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Cafe Lago’s Roasted Tomato Pasta

October 15, 2008

I told you all I was holding on to my last tomatoes from the farmer's market with white knuckled panic. Well, I wasn't kidding. Every morning, I'd wake up and pad into the kitchen, caress their soft little skins, cradle them in my cupped palm and sniff their herbal, earthy selves. It pained me to use them up, so I did so sparingly – one tomato here, another one there. But I'd bought six pounds and after two weeks I realized that I was headed towards a mound of ruined rot if I didn't accept the fact that cooking and eating my little friends was their God-given fate.

But what to make? Canned tomatoes, tomato jam, conserva, roasted tomatoes – I needed 30 pounds, not six! In the end, Molly won out – I saw a little corner of an empty plate with seasoned oil in one of her photos and when she told me that tomatoes had once swum in that oil, I was sorta, kinda hooked. I'm easy that way, you know.

So last week I set about sacrificing those last tomatoes of 2008, cutting them in half, ridding them carefully of their seeds, nestling them in a pan of olive oil and seasoning them with my Sicilian oregano, salt and a bit of sugar. Into a slow oven they went, and what torture that was. I'm not ashamed to admit that clock watching ensued. I've got a one-track mind when it comes to tomatoes.

Instead of serving the tomatoes with toasted baguette and Bucheron, I boiled a box of pasta and tossed half the tomatoes, gently chopped, with the hot pasta – the warmth opening up the flavor of the raw garlic and parsley. I normally am not a fan of raw garlic, but here it sharpened and brightened the softer, rounded flavors of the tomatoes that concentrated in the slow heat of the oven, gave a little edge to the sweetness. It was delicious.

The benefit of this preparation was that I had half the tomatoes left over, to be plopped on bread with some cheese for lunch, or served with fried eggs for dinner. Or, and this was really the best, to be popped in my mouth while I stood at the counter, thinking about the seasons changing and the things I have to look forward to as fall comes in. Letting go can be pretty simple when you've got roasted tomatoes to ease the way.

And, bless her heart, Molly says this works pretty well with canned tomatoes, too. What a relief!

Roasted Tomato Pasta
Serves 4 to 6

1 cups (or more) olive oil, divided
2 pounds plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seeded
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon sugar (I used less sugar, a little less than 1/2 teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 to 2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons minced fresh Italian parsley
1 pound penne
Parmigiano, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 250°F. Pour 1/2 cup oil into 13x9x2-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. Arrange tomatoes in dish, cut side up. Drizzle with remaining 1/2 cup oil. Sprinkle with oregano, sugar, and salt. Bake 1 hour. Using tongs, turn tomatoes over. Bake 1 hour longer. Turn tomatoes over again. Bake until deep red and very tender, transferring tomatoes to plate when soft (time will vary, depending on ripeness of tomatoes), about 15 to 45 minutes longer.

2. When the tomatoes have cooled somewhat, gently pull off their peels. Transfer half of the tomatoes and some of the oil to a serving bowl and gently chop with a dull knife in the bowl. Add the garlic and parsley to the tomatoes and mix. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the penne until al dente. Drain, reserving some of the starchy, salted pasta water. Add the pasta to the tomatoes in the serving dish and add pasta water, as needed, to loosen the sauce. Grate some Parmigiano on top and serve immediately. Refrigerate the rest of the tomatoes in the oil for up to 5 days.
Russ Parsons’s Soup with Winter Greens and Chickpeas

October 9, 2008

Well! It's been quite a few weeks, hasn't it? Markets are crashing, our people in Washington and on Wall Street have crazed looks in their eyes, political campaigns are turning unbelievably ugly, and it's all I can do from crawling under the covers and screaming "time out!" It's the crazy season alright, suffused with fear and desperation and anger and shock. Couldn't we all use a bowl of hot soup?

After all, one bright spot in these days is that we are finally, thrillingly, in soup territory. Yes, I'm still nursing a tiny grudge towards the final days of warm weather that seem to have skipped out so eagerly, and I'm hanging on with white knuckles to the last of the blood-red tomatoes I bought at the farmer's market two weeks ago. But mostly I just want to cut coupons, turn the stove down low, and eat soup.

Who better to inaugurate the autumn soup season than Russ Parsons? After all, no one keeps us better fed. And it has been, if my research is correct, a whopping eleven months since I made one of his recipes. (Eleven months. How is that possible? It simply can't be. Russ! Forgive me!) High time, then, to get cracking again. This time with a homey, homely, Italianate minestra that draws its flavor from a few aromatic vegetables, some pungent greens, and a bit of rosemary.

This soup is simple and soothing, and best of all, cheap. It keeps well in the freezer and stretches well, too. It's not very fancy, there's not even chicken broth. But the toasted bread that softens and swells in the soup and the richness of the Parmigiano give it a little luster, dressing up the plain Jane vegetables that gave up their essence to the flavor of the soup.

I twisted in a few grinds of hot red pepper flakes for some added warmth, and next time I might rub the toasts gently with raw garlic before dousing them with soup. And instead of grating the cheese into the soup, I'll definitely plop one of my reserved Parmigiano rinds in at the beginning of the simmer and let it ooze out all its flavor.

Make yourself a bowl of this, turn off the television and the internet, throw away the newspaper with its jarring graphs and large headlines, and try to think about other things: the promise of apple-picking in a few weeks, the giggle of the baby living next door, the color of the leaves on the tree across the street. We'll get through this, too. We will. We will.

Soup with Winter Greens and Chickpeas
Serves 4 to 6

1/4 cup olive oil
2 carrots, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 onion, diced
1 turnip, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound chopped mixed greens (mustard, kale, turnip, etc.)
Salt
1/2 teaspoon minced rosemary
1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or more, to taste plus additional to pass at the table
16 slices baguette, toasted
Freshly ground pepper (I used red pepper flakes)

1. In a heavy soup pot, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the carrots, celery, onion and turnip, cover and cook until they have softened and become aromatic, about 20 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, 2 or 3 minutes.

2. Add the mixed greens, a big handful at a time, stirring and giving them time to soften and shrink before adding the next handful.

3. When all of the greens have cooked, add 8 cups of water, one-half teaspoon salt, the rosemary and chickpeas. If you have a rind of Parmesan cheese lurking in your freezer, add it now. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat; cover and lower the flame to maintain a simmer. Cook until the broth is deeply flavored, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

4. When ready to serve, stir in one-third cup Parmigiano-Reggiano (taste and see if the rind did its job – you can eschew the grated cheese here, if you like) and season to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange two toast slices (rubbed with garlic) in the bottom of each warm soup bowl and ladle the soup over the top. Sprinkle with more cheese to taste. Serve immediately, passing a bowl of cheese to be added at the table.
Mark Bittman’s Hainanese Chicken with Rice

October 6, 2008

Thank you all, you big sweethearts, for your congratulations and good wishes and love. I'm basking in it all – we are, I should say – and I don't want this feeling to ever end. I knew people liked romance, but I didn't know how much! It feels a little anti-climactic to write this next post about food again: "I just got engaged! Now let me tell you about this toast." But we keep eating and I keep writing and so it goes, just with a bigger grin these days.

* * *

I am, in a word, a sucker for Chinese food. It's become a full-blown obsession of mine, in fact. Perhaps it's fed by the fact that Ben dislikes it and we've moved to a neighborhood where there's no good Chinese food in walking distance (O, Manhattan, this is what I miss!), I don't know, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of ways I can eat more of it.

(A few times after the New York Times published this map, I'd get in the car and drive to Flushing, where I'd scurry into the subterranean warren of food stands where no one speaks any English and the food seems as cheap and authentic as I imagine it to be in China itself. Five minutes later, with hot, porky, chili-oil-slicked noodles packed into a plastic take-away box and wrapped in a plastic bag dangling from my wrist, I'd dash out, hop in the car and speed home to eat noodles in blissful, mouth-tingling silence. The fly-by-night nature of the operation almost made it seem like I was conducting an illicit affair. My darling had plans after work and I dallied with translucent-skinned dumplings and fragrant soups. My sweetheart had to go into the city on a Saturday and I schemed to eat hand-pulled noodles and let Sichuan peppercorns numb my lips. Hoo, I get sweaty just thinking about it.)

But for some reason, I'm still a little scared of making Chinese food at home. Yes, I'm daunted by the long ingredient lists. Also, I don't own a wok or have the pleasure of a dining companion willing to ingest copious amounts of ground pork at every meal. Is that enough reason to keep myself from making the food I currently love the most? Absolutely not. Do I jump with glee every time one of the newspapers publishes a Chinese recipe, just because then it feels like a challenge that I have to complete? Yes, indeed.

Mark Bittman's Hainanese chicken has quite a bit going for it. First of all, it makes A Lot of Food. Enough to feed a family of four or six, I'd say, or two with leftovers for lunch for at least a couple of days. Second of all, you'll get a few quarts of chicken stock – lovely, ginger-and-garlic scented chicken stock – out of it, perfect for freezing and drinking in times of sickness or for cooking rice. I'm trying my hardest right now to economize and find meals where I didn't before (but spending a few extra dollars on an organic, free-ranging chicken seems worth it, nevertheless). Third of all, in the annals of Chinese recipes, it is so easy you could almost do it with your eyes closed, which is what I find most appealing, of course.

You boil a chicken with ginger and garlic for 10 minutes, then turn off the flame and let the chicken sit in hot broth for almost an hour. Then you use the hot broth to cook the rice. It's a one-dish meal, with cucumbers and tomatoes and chopped scallions all arranged right on top of the chicken and rice and served at the table with a dipping sauce.

The dipping sauce is the one problem with this whole recipe. It's basically just oil mixed with ginger and chopped scallions and it feels a little odd, to be dipping chunks of chicken into oil (I halved the amount of oil called for, but still). The next time I make this, I'll simply toss the chicken with the ginger, scallions and sesame oil and then pile the whole lot on top of the rice.

For someone who professes to dislike Chinese food, Ben had an awful lot of this at dinner. It's not takeout from Flushing, no, and it's not nearly hot and funky enough for my tastes, but I'm counting it as a minor success. Besides, now I've got the goods for homemade fried rice – my first ever – and that's cause for celebration!

Hainanese Chicken with Rice
Serves 4 to 6

Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken, trimmed of excess fat
Several cloves smashed garlic, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Several slices fresh ginger, plus 1 tablespoon minced ginger
4 tablespoons peanut oil, or neutral oil, like corn or canola
3 shallots, roughly chopped, or a small onion
2 cups long-grain rice
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 cup minced scallions
2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add chicken to pot along with smashed garlic and sliced ginger. Bird should be completely submerged, but only just. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let bird remain in water for 45 minutes to an hour, covered, or until it is cooked through.

2. Remove chicken from pot, reserve stock, and let bird cool to room temperature. Put 4 tablespoons peanut oil in a skillet over medium heat; you may add trimmed chicken fat to this also. When oil is hot, add remaining garlic, along with shallots; cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, until glossy. Add 4 cups reserved chicken stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover; cook for about 20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all liquid. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

3. Combine the sesame oil, ginger, half the scallions and a large pinch of salt.

4. Shred or chop chicken, discarding skin. Toss the chicken with the sesame oil mixture. Put rice on a large platter and mound chicken on top of it; decorate platter with cucumbers, tomatoes and cilantro, and serve.
On Why I’ll Always Remember My Trip to San Francisco

September 30, 2008

Not because of its beauty, its dramatic bridges and sweeping vistas (a nighttime drive up Twin Peaks took my breath away) though I couldn’t stop gaping at every corner. Not because of the romantic fog and bright, bright sunshine, both in one day – one minute – from corner to corner of the city.

Not because of the food, even though – my goodness – it was good (from
morning buns at Tartine to the first burrito I ever liked at Taqueria
Cancun, from house-cured sardines at Zuni to the chili oil dabbed on
burrata at A16). And not because of the donut muffin from Downtown Bakery, the best cake for breakfast you’ll ever have.

Not because of the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, which. Blew. My. Mind.
I mean, seriously? Every single mayor of every single town in America
should go to that market just to see how vibrant and healthy and
wonderful something like that is for municipal spirit (even if it
has to be just three tables instead of, oh, 50).

Not because of the way that San Francisco kept reminding me of Berlin, the city I grew up in, with its independently owned businesses and quiet, residential blocks, even in the middle of town. With its efficient public transit and its lack of commercialization (relative – I live in New York, people). With its gorgeous architecture and clean streets and quiet cafes.

But because on Saturday morning, as a surprise, Ben flew out to San Francisco, drove me up to Napa, and asked me to marry him.

I said yes!
Nancy Silverton’s Roast Potatoes, Onions, Fennel and Bay Leaves

September 24, 2008

dear readers am in undisclosed location STOP it is hot here so very very hot STOP

we eat bright orange papaya for breakfast STOP and fried fish for lunch STOP and smell wild sage in the hot air that blows off the desert STOP

in a few hours this indolent lifestyle comes to an end STOP i make my way to san francisco STOP

but i miss my kitchen STOP and that tall guy who often hangs about in it STOP

before I left i made the fussiest roast potato dish ever FULL STOP it involved halving potatoes and dipping them in seasoned oil fer chrissakes and sandwiching bay leaves between them and putting them in a roasting pan and cursing them as they fell apart STOP

onions and fennel helped prop up those potatoes but i still put the dish into the oven feeling twitchy STOP

turns out roasted bay leaves give potatoes lovely flavor haunting even STOP but i am lazy STOP what else is new STOP and this was all too much work for me STOP also the oven temperature situation was weird STOP aren't i eloquent STOP

still haunting potatoes is a good thing STOP you agree STOP so see below for my notes in bold while i go regret my choice to write this post entirely in telegram-style and cram a few more papaya chunks in my cheeks before my flight STOP

Roast Potatoes, Onion, Fennel and Bay Leaves
Serves 4

2 teaspoons coarse sea salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 pounds new potatoes (about 12), cleaned
12 bay leaves, or one for every potato
1 1/2 pounds small sweet onions (about 6), peeled and trimmed
1 large head fennel, trimmed (reserve 2 sprigs from the top)

1. Heat the oven to 500 degrees (if I made this again, I'd only go to 450). Lightly oil a 9-by-12-inch baking dish. Pour 3 tablespoons of the olive oil into one corner of the dish. Season this puddle with 1 teaspoon salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper (you'll use it to dip the potatoes). (Just lightly oil the dish for now.)

2. Halve the potatoes. Dip each half into the seasoned olive oil, then put the halves back together with one bay leaf sandwiched between, leaving the prepared potatoes in the dish. (No, for Pete's sake, no! Wouldn't you rather be screaming at the television or saying hi to your partner or filing your nails? Life is too short, my friends. Halve your potatoes, prepare your onions and fennel and throw everything into the oiled dish. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle liberally with the oil then toss everything together so the vegetables are coated with oil. Tuck the bay leaves hither and thither among the vegetables – don't just plop them on top.)

3. Cut the onions into 8 lengthwise wedges. Separate the layers of the fennel bulb and cut the pieces into 1-inch strips. (See above.)

4. Arrange the vegetables in the dish, alternating seasoned potatoes with onion and fennel pieces. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper. Top with the sprigs of fennel, and cover lightly with foil. (Yes, the sprigs of fennel are sweet and the foil is fine, too.)

5. Place the dish on the middle rack of the hot oven and reduce the heat to 450 degrees. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until the potatoes are almost tender. Remove the foil and continue to roast an additional 15 minutes. (Just put the dish in the 450-degree oven. Follow everything else as written.)

6. Remove the dish from the oven and turn the potatoes, onions and fennel so the other sides caramelize. Return to the oven and roast another 10 to 15 minutes, until the bay leaves are charred and brittle, the onions brown and molten, and the fennel pieces papery and crunchy or molten. Serve immediately.(I'd keep an eye on the pan during this period, because it's a fine line between "brown and molten" onions and onions charred to an inedible crisp. And one more thing: don't eat more than one or two of the bay leaves or your tongue will go numb.)
David Tanis’s Saffron Carrots

September 18, 2008

Of course this is how it goes. I get sick and tired of all my archived recipes in my "to try" folders. The newspapers stop printing recipes that look appealing to me. I find myself getting in the car and driving to Flushing to eat incendiary noodles (this book makes it damn near impossible to do anything else) rather than going to the grocery store and getting dinner on the table myself.

Then, in the span of seven short days, just as I'm about to leave for the West coast, boom! The newspapers go nuts. Recipes galore! Suddenly I want to cook everything. Tea-smoked salmon! Meatballs! Coconut cookies! A tomato soup that looks so complicated it exhausts me just thinking about it! Readers, Murphy's Law is a pain in the neck.

But, to be totally honest, there's something in the air, too. A little chill, an agreeable little dip in temperature. Something that makes it okay to stop eating sliced tomatoes for dinner and that has us looking forward to an afternoon spent in the company of a bubbling pot on the stove. We're not entirely there yet. But the anticipation is an unexpected gift.

Thank you so much for your suggestions and tips for my upcoming trip to San Francisco. You've all made me quite hungry, for Californian dim sum and interesting ice cream flavors and oysters by the ocean. I can't wait to be there, even if leaving New York in September, well…if you know what I'm talking about, you know what it's like.

I'm not sure yet if I'll make it to Chez Panisse, but I've been hoarding recipes of David Tanis's like they're going out of style, when in fact they've been published in a book so that crazy people like me can stop clipping feverishly and actually buy an object that binds these slips of paper together quite nicely.

I made his saffron carrots tonight – a bright little dish that has you throw a bunch of things in a pan and gives you a glowy, glazed result in return. It's quite lovely. Since I'm easing back into this cooking thing at a glacial pace, I found it thrilling that the whole transaction took less then fifteen minutes. Are these carrots going to change your world? No, not really. But you'll find them eminently edible. And rather charming. Carrot coins, I know. But they've got a little sass from the minced garlic and a little sophistication from those darling red saffron curlicues adorning them and in the end, yes, I was charmed.

What can I say? I'm easily pleased these days.

Saffron Carrots
Serves 4

1 tablespoon butter
Pinch of saffron, crumbled
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
1 ½ pounds carrots, peeled and sliced into thin coins
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet fitted with a lid, melt the butter over medium heat. When hot, add the saffron, garlic, lemon zest and carrots. Season with salt and pepper. Toss the carrots in the butter to coat. Add ½ cup of water, bring to a boil and simmer, covered, until the carrots are tender, about 5 minutes.
San Francisco, At Last

September 10, 2008

I’m going to San Francisco (finally, at last, it’s taken me thirty years, good grief!) in a few weeks and I need you, dear readers, to answer some important questions for me.

Is Chez Panisse worth a visit? How about Zuni Cafe? Are there holes-in-the-wall I must know about? A dim sum restaurant that haunts your dreams? Which neighborhoods should I commit myself to discovering on foot?

Tell me everything: your favorite shops, your special haunts, your cannot-miss-ohmigod-I-luuurve-this-place obsessions.

I can’t wait.
How to Make Homemade Tagliatelle

September 8, 2008

I keep staring at this photo, seeing that golden tangle of fresh tagliatelle luminous in the afternoon sunlight, and rubbing my eyes. I'm used to seeing a tray like this on our table, for sure, but there's one small difference this time. This time, I'm the one who made that pasta and it's tickling me pink.

Every time I go to Italy, to the little village where my grandfather lived for so many years, our friends there keep us flush in good things to eat: like homemade tagliatelle and a bagful of fresh peaches from Franca, a freshly killed and roasted rabbit from Maria, homemade crescia sfogliata that Eugenia made and stuck in the freezer for later cooking, or a handful of black truffles foraged by Stefania's son Federico and delivered in a paper towel on an afternoon social call.

This year I decide I want to learn to make pasta myself. So one afternoon I sling my camera across my back and set out for Maria's house, walking past the shuttered houses where our neighbors sleep while the sun beats down on the fields around us. The human silence is warm and familiar while the birds swoop above with abandon and cats blink lazily in patches of shade. I've done this walk a hundred, a thousand, times but this year it's suffused with nostalgia and a faint pain grips my heart. I feel like I did twenty years ago, as my sandals gently slap the concrete of the road. The town looks as it did twenty years ago, the same weathered shutters and swaying trees. But so much has changed and no matter how hard I tried to hold on to the way it used to be, I have been forced – I am being forced – to let go.

As I walk, I see former versions of myself, walking alongside me. I see my cousins, racing me up the hill, and our friends, sitting on the curb late at night, thrilled by the possibilities that life holds for us all. I see my whole life so far, reflected in the memories that the hills and valleys around me hold. I see my grandfather, or I try to, but it's hard. His absence is flat and final. He's difficult to conjure.

Down at Maria's, she leads me into a room where she has her pasta station set up. Maria started making fresh pasta at the age of seven, standing on a chair to reach the table, and had to do so every day for years. There's an old wooden board and a long rolling pin, fresh eggs from the chickens outside, and an industrial-sized bag of flour. She measures out a little less than 300 grams of flour and tells me that the flour should take around three eggs, three of her eggs, she cautions, from the chickens outside, not those larger industrial eggs you find at the store.

We make a well of flour on the board, then crack the eggs into the well. The yolks are impossibly orange, they practically glow. I remember making a hole in the fresh eggs we'd get from Maria, and Gina, who lives behind my grandfather's house, as a kid, and sucking the sweet, raw egg through that hole into my mouth as a special treat. Using a fork, Maria shows me how to beat the eggs without breaking the well and then slowly begin to incorporate the flour as I beat until the whole mass comes together as a rough, yellow ball of dough.

Maria instructs me to start kneading that ball of dough, so I do. I knead for several minutes, while she observes my hands silently, then several minutes more, and several minutes after that, too. My shoulders start to tire. I look up at her, but it seems I'm not done yet and I feel a bit fraudulent. When the dough is as smooth and plasticky as Play-Do, when it feels like the underside of your arms, untouched by the sun, that's when it's ready to go.

Maria's technique for rolling out that chubby round of dough into a sheet so thin you can read newspaper through it involves that long rolling pin, the shuffling movement of palms, the slapping and rolling of the dough over the pin and onto the board and onto itself, and then back again. She makes it look so easy, of course, even though it's not, not at all.

We cover the dough with towels and let it rest for a bit. My mother comes down to the house and we talk about old times. I used to hear chickens squawking in the yard outside, but over the years Maria has landscaped her house and the chickens and rabbits are now farther away, removed by a terrace. It's quiet and a fly drones above us. Finally, it's time.

Maria rolls one side of the dough halfway into itself and then rolls the other side halfway into itself. She brings out a long, narrow board that fits snugly onto her tabletop and equips me with a serrated knife. I start to slice, watching the curls of tagliatelle emerge on the other side of the knife, suddenly marveling in the simplicity of the whole thing. Who needs hand-cranked machines or boxes of store-bought noodles? Not me, not anymore.

We say goodbye to Maria but not before I snap her photograph. She's beautiful but acts bashfully, is uncomfortable in front of the lens. We eat the tagliatelle the next night, the last meal I'll have in Italy this year. They're good, delicious even, tender and eggy and sauced with tomatoes and basil from the garden. I wonder if I'll ever make them in New York. If it will be as nice as it was in Maria's kitchen, with her standing behind me, watching.
Bruschetta di Pomodori Gratinati

September 3, 2008

This is my friend Alessandro. Yow! I know, right? My goodness. Artist, funnyman, and eater extraordinaire – he's an all-around Renaissance man. Last week he taught me, the self-anointed No. 1 Fan of tomatoes, bread and olive oil, a little something new about that holy trio. I didn't think it possible. But it's true! Hallelujah! Besides, look at that face. Would you not eat anything it told you to? Sigh.

Where were we?

Okay, now Alessandro's father, Giancarlo, happens to be the World's Expert on stuffed tomatoes. And yes, I have eaten my weight in stuffed tomatoes and I can say with certainty that he is indeed the World's Expert. He should probably be teaching classes in them. But I haven't yet convinced him of this. Don't worry, it's just a matter of time. Alessandro's mother Gabriella will also one day be on the Food Network. Keep an eye out for her.

Here's a visual aide:

Roughly speaking, Giancarlo halves those impossibly red, ribbed-bottomed, flattish tomatoes that I only ever see in Italy (sort of like these), probably salts and drains them, then dries them out in a grill basket over hot coals briefly (upside down, I think?) before filling them with a mixture of breadcrumbs, wild fennel, parsley, salt and olive oil. I'm sorry if this is all a bit vague, but you get the idea, right? Then he fills the grill basket again and grills them until their skins are wrinkled and blackened and the garden fills with fragrance.

This is the garden:

These are the tomatoes:

And this is Giancarlo (not only a tomato wizard, but an amazing talent at blowing bubbles):

Just to give you a sensory nudge. Are you there yet?

Alright, so here's where Alessandro's tutorial begins. Once you have a platter, or two really, of these tomatoes ready, you should slice a loaf of country bread and grill those slices too. Then pass them around the table. Each person gets one slice of bread. Then you pass around a peeled clove of garlic for people to lightly (lightly! come on!) rub across the bread. After that, they should drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the toast, just a bit. Like so:

Now start handing out tomatoes. Each toast gets one plopped, filling-side down, on top of it.

Remove all that charred skin. The better you are at removing it one full sweep, the more points you get, according to my friends. I failed miserably. See? That doesn't matter. Still tastes good.

Okay, you're almost there. Now give that soft little tomato another oil drizzle. And, if you're daring, a sprinkle of salt. I find this essential. Then, using your fork, mash that tomato down into the bread. Go on, it's the best part.

And you're done! Ooh, you're in for a treat. Smoky, rich, and savory, unctuous and crunchy at the same time, you will want to eat nothing but one after another of these for dinner, no matter what other kinds of dishes are offered to you later in the evening. Grilled octopus so tender it melts in your mouth? Feh. Spaghetti with clams in the most wonderful sauce ever? Who needs it. Give me more tomatoes, bread and olive oil.

Wait! I forgot something. Before you take a bite, cut the bruschetta in half. There, there. The best bites, says Alessandro, are the ones in the middle.
Heston Blumenthal’s Broccoli

August 20, 2008

I feel almost silly posting this because it's barely even a recipe and besides I should be packing instead of writing about broccoli, but I promise to keep it brief and in any case, it's such a good little recipe that I simply have to tell you about it quick quick quickly before I go.

Okay, so I have this book by Sophie Grigson lying around the apartment (Sophie being the daughter of the late, great Jane Grigson) and I'm flipping through it, wondering how on earth I'll figure out what a marrow is, oh, and a kumara, for that matter (and swedes? really? why?), when I come across a paragraph referring to Heston Blumenthal's method for cooking broccoli. Suddenly I snap to attention. Because, you see, I love broccoli, so much so that for years I ate it multiple times a week, all year long. And then I grew sick of it. Fell sick of it? It happened rather quickly is all I know. Steamed, dressed with lemon and olive oil, plunked down on a plate at yet another evening meal, oh, it was all just so boring. Good lord, I'd have rather munched on cardboard. Tragic! I know.

I mourned my lost love, wondered if I'd ever get it back. I dallied with lettuces and beets and fennel – oh fennel – but secretly I always wondered when I'd finally grow up and come home to broccoli again. And here, suddenly, the chance lay flat in my lap. A few sentences instructing me to simply scorch the stuff in a hot pan and shake things about a bit before dumping it out on a plate. It sounded…almost too good to be true. Too easy. I was suspicious.

But, of course, I needn't have been. After all, if you're a world-famous chef with Michelin stars and a television show and bestselling books and you're still doling out tips for dealing with the humble broccoli that feature nary a foam or emulsion or reduction or sous-vide treatment or sprinkling of foie gras or coating of caviar, I'll be the first admit that it's silly to mistrust you.

Okay, so here's what you do: wash a head of broccoli, or whatever comes wrapped in a rubber band and sold as one "head" of broccoli at the grocery store and lop off all the florets so that they're approximately the same size. Then peel the stalk of the broccoli, if you feel like it, (don't if you don't) and slice it into thinnish coins (1/4-inch thick? 1/2-inch is fine, too). Take a heavy-bottomed pan (something like this, perhaps) and pour a couple of spoons of olive oil in it. Set it over high heat until the oil starts to smoke and then dump the broccoli into the smoking pan all at once and cover it quickly with a lid. Cook for 2 minutes with no peeking. Take the lid off, season the broccoli with salt and pepper, put on oven mitts and grab the handles of the pot to shake the broccoli around a little bit, add a lump of butter (I used about a tablespoon) and then put the pot back over the flame, covered, for 2 more minutes. At this point, you can test the broccoli and see if it's cooked enough for your liking. If it's not, put the top back on and cook for a final 2 minutes. It should be scorched in spots and still quite green in others.

This swift, high-heat method concentrates the flavor of the broccoli, but still cooks the broccoli through so it's yielding and almost creamy. The seared spots are toasty and delicious. It's even better than the roasted broccoli at City Bakery and so much more interesting (and fast) than my old steamed stalwart. I'm not quite sure what the addition of butter does; I suppose it contributes a richness of flavor, but I think you could probably attempt this without it and it'd still be good. We dumped the broccoli into a bowl and gobbled the whole head up in a matter of minutes. Broccoli! I'm back.

I know, I know, I said this would be brief. But there's one more thing: head over here if you want to read an interview I did a few weeks ago with the folks at Cookthink who asked me all kinds of interesting questions to which I mostly just replied, "uh, tomatoes?"

Oh, and on that subject, I took a tomato canning class up at Stone Barns this past weekend, thanks to the lovely Sherri Brooks Vinton, and now I'm adequately armed to make good on that threat to can my own tomatoes, so watch this space, folks. I'm going to do it and it's going to be awesome and then you're all going to do it too. Who needs imported canned (BPA-laced) industrial tomatoes? Not us, no sirree.

And with that, I'm off. We'll be in Italy for the next ten days visiting my mother (how can it be that my grandfather won't be there? I don't even believe it): eating frosty slices of watermelon, getting books all salty at the beach, and trying our very best to do nothing else at all. We have to take two airplanes, a bus, a train, and a car to get there and even still I'm so ready that I'm practically jumping out of my skin. I'll see you all in September.

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