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Everyone into the pool~

Going to a friend’s house for dinner is always a wonderful way to spend an evening. When that friend is someone you haven’t seen in 20 years, it can turn out to be an incredible evening. And when that long lost friend, his wife, and two kids happen to live in a small Italian town an hour’s train ride north of Venice, where you just happen to be vacationing—well, watch out. The evening is going to be spectacular.

We arrived later than expected (no thanks to a train strike in Venice), but my friend Mark picked us up at the Sacile (pronounced “sah-CHEE-lay”) train station and drove us along twisting roads at the base of the foothills to the Dolomites, through quaint villages, past vineyards and pastures, pointing out local points of interest and filling us in on the area’s history before finally arriving at his house in Budoia (“boo-DOY-yah”). After a few minutes in the car, the 20-year void in our friendship felt like it had only been a two-minute gap. Once inside, the rest of our visit was all about food and wine. 

Mark and his wife Lena are both US military and, after only three years in Italy, they have fallen into quite the Italian lifestyle—a cellar stocked with bottle upon bottle of local wine and a solid knowledge of Italian cuisine with fresh local ingredients.

Lena has taken some cooking lessons and she was really showing out for our visit. We started with several glasses of prosecco and a selection of two local, artisanal cheeses (Montasio, young but aged in beer, and a fresh Asiago). For the antipasto, Lena made ricotta, goat cheese, sun-dried tomato, garlic, and shallot crostini. She was not very thrilled with it because the phyllo shells she was pre-baking to hold the cheese mixture were not turning out as she had planned. Trust me, they were great. Mark served a Tocai Friulano made by local winemaker Valter Scarbolo.

From the antipasto we moved to l’insalata—the salad, which for Italians would have been served after the meat course, but Lena chose to go American and serve her lettuce, sliced pear, local Gorgonzola cheese, and walnut salad before the pasta course. Very, very good.

We continued drinking the white Tocai through the pasta course…Lena made a pumpkin filling for her handmade pasta. She allowed me to make the ravioli and it was great fun to roll up my shirtsleeves and jump into preparing this course. I rolled out the pasta, spooned on the soft and velvety pumpkin filling, before folding the dough over, sealing and cutting into individual ravioli. Her filling was very similar to a pumpkin gnocchi that Nonna taught me how to prepare in 2005. I love eating delicately spiced pumpkin in November. Lena served the ravioli in a sauce of brown butter and sage with chopped hazelnuts and amaretto cookies grated over the top. BUONISSIMI! The brown butter was nutty, the sage and hazelnuts were earthy, and the sweet but bitter almond flavor of the grated cookies put the dish over the top. I hope you enjoy the photo of it above. Pity you can’t smell the aroma or taste the flavor.

From here, Lena and Mark kept pulling out the stops. Mark has become quite the wine guy while in Italy and besides the Tocai, he also served one of Scarbolo’s merlots with Lena’s meat course of roasted pork tenderloin. Lena had really outdone herself by also preparing homemade potato gnocchi—similar to dumplings. We each took turns forming the pasta in our own styles—I used a fork, rolling each dumpling down the tongs leaving an indention on both sides for the sauce to adhere. Lena rolled hers with a grooved little paddle/board, curling up both sides of the dumpling like a seashell. Our gnocchi were indeed homemade. While Lena prepared the tomato sauce with mushrooms for the gnocchi, I cooked them.

The first time I cooked gnocchi with Nonna I was terrified that I had ruined them.

“Nonna, questi gnocchi non sono giusti.”

“Marco, pazienza, saranno nuotare.”

There is a mystic aura surrounding gnocchi…they are made from dense, starchy potatoes and yet they should be light and airy. If they are not made correctly they can be heavy, tough, and gummy. I was terrified of that as I placed the gnocchi Nonna and I had made into the simmering water and watched them sink to the bottom. I just knew that I had kneaded mine too long or treated them with too much force causing them to be tough—ruined. But Nonna reassured me, “Patience, Mark, they will swim.”

Sure enough, one by one, our fat little dumplings rose from the murky depths and started a little water dance at the top of the pot. They would swim, taking turns floating around the top before disappearing back down to only reappear again.

“Nonna, guarda!” (“Nonna, watch!”)

“Si, si Marco. Vanno bene, no?"

 “Si, vanno bene!”

As I placed the gnocchi that Lena and I made into the simmering water, her son came over to watch. I told him that this was the moment of truth. If his mother had ruined them, there would be no swimming in the pot. He looked at me oddly and I told him to watch and, sure enough, mystically, one floated up, then a second, and a third, fourth, fifth. Soon the pot was alive with the swimming gnocchi. “Well, looks like your mother is a great cook,” I said. “Yep, she is,” he said, with complete conviction, pleased to know that I had confirmed what he already knew as the Gospel truth. The gnocchi were tossed with the tomato and mushroom sauce and served along side the pork.

We sat at the table telling stories, laughing, eating, drinking…well, they kids had juice…and it could not have been more pleasant. Mark told how the kids had picked up the language pretty quickly so I tried to chat with them as much as I could in Italian. It was a lesson for the three of us. We all knew different words and phrases and tried to stump each other. It was fun.

WAIT~

Do you think dinner was over yet? Hell no…there was still dessert, a local dessert wine, and caffè. Lena sliced her mango tart and topped each serving with shaved chocolate, raspberries, and a mango coulee. Mark’s fruity and sweet dessert wine, again from a local winemaker, really brought out the brightness of the raspberries and tangy mango.

Our evening was cut way too short by the fact that we had to catch the last train back to Venice, which we managed to do successfully.

I cannot wait to cook with Lena again and drink Mark’s wine cellar dry…problem is, they are soon to be transferred to Alaska. Mamma mia! I am not sure we’ll be visiting them again in November any time soon. But, come to think of it, that night in northern Italy last November was chilly and rainy and yet we were warmed to the core. Maybe we will give Alaska a try…but only if the gnocchi are swimming.

 Ciao e a presto~

Mark

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Nonna cooks Pollo con Limone~

Recently, I received an e-mail from Alessandra filling me in on all the happenings back in Viterbo. I mailed the Feb House Beautiful with the article on our house (http://www.mark-leslie.net/2010-starts-with-a-bang) to them back in early January and, when I hadn’t heard from them, I sent an e-mail making sure that they had received the magazine.

Of course, they received it and loved the house and article. Alessandra had to translate the interview for Nonna and Lillo, who don’t speak English. Alessandra also reminded me that I hadn’t spoken to them since our visit in November… “Marco, sei un molto cattivo ragazzo—Mark, you are a naughty, naughty boy.” That is how Alessandra scolds me when I fall short of expectations. We both laugh and laugh when she says this, as if I have been caught sneaking a cookie out of the jar.

There are times when I miss being with the Stefanis—their humor, laughter, and good-nature. The video shows how much fun we have together. The first lesson I posted (http://www.mark-leslie.net/lesson-number-1) showed Nonna making the cabbage risotto that was served as the first course before she served the Chicken with Lemon.

In this video clip, she is telling me how she prepared the chicken:

            -Roast the chicken pieces in oil (sunflower oil). Nonna cuts her chicken into small pieces (2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and each breast half into 2 pieces— for a grand total of 10 pieces).

            -Add salt.

            -Add white wine and cook until it is almost evaporated.

            -Add water and cook until it evaporates.

            -Add fresh sage.

            -Finish the dish with the juice of 1 lemon, a teaspoon of raw sugar, pinch of salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Nonna reminds me that she did not teach me this recipe when I lived with them in 2005, which is true. This was a new one for me. She said it is a recipe from her old house and the name of the dish is “Pollo con salsa piconnoti.” Now, I will admit that I did not understand the last name she said. It sounds like “piconnoti” but it could have been “biconnoti” as well—or some other variation. When I was living with them, I always had Nonna spell out every recipe title for me. I should have done that here, too. She and Lillo got into a discussion of what the name means and, sadly, I can’t understand what they were talking about. Remember, I only speak like a 2-year-old, so plenty still escapes me in everyday conversation.

Lillo and I go on to have a laugh about me having a restaurant with Nonna’s recipes and then we joke about me making a film of her cooking.

As I said earlier, they are great fun and I miss them. I hope you enjoy hearing what life is like when you are a student in a full emersion program (*). At times, it can be daunting, but being served wine with every meal certainly helps take the edge off!

Buon appetito!

Mark

(*) Here is the link to the full immersion program that I enrolled in: http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html

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 Le presento Nonna~

The New Year has started and we are all in a deep freeze. It is time to warm up with a little video of Nonna.

To bring everyone up to speed: Nonna is the grandmother of the family that I lived with in Viterbo, Italy, in 2005 through a university program in Siena (http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html). She is the reason why I have written my book (BEYOND THE PASTA: 28 Days of Recipes, Language, and Life with an Italian Family) and I hope it will be published so, at the very least, I can give her a copy. I really do enjoy cooking with her and I am crazy about the entire family.

The video is not very long, nor is it a full cooking lesson. It is a brief clip of Nonna explaining how she was preparing Riso con Cavolo—Rice with Cabbage. Both of us were a little preoccupied while I was shooting this. Nonna’s great-granddaughter was sitting in her highchair at the table, which had been set for lunch. Lillo, Nonna’s son-in-law, had pushed the highchair into the table because he thought we were about to sit down, but then he went upstairs to get something, and I started shooting the video. During the clip you will hear Thais, the baby, in the background and then you will see why we should always keep an eye on her.

Yikes! Thais waving around a steak knive—MAMMA MIA! We had no clue that Lillo had pushed her close enough to the table to be able to lean forward and grab a knive. Luckily, she didn’t hurt herself and Nonna noticed her quickly.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of what my life was like with the Stefanis for the month of August in 2005. It should be easy to understand what Nonna was saying, even if you don’t understand Italian. There was nothing pretentious about my lessons and I really got to live a truly Italian life. Bellissimo!

 Two more videos of Nonna are coming soon and I will intersperse them with the days of our most recent trip to Italy. Venice is the next city we visited and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Buon Appetito!

Mark

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The last tree~

Since my return from our Italian vacation at the beginning of November, I have been working for friends at their quite popular flower shop in Birmingham, Alabama (http://www.flowerbudsinc.com/).  We have been decorating houses for Christmas—the first house was on November 15 and today was the last house. There is complete disbelief and seasonal horror at setting up an artificial tree on that first day of houses in November, but today there was something very joyful about hanging a fresh mixed pine and fir garland over the doorway of a large, lovely stone home out in the woods of rural, but developing, Alabama.

In Italy, the Christmas season does not seem to begin until December 1. Here, in America, we can barely get the jack-o-lanterns blown out and the vampires back into their coffins before we are decking the retail halls with boughs of holly. Thanksgiving, naturally, is not an Italian holiday and, except for the literal day, it barely seems a holiday in this country. There is a build up to Halloween and then the immediate shift to Christmas on November 1. I sometimes think that Thanksgiving is just a gluttonous trial run, a kickoff, to the impending holiday season—if you can gastronomically survive Turkey Day you are given the falsely satisfying notion that you’ll be able to survive the four-week onslaught of eggnog, cookies, and parties which culminate in a SECOND turkey with all the trimmings. I feel like loosening my belt again just thinking about it.

Our vacation to Italy this year was the first two weeks of November and last year’s vacation was the last two weeks. This year, the Italians were just starting to bring out the civic street decorations to hang as we were leaving (November 15). Last year, the last few days of November were when shops started converting their windows to Christmas displays and city crews were still in process of hanging street decorations. At the beginning of that late Nov. ‘08 vacation, the already hung snowflakes, bells, stars, and strings of colored lights in the streets remained unlit until the end of the month. We rounded the corner the evening of November 28 and the Christmas tree outside the Fendi shop on Via Corso, previously dark on other evening strolls, was lit—as were all of the street decorations throughout Rome. It seems that December 1 is the retail start of Christmas in Italy. Brava!

So, as I sit here listening to “Frosty the Snowman” on Sirius radio on a relatively chilly “wintery” night in the Deep South, I am paging through my red notebook of recipes that I cooked with Nonna. She gave me a recipe for Biscottini di Natale—Christmas Cookies—which are made with dark chocolate, almonds, hazelnuts, amaretto or limoncello, sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and lard. Ha! I think Nonna has one-upped Paula Dean’s fascination with butter by using lard. I have not made this recipe yet, so I have not converted it from metric. Maybe I’ll do that this week since I am in the holiday spirit—and my holiday shopping is done. If I do, I’ll pass it on; however, while living with the family in Viterbo, we did make two “holiday” treats—Crostoli and Ciambelline con patate.

Crostoli are diamond-shaped pieces of dough made with white wine and grappa, which are then fried in oil and dusted with powdered sugar. Ciambelline con patate are yeast doughnuts made with potatoes, marsala wine or limoncello, and fried in oil. They are then rolled in sugar while still warm. Buonissimi!!

Sirius is now “walking in a winter wonderland,” so I think I’ll start planning which of these Italian desserts to "walk" to some parties this weekend. Now that my belt has been loosened, post Thanksgiving, how can fried potato doughnuts be that bad??—Mamma mia!

 Buon Natale~

Mark

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Ciao ciao tutti!

We arrived last night in Vitero and caught Nonna leaving the house to go to Boy Scouts (which in Italian is "masi"--I need to double check that spelling when I have more time). It is interesting to be staying in the house and writing on the same computer that I used 4 years ago to send home my daily emails from that trip. I am having a rush of emotions being here again...and this time, sharing it with Richard,

After a rather unfortunate mishap with Lillo's new car last night, we made our way to a little pizza joint out in the countryside, just outside of Viterbo. Lillo, Alessandra, Richard, and I started with a crostini "sampler" platter that consisted of 6 different crostini (bread baked in the oven with a topping on it). Some were with beans, another was with mushrooms, there was one with olive paste, one with huge chunks of tomatoes...all very, very good. Our pizzas arrived with the edges slightly charred from the wood-burning oven. We ended dinner with dolci--desserts: panna cotte with berries (Lillo), panna cotta with Nutella (me), gelato affucato (ice cream with espresso poured over it) (Richard), while Alessandra had lemon sorbert served in a frozen huge half of lemon from Sorrento--Heaven!

This morning when we came downstairs for breakfast...very late, around 10:30am, Nonna and Alessandra had the table set and were waiting on us for breakfast. I have to admit that we are spoiled here. Nonna brought out her homemade fig jam, while Alessandra made Richard a "caffè lungo"--a tall coffee. Our breakfast was simple, but we felt like Princes.

Nonna is making pork ribs in tomato sauce for lunch. The sauce will be served with Pici--a tube-like spaghetti--and the ribs will be eaten afteward as the meat course. I have to make a video of Nonna describing how she made the sauce and then post it when we return. This afternoon, we are going to check out a couple of local sights and then come back for dinner tonight. The family has begged us to stay with them until we leave on Sunday, but that is not possible because of our we booked the car and the apt in Rome. A pity actually, since we are truly family now.

I am looking forward to returning home and writing about every day of our vacation and including photos and, hopefully, some video of Nonna cooking.

Ciao e a presto--

Mark

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It is more than just about the food~

For me, cooking has always been about more than just the finished product on a plate. It is about the journey you take while getting to that plate.

As a child, my mom got up every morning and cooked my breakfast. Sometimes, it was as simple as pouring cereal into a bowl or as involved as making pancakes shaped like animals. She really had it easy after a while because the only animal I ever wanted was Mickey Mouse. But still, she cooked for me. Those silent, intimate early morning moments of sitting at the kitchen table while she stirred the cooking oatmeal are burned deep into my memory. As a child, those moments are never realized for they are until much later in life; however, for a child they do provide solace and comfort. Of course, as soon as my brother and sisters woke up and shuffled or bounded into the kitchen turning on the AM radio to WLS (www.wlshistory.com), the mood was destroyed—but never forgotten.

My great-grandmother (Big Gram) used to cook for us when we visited her in Ohio. All of our favorite desserts were prepared in anticipation of our arrival, and after crawling out of the car, crippled by the eight hour drive inside the overly-packed family station wagon, we couldn’t hobble up her limestone front steps fast enough to get to the kitchen. She always prepared my dad’s favorite foods—simple, unassuming dishes that, no doubt, made him feel like the prodigal son returned home.

The local Methodist church up the hill from my childhood home offered neighborhood summer programs to occupy our time and get us out from under our mom's feet for more than two seconds. Most of us in the neighborhood weren’t Methodist and I doubt that most of the kids cared at all about the subjects or activities that were offered. It was just something to do. One summer, a cooking class was offered. Trust me, it wasn’t Julia Child or Emeril, and I think the hardest thing we ever did was open cans and jars. Wait, I do remember making a cake or maybe it was brownies. Hmmm. Regardless, I really enjoyed that class. I liked the idea of creating something that I could share with other people, even if it did involve a can of creamed soup.

For a brief time after college, I worked for a manufacturing company in customer service. The second floor administrative department had a holiday covered-dish lunch during the week of Thanksgiving where the company provided the turkey and drinks, and all of the employees would sign up to bring their most prized covered-dishes to round out the meal. I signed up for GRAVY that year, not because it was a category on the list—but because it WASN’T on the list. I was horrified that we were going to be fed turkey with all the holiday trimmings and there was going to be no gravy. How can anyone eat mashed potatoes, dressing, and Thanksgiving turkey without gravy? NO GRAVY. How could anyone be thankful for that? I made gravy for 200 people that year. Don’t ask.

In 2005, I lived with an Italian family in Viterbo, Italy, and took cooking lessons from Nonna, the grandmother—another culinary milestone in my life. That experience is what my book is about. This November, it will be complete enough to starting sending queries to literary agents. I’ll let you know the progress of that process as it unfolds.

I had so much fun in 2005 that when Richard and I went back to Italy in 2007 with his nephew, Paul, and his nephew’s wife, Rachel, I made sure that they got a taste of what an Italian cooking lesson is all about. The agriturismo (http://www.italylogue.com/agriturismo ) that we stayed in just outside of Castellina in Chianti (http://www.castellina.com/history.htm ) was charming. They had vineyards and olive groves that they harvested to produce their own wine, extra-virgin olive oil, and honey, too. (I forgot to mention that they had bees.) I secretly arranged with the owner’s wife, Giuliana (Julianna), to have her give us a cooking lesson. Giuliana did not speak any English but she arranged for her daughter to be there and help translate. Her English was much better than my Italian and between the two of us the language barrier was overcome.

With the guidance of Giuliana and her daughter, we prepared a torte with Limoncello (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoncello ), skewered pieces of chicken and lamb seasoned with salt, pepper, and fresh sage were roasted over a fire in the dining room fireplace, and we made fresh pasta. Paul was really excited about roasting the meat on a rotisserie over hot wood coals in the fireplace—he loves to grill. We had great fun with our household aprons on. Giuliana and her daughter got a big laugh out of seeing the three of us men in women’s aprons. I think Paul would have worn a dress in order to cook meat in the fireplace.

We laughed and had a great lesson, which was only topped by the three-hour dinner with Giuliana’s family and friends on their farm (http://www.tuscanenterprises.com/index.php?p=dettaglio_immobile&l=eng&cod=040102). Our lesson tasted better than we imagined—that may have been helped by the bottomless glasses of the family’s wine we drank. We had new friends in this foreign land—all brought together by the journey to the plate.

If you have the chance to cook with or for someone you love, I suggest you do it. The time spent will be worth more than gold—and the memory will be priceless.

Buon Appetito!

Mark

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