Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Italian Bounty in Brooklyn

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When in Bay Ridge, visit A.L.C. Italian Grocery & Alimentari.

Enroute to dropping the adorable Tess at her Brooklyn apartment on Sunday, we explored a bit of the Bay Ridge neighborhood. Walter wanted to check out the newly opened A.L.C. Italian Grocery & Alimentari he’d read about in Michele Scicolone’s post on i-Italy.

Louis Coluccio, who co-owns the shop with wife Alison, welcomed us warmly. As we sampled a seductive butternut squash and pancetta lasagna, we trolled the shelves for tempting items to purchase. Here’s what I selected:

Delitia buffalo milk butter
Les Moulins Mahjoub wild mountain capers in sea salt (as big as hazelnuts!)
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (for only $12/lb!)
Guanciale (cured pork cheek)
L’arte della Pasta fusilli col buco (spiral strands with a hole in the middle)
Il Caprino del Piemonte cremoso (goat’s milk cheese from Piedmont)
Agostino Recca colatura di alici (anchovy juice)

The shop’s Web site is under construction but here’s the contact info.

A. L. Coluccio
8613 Third Avenue (86th Street)
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NYC
718.836.3200

Growing Garlic

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Garlic bulbs imported by Seeds from Italy.

Back in September, I opened the Seeds from Italy promotional email in my Inbox. The company is the exclusive U.S. distributor for Franchi Seeds.

“Four garlic varieties have just arrived from Italy. Ready to plant now,” the copy proclaimed.

Since I had been savoring fresh garlic from the Farmers’ Market for weeks, I was intrigued with the concept that I could grow my own. Like daffodil bulbs tucked below ground in autumn to bloom seemingly like magic in spring, I could sow garlic cloves in September for a (practically) effortless flavor bonanza next spring and summer. My kind of gardening.

I knew right away that I wanted the Rossa di Sulmona with its plump bulbs wrapped in mauve tinged skin. I guessed that maybe this variety had been cultivated in Sulmona, a charming town in Abruzzo, which rendered it even more appealing. I made a mental note to order some.

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They Sure Make a Big Deal Out of a Peach

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Italians wait patiently until the moment is ripe for perfect peaches.

My daughter Tess used to think she didn’t like peaches. But when she was nine and visited Italy, she changed her mind. We bought some lush peaches at the most charming frutta e verdura, “fruit and vegetable shop,” I had ever seen. The shop exterior was, appropriately, painted exactly the rosy blush color of a ripe peach. Folk art paintings of fruits and vegetables graced the windowpanes.

As we strolled by, the scent of peaches beckoned us, like those visible aromas that tickle the characters’ noses in cartoons. Inside the shop, the lettuces, radicchio, scallions, strawberries, cherries, onions, and peaches were arranged in an edible tapestry that would have impressed Martha Stewart.

Within moments Tess was in heaven, sweet golden juice dripping down her chin, eating a wondrous peach out of hand.

A day or two later, as we finished our midday meal at a family-run trattoria—not a fancy place at all—I wasn’t surprised when Tess ordered a fresh peach for dessert.

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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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Max, Wally and Lampredotto

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C’era una volta. . . once upon a time. . . Max (Massimo Melani) met Wally (Walter Sanders) in Firenze. Here’s the story in their own words.

The Basilica of Santa Croce holds priceless artistic and historic treasures.

Massimo
First, a few words about the Leather School: Workshop, Laboratory and Show Room of the finest leather goods situated in the old Franciscan monastery of the Santa Croce Basilica in Florence. It was a marvelous place, as were the splendid people working there.

It all started with the Patron Marcello Gori, the owner and director of the Leather School.

Those years in the early 1970s were characterized by a kind of elite tourism. And the Leather School attracted many of these well-traveled, wealthy tourists from around the world. Marcello Gori ensured that his sales and service personnel were first class as well. The staff was multilingual, elegantly dressed, rather good looking and with long experience abroad. I was one of those.

One day in 1972, the owner presented us a colleague, an American boy from Chicago—a certain Wally Sanders, very smiling person, who looked like a survivor from Woodstock or San Francisco–absolutely the first foreigner who was going to work with us.

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Leeks

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Soil clinging to the leeks' exterior is easy to see. Not visible is the grit between each thin layer.

Leeks—porri in Italian—are coming to market now. Their sweet flavor, tender texture, and lively green color practically sing spring. But, boy, are they dirty!

If you rinse a leek as you would a scallion, you’ll have a finished dish seasoned with grit.

Leeks contain dirt inside their layers, not only on the outside skin, according to Vegetable a Month.com. “Leeks grow layer upon layer, so any dirt surrounding a layer, gets trapped inside as the leek grows outward. It doesn’t help when wind blows or rain splashes more dirt inside the layers.”

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