Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Barilla Shares the Table

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Anyone who has spent time in Italy knows that meals are about so much more than the food. Meals are daily opportunities for fellowship between family and friends. To promote that life enhancement here in the U.S., Barilla has launched “Share the Table,” the Barilla Family Dinnertime Project.

By registering on the site and making the promise to improve the time you spend with your family around the table and join the Share the Table community, you’ll receive a “Guide to Making Family Dinnertime More Meaningful” with exclusive recipes from Chef Mario Batali, as well as access to online information and support.

For each person who promises to “Share the Table,” Barilla will donate $1 to Meals on Wheels Association of America–up to $150,000–to support senior nutrition programs serving more than one million meals per day.

Bed & Breakfast Cavallino

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B&BCavallino

By Walter Sanders

Sharon and I wanted to explore Lecce, the spectacular capital city of Puglia — often referred to as the “Florence of the South.”

We needed to find a place to stay that would position us near Lecce, yet keep us within easy striking distance of nearby attractions and points south. Plus, we didn’t want the hassles of city parking.

It was my turn to choose a place so I perused booking.com for accommodations near Lecce.

The B&B Cavallino looked perfect: an intimate property (3 suites), outside of Lecce, reasonably priced and boasting some of the highest customer ratings of any lodging establishment in the area. We e-mailed and were able to procure a room.

B&B Cavallino proprietor Paola Danielli (right) and her husband Paolo Mercurio.

B&B Cavallino proprietor Paola Danielli (right) and her husband Paolo Mercurio.

Upon arrival, we met the luminous proprietor Paola Danielli. Efficient, lovely, charming (and fluent in English), she showed us to our “room.” What an exciting surprise! We had a spacious apartment with two floors, two terraces, a kitchen, and a huge bedroom overlooking a quiet green campo.

The apartment really felt like our home away from home for the next few days. Every morning before we set out, we brewed our own coffee and feasted on a lavish tray of local pastries that Paola had purchased for us. As Sharon always says, “You have to love a country where they eat cookies for breakfast.”

cavallinocolazione The only minor glitch during our stay    turned out to be the source of more joking   than frustration. Due to local street repairs,   access to and from the southern route to the Salento peninsula ran through an AGIP gas station. It was so well trafficked, we took to calling it the AGIP autostrada.

We couldn’t have been more fortunate in finding this jewel of a B&B. It’s easiest to reach by car, however, with proper advisal the hosts will provide transfers to and from the Lecce train station.

B&B Cavallino is the perfect starting point to explore the many attractions of the Salento peninsula south of Lecce.

Unimpeachable

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Torta di pesche in a tender butter cookie crust.

Torta di pesche in a tender butter cookie crust.

I’m living in a kind of peach frenzy.

Peaches and ricotta for breakfast. Baked peaches blanketed with pastry cream. Peach sorbetto.  Peach tart in a sweet cookie crust.

Pondering how long my supplies will last, I just spoke on the phone to the friendly clerk at Bechtold’s Orchard in Bucks County, PA. She said peaches will be available for about one more week. O-N-E week?  Sadly, the days of peaches dwindle down to a precious few.

Like a squirrel frantically stashing nuts for the bleak days to come, I’m stockpiling peaches in my freezer. It’s easy enough to do. Submerge the ripe but firm peaches in a pot of boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds. Transfer them with a slotted spoon to a big bowl of ice water.

A Bechtold's Orchard peach emerging from a refresing ice water bath.

A Bechtold's Orchard peach emerging from a refresing ice water bath.

Start peeling with a sharp paring knife at the stem end and the skin slips off as easily as a satin robe gliding off the shoulder of a 1930s glamour queen. Halve or quarter the peaches and lay them on a tray lined with plastic wrap. Place in the freezer for a day and then pack the frozen peaches into a resealable plastic freezer bag or plastic freezer container.

Peeled peaches ready to be flash frozen.

Peeled peaches ready to be flash frozen.

And, while you still have the chance, you can bake a homey Italian peach tart with the following recipe. It’s sweetened with fruit preserves to intensify the flavor of the fresh fruit filling. Sometimes I replace half the preserves with ginger-peach chutney from Tait Farm Foods in Centre Hall, PA. It makes a sweet, slightly hot filling that’s bliss.

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WINO in NOLA

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WINO2

I had not been back to the Big Easy since April in the year of Katrina, and it was time for another visit. Our time share condo at the lovely Hotel De L’ Eau Vive survived and Tchoupitoulas (Chop-a-too-lus) Street proved to be as funky and seductive as ever. If you head past the legendary Mother’s on Poydras and walk toward the Warehouse District, you’ll spot some of the pre-storm pioneers still doing brisk business: Emeril’s, Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar, and an Aussie saloon.

Things can get lubricated on Tchoupitoulas yet it was a pleasant surprise to spot a brazen WINO on the street. The Wine Institute New Orleans (W.I.N.O.) opened in 2007 and has been doing its best to enlighten wine drinkers with a tasting room, a retail store and an impressive line-up of seminars and fun programs at their school.

I stopped by to check out the Italian wine selection. The Italian wine map above the racks was impressive but more comprehensive than the modest collection of Piedmont reds, a couple of super-Tuscans and a smattering of some predictable regional mainstays.

Amanda Toups, the manager and a co-buyer for the store, was enthroned behind the counter at the cash register and she explained some of the wine trends she’s been observing.

“It seems that New Orleans is still a French-drinking town, but people are willing to experiment a little more. We sell a lot of French wine, but Californian product is sure catching up. Maybe it’s because we have an identifiable cuisine in New Orleans, and perhaps people here need a little more of a push to open up their thinking about other wines.”

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Linguine al Limone

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Linguine al limone is a silken melange that complements grilled summer seafood.

Linguine al limone is a silken melange that complements grilled summer seafood.

She had me at “limone.” That’s because lemon is perhaps the best flavor on the planet.

When Sara posted a comment longing for a recipe for chitarra al limone she ate in Sulmona, she set me on a delectable sleuthing mission.

Sara wrote:

Sulmona’s where I had maybe the best pasta dish of my life…but I can’t remember the name of the restaurant. The dish was chitarra al limone, unlike any I’ve had before or since. I’ve tried several recipes, but nothing comes close. When I asked the owner for her secret, she said “limone!” I said, I know…and what else? She smiled and said, “solo limone, signora.”

She’s going to her grave with the secret. I thought it might be that they used that panna that comes in little tiny cartons and doesn’t need refrigeration, but I tried it and that wasn’t it. The secret’s still in Sulmona…

When I asked Sara for more description, she offered this:

It was very very light and I don’t remember that it was creamy, buttery or eggy. It was as if essence of lemon and very little else coated each strand… I’ve tried just olive oil and lemon with a touch of cream but that just wasn’t the same.

Armed with these clues, I speculated that the dish had to contain cheese, probably Parmigiano-Reggiano, to counter the tartness of the lemon and help create the luxurious mouth feel that she described.  I’m thinking that Sara’s signora wasn’t being coy when she said “solo limone.” To her, cheese is probably just a “given” not worth mentioning.

I consulted the usual reference suspects: Ada Boni’s Italian Regional Cooking, Le Ricette Regionali Italiane (Solares), Artusi’s The Art of Eating Well, The Ultimate Italian Cookbook by Carla Capalbo and Marcella’s Italian Kitchen. None offers a recipe for chitarra al limone. Giuliano Bugialli’s Bugialli on Pasta has a Spaghetti al Limone recipe “from all over Italy” containing quite a bit of butter and cream, more of a lemon- flavored cream sauce than the intense lemon sauce desired by Sara. Michele Scicolone has a Linguine with Lemon recipe in 1,000 Italian Recipes but it’s made with butter. For an Abruzzese dish, I felt that olive oil would be more traditional.

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The Puglia Coast

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Octopus salad with fennel and extra virgin olive oil.

Octopus salad prepared with fennel, red bell peppers, extra virgin olive oil and coarsely ground black pepper.

Chill rain and high winds aren’t exactly a siren song call to the beach. When Walter and I visited Puglia this spring, the region was experiencing the wettest primavera for scores, perhaps hundreds of years. (The longevity of the record seemed to grow with each subsequent local we met).

While we didn’t get to wiggle our toes in warm sand, we did sample a taste of the sea at Il Vecchio Forno, a very good seafood restaurant in the shore town of Barletta on the Adriatic coast north of Bari.

A gratin of mussels blanketed in breadcrumbs and olive oil.

A gratin of mussels blanketed in breadcrumbs and olive oil.

We savored many courses, all prepared simply from pristinely fresh seafood. Most memorable are a gratin of mussels, fish fritters, fried anchovies, octopus salad, seafood risotto, and a grilled spigola (sea bass) with lemon.

Il Vecchio Forno

Via Cialdini 61

Barletta, Puglia