Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Joyce Heitler’s Inner Italian

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By Joyce Heitler, guest writer

Joyce Heitler in the southern hill town of Piciotta.

Joyce Heitler in the southern hill town of Pisciotta.

Retired from teaching kindergarten in Chicago after 45 years, I, too, have an Inner Italian.

My husband Frank and I went to Italy about 11 years ago with my son- in-law Renato, who was born in Italy, to see his sick uncle in Tuscany. The uncle lived in a beautiful four-story castle with antique furniture.

We decided to learn Italian so Frank looked up schools on the Internet and found a small language school in Pisciotta, about one hour south of Salerno. The photos looked fabulous and we signed up for a three-week total immersion class. After one week, I fell in love with Pisciotta and the people. Being the impulsive person that I am, I decided to buy an apartment there.

Not many apartments were available for sale so when I went to church I prayed that I would find a place. When I left church, a man, who had heard us speaking English, approached us. His name was Agnello, named after the patron saint of Pisciotta. He had worked in New York for 12 years and then moved back to Pisciotta. I asked him if he knew of anyone who had a house for sale and he said, “Yes, me.”

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Italian Savoy Cabbage and Rice Soup

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Crinkly leafed Savoy cabbage is milder and more tender than regular white cabbage.

Crinkly leafed Savoy cabbage is milder and more tender than regular white cabbage.

My Inner Italian cook is liberated from geography. When it’s sweltering at my home in eastern Pennsylvania, I can toss pasta with juicy plum tomatoes, olive oil, and basil and call it supper. Just as they do in the sunny south.

When overnight temps dip into the teens, however, I can head north to the Alpine region of Trentino Alto-Adige for mealtime inspiration. The northernmost part of this semi-autonomous region is culturally more German than Italian, with ingredients such as sauerkraut and poppy seeds showing up in local dishes. It’s the South Tyrol, a triangular point of land jutting north from Milan and Venice. Bolzano, the capital of Alto-Adige is 400 miles from Rome but a mere 170 miles from Munich, Germany.

Italian Savoy Cabbage and Rice Soup
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Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 8
Cooks in the Trentino Alto-Adige intuitively know how to do is keep body and soul sustained with hearty soups like this Savoy Cabbage and Rice Soup enriched with pancetta.
Ingredients
  • 4 ounces cubed pancetta or slab bacon
  • Olive oil
  • 2 leeks, white and green part, sliced
2 carrots, thinly sliced
  • ½ cup fruity white wine
  • 1 head (1¼ pounds) Savoy cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
  • 3 quarts (12 cups) chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1 cup medium or long-grain white or brown rice
  • 2 teaspoons thyme
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ¼ cup minced flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 2 eggs
  • Grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
  1. Scatter the pancetta bacon or in a large pot set over medium heat. Glaze with olive oil. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes or until golden. Reduce the heat if the pancetta or bacon browns too fast.
  2. Add the leeks and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or until golden.
  3. Add the wine. Increase the heat to high. Boil, scraping up any browned bits, for about 5 minutes, or until reduced by half. Add the cabbage, broth, rice, thyme, bay leaves, and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low.
  4. Cover partially and cook for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the rice is tender. Add the parsley and pepper. Remove and discard the bay leaves.
  5. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Gradually add 2 cups of broth skimmed from the soup. Add the egg mixture to the pot. Cook, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes, or until the soup thickens slightly.
  6. Garnish with Parmesan to taste.

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Italian Icon: La Trattoria

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Trattoria

Combine genuine home-style cooking, many of the amenities you’d find in a white-tablecloth restaurant, and the conviviality of a pub, and you begin to approximate the Italian social fixture la trattoria.

These inviting, affordable storefront restaurants are typically run by a family with Mamma at the stove, son and daughter-in-law waiting tables, and Papa pouring wine—when he’s not charming the clients—behind the case that displays the antipasti, salads, and desserts.

Italian Icon — a person, place, or thing that’s quintessentially Italian

Pocket Coffee

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An ad from the ’70s says “drink real coffee even when there isn’t any.”

Last evening, our Italian language conversation group convened at a local restaurant to celebrate the season. At the head of the table was our native-born speaker Daniele with his wife Fanny and daughter Giuilana. Walter and I, along with Patrizia, Elena, and Davide laughed and conversed over an antipasto platter and a trio of pizzas, supported with a Placido Chianti.

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My Husband Is In Tuscany

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Is Tuscany a state of mind? It has to be when your husband is there without you.

Mio marito è in viaggio in Toscana. My husband is traveling in Tuscany.

Am I envious that he is in one of the most desirable destinations on earth without me? Or that his last email so exquisitely described a day in Firenze that it seemed surreal?

No. Truly, no. It’s not that I’m that selfless. But I am glad that he’s in a place that gives him so much joy. And—full disclosure—every time I’ve traveled alone on a media trip to Italy, he has been totally supportive. To not reciprocate would make me seem really petty.

The grape vines after harvest at Tenute Silvio Nardi near Montalcino, Tuscany.

Walking this morning, I felt assured that my Inner Italian is always available to transport me. The crystalline September light took me back to my visit in Toscana a couple years back, on a trip sponsored by Donna Franca Tours. The air was crisp and the sun warm even though it was November and the weather had been chilly and drizzly. My group was visiting Tenute Silvio Nardi, a highly regarded wine producer near Montalcino. The grapeless vines shimmered with tinges of gold and burgundy.

We enjoyed an early lunch of salume, formaggi, e focaccia with the elegant Nardi Rosso di Montalcino. It was tasty but the aroma of simmering ragù cinghiale (wild boar sauce) coming from the kitchen was distracting me like crazy. On my way out, I stuck my head in the cucina to briefly meet the cooks Lucia and Marizia who were preparing tagliatelle to accompany the robust meat ragù for an event that evening. (That time, I was envious!)

The Nardi cooks with their hand-rolled tagliatelle.

I purchased a Rosso di Montalcino from a good year as a gift for my husband. One of my trip mates, noticing the price, asked if he’d appreciate the value. “Yes,” I replied with certainty, “he will.”

And he did.

Oregano

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Dried oregano from the Mediterranean surpasses all others.

Conventional cooking wisdom dictates that fresh herbs are always preferable to dried. A generation ago, you might find fresh parsley in the supermarket produce section, but that would be it. Today, fresh herbs crowd an entire section and “gourmet” recipes demand the just-picked stuff.

Some fresh herbs are, indeed, superior to their dried relatives a few aisles away. Basil is the most obvious example. It shares its subtle anise-mint flavor only when it’s newly plucked. But oregano? I don’t agree with the trend to cooking with this herb before it’s dried, especially if it was grown in a hot house or hydroponically, as so many commercially-grown herbs are.

Oregano, in Italy, is the Neapolitan pizza herb. For making the finest pizza at home, the type of oregano you choose makes a dramatic impact.

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