended an invitation to us which we are going to take up late spring to be educated in Tuscan wine :)
 
Arriva il Carnivale!

Carnival is coming up and the confetti is everywhere...and the pasticeria windows are filling with delightful things that everyone warns me will be gone soon. There is a limit to how many things one can try in such a time frame though!



Piled up, sometimes in beautiful baskets or plates, or sometimes simply stacked several feet high in the windows of the pasticeria are"Chiachere al forno" or "chats in the oven!" these are crisp sweet cracker like pastries, served in various ways. Most are covered in icing suger, but glazed, drizzled with chocolate are both common: my favourite are the ones brushed all over with honey. Sbrodolino alla crema are like cream puffs, but more unctuous and the cream is replaced by crema pasticeria, so sweet and think and custardy. Carteddate, nodi d'amore,caramelle - pastries shaped like wrapped sweets, tortelli di zucca and girandole - like little swirly tubes...all these fantastical sounding and beautiful looking glazed pastries crying out to be eaten.....
 
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Yum yum, Carnevale season is almost as sinful as Christmas time, I LOVE those carnevale sweets!! Chiacchere, or often called "Frappe" around us down here, or "Bugie" in some other region, are one of those most dangerous items to eat, it tastes soooo light you could eat tons of them, but in reality they are NOT light at all in calorie content!!:pig:

I adore Castagnole as well, they are reminiscent of "doughnut holes", delightfull little fried sweet balls with a light touch of lemon or orange flavour, the filled ones are even better, with custard or chantilly cream!!

Mmm, now I am in the mood for nipping across to the nearest pasticceria/bakery!!:-p
 
Yeah, they add freshly ground orange or lemon zest to the batter... lovely flavour addition!! Better pig out before you go home Lulu!!:-p
 
Pavia, Lombardia

Pavia is a beautiful small city to the south of Milano. My guidebook told us that, as in much of Lombardy, the salami are a speciality, particularly a goose salami! The other specialites are breaded frogs soaked in a lcoal white wine and a particular type of goats cheese. Also listed is Torta paridiso, a type of sponge cake.

Sundays can be very difficult, and the word on the street is that all the best restaurants serving real Pavese food were closed, but we found a gem of a place called Osteria is Senatore, wh9ich if any of you go to Pavia I woulld really recommend!

As is the style, the menus are long. We opted for three courses, antipasto, a primo and a secondo and were too full for puddings. But the food was excellent.

Primi
I had a pumpkin tart with an extremely short and rich chestnut flour topped with crumbs of bacon. DH had 3 varieties of lard, one from Tuscany, one that is very common in Lombardia called colonata and the third was di Arnad. These were served with hot pastry crackers and DH smiled. I can't tell you too m8uch about them, as I don't eat lard!

Primi
Me: lasagnette di zucchine cone crescenza e pomodorini pachino. This was to die for. The corgettes came swimming in the sweet tomato and crescenza cheese sauce. It was my favourite course. DH had Fusilli al ferretto con ragu di coniglio. Good. The heavy pasta was lightly coated in the light rabbit ragu. It was yummy but I had an unfortunate encounter with a skinned rabbit in the supermarket yesterday so had to make a conscious effort not to think about that while tasting. The other thing was that the serving of pasta, as a primo, was huge. Far too big!

Secondi
DH, full from his pasta had Bue con castagne e polenta. (Ox with chestnuts and polenta) it had mirto garnish and was beautiful. The ox was soft and succulent with a hint of the myrtle liquor..called Sapo, in the backgound. It was a wintery filling dish. But I did not have menu envy! I had coscotto maile con mirto e potate al forno. My pork was unbelievably succulent yet still dense and toothsome, the mirto jus light and rich at the same time and the simple roast potatos were the perfect foil to a jus and meat of such perfection.


Incidently we had earlier in the day, while exploring the working monastry half way between Milano and Pavia, had the best cappucino of my life. It was rich and floaty and we drank it in a wood cabin: even the LIGHT FITTINGS were made of wood, and the two old men carving wooden things to sell, were so delighted with my delight in their coffee they made us another one and gave us a piedina di nutella...another first. Typical of the north the piedina is like a heavy crepe or a light tortilla, and filled and toasted with the Italian staple Nutella! We cut it in half to share and spent the next hour finding bits of nutella that had dripped onto our chins and fingers and clothes :rolleyes: but it was good.

So we ate well to day, but it was inbetween a lot of sightseeing on foot....and while others were shivering in there huge fur coats we were warm with the good food and coffe in our bellies! :)
 
Just a very quick note this time.

I am always surprised at how much Italians love shortbread. Even more since I tasted the Italian equivalent; sbrisolona di Mantova, which really is very similar. Unlike shortbread, its crumbly in appearance rather than smooth, and it had lots of nuts in the mix rather than being a plain biscuit/cookie. But it is short, and buttery. The Lombardy butter is the main difference, it lacks the real "yellow" taste of British butter.

The ingrediants seem to be: type "0" flour, sugar, corn flour, butter, almonds, hazlenuts, white wine (though I can't taste it at all!) and salt. I had mine with a cup of coffee (coffee: health drink of Italy!) but it is also recommended to be had with tea, a glass of milk or a glass of sweet white wine.
 
Hey, what don't you understand? Tell me and I'll be clearer, thanks for reading Skilletlicker! Its fun recording things I haven't come across before, and its amazing how much I am learning about northern Italian food. I had no idea this time last year, for example, how much butter was used instead of oil here in the northern reaches. Now, I am here of course its obvious...we are so Alpine really, but before I would have automatially reached for EVOO where now I know sometimes butter is more appropriate.

Anyway, thanks for reading!
 
Lulu - what a wonderful diary of foods!! I'm enjoying it thoroughly also. Every post seems to send me to google to look up a particular item you mention - looking for recipes!! Thanks for great posts.
 
Wow, thanks....I have only just realised the first part is missing :( must have been when everything went down. Oh, well, I'll have to eat more, rofl.

Antoher quick note here. DO NOT try yoghurt with strawberry and tomato. Yep, one pot of yogurt, two "imaginatively" combined flavours. There was also spinach & apple, mango & pumpkin, blackcurrant & carrot and Pineapple & fennel. I warned DH that matching colours did not equal matching flavours, but this is the guy who willingly eats olive oil icecream....
 
Crema, Lombardia

Crema is a sweet little town south east of Milan. Today the market was busy around the duomo and we tasted, predictably dozens of sausage and cheeses. We bought a nice smoked goat's cheese too, which was delicious. Confetti and streamers were strewn in the roads, carnival season seems to be in full swing. Crema is the most active I have seen people in relation to carnival, and its history entwines it with Venice, despite it being firmly in the region of Lombardia Crema was owned by the Visconti of Venice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The close links were evident not only in the stremers and children, and some adults in full fancy dress, but also by women walking in the streets in full Venetian costume: masks and fans and long dresses gratiously posing for photographs and chatting amongst them sleves in the Duomo square.

Then we stopped for icecream. I have favourite flavours which I find it hard to bypass, but I decided I simply must today, so the cone we shared was loaded with three scoops: peaches and cream, green apple and sugared almond, which was an alarming shade of blue but scrummy!

A light lunch today, ouside Crema in the even smaller town of Soncino (7000 inhabitants), where we had raced to see the medieval castle. The castle is used in films, and wikipedia points out the fiolm Ladyhawke, so if anyone has seen that you will have seen Soncino castello. We arrived as everything shut for lunch. It hard to eat anywhere outside a big city on a sunday, but we found locals restaurant where you get two choices, and that was fine for us! DH, as per usual, went for the local hams to tart, I had the local ravioli, filled with "meat" and srved with butter and sage, then DHH had the local dish of polenta and pork ribs with chiodini (local, little mushrooms). I had an excellent steak served with rocket, parmesan and lemon juice. Then we hit the castello and tried to get to grips with the new camcorder. It was a good day. I am lat=ying off the pastries etc for a while, if I can resist, but I am of to Modena this week, venturing outside Lombardy...so perhaps I'l have more good food to report from there. :chef:
 
Lulu, I am glad that you had such a wonderful day!! So you saw the castello of "Ladyhawk"!! Che fico!! I remember once a friend of mine from Parma told me that the castle they used was actually in Italy but I didn't remember where... I love that film!! If the video clip comes out you should put it on youtube!!:-p

It's a great idea that you two venture out and see more of Italy every weekend. I guess it is different when your partner is a life time Roman, I did do summer holidays in Sardinia and Alto Adige, both of which I love, but I haven't even seen Firenze or Napoli, both within a couple of hours of drive, after 4 years!!:wacko:

I hope you will enjoy your visit to Modena!! Emilia Romagna is another food heaven, so be ready and get there hungry!!:LOL: I hope you can also visit Bologna, which is within 30km from Modena (Just a bit further away along the same motorway from Milano) and I hear everyone saying what a cool, beautiful city it is. Also if you or Michael like autos and motos, don't forget to visit Galleria Ferrari in Maranello and Ducati museum in Bologna!! Another must do is to pick up a bottle or two of vintage Modena balsamic vinegar, among other local goodies!!:-p Have fun!!
 
Well, Modena has been put back a week...I am going weekend after next now, but I have a feeling I will be seing a lot of nice cars...my friend works with "little black horses" if you catch my meaning, I won't say moe because they might not want to be talked about on line. I am actually going to meet some real horses too, the main reason for the trip is my friend has invited me to go and stay, maybe do some ground work with one of her horses...we'll see. Because its a staying with friends trip not sure how much eating I'll get to do, but my guess is we'll be going back a few times!

But, guess where I am going to be on Saturday now? ROMA!!!! We are coming just for the day because DH's colleague in the Rome office has a daughter whose birthday party it is. They are from New Orleans and are home sick, so we are going with DH's saxophone and strong voices to march up and down singing jazz, as requested by the little girl! We are flying in just before lunch so we have the early afternoon to lok around Roma a little bit...the party will start at 4 oclock....then we fly home that evening.....you can't leave a little girl homesick on her birthday after all!
 
E vai, so you are coming to Roma!! With a saxophone!! Now we will know where all the racket is coming from if we are clamourously awakened next Saturday:LOL: (Cris hardly sleeps during the week and we often catch up on z's until very late in the day on weekends!!)
Now you will have a tease of a preview of Rome (just a few hours in the afternoon will not be enough!!), I bet you will be itching for a return with more relaxing schedule!! Hope you guys have a great time and make the most of the very busy day!!
 
I ventured out of Lombardia!

As I type now I am snaacking on my Sunday afternoon treat of chiacchiere and asti, the asti is just kicking in, so please excuse floridities and typos! Heaven, really really heaven. DH has said that he now feels chiacchiere are the single best thing to be produced in Italy, and I am tempted to agree. Its so hard to bypass these delights, as simple as they seem, and I am now dreading the end of them being in the shops :( If anyone wants a recipe I will find one and post it, these really must be tried.

Anyway, I left Lombardia yesterday, and got on a plane for Roma! Just one brief day, but a tantalising first taste of Lazio! As a citrus tree enthusiast I was enchanted by the lemons and oranges with their boughs bent with the weight of their fruit that line the railway lines of the airport shuttle train. My enchantment multiplied when i saw that some streets in Roma are lined with orange trees too, the merry little fruits bright like Christmas decorations, I wonder if people pick them for a snack whilst shopping?

Anyway, we had to go pretty much straight to DH's Rome office for some thing, but the location, CASPITA, what a location! Urmaniac will understand this, that it is practically adjacent to the Spanish Steps in Piazza d'espagna! so from the window I was watching four horses and carriages lining up, we thouht about taking a quick horse drivn tour, but at 150 erous and tight for time, we decided on Shank's pony instead, and our little feet practically ran the narrow streets between the Piazza d'espagna and Via del Corso. The difference in temperature between Rome and Milan was astounding, and we were peeling layers as we ran/walked the streets! Then we got a taxi to where we had to go, for a child's third birthday party. DH had brought his hornm, and met with a Roman clarinetest and a drummer from his office, and they entertained the children playing songs from Mary Poopins, none of these men new the tunes so I was shouting chords as they went and singing melodies in their ears and shaking some plastic maracas! It was amaxzingly good fun, and the broodiness hit in, DH wanted to take home a baby dressed as a bee who had her hands all over his sax :rolleyes: Any way, what intersets you lot was the party food! Pizza, but with NO cheese for these tinies, and in stead of Birthday fcake corostata di nutella, a nutella tart with latticed top.

After the party ended we had only two hours so we ran down th ehill back into the centre of Rome, crossed the Tiber and went into Trastevere, where we looked for a restaurant a friend had said we must go to called Gioacchino's, but this we never fouynd, and feeling the clock ticking we raced into a restarant in Via Pelliccia opposite Augusto (for urmanic's benefit!) where we wolfed down some crostata, one with blak olive pate and one with artichoke and truffle oil. The truffle oil was not on the menu, and I balked as I smelt it arrive but I have to admit I liked the taste. I hae a long standing repulsion to th smell of truffle, so eating it was smething of a feat, and to be honest I could smell it all through the night, but I am so glad I tried it, and it was worth it! DH then ate coda vaccina, a plate of oxtail and tomato stew, I was dithering, we were rushed and I wanted something reminiscent of the beautiful citrus trees that had captured me as I entered Roma, and to celebrate the warmth! But the only thing I fancied was the vitello al limone. I have issues with veal, and said, in English to DH, that I was saddened to not be abke to choose that. But the waiter, who spoke beautiful lyrical english, heard me nd offered to have it made with chicken instead, and knowing we were rushing, scampered of the the kitchen. It was all divne, and I wished we could have loitered longer, but the cats waited and we were latish for the plane so we lept in to a taxi, for the safest journey I have had in Italy on the roads...all though it was 8, when the shops close, the traffic seemed to part in front of us and our taxi driver was softly spoken and angelic, chatting to me aand patient with my painfully slow Italian, unliike the Milanese whop just resort to English!

I LOVED Roma! I can hardly wait to go back, next time I have a friend I want to meet with though!:chef:
 
Lulu, I just love your posts. They're worthy of a blog of their own with accompanying photos. Not sure if that would give away more info than you want to, but it would be great to see pictures of your chiacchiere and asti!
 
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