Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Italy’s Embarrassment of Riches

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Martina Franca

Piazza Plebiscito in the Baroque centro storico of Martina Franca. The town hosts a summer opera Festival della Valle d’Itria.

A lifetime isn’t enough time to really know Italy. I feel I know a bit about Italy but in reality, I have so much more to know.

I’m fortunate to have traveled through 15 of the country’s 20 regions. The five I have yet to visit are: Aosta, Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Sardinia, and Calabria.

When I’m not in Italy, I’m thinking about Italy, a constant student learning about the magnificent cities, towns, history, art, cuisine, wine, and culture. I dream and scheme about places to experience and things to do the “next time.”

So how can it be that of the “10 Places to Downshift to Italy” post on Swide, I have only been to one?

That one selection—Martina Franca, Puglia—resonates enough to make me trust Elisa della Barba’s other nine choices. When Walter and I visited Martina Franca one breezy March evening a few years ago, we felt at home. “I could live here,” we exclaimed in unison.

So peruse these 10 enticing places—from a fishing town on an island in a lake in Lombardia to a hillside of dazzling whitewashed houses in Basilicata. Someday you may know them and make them your own.

Castagnaccio

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In Tuscany, chestnut pancakes are a sweet taste of surviving through hard times.

In Tuscany, chestnut pancakes are a sweet taste of surviving through hard times.

In a recent Italian language conversation meeting, talk turned to castagnaccio. Daniele, our born-and-bred Tuscan from Siena, recalled snacking on this cake. He remembered it in detail. It was made from ground chestnuts and olive oil embellished with raisins, rosemary, and pine nuts.

To my American ears, such an austere combination of ingredients didn’t sound much like any cake I knew. But since I had never sampled a castagnaccio, I decided to bake one.

I ordered chestnut flour on nuts.com and while waiting for it to arrive, I started researching recipes.

Pamela Sheldon Johns’ Cucina Povera seemed like a good starting point since this “cake” was clearly food of the poor. She shared a recipe but the head note gave me pause. “This dense cake is an acquired taste, and it has taken me almost twenty years to acquire it. But its musky chewiness is much loved by Tuscans.”

Patrizia Chen in Rosemary and Bitter Oranges was more encouraging. “Semisweet, tender, and distinctively nutty, castagnaccio is in itself worth a trip to Tuscany in fall or winter.” She also refers to the preparation as a pancake which seems a more accurate descriptor than cake.

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Pop-up Cooking Class: Pasta

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Lehigh Valley Style

photo by Colin Coleman, Lehigh Valley Style magazine

Escape from the snow, cold, and ice with a fun, interactive pop-up pasta cooking class with Sharon Sanders, Certified Culinary Professional, and Walter Sanders of simpleitaly.com.

The small classes (maximum of 10)  in a welcoming home kitchen (Center Valley, PA) are an intimate experience.

You’ll learn to make, roll, and cut fresh egg pasta dough by hand-cranked machine, as well as prepare, and pair, three sauces for both fresh and packaged pasta.

You’ll also receive an inscribed copy of Cooking Up an Italian Life and a SimpleItaly.com chef’s apron.

And, of course, you’ll sample all the pastas you’ve prepared!

Check out what Lehigh Valley Style
says about our Learn-and-Dine cooking classes

Choose from two sessions:

Sunday, March 9, 2 p.m.

Thursday, March 13, 4 p.m.

Fee is $60 (per student). To request a spot, fill out the “Contact Us” form click here

 

My Dolce Vita

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This article first appeared in the award-winning
subscription newsletter Dream of Italy

Jean Salvadore (left) with SimpleItaly's Sharon Sanders.

Jean Salvadore (left) with SimpleItaly’s Sharon Sanders in the lobby of Villa D’Este.

How does one train to be the international ambassador for Villa d’Este, one of the grandest hotels on earth?

The legacy is daunting. Villa d’Este was built in 1568 on Lago di Como as a Cardinal’s summer palace. In 1873, it was transformed into a luxury hotel that has pampered and protected its guests. Many, certainly not all, are celebrated: musicians from Giuseppe Verdi to Bruce Springsteen. . . statesmen Jawaharlal Nehru of India to Prince Ranier of Monaco. . . writers Mark Twain to Joseph Heller. . . film directors Alfred Hitchcock to Woody Allen. . . fashion designers Bill Blass to Donna Karan. . . and on and on.

So, does one train to be the public face of such a legendary property? No, one simply has to be Giovanna “Jean” Govoni Salvadore.

I met Jean on a tour of Villa d’Este as she greeted our Central Holidays-sponsored group of journalists and travel counselors. She seemed so down to earth, putting us at ease with warm words and cool Prosecco. Simply chic in black trousers accessorized with a lipstick red walking stick and knit top, I sensed that at age 85, she is cooler than I’ll ever be if I live to be 185.

Her latest achievement is My Dolce Vita: A Memoir which is as irresistible as it is inspiring. As for so many of her generation, WW II shaped her life in ways she could probably not have imagined as a child.

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Love Is All You Need

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Danish actress Trine Dyrholm is irresistible in this "Inner Italian" flick.

Danish actress Trine Dyrholm is irresistible in this “Inner Italian” flick.

Ever on the lookout for “Inner Italian” movies (see my Top Ten), I stumbled upon Love Is All You Need (Sony Pictures Classics) on Netflix. It’s a relatively recent film that must not have made it to my little corner of the world during its theatrical release.

Susanne Bier, the Danish Academy-award winning director for best-foreign language film (2011) In a Better World, made this film with stars Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm. She shot it on location near Sorrento.

Love Is All You Need is certainly not a masterpiece (how many are?) but Walter and I found its quirkiness, and the charismatic Dyrholm, appealing. Not a typical rom-com, several dark elements colored the narrative.

We responded to the palpable sense of locale and it seemed as if some of the minor characters were locals.

My only serious irritation was from the music. Opening with Dean Martin’s That’s Amore (a song spot-on for Moonstruck, a movie celebrating an Italian American family in Brooklyn) is tone deaf in this context.

A view of Amalfi from a limonceto.

A view of Amalfi from a limonceto.

While I’m not in the business of revealing plot points, I will declare my crush on Danish actress Dyrholm.

Forget Brosnan, I fell in love with her.

When she says, “I can’t imagine existing in a world without lemons,” I found a soulmate.

Brosnan’s lemon grove is a pivotal locale that reminded me of my enchanting stay in a cottage set in a citrus grove above Amalfi.

Love, and lemons, are all I need.

What “Inner Italian” movie do you like?

The Glorious Vegetables of Italy

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“Wherever there is a plot of land in Italy, there is something growing, whether it’s row upon row of staked tomatoes or a hardy mound of rosemary. Even the most modest city balcony holds pots of geraniums and basil. Italians love to be outside, and who can blame them? The entire peninsula is, essentially, a beautiful garden, filled with a profusion of glorious vegetables, from artichokes to zucchini.”
—Domenica Marchetti
Domenica Marchetti's book is a vegetable primer and recipe collection illustrated with stunning photographs by Sang An.

Domenica Marchetti’s book is a vegetable primer and recipe collection illustrated with stunning photographs by Sang An.

Verdure (green things) are not merely ingredients used in la cucina italiana. They are quite literally the soul of Italian cooking. Food writer Domenica Marchetti proves the point in her fresh new cookbook The Glorious Vegetables of Italy.

Marchetti shares recipes for traditional dishes, such as Ribollita, and innovative interpretations, such as Carrot-Ricotta Ravioli with Herbed Butter. Her taste memory guides her.

Domenica Marchetti cooks Italian vegetables thoughtfully. photograph by Olga Berman

Domenica Marchetti dazzles with Italian vegetables.
Photograph by Olga Berman

Her mother was born in Chieti, Abruzzo, and her father’s parents were also born in Italy. Marchetti, who lives in Viriginia, has spent plenty of time in her forebears’ homeland absorbing the flavors and techniques that make vegetables sing.

This is a book of vegetable, not vegetarian, dishes. Meats, cheeses, and seafood are the condiments here rather than the main event. The recipe chapters are organized by the courses in a meal: “Appetizers,” “Garden Soups and Salads,” “Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, and Polenta,” “Pizza, Calzoni, and Panini,” “Main Courses,” and “Side Dishes.”

She has desserts, too. . . Sweet Potato Frittelle, Chocolate Zucchini Cake, and Winter Squash Panna Cotta among them. . . also a chapter of Preserves and Condiments.

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