I remember a distinction professors made on their course reading lists: required reading vs suggested reading. Put Gennaro down as required eating. That’s Da Genarro. It’s on a hillside high above the Adriatic, on a two lane road called “la panoramica,” through a national park called San Bartolo. I wouldn’t say the restaurant is in…More
Tag Archives: restaurant
A Celebration Lunch
For celebration lunch today we have Greektown of Detroit, Barbuto of New York, and Howdy Richards of Freeland to thank. What are we celebrating? Being alive. Being together. More
Polenta, I’m Coming
Twice now I’ve chosen not to eat polenta. My wife and I are in restaurants. It’s a choice between tagliatelle and beans or passatelli in a vegetable sauce, or polenta, I reluctantly say no to the polenta. Last night it happened again. This just has to stop. Oh, polenta. It comes to the table vivid yellow,…More
Please Pass the Passatelli
In Italy they sometimes extrude the food. In the case, for example, of passatelli. Eaten in broth or with sauce, passatelli are a mix of breadcrumbs, egg, a grated hard cheese such as Parmigiano or pecorino, lemon zest, and nutmeg, all mixed together into an “impasto” and then extruded. Passatelli would be a quintessential farmer…More
So Many Ravioli…
My wife’s cousin sat a few chairs down from me. It was Christmas 1984. We were having cappelletti in broth, a typical–and beloved–dish we look forward to at holiday time. After spooning (scarfing) for a few minutes, the cousin looked up, turned to me, and said, “I could kill myself eating these things.” They’re that…More
Calamari and Seppia: Happiness Plural
Is there a more guilty pleasure than a fritto misto (frittura, as they say here)? You can see what you’re eating, sort of–rings of sliced calamari, curled shrimps, spongy scallops, a stray chunk of fish, and, if you’re lucky, some thinly sliced or shredded zucchini–all lightly covered in a crispy brown batter, lightly salted.More
Cassoni to go—che piacere
When I was in college, on many a drunken evening roommates and I ordered a thing called a “faz” from a local pizzeria. It was pizza dough loaded with a ghastly tomato sauce and grated domestic mozzarella, folded in half, sealed, and baked in the oven. When a faz arrived at your dorm room door,…More
More Poached Cod, with Onion and Tomato–bring it on
Enough with the cod! No, never enough. Especially when you get something like the above dish, poached cod with finely sliced onion and diced tomato. Add a little olive oil, a trace of diced parsley.More
Maltagliati, Ceci, Clams, and Porcini
This too we ate at Trattoria La Marianna in Rimini. It’s a soup made of maltagliati, clams, ceci beans, and porcini mushrooms. You can very easily use a variation on a theme on this soup (sans clams, for example, or hand-crunched tagliatelle in place of maltagliati) and be very happy.More
Poached Cod with What? Who thinks of these things?
Who thinks of these things? In conversations I’ve had with Italians about talented chefs, they refer to “fantasia,” which translates as something like “imagination.” This cod dish, served as an antipasto at Ristorante La Vela in Pesaro, is an excellent example. And as with most things on the table in Italy, particularly in my wife’s…More