Go Sharks!!!!

The only regret I have about this escapade to Italy is that I am missing telecasts of the hockey season. And with the NHL playoffs underway, I am gnashing my teeth in agony - my only source of hockey is online sports news updates. And what's more, it's not just hockey - it's Playoff Hockey!!! I so miss the excitement of watching...

Sigh....

Can someone please send me game videos???? Pleazzzzze????????!!!!!!!

And now for the shameless plug: Gotta love those San Jose Sharks!!! Congratulations on the conquest of the Calgary Flames, and now on to battle the Dallas Stars! Oh, Yeah!!!

My team is looking pretty darn good right now.....

Go Sharks!!!

Testaroli: Italian for pancakes....

We North Americans love our pancakes. Light, fluffy, and resplendent with butter and maple syrup (or whatever else we love on them...) - there are few finer ways to start a day.

But the Italians have them, too, little do we know. And they use them a little differently.

A food item from the region of Lunigiana, in what is now Tuscany, right next to Liguria, Testaroli are amongst the many examples of how humble ingredients such as flour and water are transformed into food that satisfies.

And how humble this is - just two parts flour to three parts water and a pinch of salt, mixed together to form a thick batter. The secret to leavening the testaroli is to have a large, thick pan heated very, very hot. Cast iron would be pretty ideal here. The steam from the heat will be the leavening. Starting from the center of the pan, pour the batter in a spiral fashion to form a large pancake. From there, proceed with the cooking as per pancakes.

Once removed from the pan, let it rest a few minutes, then cut it into two-inch squares. Toss with a sauce, and it is done.

Per Lunigiana tradition, you can use pesto, or an asparagus cream, or simply butter and parmigiano. We use a simple lamb ragu for the sauce. And just like fine pasta, the testaroli are finished with a handful of grated parmigiano reggiano.

...My Front Door...

It looks as if I live in a barn, and it might as well be one - it is big enough for a flock of barnyard animals. But instead, there "lives" the salumi - culatelli, salami, etc. - that are doing their time, going through the inescapable aging process. Once mature, they will move to the grand aging cellar adjacent to the restaurant.

But no, I don't live here. There are stairs that lead up to an upstairs apartment.

Relatively sparse by North American standards, this place that is my home for the next few months is still comfortable just the same. It even has a small deck, which I will be using come warmer weather. There are two rooms, both very spacious, and lucky me, I have my own room all to myself. Since I am the only occupant, I am a pretty happy guy.

To get to work, all I do is exit, turn left, and walk about 150 meters (or so). No car, no hassles with traffic and parking...

Life is pretty simple right now...

We get to work at 0900 (most of the time in a beary-eyed zombie state), prep until 1100 or 1115, at which point we eat lunch, and talk/laugh about whatever topics de jour happen to evolve. At 1200, lunch service commences, and when the last order goes, we clean up and resume prep work until 1700/1730 (that's 5 pm to 530 pm to the rest of the world).

At this point, I'm usually pretty tired, so all I do is go home and crash. I can't actually fall asleep, because I'm wired from work, but lying down and closing the eyes still still feels really good. At 1800 (6 pm), I go back to the restaurant and get dinner, and then return home. Dinner service begins at 1930, and we work until 2300, sometimes a little longer.

Alas, I ease myself one final time through that barn door. Home at last, I unwind and await that first big inescapable yawn that beckons the visit to Dreamworld...

Le Salame Fritte Con Le Vecchie

This is another very traditional recipe from the Parma region. Back some number of generations, somebody (or somebodies???) figured out what to do with the trimmings and scraps of meat from making their salumi, as well as what to do with the salumi and scraps that were not suitable for sale. The solution was to grind it all up into sausage meat with salt/pepper/the local white wine, form it into patties, and fry it up in a pan. At Al Vedel, Chef Matteo finishes the Salame Fritte by deglazing the pan with a very healthy dousing of Malvasia, which has a slight sparkle and a sweeter character. This deglaze reduces to form a pan sauce of intriguing contrast of tastes and textures.

Le Vecchie ("The Old") - the vegetable stack that you see is a saute of fagiolini (Italian for green beans), potatoes, tomatoes, roasted red and yellow peppers, and onions. The sauce underneath is a puree of roasted red bell peppers.

These two components are melded together on the plate - sunny, brilliant, and fresh as springtime - some wonderful flavors in the grand Parmigiano tradition.

Tortelli ed Erbetta - Tortelli with Herbs

If there is a dish emblematic of the region of Parma, this is it. Rich and lush, this is the celebration of the ingredients that predominate Parma: Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, the wonderful pasta made with eggs, leafy veggies that here are referred to as herbs (usually spinach), and Ricotta.

A side note:

Here in Italy, Ricotta, the translation of which means "recooked," is not classified as a cheese, even though we North Americans incorrectly call it as such. It is a product made after the production of cheese. The best example I know is this: after the production of pecorino cheese (that made from sheep's milk), the remaining whey is gently heated to around 80 degrees celsius. This heating promotes the curdling of the remaining protein, which is then collected, drained, packed...

And eaten.... Yummm!!

Ok - back to the Tortelli...

For the filling, the recipe calls for ricotta, spinach (blanched, drained, squeezed dry, and chopped fine), eggs, salt, and parmigiano reggiano. The two ingredients you cannot measure out consistently are the chopped spinach and the parmigiano. These two ingredients will vary in taste from season to season, and in the case of the parmigiano, from one wheel to the next. So even though a recipe will specify a certain amount of parmigiano reggiano, you can only rely on the taste to determine exactly how much to add.

I know some of you are gnashing your teeth over the issue of measuring, but keep in mind - the fun part of cooking is always the tasting.

Cheese: Parmigiano Reggiano and Il Caseificio Gennari

On my second day of work, Chef Enrico was kind enough to arrange a visit to Caseificio Gennari, the cheese producer from where Al Vedel gets its Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

We arrived mid-morning, and the day's cheesemaking was well underway. If you imagine the aroma of a glass of warm milk on a cold day - well, think not of one single glass, but a huge roomful's worth - this was my welcome into the cheese making room.

In the room were two rows of ten vats, each of which hold up to 1300 liters of milk to produce two wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano that in the end weigh approximately 38 kilograms (84 pounds) each.

The milk used to produce parmigiano reggiano is actually a mixture of two different milkings - the first is from the previous evening, which was allowed to settle in large flat tanks, the cream rising to the top. The following morning, the cream is skimmed off the milk, and this skimmed milk is combined with this same morning's fresh whole milk. The proportion of the two different milks are at the discretion of the individual cheesemaker (Casaro).

We were guided through the making of Parmigiano Reggiano by the daughter of the Gennari family. They make it look so simple, this art of cheesemaking. And it is an art, taught and learned, passed from one generation to the next. What you cannot really see is the decision-making that goes into each step of the process - the casari know by instinct when to proceed from one step to the next.

Once the curdle was collected into the muslin sheets, we were treated to a sample's worth. Warm and springy, it had a sweet milky flavor that was pretty good on its own...

After seeing the massive brining vats, we saw how the cheese is transformed by time to that final Parmigiano Reggiano that we love.

And then we were lead to the aging rooms. Huge, about the size of an airplane hanger, with numerous rows of the cheese wheels, 20 wheels high by roughly 100 wheels long, the views of which seemed to go on endlessly.

At the end of the day, forty wheels of cheese per day at roughly 500 euros/wheel (retail) come out to be not bad for a day's work.

And in keeping with the philosophy that nothing goes to waste - the cream from the skimmed milk is used to make wonderful parmigiano butter, and the whey from the cheesemaking is used to feed the local pigs, from which come the same region's Prosciutto di Parma, culatello, and other salumi.

For a more comprehensive pictorial of my visit to Caseificio Gennari, please visit my Picasa photo album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/spottybird/CaseificioGennari1February2008

You can also read more about Parmigiano Reggiano at these websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmesan

http://www.parmigiano-reggiano.it/default.aspx?newlang=7

Salumeria Garibaldi - Parma

I pass this place every time I go to and from the bus stop/train station in Parma.



As in any city in Italy there are countless coffee bars, pizzerias, and other small eateries, all of them serving up the same things. In other words, you've seen one, you've seen them all. But of this place I almost always have to stop in and have a look. Featured amidst the usual assortment of proscuitti, culatelli, other salumis, cheeses, and pastas are stuffed rabbit, stuffed cabbage, stuffed veal in the storefront display windows, roasted chickens, veggie dishes, rice dishes, and various pastas in the inside display case, and a grand tableful of cakes and desserts in the middle of the store.

Places like this drive me nuts. Remember that expression "Never go shopping for food when you are hungry?" Of course this store is located on the way to my ride home - right when I am getting hungry.

This store also happens to sell culatelli and other salumi that are produced at Al Vedel's salumi making venue. The picture hanging in front of the salumi display is that of the aging cellar at Al Vedel. There are hundreds of culatelli there, waiting for that perfect moment to be picked and sliced. Hmmmm... Kind of like fresh fruit from the orchard....

Cioccolata Calda - Hot Chocolate:

Hot chocolate, hot cocoa - however we've called it, we've all had a good cup. But not like this...

This stuff is so thick, your spoon could almost stand upright in it. Or better yet, you (or I) could stand upright in it. It falls from your spoon in a thick ribbon, and the chocolate richness sticks to your ribs.

On a chilly day, there is not a whole lot that'll warm you up better than this.