Monthly Archives: May 2014

Setting out together with Italian food Goddess and author, Julia della Croce,  for day two of the Mostra Artiginati, in Firenze. Our selfie might be a little, well, you know how selfies are, but our smiles should say it all: we were full of the joys of food/life/people discoveries and couldn’t wait to see what the second day had to offer.

The Mostra–from the verb: to show, meaning expo–was an amazing show of artisanal products soooooo many of which were food and wine, and soooooo many of which were regional Italian. There were other handicrafts: furniture, leather goods, baby clothing, hats, even one of my favourite events which was daily agrultural demonstrations of olive cultivation. Other countries which were welcome guests included: Greece, France, Tunisia, Turkey, India, and this year for the first time, Iran.I was excited about Iran, hoping to find the exquisite orange flower marmalade i once enjoyed with my long ago sister-in-law Shala.I never found the orange flower preserves but there were so many other fabulous tastes to assess, enjoy, and learn about, i couldn’t possibly be dissappointed.

Because, lets face it: i was in Italy. And that alone, as usual,  is enough to make me hyperventilate with joy.

Couldn’t resist snapping this flock of red vespas. Did you know that the name Vespa means wasp?

A little hard to tell from this pic, but these are dry, cured sausages and salami. Did i ever tell you the story of how i smuggled a long thin salami into the usa in my bra? by nestling it inbetween the two ladies, it fit snugly and perfectly. I just couldn’t face life back home in San Francisco without a delicious salami, know what i mean? And i want to assure you that i didn’t fly the whole 11 hours with the salami in my bra, i put it there shortly before landing. it fit perfectly and was good for my posture too; when you have a long thin salami vertically in your bra you stand up straight. But i’m telling you: i was nervous, so nervous, far too nervous to ever do that again. It was written about in the Wine Spectator in an article my Sam Guigino titled “When your brassiere smells like a brasserie”. When I got to customs and saw the little beagle making the rounds i thought i’d pass out. i will never do it again regardless of how delicious that salami is, just not worth the aggrevation. And no, i don’t want to break the law, not me.  I’m a good girl, I am.

But I digress, these salami were delicious, chewy and even more chewy, and funky from aging, and salty in that exquisite way that air-dried salami are. I wish i could cut you a slice. Wait, this is almost as good: help yourself!

Loved the stand selling pistachios: whole nuts, shelled nuts, chopped nuts, ground pistachios, pure ground pistachio nut butter, pistachio pesto, plus endless treats made with them. L’Agricola di Cartillone grows the nuts in the volcanic soil of Etna and is a family business. Visit them at www.pistacchicartillone.it

I bought a bag of the ground nuts for baking; so far I have made a fragrant pistachio flourless cake, perfumed with orange flower water and have plans for making pistachio financiers next. But what was amazing, and what I didn’t buy and hugely regret now, I don’t even have a picture of it, but it was  one of the most sublime delicious little mouthfuls ever: a nutella-like spread of white chocolate and pistachio. It was pale green and so nutty, sweet, smooth and delectable, if i close my eyes I can remember the bliss.

I think I need to come up with a recipe for this delectable spread to share here, right?

There were a number of vendors selling olive-oil-based spreads: with olives, roasted peppers, capers, truffles, each one more delicioius than the next. This crema di broccoli was amazing; so unusual, and oh so delicious!

My Calabrese buddy, Carmine and his leaning tower of hot peppers told me he is 91 years old and owes it all to eating hot peppers: hot peppers in olive oil! they are spicy, but not so crazy-hot that they are unbearable. Called La Bomba, they are more like spicily delicious; delicious tossed with al dente pasta, then either grated pecorinio, or olive-oil-preserved tuna, lemon and chopped flatleaf parsley. Translating from the brochure: Ideal to make the most delicious bruschetta, sandwiches, panini, great with pizza and whatever your imagination conjures up.  www.fungosila.it

Oh these two sweet ebulliant truffle-scented ladies! So many wonderful truffle products: spreads, pastes, mixed with wild mushrooms or olive oil, but everything: scented with truffles and absolutely gorgeous. swooningly gorgeous, www.gazzarrinitartufi.it

Pistachio-White Chocolate Nutella Clone

This is a total knock-off of the pistachio white chocolate spread we tasted at il mostra. I just aproximated, and to be honest, don’t remember what the original tasted like: this one is pretty delicious though. Its sweet, very sweet, though you can adjust the icing sugar amount to your own taste. But really, you want it a bit sweet: it is, after all, what it is: melted white chocolate and pistachios. And also: you want/need to adjust EVERYTHING as you go along. You want to end up with a sweet, creamy, pistachio spread, just like nutella.

Though I used vanilla, I am thinking that almond would be even better, as it smells sweeter, more aromatic, more like pistachio.

About 2 ounces white chocolate

About 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

About 4 tablespoons ground pistachio nuts

About 1/3- 1/2 cup, or to taste, confectioners/icing/powdered sugar, starting with a few tablespoons then working your way up

A few grains of salt

A few drops of almond extract (or, if you don’t like it, of vanilla).

Optional: I had a few tablespoons of whipped cream I folded in that helped stabilize and bring it together after the butter and nuts had separated in the heat. Otherwise you can just chill it, and when its firmed up, stir it together again.

This was my invitation to Il Mostra Artiginati, 2014 held in Firenze, Italy,  in late April, a three day festival of hand-crafted, small batch, gorgeously delicious or possibly deliciously gorgeous, food. It was food made by the people who were there sharing it with us.

In front of the mostra, the big sign, the vespa. Andiamo, Marlena!

One thing you should know about me now if you don’t know it already: there is nothing i love quite as much as a food fair: and by that i mean a wonderful food fair, a regional food fair, and most especially: an artisanal food fair.  At a food fair–and especially HERE, at an Italian food fair,  my motto is: walk walk stop nosh and walk again. Talk to the people who make the goodies, taste the stories they tell you about, learn from them the forests and the workshops, the animals and the bakeries, the gardens and the dairies….and the people who devote their lives to this most delicious of crafting: creating Italy’s specialities. Here are a few things I discovered trawling the aisles the first day:

Piles and piles of the most luscious jams and preserves: these were preserves of wild fruits from the island of Sardinia, each jar more fragrant and delectable than the next. The peach was so delicious i had to close my eyes to enjoy it while i let it settle in my mouth. It tasted like the first peach ever, like a poem of a peach, awash in sweetness and fragrance. The wild pear was amazing too, as was the myrtle, and the lemon: omigod, the limone! how could i have forgotten the limone? it was a marmalade, yes, but fragrant and SOUR, sour like and fragrant like a lemon, with just enough sweetness to make it delectable. If you are going to eat only one of their products it would have to be the lemon, but why choose? all of the preserves are amazing. They also have honey from their bees, and the honey tastes like the wild flower and herbs of sardinia. www.bioareste.it

Huge piles of crusty, rustic bread including one loaf so large it was like a piece of sculpture (thats the one at the bottom, but to be honest all of the loaves in the pile were massive).

There were spices from Italy’s southern neighbour, North Africa…..

And bins upon bins of that Southern Italian–Puglia, Napoli–crunchy round snack, so good with a glass of wine: Taralli. Taralli are somewhere between a pretzel and a round breadstick with a hint of bagel-ness in their shiney exterior. They are at their quintessential best with a glass of wine.

Taralli can be plain, or seasoned with black or red pepper, fennel seeds, other spices; below we have a tarallo that was as unusual as it was delicious: made with cima di rape, or broccoli rabe. sooooo good! Slightly green, fragrant, and so crunchy.

Thought i would swoon from the scent alone of these Neapolitan lemons, from the Amalfi coast. Like a true Napolitana i was tempted to slip one into my handbag but i had vowed to be a good girl about such things, this trip. Wish you could smell these lemons, though…..like walking through a lemon grove of the sweetest, most fragrant lemons imaginable.

ahhhhh Morelli sausage, these–especially the truffled salsicche, shown here–were AMAZING! I brought back a bagful and have been putting truffle sausages into nearly everything, from omelets to sauteed chicken, pasta to risotto, soooooo truffle-licious. and just that right salty-umami-chewy of a great dried salami-like sausage! I don’t know if they’ll sell you the truffled salami internationally, but its worth visiting their website to see: www.anticanorcineriamorelli.com .  Having a few truffled dried sausages, like, little salami-ettes, in your kitchen is a life-changing event.

And this, this was the most beautiful of balsamicos: thick, reduced essence of must and vinegar and wine and everything as it ages down to make balsamico of modena. if i close my eyes i can feel as if i’m still licking the spoon…….sweet, tangy, grapey, deep, dark, oh when it comes to balsamico, its like: are there enough adjectives? This beautiful bottle-full of sticky, thick, oh wait, i think i have enough adjectives, anyhow, delicious stuff: its D.O.P Acetaia La Tradizione Soc. Coop. In other words, from the Modena balsamic vinegar co-operative consortium. www.acetaialatradizione.com

A mountain of fresh tortelloni, filled with delicate ricotta, cooked up into samples:

Tasting portions were tiny, but sooooooo luscious. Of course we went back for seconds, wouldn’t you?

Endless fresh cheeses, and yes yes yes, i do believe these are TRUFFLED fresh cheeses.

And fresh ricotta……..

And a pile of smoke-scented homemade bacon and air-dried sausages……i think the guy is distracted, do you want to grab a chunk or should I?

And because after miles of walking and noshing, nibbling and walking along, we were….like…..hungry! The artisanal pizza truck of Napoli was there when we needed it. There were old fashioned Neapolitan songs playing, as we sat on wooden benches under a tent to keep off the rain, and ate this fabulous wood-oven made Neapolitan pizza. Margharita, the simplest and i always think best way of tasting Napoli: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella (actually fior di latte, the cows milk mozza) and one, maybe two, basil leaves. The luscious puddle of olive oil sort of evaporated by the time i got it from the counter to our table, and left behind only moistened, tender crust underneath the tomato and cheese.  This truck could rival Napoli’s finest, pizza-wise.