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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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I Love You—now hush~

Yesterday Richard sent a book title to me that perfectly captured a lunch experience with a French couple that we had in Venice. But before that, let me tell you about one of our first lunch experiences in Venice—a very popular inn and restaurant that was ours alone one day.

Before we take any trip to Italy we always chat amongst friends to see who has been where and where they ate while they were there. Facebook had enabled this line of questioning to go far and wide. A friend of mine in New York mentioned that he had an incredible meal in Venice at Antica Locanda Montin. Best known for their outdoor garden dining area, covered by a huge wisteria arbor, this inn and restaurant is packed during the warmer months of the year.

We weren’t exactly sure of where the restaurant was, which ended up being par for the course for us in Venice. It is on the island of Giudecca, the island just across the lagoon, which has a more open-air feeling to it than the rabbit run atmosphere of Venice. Trust me, we twisted and turned, took the wrong footbridges, and doubled back before we arrived at the doors of Antica Locanda.

When restaurants are not open in Italy they appear to be much more than closed. They look as if they are out of business. Shutters are closed, curtains drawn, and sometimes, as in Rome, the protective garage door, which covers the entire restaurant front, is down and locked. Outside there are no tables or railing enclosures, no potted plants, and no appearance of any recent activity. The complete flipside of this is when an Italian restaurant is open. Magically, the non-existent seating tables with their chairs, potted plants, railings, and menu placards appear from nowhere crowding the front of the restaurant with life. The shutters and curtains are opened wide, and in warmer weather, the front door is propped open allowing the hustling waiters to efficiently serve their hungry clientele.

The front of the Antica Loncanda was neither fish nor fowl. The outside was void of warmer season dining and, although the shutters and curtains were open, there seemed to be a “we’re not open” atmosphere about it. We paused for a moment outside the door wondering what to do. We were starving and had no other options in mind. Suddenly a white-coated waiter opened the door and invited us in. In Italy, waiters, in addition to their table duties, are also street hawkers, who lure and entice passing pedestrians into becoming patrons.

In America, if you walk into a restaurant and there is no one there, I bet your immediate reaction is the same as mine—“Uh-oh, this place must suck.” We paused again, looking at each other trying to quickly assess if we wanted to eat here. We had been walking all morning and it was almost 2:00 p.m., so we decided we’d suffer through this restaurant and remind our friend that his recommendation was way off the mark.

There was one other customer, a round little man with a large lens camera sitting at a table with an Italian man who seemed to be the owner of this inn. The table was strewn with the remnants of a large, multi-course meal and several opened, but not emptied, bottles of wine. I wondered if the camera man was a photo journalist or a food writer for a travel magazine.

The menu was full of wonderful sounding dishes, mostly seafood, and our expectations for this meal started to change for the better. We ordered our antipasti: smoked tuna carpaccio, thinly sliced, served on a bed of celery greens with olive oil, lemon juice, and pomegranate seeds; polipetti (small baby octopus), grilled and served with the same oil and lemon vinaigrette and pomegranate seeds. WOW! The tuna was the most amazing thing. My grilled octopus were great, but the tuna was the star of the show. (Check out my guest video on dishKarma where I talk about this meal.)         

 We only ordered a primo (the first course, usually pasta), opting to keep lunch light by skipping a secondo (the second course, usually meat). Two plates of handmade tortelloni with arugula, tomato, and basil were brought to the table. Buonissimi! (*see the photo above)

After our meal, I poked my head out the back door, which revealed the famous garden arbor. There was something beautiful about its early winter desolation. I can only imagine what a wonderful place it must be to dine in the summer—under lush green leafed vines dripping with purple, grape-looking wisteria blossoms. We will definitely have to suffer the summer crowds to come back here and find out.

The biggest lesson I learned here was “Don’t judge a restaurant by the amount of filled tables.” Our lunch was so good and had we given in to our initial misgivings and left, we would have missed one of the best meals of our trip. Our friend in New York was spot on. Thanks David!

Now on to our next day’s lunch with the French couple:

We don’t always look for 4-star restaurants to dine at while we are on vacation. Many times we look for what is around us when we decide that we have seen enough sights and NEED to eat. Sometimes we stumble upon an amazing meal and if not, we always come away with a fun story.

We spent the morning wandering our way through the streets of San Marco, stopping to photograph a really cool building, and ending up at the Fortuny museum. A morning of modern art can make you hungry, so we decided to walk back to our hotel and stop for lunch when we passed something that looked interesting.

We walked for a while, window-shopping, before finally crossing over a footbridge, deciding we were starving, and passed a restaurant where the people seated at outside tables, along a canal, were mostly eating pizza. Pizza and a couple of glasses of wine sounded like a great way to spend lunch so we stopped at this trattoria/pizzeria and were tightly seated at a table next to a middle-aged French couple.

Richard ordered a pizza Napolitano—a simple red-sauced pizza with anchovies and capers. I had the pizza Diavolo…Devil’s pizza…a simple red-sauced pizza with spicy salami. Any time you see the word diavolo be prepared for spicy. The Devil likes it HOT!

We were enjoying our pizza, watching the gondolas pass by our outside table, using our Italian with the waiter—he was very patient—when the French gentleman, who might as well have been our dining companion we were packed that tight, leaned over and asked if he could borrow the olive oil bottle on our table. To say he “asked” really means that he leaned over and said, “Excusez-moi” pointing at the olive oil bottle and then to himself. Hand gestures truly are the one language we commonly share, regardless of our country of origin. “Certo, certo,” I said, answering in Italian since we had just been speaking to our waiter and my brain hadn’t made the switch to English yet. (I have to admit that when I meet someone speaking a foreign language I always want to answer them in Italian, since it is the only foreign language I know. If someone Asian were to ask me a question in their native tongue on the streets of Chicago my knee-jerk reaction would be to answer them in Italian. It makes no sense—I am just silly like that.) “Of course, of course,” Richard said to the Frenchman at the same time, his response was colored with a little Southern flavor.

This little exchange opened the floodgates of conversation with the Frenchman. He asked if we were Americans…that was an easy enough question to decipher from his French. We asked if he spoke English or Italian and his answer was “No.” His wife, a beautiful dark-haired woman, smartly dressed with a pashmina expertly draped about her shoulders said that she spoke a little English. She instantly became her husband’s translator. He started asking us questions, which at times we could get the gist of because the French was similar enough to Italian and English words. When we were utterly at a loss for what he was asking, we three men turned our gaze upon his wife who would pause, put her fork down on her plate, and translate.

Having lived with Italians for a month, I have learned that when speaking to someone who understands only a little English it is best to keep one’s responses simple and to the point—save the 3+ syllable words for someone who gets it. She was being a very good sport, but at one point her husband asked her to translate something into English for us and she paused, still holding her fork this time, considered his request, and answered, “Mon chér, il est trop difficile à traduire.” We all laughed. Even we could figure out that she was at a loss on how to translate his complex French question using her very simple knowledge of English. Slowly we all figured out that he was asking us how life had changed in America given the financial crisis. We answered and again he asked another complex question. We all gazed at his beautiful wife, who put down her fork this time, reaching across the table to kindly touch his forearm, and said,“Mon chér…” We all knew her difficulty and understood her touch—“I love you…now hush!”

The conversation continued on through dessert and caffè and continued to be peppered with her “Mon chér…” when he exceeded her translating capabilities. We said goodbye to our luncheon companions and headed off toward our next adventure, pleased with the fact that we had been good ambassadors between America and France. For the rest of our trip we used “Mon chér…” between ourselves any time we asked the other something beyond our knowledge.

“Richard, how low did the water used to be in Venice?”

“Mon chér…” he would answer, grabbing my arm and shaking his head, as if he had been there 500 years ago.

“Mark, what is this incredible taste in my dish?”

“Mon chér…” I said shaking my head, as if I had the ability to identify some of the complex flavors in his simple pasta dish.

When Richard sent the book title to me yesterday and I discovered that the subject of the book was about the different natures of men and women. “I Love You—Now Hush” was the perfect translation of our lovely French translator’s care for and exacerbation with her husband.

 What a lovely way to tell someone to be quiet—“Mon chér…” “I love you…now hush.”

 Ciao e a presto~

-Mark

(* the photos above are of the outside dining garden at Antica Locanda, our tortelloni, the building on the way to the Fortuny museum, and the restaurant where we encountered the French couple--if you look close enough through the bridge railing, they are the couple seated at the first table. His back is toward the camera in the black sweater, and you can just see her beige pashmina.).

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Awaiting Spring~

It has been a colder than usual winter here in the South. Yes, I know those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line have certainly had your fill of it, too.

We have several potted citrus trees, which usually spend their winter outside; however, on the rare occasions where the temperature dips into the 20s and below, we bring the pots into the house turning our kitchen into an orangery.

Within a week of being brought in, they will bloom and perfume the entire house with their heady citrus scent—something that normally announces the coming of spring. But soon the blooms fade and drop, followed by leaves that are yearning for more than four hours of sunlight. They look rather anemic at the moment and it is always a race between their health and stable overnight outdoor temperatures above 30 degrees. Winter has lingered here longer than usual and I hope the trees can survive another week in our orangery.

Almost every villa or palazzo in Italy has an orangery. Long, narrow, terracotta-roofed, multi-windowed structures can be found toward the back of the properties. Here terracotta pot after terracotta pot of citrus tree varieties—orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, and pomegranate—can be found geometrically placed around the garden, covered in blooms in the spring and heavily laden with fruit in the fall. When the temperature drops, the pots are moved inside the orangery where the warm winter sun pours through the glass, drenching the plants with much needed light, and warming the terracotta pots and terracotta floor tiles. When scurvy and other diseases caused by malnutrition were all the rage, an orangery would provide fresh fruit, a much needed source of vitamins and minerals, well into the winter.

The orangery at the Villa Pisani, just outside of Padova, was beautiful this past November when we visited. The enormous garden outside the structure was full of potted, fruited trees. The building did have some plants in it, but the vast majority of them were still outside enjoying the pleasant weather.

Sometimes people ask how our trips to Italy influence us. At times the influences are subconscious and are never consciously realized, but there are many times when sights in Italy are put into practical application. The orangery in our kitchen is one of those literal and obvious applications.

If your fruit trees are still buried with a blanket of white, I hope the photos will remind you that soon the trees will be flowering, the birds will be singing, and the bees will be buzzing.

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

(**The first three photos are from the Villa Pisani and the last photo is our make-shift orangery in the kitchen.)

Click here to see another photo of the Villa Pisani.

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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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Zu, Zu, Zu~

“Scusi, Senore.”

“Si?”

“Una domanda. Conosce il ristorante Cantina Do Mori ?”

“Mmmm, no. Ha l’indirizzo?”

“Si, si, si.”

Asking for directions in Italian can be a daunting task. It requires you to remember the words for “left”  “right”  “around the corner”  “across”  “in front of”  “the next block.” Of course, in Italy each of those words comes with a hundred hand gestures and gesticulations. 

In Venice, asking for directions is even more complicated, because sometimes the “streets” only run the length of a building before taking a jog to the left or right and changing names. I have yet to find a map of Venice with every street name on it. Of course, that assumes that every street has a name—at times, I wonder.

Venice is a life-size, living labyrinth—an urban maze created by buildings and canals instead of the hedge mazes that were popular Renaissance garden follies. Envision the garden labyrinth in the movie “The Shining.” In Venice, you get the feeling that Jack Nicholson could round the corner with an axe at any moment—

“Heeeerrrreeee’s Johnny!”

WHACK!

For the past three or fours years, Richard and I have started taking along a list of restaurants from the back of Biba Caggiano’s Trattoria cookbook (http://www.mark-leslie.net/biba-restaurant-premier-italian-restaurant-sa). We have never been disappointed by any of the restaurants she has listed. Usually, it has been very easy to find the restaurants for whatever town we are in. During past pre-trip preparations, I would diligently search out each location, bookmark them, print maps and menus for every choice. Inevitably, we never used them because we would end up passing by them during the course of our daily sightseeing excursions. So this time for Venice, I decided not to bother with pre-printed maps or the research—it had been easy enough with just the name and the address. The list for Venice was not so easy. Biba’s information was correct, but trying to find the named streets in Venice was an entirely different ball of wax.   

When I would stop a Venetian and ask, “Una domanda, per favore. Conosce il ristorante Cantina Do Mori?” (“A question, please. Do you know the restaurant Cantina Do Mori?”), the Italian response was always the same—“Mmmm, no. Do you have the address?” I would pull out my map and together, as if trying to plot the invasion of Normandy, we would all try, first, to find where we were on the map and, second, to find the area where the restaurant might be.

Inevitably, the directions were always the same… “Va a destra qui, poi va a sinistra qua, poi gira La, e poi zu, zu, zu, zu, zu.” (“You go right here, you go left here, then turn there, and then zu, zu, zu, zu, zu.”)

The “zu, zu, zu, zu, zu” part involved the Venetian making a series of left/right hand gestures. The gesturing back and forth with the sound “zu, zu, zu” reminded me of how you might describe to how you saw a rabbit running for its life through the backyard while your dog chased it. The rabbit cuts left “zu”, then right “zu”, then farther right “zu”, back left “zu”, around in a circle “zuuuuuu”, left “zu”, right “zu”, left “zu”, right “zu”, and disappears into the high weeds “ZU”—the rabbit hole never to be found. That is how one gets directions in Venice. When finished describing how you, the dog, must go, everyone locks eyes, shrugs, and laughs—knowing full well that the directions are impossible to explain and impossible to understand.

“Buonasera.”

“Grazie, grazie. Buonasera, anche.”

“Buon fortuna.” (lots of laughter from everyone)

“Grazie!”

And off we would go into the Venetian night, waiting for the rabbit to lead us on the chase so we could go “zu, zu, zu, zu, zu!”

We never found Cantina Do Mori. We tried—and failed—three different evenings, each time canceling out a different section of the San Polo neighborhood. The piazza San Polo was where the rabbit hole was thought to be each time, but, once there, other Venetians indicated that the rabbit hole was “zu, zu, zu, zu” in another part of the neighborhood. Usually piazzas are the thriving heart of a neighborhood—crowded, brightly lit, shops, restaurants, and gelaterie bustling with action. The piazza San Polo was a ghost town—a huge, deserted, scaffolded, unlit, graffitied, lifeless square with no fountain, no people, and no gelato.

Each night when we entered, the only light, the only business, the only sign of live was on the far side of the piazza. We walked toward the light the first night—a pizzeria. It was not the restaurant we were looking for, so we went elsewhere. The second night, we avoided it all together and continued our “zu, zu, zu” in a different direction. The third night, disheartened by our failed attempts at trying to find Cantina Do Mori, we decided to go into this pizzeria.

There was a long line of people waiting to be seated—a good sign. Richard was concerned that the crowd was “too young” for the likes of us, the over 40 set, but he changed his tune when a 70-year-old-ish couple rounded the corner out of the dining room.  “Good, I am not the only OLD person here,” he said, as if being under 50 made him a geezer.

We waited about 20 minutes and were seated in the bustling dining room. This place was slammed—a mixture of college students, families, couples on dates, a middle-aged birthday party, and the old folks.

The pizzas were coming out of the ovens, slightly blackened, smoldering, and covered in toppings. We ordered water, wine, and our pizzas. Richard ordered a prosciutto, mushroom and had arugula added to it. This is actually a very classic pizza in Italy. I went out on a limb and ordered the pizza with tuna and arugula. I had never had a pizza with tuna on it before and I thought I’d see what I got.

In Italy, pizzas are thin, crunchy, slightly blackened crusts, topped with a little sauce, some squares of fresh buffalo mozzarella, and then your toppings. Some people might consider the crust burnt on some of the edges, but there is a difference between burnt and blackened. The Italians are experts at blackened…but only on some of the crust. It isn’t as if the entire edge is a burnt tree trunk after a California fire. None of it is like that.

My tuna and arugula pizza was incredible, BUONISSIMA! The tuna was canned tuna—yes, Italians eat a lot of canned tuna, packed in olive oil. The pizza’s sauce was slightly spicy, which Italians love to do with seafood, and it was piled high with fresh arugula, not cooked, that had been added to the pizza after it came out of the oven causing it to wilt slowly from the residual heat of the pizza. I really wasn’t expecting to like my pizza, but the combination seemed interesting and I always like to try something new. The canned tuna was not fishy tasting and with the slight spicy heat of the sauce combined with the peppery arugula—Wow! STUPEFACENTE! (http://www.mark-leslie.net/la-parola-del-giorno-the-word-of-the-day) I would order this pizza again in a hot minute.

Later, I discovered that the pizzeria we stumbled upon was a very popular and highly recommended place—Birraria La Corte (http://www.birrarialacorte.it/ENG/index.html). It was a beacon of great food in that abandoned, dark, barely breathing piazza, which upon first sight seemed to be only a last resort of a place to eat.

Venice is a city of hidden treasures and it has reminded me to never judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, the most unassuming things turn out to be the best surprises. Luckily, this time, the surprise wasn’t Nicholson with an axe!

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

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It’s all a ride~

My father was in the Navy when I was very young and for a couple of years he was stationed in San Diego, CA. While my father was away in the Pacific for months at a time, my mother was at home with my sister and me. I am sure that was a daunting task to have been 23 and home alone raising two children under three. 

When my aunt would come out to visit us, keeping my mother company, we would go to Disneyland. I can vividly recall riding the teacups, or sitting in Dumbo as he rose up and down as we twirled in a circle, or pulling down the brim of my Donald Duck hat and making it squeak as we plummeted down the rushing water of the Pirates of the Caribbean. But the ride that seemed to ground us back in reality and return us to our sugarcoated, picture perfect lives was “It’s a Small World.”

Why that ride and this blog entry, which is about Venice, are connected in my head at the moment is beyond me. I think it might be the vibrantly bright colors that I associate with those singing peoples of the world and the colors bursting from the shop windows in Venice. It could also be that, like the ride where everything seems so small and compressed together, the streets of Venice feel more like sidewalks bordered in shops than actual thoroughfares where traffic blurs the window displays. In Venice, if you are not in a boat, then you are on foot walking everywhere. There are no bicycles, motorcycles, or mopeds. You either float along, like the Disney ride, past the brightly colored buildings and people, or you are walking through tight and narrow streets crowded full of people who “float” you by the displays of masks, trinkets, and restaurants.

Displaying how fresh and beautiful your food is happens to be what the Venetians do. Window after window, restaurant after restaurant, bar countertop after bar countertop had food displayed on it. Sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, it is always there for your viewing.

It is midnight, as I sit here finally eating my first meal since lunch earlier today—after a very long day at the theatre where I listened to beautiful singing, in a foreign tongue, by 80 people dressed in a wide array of clothes. Now if I was just sitting in a boat and wearing my Donald Duck hat…

I am looking down at my blandly cooked chicken over romaine lettuce that I quickly threw together and thinking of all the beautiful food I saw and ate in Venice. How I would kill for some calamari, prawns, sea bass, or cooked octopus right about now. I need some vibrant color--that is what I really need.

It might be a small world, but tonight my dinner plate and the plates I experienced in Venice are worlds apart.

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

**Enjoy the photos of some of the food sights of Venice.

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“Venezia, Venezia…Chi non ti vede non ti prezia”~

What can I say about Venice that hasn’t already been said over the centuries by people more brilliant than I? Nothing.

The above quote is from Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost and translated in the play it means, “Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.” Shakespeare obviously loved Italy and Venice. He set many of his plays in Italy’s Veneto region…Verona, Venice, Padova (Padua as it is called in The Taming of the Shrew).

I was excited about finally traveling to Venice—Venezia. It had been on our list of cities to visit in Italy for years, but we held off until this past November. Part of the decision had to do with economics. Venezia è una molto cara città—Venice is a very expensive city, which is why we decided to travel there off-season. Hotels are a lot more affordable—not necessarily cheap—during the off-season. We stayed at the Hotel Paganelli (http://www.hotelpaganelli.com/hotel-venice/chisiamo.php?szLang=en) and had a room overlooking the lagoon—where the Grand Canal connects to the Lagoon. It was a perfect location.

Several Italians friends in Montgomery were thrilled to know that we were going to Venice in November. “The light on the city is so beautiful that time of year. The light is more gray and does wonderful things with the marble. It is much more magical in November than in summer.” I believed them. Venice is notoriously hot, crowded, and displeasingly aromatic during Summer’s high tourist season. I am glad that we were able to avoid the sweltering throngs and go in November.

When we arrived on that Friday morning, it was chilly and rainy in Venice. Gray light, indeed! Arriving into Venice is like no other place in Italy…the train pulls into the station and you are almost immediately at the water’s edge waiting for a valporetto—a water taxi—to take you to your destination along Venice’s canals of “streets.” There is nothing glamorous about the valporetto. It is an inexpensive way for the masses in Venice to get from point A to point B. In a sense, it is Venice’s “on water” subway system. There are private taxis for hire, but those boats can be expensive and, sometimes, just as unglamorous.

Our room at the hotel had tasteful, golden fabric-covered walls, rich woodwork, and a nice marble bathroom. The room wasn’t terribly spacious, but we could fling our window wide open and, standing side-by-side, lean on the sill and gaze out over the lagoon. Directly across from us sat Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore and gondolas bounced with the waves in their moorings directly in front of our hotel.

There is something magical about this city and, as the title of this entry points out, there seems to be two views, two perceptions, two atmospheres of Venice. Even in the mist of the afternoon’s overcast sky there was a richness about Venice. It was a friendly elegance. Sophisticated, but elegant. At night, walking through the narrow, twisting, rat-maze-like streets one could imagine the masked and cloaked figures of the Carnevale turning the corner and making you gasp, only to disappear into the misty, yellowed streetlight night. Here, Venice was mysterious, ominous, and disorienting.

I will write more about Venice, its people, and its food over the next several posts. Enjoy the photos and maybe put on some opera—Don Giovanni—to get into the masked and cloaked mood!

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

(**The photos: Statue is in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace, view from the Hotel Paganelli, and San Giorgio Maggiore at night.)

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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 house gets published~

2010 promises to be an exciting year and it has already started off with a big bang.

Our house has been published in the 2010 February “Makeovers” issue of House Beautiful magazine on news stands now. Yes, House Beautiful has already sent the February issue to its subscribers and some of our friends have already found it on sale in stores. Please check your favorite local store—whether it is a grocery store, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders, or convenient store. If you cannot find it, ask the store when the 2010 February issue of House Beautiful will be appearing on their racks. Once you find it, buy it! There is no way to view the magazine on line and we’d love for our issue to sell out.

The article is entitled “Reimagining a Grande Dame” and appears on pages 66 through 75. Mimi Read (http://www.mimiread.com) wrote the article and insightfully brought to life the interviews that she did with each of us separately—I was in Hilton Head Island while Richard was home in Montgomery. William Abranowicz (http://www.williamabranowicz.com/HOME.html) photographed the house and it was thrilling to watch him work the natural light that floods our house. Peter Frank (http://peterfrank.com/) cleverly styled the house, arranging flowers and using items that we already had throughout the house. House Beautiful’s Design Director Scot Schy originally “scouted” our house and started the ball rolling, plus he is a genius with an iron. The architecture firm that Richard works for (www.mcalpinetankersley.com) repeatedly has their work featured in House Beautiful, both architecture and interior design.

For the photo shoot I made an Heirloom Tomato and Onion Tart and it can be seen on the kitchen island, page 71. I have included the recipe for it below (*). This is not the most opportune time of year to make a tomato tart, but we can all read it and dream of a warm summer and the taste of tomatoes. If you do happen to find delicious tomatoes now, make this recipe and enjoy a bit of summer in winter.

Enjoy our house and the rest of the articles in the 2010 February issue. If you’d like to write to House Beautiful and let them know how much you enjoyed the article on our house and this February issue, they can be reached at: readerservices@housebeautiful.com.

Thanks for indulging me on this slight diversion from the blog’s usual content. With the New Year, I have also slightly altered the blog’s format, which now includes a “Tags” section. This is a glossary of previous entries categorized by topics. The “Tags” appear on the right side of the blog below my bio. You can still scroll down and read beyond the most recent entry, but with the addition of the “Tags” listings, the blog can now be searched for common subjects between all the entries.

Ciao e a presto~

Mark

*Here is the recipe:

Heirloom Tomato and Onion Tart with Pancetta, Basil, and Mint

by Mark Leslie

3 large heirloom tomatoes (2 ¼ - 2 ½ pounds)

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

2 slices (approximately 5 ounces) ¼-inch-thick cut pancetta, cut into ¼-inch-thick cubes

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced into half-rounds

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

¼ cup chiffonade of fresh mint

2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs, divided

¼ cup chiffonade of fresh basil

1 (8 ounce) ball fresh mozzarella, cut into seven ¼-inch-thick slices

½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Deseed each tomato by slicing across just under the stem end, and using your finger or the handle of a spoon, remove the seeds from the tomato’s cavities, leaving the firm flesh walls of the tomato intact, and discarding the seeds and any of the tomato’s juices. Cut each tomato into ¼-inch-thick slices, liberally salt and pepper both sides of each slice, and place on three layers of paper towels to weep.

3. Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the pancetta and cook until lightly golden, about 6 minutes. Add the onions and cook with the pancetta until the onions are soft and start to turn a light golden brown, 8 to 9 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, stir in the vinegar until well combined. Allow the mixture to cool in the pan.

4. Lightly butter a non-stick 10-inch tart pan with removable rim. On a lightly floured surface, roll the puff pastry out until it is large enough to fill the tart pan. Fit it into the tart pan and trim off any overhanging pieces of pastry. Place the pan in the refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes.

5. To assemble the tart, spoon the cooled onion mixture onto the chilled pastry, evenly distributing the onions and pancetta. Scatter the mint over the onion mixture. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon bread crumbs over the top. Overlap the tomato slices in a circular pattern, using the smaller slices to fill in the center of the tart. Scatter the basil over the tomatoes and evenly space the mozzarella slices on top of the basil. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon bread crumbs over the entire tart, followed by the Parmigiano. Drizzle with olive oil.

6. Bake for 28 to 30 minutes, until the crust’s edge and mozzarella are golden brown. (Place a baking sheet on the rack below if the tart starts to drip while baking.) Remove the outer rim and let the tart cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before slicing, and serving warm. The tart may also be left to cool completely before slicing and serving at room temperature. Serves 8 to 10.  

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Day 5: Verona~

Having worked at a theatre specializing in Shakespeare for over 20 years, it is no surprise that the first thing that comes to my mind when hearing “Verona” is the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. I know—predictable. Luckily, it was one of the last things we concerned ourselves with when we went there. Tragic love might be the most famous thing about Verona to the English-speaking world, but it is hardly the main reason to visit this ancient Italian city. Verona is an ancient town. It has a Roman arena that dates back to AD 30 which is still being used today for opera performances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona_Arena).

Our main purpose of going to Verona was to visit i Giardini Giusti (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.giardinaggio.it/unagitaa/giusti/giusti.asp&ei=xXQ6S8DiJYa1tgeZ-ZSLDA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCUQ7gEwBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Di%2Bgiardino%2Bgiusti%2Bverona%26dq%3Di%2Bgiardino%2Bgiusti%2Bverona%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DCUP ). We spent the better part of 3 hours enjoying the gardens and the views of Verona by ascending the hill and a spiral staircase enclosed in a tower at the rear of the gardens. It is no wonder that Mozart and Goethe visited here. The above link gives a great description and history of the gardens, though I think my photos are a bit more enticing.

With our brains swimming with images of hidden statuary, garden mazes, and sweeping views we headed over the Adige River by way of the Ponte Nuovo (New Bridge) and worked our way through the crooked streets toward the bell tower—Torre dei Lamberti.

One of the things I love most about Italy is the ability to climb ancient structures and towers. The climb up the 276-foot Torre dei Lamberti was a bit exhausting, but worth it. At the top, it provided a 360-degree view of Verona and an unexpected encounter with a very enthusiastic Croatian girl.

The tower’s belfry is split in two with the larger of the two bells being hung above the smaller and being reached by a separate staircase that continued up past the small bell to the top of the belfry. We had gone all the way up to the larger bell before making our way back down to the lower part of the belfry to kill time until the bells would strike 1:30 p.m. Regardless of where we are on vacation, Richard loves to stop everything to listen to bells ring, and we were only 10 minutes from having the bell next to us strike—we had to stay until he could experience the “strike” up close and personal.

“Hello. Do you speak English? Can you take our picture? I am from Croatia. Are you on vacation also? I am with my friends and my husband. We were married last month. This is our honeymoon. I am scared being up so high…”

“Smile,” I said, as this young, Croatian girl huddled next to her girlfriend against the belfry railing. “Say “cheese.” “Cheese!”

“Thank you for taking our picture. Have you been to Italy before? This is my first time in Verona. We have been to Germany and to Venice and we are going to Rome and to Florence. We are making a big trip. 3 weeks.”

She was tall, dark-headed, slim, and very pretty. She introduced herself, although for the life of me, I can’t remember her name. She had the energy and personality of a cheerleader or a sorority girl—better yet, a bow-headed Southern sorority cheerleader! I am sure she was in her mid 20s, but she was so bubbly that she seemed 16. We could hardly get a word in edgewise, because she rarely came up for air in her excited barrage of questions.

Her friends laughed as they headed up the stairs to the belfry’s second level to see the larger bell. They called to her to come join them, but she only took a couple of steps before stopping to continue her conversation with us.

“I hope my English is good. Have you ever been to Croatia? When you come, you will stay with us. We will show you around our beautiful town and country. Why have you never been to Croatia? You should come…” she said, as she finally stepped far enough away from us to take the stairs up to join her friends.

Richard and I laughed. She was a lot of fun. We imagined what her wedding night must have been like—with her never shutting up.

“BONG!”

The moment we had been waiting for: however, only the largest bell on the level above us struck, and when it did, our Croatian friend must have been standing right next to it—because she let out a shriek that could have been heard back in her homeland. Well, the bell might have caught her off guard, but her shrieking sent Richard over the edge. The clock struck, the girl shrieked, and Richard whooped. He let out a huge laugh and, even though the bell only struck once, she kept shrieking—and he kept whooping. “SHRIEK!” “WHOOP!” “SHRIEK!” WHOOP!” Finally, his whoop turned into a sinister laugh. “AH-hahahhaahaha!” The tourists on the upper level were laughing at her, and the ones around us had Richard for their entertainment. Between the two of them, they were an unlikely, yet in sync, comedy team.

We giggled ourselves down the tower and headed into the now sun-drenched Piazza delle Erbe to grab some lunch, “al fresco,” at one of the many ristorante. We ordered “Papparadelle con funghi e zucchine”—wide, handmade pasta served with porcini mushrooms and zucchini. The piazza sits in the shadow of the bell tower and is ringed with frescoed buildings. Many of the frescoes have not been restored, so, at times, the piazza seems haunted by its fading, once vibrantly-colored images. Reaching out from the past are the shadowy memories of heroes, both fallen and victorious, facades of villas and palaces, and the flora and fauna of the surrounding countryside.

A bottle of wine later, we decided to wander Verona’s streets, the ancient city center, to get a sense of the "vibe" and stopping to do a little window-shopping. Many of the old buildings throughout the center remained frescoed and the churches were as varied as they were plentiful. What struck us most about Verona were the rather posh and sophisticated Veronese people themselves. Italians, as a general rule, tend to be well dressed, but the Veronese, as a general rule, seemed even more stylish than the norm. They seemed to elevate this ancient town from the status of “old” to the status of “richly antique.”

As afternoon turned to dusk and into early evening, we decided to stay late and eat dinner in Verona. Biba Caggiano, the Sacramento restaurateur, has a list of Italian ristorante in one of her cookbooks (http://www.amazon.com/Trattoria-Cooking-authentic-family-style-restaurants/dp/0025202529/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262155796&sr=1-6 ) and luckily for us, she listed Al Pigna in Verona—the only trattoria  she listed in Verona. Restaurants in Italy usually don’t open for evening service until 7:30 p.m. and most Italians don’t arrive for dinner until 8:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. Since this was the case, we decided to take the plunge and find Verona’s most touristy attraction—Casa di Giulietta (Juliet’s House) to kill some time before dinner.

Tucked down a little side street, with its buildings’ walls graffitied with thousands of love notes addressed to Giulietta, there is no doubt that you are in the center of a tourist trap. This papered street ends in a little piazza where a bronze statue of Juliet stands for all to capture on film—and to also capture a quick feel. Yes, this statue of Juliet has been groped to the point that one of her breasts gets rubbed daily by enough hands that it is as shiny and untarnished as the day it was created. Her other breast, like the rest of the statue, is dark and tarnished. Poor Juliet. Not only did she lose her love and poison herself, but her right breast gets groped and photographed daily. There is a marble balcony off of a second story door that is supposedly the place where she first dreamed of her Romeo. The house, now turned museum, originally belonged to the dell Capello family—never to the Capulets. We decided not to take a tour of the house and its museum. Having killed enough time, we headed for Al Pigna.

Our waitress suggested that I try the asino—donkey—but I passed on the ass. The day before I had ordered smoked horse—puledra, which was very good, but I thought that tonight I should leave alone the barnyard animals that we consider inedible in our country. I started with roasted radicchio with brie, pine nuts, and raisins, while Richard had prosciutto served with Roquefort and fresh local honey. My entrée was Baccalà (salt-dried codfish that had been reconstituted in milk) served over polenta. This is a very classic dish from this region of Italy. Richard ordered the gnocchi with duck. Both were wonderful. I finished with the homemade tiramisu and Richard rounded out his meal with biscotti that he dipped into a dessert wine from the Fruigli region. Biba’s list has never failed us and tonight was no different. Brava Biba!

On the drive home, we passed a stretch of industrialized road that seemed to be populated with a lot of scantily dressed girls standing alone, each about 100 yards apart. Each time we passed one of these lovely ladies, Richard would scream out to me “Look Mark, LOOK! Oh my God, LOOK!” Poor thing, I don’t think he had ever seen someone employed in the world’s oldest profession. Come to think of it, I don’t think that I have either. But after seeing people of both sexes and all nationalities grab the shiny right breast and smile while a camera flashed—maybe a girl has to do what she can to attract a Romeo of her own.

Felice Anno Nuovo~ Happy New Year,

Mark

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