SFO

Brr! It's cold at SFO, but I didn't want to wear my jacket because it's going to be hot as heck in Rome when I get back. I think I will have to reconsider this decision. Luckily (?), I have several hours before I fly out, so I can pull out my new hoodie and repack my bags. In fact, I think I'm going to do that right now. Then maybe I'll have some dim sum from the Harbor Village Kitchen stand in the International Terminal food court. The selection of restaurants here is certainly better than your typical McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks.

I have already eaten breakfast this morning, though. Strawberry yogurt (organic, from somewhere in North-Central California), organic raspberries, Columbia Gorge organic SuperBerry juice (with Antioxidants and Superfoods!!! (yeah, whatever)), and a cappuccino (not half bad, if twice the price of those in Rome) and an apricot crostata (ditto) from Emporio Rulli. But I do love dim sum.

That reminds me, I never went into detail about Ton Kiang. Well, it wasn't as good as the last time Billy and I went there, but it was still good and it was great to go with ten people, because we got to get a ton of dishes. My favorites were the shrimp and mushroom dumplings and the shu mai and the barbecued pork buns. Oh, and the duck and the Chinese broccoli. The eggplant was a bit disappointing, as were the pork ribs. All in all, though, it was quite yummy. Ok, I'm going to check out the place here...

3:56 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

California whirlwind

Travel always wreaks havoc on my blog posting -- sorry about that. Here are the things I need to write about but haven't yet:

1. Calabria visit highlights, continued: A particular focus on the Madonna's boat ride and pebbles.

2. Cheeseburgers in the Cincinnati airport (which is actually in Kentucky).

3. Whole Foods visits with Billy and Louise in Walnut Creek.

4. Eating Louise's tomatoes with Billy, my parents, and other family members.

5. Dinners with the Zivians: Great China (Berkeley), Slanted Door (San Francisco)

6. Dim sum at Ton Kiang in San Francisco with a party of 10.

7. Heading down to Santa Cruz with Billy and making it in time for breakfast at the Café Brasil.

8. Taqueria La Cabaña in Santa Cruz...

ooh, that last one was too good not to jump on right away. I have been looking forward to going to the Taqueria La Cabaña for ages, given that Mexican food is not a typical meal for me in Rome. Billy had also been looking forward to it since last year, because Hilo has no Mexican restaurants (although it has fantastic sushi and great Thai food). It did not disappoint, either. Billy got the chile verde plate, with large, tender chunks of pork in a very flavorful, slightly spicy green chile sauce, served with rice and excellent refried beans, as well as a little pico de gallo and shredded green cabbage. I had spinach enchiladas with green sauce -- my green sauce was spicier, thinner, and a bit sourer than Billy's chile verde, and was perfect on the cheese and spinach enchiladas (which are pretty, too, with emerald green spinach). Yum! They have evidently started serving breakfast there, too, so we're going to try that tomorrow.

More on the other topics soon!

4:30 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

California, once again

Back for 10 days. Exhausted. Had a bacon cheeseburger at the airport in Cincinnati between flights (Rome-Cin, Cin-SF). Not half bad -- actually cooked rare. No brain left for blog posting. Missing pronouns. Maybe tomorrow will be better! Good night.

9:39 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Calabria

I'm a bit behind in my blog posting, between heading down to Calabria for three days and now trying to get ready to go to California tomorrow. Nonetheless, I'll make an effort to catch up. So much food, so little time....

I went to Guardavalle, on the Ionian Sea, where I stayed with a big family and ate a lot of food. I left Wednesday night on the night train from Rome, which leaves from Termini at 11:10 pm and gets in at 7:50 am. On arrival, I promptly managed to make a brutta figura, spilling my coffee on the white linen placemat the mother of the family had put before me. Oh dear. But of course she was very nice about it and even gave me another cup of coffee, which I managed to drink this time. I left again Saturday night at about 10 pm and got back to Rome at 7 am -- the train even arrived ahead of schedule!

The time in between was spent exercising, playing, and eating. The exercise and play consisted of beach and water time. The Ionian is gorgeous -- turquoise and blue and warm and clean. There are no factories in that area of Calabria, so there is very little pollution and the water is really clear. The sea bottom is pebbles and rocks, and there must be some fish, because people were fishing, but I didn't see any, nor did I see anyone catch any. I walked along the beach every day, went for runs from the house to the beach (about 5km) every day, and swam every day, improving my freestyle to the point where I looked like a dying dog rather than, say, a dying cat in the water. My freestyle is not very elegant. My breaststroke and backstroke are tolerable, but hey, I grew up in the mountains. Put me on a ski slope and I do just fine, but in the water, well, I'm a bit like a fish out of water!

The food was terrific. Margherita, the mother, was an amazing cook, and a productive and efficient one as well. The family consisted of two parents, a grandmother and grandfather (who did not eat at the house often, but stopped by to visit every day), four children (three with spouses and with a total of five kids), and several cousins and assorted other relatives and friends. This meant that meals were for 10-30 people every lunch and dinner. This was home cooking at a restaurant scale, or restaurant cooking at a home scale, and it was terrific, traditional food. Among the dishes: spaghetti with clams, mussels, and tomato sauce; arancini (which I usually am not crazy about, but these were great); pork ribs in tomato sauce; meatballs; penne with tomato sauce and basil; homemade affettati -- pancetta and salame; local cheeses; homemade olives; homemade (and hand gathered) preserved wild artichokes (tiny, tiny -- I guess they are very spiny, and you have to remove almost everything and are left with a heart the size of a fingernail -- they were fantastic); and, my favorite, stuffed eggplant. These were the best stuffed eggplant I've had so far, by a long shot. Everyone insisted that 'know-how' (a bunch of the kids -- not the little ones, the four siblings and respective spouses -- were excited to try out their English with me) was a big part of the reason the stuffed eggplant fritters were so good, and I have no doubt that it is true. The filling, put into boiled eggplant skins, was eggplant, salame, and hard-boiled eggs, all chopped, with garlic, salt, pepper, parsley, and ground veal. I ate five of them in one sitting, after having already eaten a meatball and some stewed pork. Yum. There was also salad at every meal, which was nice.

Also, one day we had a crostata with -- I am pleased to say -- the plum jam I made last week. I brought a jar down as a gift, and Margherita used it to spread in the crostata (which she makes with olive oil in the crust instead of butter -- very tasty).

Oh, I also got to see the Madonna take a boat ride -- more on that next time.

5:24 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Tamarind

I should have figured out the derivation of 'tamarind' without looking it up -- I knew, after all, that Tamar is a date tree (in Hebrew and Arabic both), and Ind, well, Indian, of course, thus 'Indian date'. In my mind -- or to my tongue -- far better than regular tamars, too. I don't love dates, because they are very, very sweet, but I really like tamarind, because it is very, very sour. And it goes very nicely with eggplant, if you make a sauce with hot peppers, cayenne, ginger, cumin, lemon juice, and sugar to which you add roasted eggplants (sliced). I had lots of eggplants left in my refrigerator, so this was part of my fridge clearing effort, which continued this afternoon with more eggplants, this time with cherry tomatoes (Aldo's), garlic, parsley, and basil, served with the rest of last night's rice. Now I just have to have a salad for dinner and watermelon as a snack and I should be doing ok on the "just say no mold" project. Still, easier said than done, given that the watermelon "snack" will be half a watermelon...

3:09 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Millet

Last night I didn't have the patience to make polenta, so I went with another golden grain -- a shorter cooking one -- millet (miglio, here). But I would not say that miglio is meglio than polenta, and maybe I should just have gone with rice, instead, because the millet was a bit gritty, I thought. Ah well. In any case, I made it with a sauce with onion, garlic, tomato, and arugula, and added some blue cheese, although it would probably have been better without the blue cheese, and the blue cheese would definitely have been better without it, and with a nice piece of semi integrale bread instead (yesterday I did not have any, but today I bought half a loaf at my local bakery -- I love that you can buy just half a loaf, or even less, if you want. Very practical. At Poilane in Paris, it's the same -- you can even buy just one slice, if you like). Tonight I start the refrigerator clearing out process, as I'm heading down south for a couple days, then to California (out west, I suppose that would be, although it could also be way back east, depending on whether you wanted to stop off in Asia or something first). That means that, in addition to the half watermelon I have left to eat (I had the other half for lunch today, along with the yummy bread toasted and buttered), I have to make something with eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, one ear of corn, and herbs. Not necessarily just one thing, though, because I was actually thinking that I'd like to make tamarind-sauced spicy eggplant with the rice I didn't make last night. And I think it will be another day without gelato, because, in addition to the watermelon, I still have a couple peaches, nectarines, and plums, as well as grapes from Aldo. Summer fruit is actually almost even better than gelato, though, so I'm not complaining (too vociferously).

Currently listening : Disraeli Gears By Cream Release date: 1998-04-07

8:42 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Eggplants and ice cream

Not together, silly! Although maybe eggplant ice cream... nah. Last night I made the rest of the ground beef with onions, garlic, hot peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant as a pasta sauce, while Eleonora made a nice mixed salad. Then we went to get a last gelato at dei Gracchi before the typical Roman August departures -- hers this morning, for the Ivory Coast, and mine next week, for California for work, doctor/dentist/eye doctor exams, my uncle's 70th birthday, with my aunt and cousins and my parents and Billy, and seeing friends. All that in 10 days. I'm hoping to finish up two papers I've been working on with my colleague Dustin, so that maybe I have a chance to have some publications one of these days (I just sent another paper out at long last, but we'll see what the editors think of it). I'm also looking forward to dim sum in San Francisco and to a carnitas burrito at Taqueria La Cabaña in Santa Cruz. Luckily, the Bay Area is far from a food wasteland, so even though I won't see Aldo for over a week, I should make it through, especially if I get a chance to go to some of the great farmers' markets in SF or Santa Cruz.

I didn't see Aldo this morning in any case, because he doesn't come on Mondays, but am going to go to the market tomorrow to get -- well, who knows what -- from him. Today, instead, I got more Reine Claude plums to make jam (and to eat), as well as some nectarines (just to eat) and some red peppers (to roast? or to eat raw as a snack). I also found out that my cherry purveyor, who is also the person from whom I bought the peppers, is named Sergio, so I have another name to a face at the market.

Tonight I am thinking about making polenta with blue cheese and onions, just because. I am not, in fact, a huge polenta fan (I picture here a fan made of hardened ground corn -- a bit fragile, perhaps), but I noticed corn meal in the cupboard when I was getting out some olive oil and thought it could be interesting to make while I'm already at the stove making jam -- that way I can stir with both hands and avoid becoming too unevenly muscled ;-) And then maybe I'll get some gelato again...

10:17 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Asmara and San Crispino

Last night Eleonora and I went to Asmara, one of several Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants around Termini. We got a vegetarian assortment and a lamb stew. It wasn't bad, but was not quite as good as the other Ethiopian restaurants I've been to in town here and certainly not as good as the San Jose or NYC Ethiopian restaurants I've blogged about previously (but the names of which temporarily escape me (temporarily, but long enough that I'm not going to include them in this posting)). The lentils were pureed; I prefer them whole. The broccoletti were not bad, but could have had a touch of sour. The lamb stew, though, was quite good, well-spiced if not very spicy, with chunks of lamb, on and off bone. The injeera was good, too -- not tough at all. In any case, it was fun to go out for something different.

Speaking of different, I finally tried a different gelateria, this time the famous San Crispino, which is near the Pantheon and has the prices to prove it. The gelato is about twice as expensive as at dei Gracchi, and you can't be environmentally friendly (i.e., they don't have cones). I tried two of the flavors they are known for, meringhe -- semifreddi with meringue bits -- al caramello and al cioccolato, as well as crema di caffe. Eleonora went with a couple fruit flavors -- white peach and raspberry. Her white peach was a bit insipid, though not bad, and the raspberry was very good. My coffee was ok -- about on par with dei Gracchi, because I have to say that's about the only flavor I'm not wild about there -- and the meringhe were both very good. I usually don't like semifreddo, because it can be heavy and a bit gummy, but these were light and yet creamy, and the chunks of meringue made it seem more like a composed dessert, especially the meringa al cioccolato, which was made with chocolate chips. I liked the ice cream quite a bit overall, but I'm not convinced it is worth the raves it receives (it is in most of the guides to Rome). Nonetheless, I would not say no to another coppetta there!

Currently listening : Countryman By Original Soundtrack Release date: 2001-06-26

7:02 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A char is born

I know that cooking to the point of charring makes food cancerous, but I have to admit that I really like a bit of charring on my grilled goods, so last night I cooked some of the eggplants 'perfectly', tender, with golden-brown stripes from the grill, and some, well, rather darker than that, a bit crispy with some burnt bits. Apart from the eggplant (which I marinated in salt, pepper, hot pepper, garlic, lemon zest, parsley, and olive oil), I also grilled zucchini (same marinade), red and yellow peppers, corn on the cob (from Aldo, and very good, if a bit expensive -- the only product I've found so far at the market that is more expensive here than in the States (a euro an ear, although Aldo knocked a euro off the price of four ears when I expressed surprise at the cost -- he, in turn, was shocked that you could find corn at three ears for a dollar in the States)), caciocavallo (giving a new meaning to the term 'grilled cheese'), green onions, pork sausages from the butcher on via Tagliamento (not, clearly, from my halal butcher at the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino), and hamburgers. I didn't have ketchup, but I was still excited to have a hamburger -- I mixed the freshly-ground, really tasty beef with salt, pepper, and minced onions, then grilled it (rare!) and served it with blue cheese that Anne and Orphée brought from France (in a 'cultural' (haha) exchange, they brought down French cheese and today took back up Italian cheese) and fried onions. So good. I was going to continue the sort of American grill night theme with watermelon for dessert, but we were all so full at the end of the meal that neither watermelon nor gelato from dei Gracchi could rouse us from our stupor, and we decided not to have dessert. Even without dessert, though, it was a terrific meal, and fun -- if hot as heck -- to cook (I kind of like playing with fire, and am amazed that the olive log Eleonora's friend Michele brought for the grill back in June is still holding up through several uses and post-grill dousings).

7:52 AM - 8 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Darn return key

I just erased a relatively long posting about last night's barbecue. Argh. A misplaced cursor and a push of a button was all it took. Now I have to write the whole darn thing again. But I'm going to wait until after I've worked a bit on my labeling article.

4:54 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment