Squashes Squishy And Frozen

Eating in season this time of the year means winter squash and cabbage, and you'll be hard pressed to find a vegetable that is heartier than winter squash.
Historically, winter squashes were preserved and consumed primarily by cultures in dire straits. I'm saddened when I see winter squashes left to rot in fields and angered by pumpkins wasted during Halloween (I love Halloween but advocate using at least some of the seeds and pumpkin flesh before they become Jack-O-Lanterns)
Cooking and preserving winter squash is not complicated, in fact, the cooking part can be done while you watch television or deal with your laundry: Squash goes into oven and oven cooks squash.
When it comes to seasoning your squash, like talking after sex, I truly believe less is more.  Like all vegetables in season, all the flavours you need are bursting through. Maybe a little salt and pepper, yes some butter will add flavour, but I implore you to not mask the natural flavour of the squash.
Cooking directions are given under each photo below.

Fig.1. Squashes from Birri

Fig.2. Butternut, acorn, spaghetti, and others I do not know the name of. All edible and delicious.

Fig.3. Seeds are not garbage! My trusty sidekick, Marcella DeVincenzo from Cucina Chronicles, saw to it that no seeds were harmed in the making of this post. Wash the seeds thoroughly under cold water (don't worry if some seeds still have squash-flesh still attached, the flesh will be cooked off.) Lay the seeds to dry on a newspaper or a kitchen towel.

Fig.4. While the seeds are still a bit wet, sprinkle them with any seasoning you desire. Hungry Ella opted for Berber seasoning. Roasting these small seeds makes them completely edible. I eat the whole seed, shells and all. Makes for great roughage.

Fig.5. Cut the squash in half and roast in a 400 degree oven. (close the oven door)

Fig.6. The squash is ready when you can insert a knife into the flesh without resistance.   I like a little caramelising on the surface of my squash, that's where the sweet flavour resides.

Fig.7. Once the squash has cooled down considerably, scoop out the flesh into a big bowl with a spoon.

Fig.8. Fill some freezer bags with the squash and place in the freezer. Winter is coming.  Isn't nesting fun?

Make a soup, make a casserole, a Shepherd's pie, add it to risotto, or just serve some mashed squash along side some meat. And talk about getting your money's worth, twenty bucks for about 40 kilos provides for lots of good eating.

Lumachelle All'Urbinate: A Noble Minestrone

Fig.1. A minestrone from Umbria with liver and Swiss Chard.

Umbria is the only landlocked region in Italy and best known for the town of Assisi, the birthplace of St Francis. Its geography is similar to that of neighboring Tuscany, with rolling hills and sparse farmlands, except where the mighty Apennines pass.  These imposing and high mountains are responsible for colder than usual micro-climates in many of the high altitude Umbrian towns; as a result, soups are popular in Umbria.

The soup featured in this post was inspired by The Duchess of Urbino, Beatrice Sforza (nee D’este).  During the late 1400s, Sforza was a patroness of the Renaissance art scene, helping architects such as Donato Bramante and artists such as Leonardo Davinci. But Sforza was also a gourmand and might have seen cuisine as an art form in itself; not in-so-much as having hands-on creativity in the kitchen, (Sforza was Royalty, as such, she did not do her own cooking; although, she is reputed to have been a good cook herself) but by involuntarily inspiring her cooks to create dishes that the Duchess might find visually pleasing. So her cooks turned to colors and shapes, relying on visually appealing fruits and vegetables to please the Duchess.  The Duchess was known in noble circles for having good taste, and along with her husband Ludovico Sforza, loved to entertain and were known for their lavish and elaborate parties.

This soup was known as Piatto alla Beatrice Sforza, Duchessa d’Urbino, it is currently known in Umbria simply as, Lumachelle All’Urbinate.

Lumachelle All’Urbinate

Lumachelle are snail-shaped pasta. I did not have any in my pasta armory so I used orrecheitte.  The dish varies depending on what neighborhood of Umbria you are in, you can substitute different vegetables depending on what’s fresh; however, the liver is constant. 

Fig.2. Winter is coming, a soup like this will keep away those pesky White Walkers.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

2 large carrots, chopped

Meat from 4 medium sausages removed from their casings

2 veal livers, chopped

4 large tomatoes, diced

4 cups chicken or beef stock

Swiss Chard, 1 Bunch, chopped (you can also use cabbage, substitute 2 cups)

2 cups or lumachelle pasta (any small pasta will work)

Directions:

Set a large, heavy bottom pot or Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add the butter, carrots, sausage meat, liver and tomatoes to the pot and cook, stirring often, until meat cooks through and the bottom of your pot is caramelized, about 12 to 15 minutes.  Add the stock and scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.  Add the Swiss Chard and simmer until carrots are tender.  Add the cooked pasta to the soup and season with salt and pepper.  Serve hot and with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Like all soups and stews, this one is better the next day.

Pasta With Leftovers

Fig.1. Pasta and leftovers can be friends.

Sometimes it's not a question of using leftovers, it's about using all those edible odds and ends lingering in the recesses of your fridge and pantry. I hate wasting food and find it utterly sinful to throw away anything edible.
I've said it before: you can make pasta with anything.  The basic premise of a starch mixed with other ingredients holds true in many different forms, just because it's pasta doesn't mean it has to fit within a framework in our minds forged by years of people telling us what should be.  You might not think of combining pasta with avocado, but avocado with rice or tortillas (two starches of a different kind) are an acceptable match in many parts of the world. I've added pasta to just about everything at one time or another: shepard's pie, (not bad, had to add chicken stock if I recall) beef stew, (really good) chili, (awesome!) hamburger steak, (flippin' awesome!) you get the picture.

Here's something I whipped up last night with edibles just screaming to be made into pasta.

 Pasta With Chimichurri, Marinated Vegetables And Other Odds And Ends
 Serves 3 to 4

What you see in the photo below was hanging around my fridge and pantry. From the top: Italian parsley, orrecchiette pasta, half a jar of chimichurri, (which I made, it's basically garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, lemon juice, and parsley.) green onions, some saucisson (a Mondo Salami brand which I thourally enjoyed) a sweet red pepper, and some leftover marinated artichokes, mushrooms and olives purchased at Milano and tasted like plastic.

Ingredients: (See above)
Use whatever you have in your fridge. In this case, the jar of chimichurri added the wetness I needed. If you only have dry ingredients in your fridge, just add some extra olive oil to your pasta, some of the pasta water, or a combination of both.  And another thing, it's perfectly acceptable to have a greater ratio of other ingredients besides pasta in your dish.

Directions:
Set a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Add some good olive oil to a large pan set over medium heat. Start by adding your raw ingredients, in this case, add the chopped green onions and chopped red pepper, saute until tender, 8 to 10 minutes.  Add the rest of your ingredients including the pasta, stir well. If your pasta is dry, simply add some more olive oil or pasta water, or a combination of both. Use what's in your fridge and don't be scared. You don't need always need a recipe!

The Camera Eye

My son took what I think are some pretty amazing pictures on our trip to Italy this past August.  Lured by all things food such as I am, I feel I should tell you that I've literally been dragging this kid to countless farmer's markets, restaurants, and food shops to the point where I'm pretty sure food will be part of his future in one form or another. (I just hope it's in a positive way)
Italy was no different. If there was a market somewhere in some small nearby town, I was there. And so was my son, armed with his very own camera. These are some of the images he captured, which I think, are pretty good.

Fig.1. Holy mackerel

Fig.2. Zucchini envy

Fig.3. Vine tomatoes from Sicily

Fig.4. Lupini: Warning, beware of knuckle hair!

Fig.5. Prosciutto, notice how they're all different sizes.

Fig.6. For as log as I've been going to Italy, this lady and her vegetables have always been there.

Fig.7. Puppies taste better eaten while still very young. In central Italy they're usually stewed in tomato sauce.

Fig.8. Smelts. Toss em in flour and fry em.

Fig.9. Scampi

Fig.10. Merluzzo (cod)

Fig.11. Sfogliatelle in Napoli

Fig.12. Una Margarita a Napoli

Fig.13. Strozzapretti con tonno e pommodorini, made by moi

Fig.14. Focacci lungi con pommodoro e zuchini

Fig.15. "oh, atsa matta you, you no lika da frutta?"

Fig.16. Prosciutto and sausage

Fig.17. You Baccala!

Fig.18. The best gelato in Italy eys closed, Meringo Gelateria in Ripi

In Defense of Inferno’s Trippa: The Divine Chesterman Can't Stomach Stomach

Fig.1. A cow's stomach in its raw state.

Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning but I’ve had just about enough of Lesley Chesterman’s restaurant reviews. My milk finally boiled over when I read her review in last Saturday’s Gazette on Restaurante Inferno, a review somewhat irresponsible and nonsensical.

As usual the first five paragraphs have little to do with the restaurant in question and reads more akin to a preamble of sorts, in Inferno’s case,  Chesterman’s introduction is filled with observations on Italian restaurants past and useless rhetoric steeped in stereotypes.

She doesn’t like the menu on the blackboard but I’ll bet you 50 liters of tomato sauce that her column once proclaimed blackboards as ‘in’ and menus a thing of the past. And in any case, what does the blackboard, or menu for that matter, have to do with the food? Indeed, a restaurant experience is more than just food, service and ambiance lend themselves to a greater experience, but negative nitpicking has no place in a review for it undermines the hard work cooks stoically preform in the kitchens.

As for the trippa, here’s part of what Chesterman had to say, “Trippa, aka, my most dreaded of dishes- tripe- is a specialty of the house.  Though I am sure I have tasted tripe before, I avoid it because to me, eating a bowl of tripe is like eating a bowl of braised caterpillars.”  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say tucking into a bowl of caterpillars might not taste good, so, it sounds to me like Chesterman has made up her mind regarding trippa before eating it. 

My issue here is not in defense of the restaurant (which I love by the way) but in defense of journalistic integrity and ethical food writing.  Slamming a restaurant with negative verse because you don’t like a particular dish even before you taste it is, in my opinion, irresponsible.  Slamming a restaurant after you tasted a dish you knew you were not going to like is grossly irresponsible and should have been edited out. I don’t like okra, can’t stand the stuff, as such, I’ll never order it in a restaurant because I know I won’t like it.  A pre-determined outcome has no place in a restaurant review!  And while I understand that restaurant reviews are nothing more than op-ed pieces seasoned with salt and pepper, the restaurant’s reputation, and consequently, its livelihood, is on the chopping block. 

The trippa at Inferno is not as hyper-palatable as say a poutine, but that’s to be expected from this staple of Italian ‘cucina povera’.  The fact that trippa has a “soft and springy texture”, as Chesterman suggests, is normal. You can boil trippa for a week and it won’t melt in your mouth.   It’s also normal for trippa to be warm and not piping hot, and trippa is not a bowl of intestines, as Chesterman points out, but of stomach. Trippa simply is what it is and the trippa at Inferno tastes a lot like the stuff I grew up with and God bless Inferno for making it. 

At one point in the article, Chesterman asks Inferno “where’s the love”? Well people, I can confidently tell you that the love is in the trippa. The love is in cleaning the stomach, which takes days. The love is in boiling the stomach for hours. The love comes from being in the kitchen with a pot of boiling trippa and fennel seeds that emits a smell that can honestly drive a person mad. Days of prep all to turn a piece of animal junk most people would throw away, into something so marvelous.  There’s love at Inferno. Keep making that trippa boys, it’s dishes like that that define us as a people.

Chesterman holds a lot of power amongst restaurants in this city.  She would do well to heed the advice Peter Parker has adhered to since that fateful day he was bitten by a radioactive spider: with great power comes great responsibility.  And if comic book superheroes don’t do it for you, let me end by quoting the greatest restaurant critic the world has ever known, Anton Ego. In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgment.  We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.  But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating itself.  The "average piece of junk" Ego is referring to here is trippa, and it certainly is more meaningful, at least in this case, than Chesterman's review.

Fig.2. My own trippa. Never eat trippa without bread.

Simply Food: Fried Eggplant, Melanzane Fritti

Fig.1. Fried eggplant, or aubergine if you prefer.


Italian food is nothing if not simple.  I was reminded of that on a recent trip to Italy. The best food on the table was always the simple fare, the recipes that impress the palate rather than the eyes.  The unassuming dish that seeks only to serve it's purpose as sustenance fills not only the stomach, but the spirit as well, provided it can be appreciated for it's simple purpose. Amelia Barr said it best, "It is always the simple that produces the marvelous." And let's not forget simple food advocate Richard Olney, who said about food, "simple is the password in cooking today; if food is not simple, it is not good." As true today as it was in the early 70's, when Olney wrote these words in his book, Simple French Food.



Melanzane Fritti
Serves a lot

Ingredients:
1 lbs Italian eggplant cut into 1/4" rounds (feel free to use other eggplants as well)
1 cup flour
2 large eggs, beaten
A good olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Set a heavy bottom pan over medium heat and pour some olive oil in a pan until it reaches about 1/4" up the side of the pan
Dredge the eggplant in the flour, coating both sides. Shake off any excess flour and dip it in the egg mixture.  When your oil begins smoking, start adding the eggplant.  Cook until both sides are golden brown. Place the eggplant on a plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Recipe can easily be doubled.

Note: You can coat the eggplant in breadcrumbs after it's dipped in the egg thus creating another Italian staple, Melanzane impanade. After the eggplant is coated with the breadcrumbs follow the same procedure indicated above. I also like to add a couple of spoon fulls of butter to the olive oil for extra flavour.

Sign Sign Everywhere a Food Sign

Fig.01. Love this one. Puts me in a 'pork' state of mind.

Food signs help sell food.  Different cultures use their words in different ways.  The way food is marketed reflects a country's culture, history, economic environment, legal regulations, demographic etc. In Italy, food signs are strictly informative: A salumi shop will typically have the name of the store and 'salumi' written on the window. In Quebec, we're accustomed to seeing our signs in two languages.  Because of this extra text, costs for signs in Quebec are more expensive, as a result, signage is usually kept to the name of the establishment.
While many food marketing studies have been conducted over the years (especially of late with regard to the fast food vs well being debate) it is not the intention of this post to analyse how Sofia Loren helped market Italian food or blame Coca Cola for inventing Santa Clause.  This post is about whether imagination and creativity, with regard to words and signs, lend themselves to a more satisfying eating experience.

Fig.9. Sometimes, I like my cooks domineering and forceful; but only if the food's good.

When I go to the United States I'm entertained by the signs hanging in restaurants, thus, the question is two-fold: are these signs affecting what I'm tasting and why do I need to be entertained when it comes to fulfilling one of my basic needs? (I especially find the English language to be exceptionally entertaining and well suited when it comes to food marketing; particularly when a population-specific vernacular is used, such as New York Italian for example.)
I don't really have the answer. I will, however, take heed in the realization that food is hedonistic in many aspects, and that signs which entertain me with the lure of food can equally be savoured and enjoyed within my mind's appetite... for now.  Here are some of my favorites.

Fig.1. New 'Yok' Italian. I'll have a spicy salami with Russian dressing please. 

Fig.2. A Chicago establishment (also in NY) with a suggestive name. Great oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies.

Fig.3. Made famous in an SNL skit, Billy Goat tavern uses suggestive words everywhere; from their front door to their drinking cups. 

Fig.4. To the point. (and delicious)

 Fig.5. One of the many such signs in Ed Debevic's Chicago. All of Ed's signs are rude and brazen, a concept Europeans would not be able to understand.

Fig.6. The Sausage Superstore, what else can I say.

Fig.7. Cafe Mexico in Naples. It's one of the oldest (and best) coffee bars in Italy but time hasn't affected their signs: The name of the establishment and a logo.  Inside it's the same; rather than put up posters, Mexico's walls are adorned with shelves selling coffee and coffee related products.

Fig.8. Would this lure you in or push you away?