half moons on a half moon

A long time ago, in the hills above Greve in Chianti, was a little restaurant.  It was, in reality, a social club that provided a communal space for a village that consisted of a cluster of buildings clinging to one turn in the road. The building that held the restaurant also had a cafe~bar that served pastry brought up from the big town at the bottom of the hill;  short dark, creamy coffees; and a glass of something necessary on a cold winters night.  Between the cafe~bar and the little trattoria was a makeshift ballroom where they held dances every other Saturday night.

Every weekend both the restaurant and cafe~bar were open.  Friday night through Sunday night.  In the trattoria was a woodfired, beehive oven.  In the oven, the two cooks, a mother and daughter, made pizzas as thin as sheets of music; they roasted birds of every kind, and maybe the shoulder or leg of a pig; and they boiled water for the weekend's special pasta. The pasta would get made on Thursday nights, late after everyone had gotten home from work, dinner had been cooked, eaten, and put away, and the children sent to bed.  In the home kitchen in one of the houses on the hill above the trattoria, the pasta dough would be mixed and rolled in the quiet of the night.  Little shapes would be cut out of thin and perfectly integrated dough with the lip of a juice glass, then stuffed and sealed for the next evening's offereings.  More could be made on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning.  When the work was done, the night would be finished with a tin cup of latte macchiato, milk warmed on the stove a stained with just a little bit of very strong coffee, the effects of the coffee completely canceled out by the comforts of the milk.

 

This is how I learned to make ravioli on a cold autumn into winter night with only stars and big half moon hanging in the sky, and a warm fire to accompany us.

For the pasta dough:
3/4 cup flour
1 egg
a few drops of water-dependent on egg and flour
big pinch of salt

Mix all together first with a fork then your hands bringing the flour and egg together just enough to stay together.  Only add the drops of water as needed for additional moisture.  The dough should be moist and ragged, but not wet or sticky.  Let rest for at least twenty minutes before rolling out.

To roll out, flour your surface well, and keep flouring as you go along.  Always roll from the center out.  Flip the dough and flour your surface.  Roll out until the dough is silky and supple and thin.  Begin cutting circles with your juice glass until you've taken everything you can from the sheet of dough.  Take the remainder of dough and make a ball, let rest while you fill your ravioli.

Then take your left over ball of dough, roll out as above until you have your sheet of dough.  Cut shapes, fill and seal.  Keep doing this process until you no longer have any dough left.

The filling you use for your ravioli is up to you.  Ricotta-based fillings are always nice as are pumpkin or spiced winter squash. Place your filling slightly off-center, and fold the dough over so that the circle makes a half moon.  Seal the edges of the dough together with your fingers.  Finish by an extra and decorative seal with the flat side of the tines of fork.

Lately, we've been making a filling of fresh ricotta mixed with a puree of Asian pear and seasoned to taste with salt, pepper, cinnammon, and just a bit of nutmeg.  Mix just enough of the pear sauce into the ricotta for taste and texture.

When you cook the fresh pasta (you can freeze them or let them dry for a day), they are ready when the ravioli float to the top of the boiling water.  We like to let them go just a little longer until the edges of the pasta feel a little soft.

A simple sauce of warmed butter and fresh sage is always perfect.  Heat the butter and sage with salt and pepper to taste, heated enough to release the essential oils of the herb; the edition of a grated parmigiana or grana and/or a slivered and warmed prociutto or pancetta makes a very nice and flavorful addition.

~deirdre  

in anticipation

It has been a long time since we've stayed on the homefarm for the month of November.  Usually, we take this time to travel for rest and to find new inspiration.  But because of a long list of autumn farm and winery chores and the imminent deadline for a new book, we have stayed put and had to look to home for little revelations.

Vermont in November shows an austere and elegant landscape.  The lacey branches of the trees, the stark contours of hillsides, the smoky tendrils of woodfires.  The colors of land and sky are naturally muted: blue-grays, browns, soft blacks, translucent mauves.  The gardens still produce.  Curly lettuces and dark purpled radicchio, tempered orange carrots and ivory parsnips, creamy potatoes and white-fleshed apples, forest-green striped squash and flat baskets of stil- ripening tomatoes from our late harvest.  In our tiny kitchen, there is much to inspire.  The soup made of pumpkin and leeks, baked tomotoes stuffed with goat cheese and herbs, little tartlets of caramelized endive, sausages roasted with apples.

Thanksgiving week finds us giving thanks for time spent quitely on the farm.  We'll spend the holiday here too, looking forward to a long table set in finery and a long menu to while away the morning with cooking and the afternoon with eating and drinking.  We've settled on four courses.  Caleb will cook the main and the dessert; I will look after the antipasto and primo.  A rosso di Valtellina suggestive of spiced cranberries and roast turkey momentarily seduces, but we return to our original plan of Vermont quail.  We've saved apples out from the cider harvest for dessert.  November has brought me nostalgia and I will make ravioli just like I learned late at night in another little kitchen in Italy.  We have a pot of duck liver pate at the ready to kick things off with something decidely sparkling.  The other details have yet to fall in place.  Final flourishes and wines to accompany.  We have a few early mornings in front of the fire still left to pour over cookbooks and old restaurant menus with coffee in hand.  

The November landscape not only inspires in the kitchen, but also the table.  In thinking about our Thursday meal, we collect a handful of objects from woods and meadow, from pantry and china cabinet, and challenge ourselves to dress the table in November.  And this last Thursday in November will come, still bountiful with harvest and our happy gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving!

~deirdre    

Destinazione Paradiso: La Piazza

We left the highway at the exit for Taggia, and were immediately pulled over by Carabinieri for a routine document check. It was a spring day, and we were on our way to lunch in the village of Pompeiana, but first a few laughs over the rental car registration with the authorities, who were very polite, helpful, and curious about our trip, the areas we would visit, why we spoke the language. After a few minutes, they waved us on our way, and we wound down the mountainside, through Taggia, along the river, to the coastal highway, poked our way through several stoplights, then took the left up the hillside next to the Lidl store, to Pompeiana.

My anticipation was high, and I was nervous: we hadn’t called ahead. What if they were closed today? And it was the late side of lunch, after 1:30. What if lunch was over and done with? Well, if they were there, the worst that could happen would be a sandwich, or perhaps a bowl of soup, and a glass of wine. And if they weren’t there… In my mind, all my fingers were crossed for luck, while my real fingers took the car up the familiar hairpin curves, between the ranks of greenhouses bursting with foliage, be they weeds of abandonment or real crops.

Then we were in the village itself, at the piazza, and so, at the bar and café, La Piazza. There was the main church, the dangerous intersection with the traffic mirrors on red poles, the view down toward the sea over the red rooftops.

I stopped the little rental car right in front of the doors. Behind the gingham curtain the lights of the café were visible, and we sighed with relief. Deirdre jumped out to make the first hellos, and I parked the car in the lot below. It was a beautiful day. Sandra and Gianni were there.

There were embraces and smiles and exclamations and admonitions (“you didn’t call!”), and one table still set for lunch. It was the same table at which we had sat the last time we had a meal there. We sat. Carafes of red and white wine appeared. There was discussion of the 18 months since we had last seen them, what was new in town, and in their garden down the hill, where they grow for the café. Lasagna appeared, and disappeared. Gianni had grown an eggplant that had yielded forty fruits over several months time. “It just wouldn’t stop!” Then came the meat and potatoes. The potatoes…

They were cut up, par-boiled, then sautéed in olive oil, and had a perfectly light brown crust, and plenty of salt. Needless to say, the oil was extra-virgin Taggiasca, brilliantly fresh and fruity. And there were big wedges of lemon to squeeze over everything. “Yes, lemon for the meat,” said Sandra, “but especially for the potatoes.” The lemons were probably from a tree within 100 feet of the café, as there was one in everyone’s yard.

I have always loved potatoes, but Sandra’s pride in those potatoes revealed how much she and Gianni revere the potato as a food, as important as the delectable spring lamb on the next platter. And they were so deliciously crispy and creamy, and bright with oil and lemon, and it was a spring day, and we had made it to la Piazza, and there was a table, and Sandra and Gianni were there, shaking their heads in disbelief, and smiling.

Sandra’s Potatoes

I asked Sandra what kind of potato she prefers, and she answered either Yukon Gold or traditional white, waxy potatoes (not floury baking potatoes) medium sized. So that’s what I use, looking for potatoes that are about the size of a large lemon, what I call a medium-sized potato.

Scrub your potatoes and cut them up this way: in half, then long quarters, then into chunks about ½ inch thick. Put them in a stockpot or saucepan and cover with water, add some salt, and bring to a boil with a lid on, askew. Once boiling, lower the heat and simmer until the center of a big piece pokes just tender with the tip of a small knife. Drain. (At this point you can either proceed directly to finishing, or you can hold the boiled potatoes until you need them. If you are going to hold them, rinse them in cold water to stop the cooking, and fridge them if you’re not going to use them until the next day.) Turn the potatoes into a large skillet over medium-high heat, and oil and salt them well with your best extra-virgin olive oil and salt, and for god’s sake, do not skimp on either. Maybe some black pepper, too, if that suits you. Saute the potatoes until golden brown, and taste and correct the salt if needed. Serve with lemon wedges.

New Kitchen Hero

I have a new spatula, and it’s one I have been seeking for several years. It is one of my essential, day-in, day-out kitchen tools. It is so simple and classic a design, you might think it could be found in any old store, but not so, not so. It took me more than 3 years to come across it, and when I finally found it, I was not at all surprised that it was in Brown and Roberts Hardware, in Brattleboro, Vermont, (where I happened to grow up). That is a great store.

This new spatula has been doing hard duty from day one. It is sturdy, great for scraping encrusted pans of old scrambled egg residue, or burnt white beans, or crumby cutting boards. It has a sharp leading edge, so that you can actually slice things in the pan (like a spinach and goat cheese omelette), or separate a drumstick from the thigh, or remove that old paint spill from the floor. And it is small, so that you can sneak under a slender portion of fish for plating-up, without disturbing the other portions. In other words, it does all one could ask of a spatula beyond just turning your potatoes. (My other spatula is bigger, and was inclined to push a few potatoes out of the pan, which was the original impetus for finding the new spatula. Three years, three years, I tell you!)

So I’ve got my new spatula, and I’ll never let it go. Please don’t ask to borrow it. Just knowing it is there makes me happier, even when I am not actually in my kitchen. And next time I go to Brattleboro, I’m going to pick up another one or perhaps two, just in case. Maybe you can borrow one of those. -- Caleb

Garden Resolutions 2013

It is snowing as I write this (Wednesday, February 20th), in front of the fire.  Following my overview of this year’s gardening season, it seems a good idea to make a list of the concrete changes I can make next year in an effort to learn from this year.  So, heart ever hopeful, here are my resolutions.

1. I will try again to not procrastinate: starting seeds, watering, weeding, thinning… I was better organized in 2012 and that made a huge difference over previous years, but I will try to do better.

2. I will add compost to all the raised beds as soon as the snow is gone and the compost accessible.

3. I will start some of the outdoor-bound pole beans in 4” pots in the greenhouse, and also seed directly outside once the soil is really warm, and see what happens.

4. I will plant favas in the field where it will be cooler, not in the hoophouse.

5. I will plant many more: onions (starts and seeds), chicory, radicchio (mid July, for fall harvest and transplants to the hoophouse), out in the field.

6. I will try to grow more basil, some in the beds, some in the hoop house with the tomatoes, and some in pots around the terrace, and see what happens.  Large leaf Napolitano, thai, classic Genovese.  The potted basil on the retaining wall did only fairly.  I think it could have benefitted from a slightly cooler average temperature, hence, I will try the terrace out, where the morning sun is good, but the afternoon is shaded. 

7. I will re-organize in the hoophouse, and devote one bed to arugula.

8. I will try to expand the hoophouse to 40 feet in length.  (A side-effect of this will be the eventual construction of another greenhouse from the current plastic cover, which is so durable.) 

9. And build new cold frames to fill the new space.

10. And not procrastinate.

Fingers crossed!

Photo: Radicchio in the winter greenhouse, by Caleb

 

I grew a carrot: A review of the 2012 season

Here we are, gardeners, on the psychological cusp of a new season in the dirt, and in the spirit of ‘better late than never’, I should wrap up 2012 with a review. I know there are some lessons to be learned in every season, but I can be a slow learner, needing time to see connections.

As you can see from the photograph taken in early October, the carrots did fairly well this season, producing many paradigm examples, with a smattering of knobs, and under-sized specimens wedged in between. All in all, one of the most satisfying crops this year, which says something about the year in general. Some of the carrots are still in the ground, sweetening in the cold. Here’s hoping the voles haven’t found them.

The weather was cool and damp at the start of direct seeding, then things warmed up, but there was no rain until the fall; summer ended late and the fall was long and warmer than normal, great for finishing up the season. So at the cool start, heat-lovers suffered: beans and zucchini I ended up starting in 4” pots and transplanting. Inside the hoophouse I seeded pole beans along the back wall (after forking in some additional compost), and those came up quickly and gave us the bulk of our bean crop this year, most of which now resides happily in the freezer.

My mom and her neighbor, Peter, started the tomatoes in Peter’s seed-starting lab in his basement, under a grow light. We ended up putting 64 plants in the hoop house. I installed the shade cloth on the hoop house in late April, as temperatures in there were already topping out around 90 on warm days. This was just enough to keep the flats of greens from panicking into a heat-induced dormancy, or so it seemed; after they were moved into the raised beds, they never really took off, even though I was much more diligent in general about watering the hoop house and the raised beds this season. That made for a lot of 2a.m. star-gazing while making the rounds with the hose after coming home from the restaurant. I got less sleep, but I don’t begrudge the time outside with my head thrown back, listening to the swish of the water on the leaves, catching the occasional meteor.

Not so good this year were … well, many things. The exceptional surprise was the Natacha Escarole (started by mom back in March), which came in with big, beautiful heads; heat resistant, as advertised. Bush beans: a delicious but very small crop (too cool at seeding time, and beds didn’t get the compost they needed). Peas and favas: too hot, must plan for spring or fall crops. Onions and beets: poor germination, but tasty survivors. Surprises were the Badalucco soldier beans, the cannellini (lots of shelling in store for us this winter while we catch up on movies and TV series), the daikon radishes, the cucumbers that just would not stop, and all the volunteer Delicata squashes and small tomatoes on the old compost. The few solid performers were the hoophouse tomatoes (through until mid October), the arugula Sylvetta, and our 6 varieties of zucchini, which came in at an uncharacteristically relaxed pace (thank goodness) perhaps due to the lack of rain. The radicchio rows in the vineyard were an end-of-season surprise, and provided the bulk of transplants for the winter greenhouse, as my summer-seeded flats did not provide many good specimens; why, I do not know, but I suspect inconsistent watering resulting in more heat-induced dormancy! Yes, Teacher, I will try to do better.