This is a restaurant I have tried numerous times over the last couple years and I am still not 100% sure of. Ninety percent of the time I am completely satisfied, slightly “happy” with wine and have a pleasant walk home.  But there have been a couple misses.

I have always been very happy with the food.  The bistecca has always been fabulous as has the tagliata. The contorno or side dishes have never missed with me either, the artichokes, the fagioli and the potatoes all made me very happy, especially the artichokes.  The pasta dishes were good, I really enjoyed the ravioli with rosa or aurora sauce–sort of a cream sauce tomato sauce hybrid.  And they even made me a half portion so I could chow down on pasta and my own bistecca, healthy appetite. The first visit there I even went for the seabass and was pleased. I have invariably finished with the torta della nonna, cuz it has creamy and pinenuts together.

What has not been all that pleasing is the service.  I am pretty tolerant and laid back when it comes to service especially when a restaurant is busy, a person only has two hands and can move so quickly through a small dining room.  I get it.  But on the two occasions that I went there alone, right after moving in to my apartment, but before going to the grocery store,  I had quite an awakening experience.  I had become invisible. All nearly 6ft tall, puffy mushroom head of hair me, had become completely and utterly invisible.  While tables on either side of me had everything they needed, bread just couldnt seem to appear on my table.  The polite little lifting of the finger and nod of the head that normally work so well to get a waiter’s attention had zero effect…

Little did I know that I had stumbled upon a cultural barrier.  While a woman dining alone in the US is probably on a business trip or maybe just was in a rush, running late after work; in Italy it is a complete anomaly.  Will I go back, of course.  Will I ever make it stop alone after a long day in the city center, not unless my shopping companion is coming with me.

Piazza del Carmine 18r

+39.055.218.601

I will say right off the bat, I stole this recipe from a 72 year old Italian.  Do I feel guilty, maybe a touch, but I am taking no credit for the divineness of this dish and fully acknowledge that there is not a snowballs chance in Dante’s inferno that I could have married these flavors and had them work.  This is one of those dishes that surprises you so much you don’t even speak, just mmmmmmmmm, and keep eating.

INGREDIENTS

(Working from memory here)

1   Whole chicken, cut into his appropriate pieces marinated in white wine and sage

Olive oil

Chicken stock

White wine

1 red onion

1/3 cup each kalamata and green olives

1/3 cup pinenuts

1/4 golden raisins soaked overnight in white wine

3 cloves of garlic

salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Cover the bottom of your largest skillet with oil and chop your onion and add both the onion and your garlic to the olive oil and begin warming the olive oil.  Add your pieces of chicken and keep the sage leaves with the chicken. Add about 1/2 cup of chicken stock and cook for about 15-20 minutes over a medium flame.  Add more chicken stock and a good pour of white wine.  When the chicken is a nice golden color flip all the pieces over, add a little more chicken stock and white wine and cover the pan cooking for another 15 minutes or so. Now add your raisins, pinenuts and olives and cook for about 10 minutes.  Serve, and remember, I may be a criminal, but my crime benefits humanity.

Making pasta from scratch is not something most Americans typically do.  But it’s actually not high on the difficulty scale and the reward is a great payoff.  I was told by a wise and well traveled Italian that there are three things that go into making good pasta, the eggs, the weather and the hands that knead the pasta.  After tasting the pasta that his wife makes, I am in complete agreement.

Typical of many of the best Italian foods, pasta has a short list of ingredients where freshness is key.  Here you need only flour, eggs and salt.  A little more specifically the quality and type of the flour is important, luckily DeCecco imports their semolina flour into the US.  If you can’t find that use the highest quality bread flour available.  Fresh eggs, medium sized, because the yolks are larger in comparison to the whites, and generous sprinkly of salt.

Make a mound of flour on a pre-floured wooden cutting board.  You want it to look like a volcano with eggs for lava. You want a ratio of about 1 cup of flour to 1 egg per person.  Sprinkle a healthy pinch of salt over the top and knead the dough until it is elastic and resilient. Add little sprinkles of flour as you are kneading whenever you feel any stickiness. It should take about 15 minutes.  Roll the dough out thoroughly, again with regular sprinkles of flour to make sure that the dough sticks to neither your rolling pin or the cutting board.  You want to get the dough to the thinness of a dime and this should  take about 20-25 minutes.

At the end of your little upper body workout slice, or slice and stuff and cook.  For the sliced pastas allow 4-7 minutes for cooking, less for thinner and more for wide noodles like lasagna.  For ravioli or tortillini; which can be filled with virtually anything, allow 5-10 minutes.  Fresh pasta begs for a simple fresh sauce and just a sprinkly of parmesan and cracked pepper.

You’ve all eaten in Italian restaurants.  You’ve all eaten in American restaurants.  You’ve all eaten in American homes.  How are all of these different from eating in an Italian home?

The first thing is dinner is much later in the typical Italian home than the typical American home.  This holds true in restaurants when you are traveling in Italy as well.  Most of them don’t open until about 7pm and anyone eating before 8:30 is probably a tourist. In a vast majority of homes in Italy the kitchen is large and everyone eats in the kitchen.  So it’s 9pm and you sit down to dinner.

Rules for table setting are pretty universal in western culture, and most of them probably originated in Italy because the Italians pioneered the use of cutlery in normal homes long before it became common elsewhere.  One thing that is virtually mandatory in Italian homes that is not in American homes is the use of a tablecloth.  Even if everything on the table is from Ikea or a hand me down there will be a tablecloth laid.  There will also be a large empty space in the center of the table, with the only things needed are salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar.  If during the day the table has plants or a bowl of fruit on it, for dinner they are taken away and the cloth is laid.

Dinner is slow and multi coursed.  And you will most likely have either two or three plates at your seat awaiting all the yummy goodness that is to come.  Now the open space will make sense, as will the ubiquitous tablecloth.  Food is a friendly affair here.  And most people serve it up family style.  Everyone is invited to help themselves.  And help themselves again.  And again.  The Italian mamma saying, “mangia, mangia” is no myth, and you will be fed and wined and welcomed until you’ll never want to leave.  Then perhaps you’ll adopt the habit in your own home and spread the spirit of Italian hospitality with a dash of American cuisine.

I am a huge fan of trying to eat as much as possible in the “fresh, local and in season” way. Italians favor in season as well, although the ubiqitious tomato is found everywhere and at every time.  Indulging in out of season berries or other fruits and vegetables occasionally is a luxury to savor.  But the fruits and vegetable that have logged more frequent flyer miles than most travelers in a season aren’t at their peak in terms of flavor or nutrition.  So what to do in winter?  How about a thick stew style soup that uses all those seasonal vegetables, plus some of those “not so in season but how can you live without them” tomatoes?

INGREDIENTS

3 cups cooked or canned chickpeas

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

3 medium celery stalks, chopped

3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

1 large red onion, peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 bunches Swiss chard, cleaned (at least 3 times)

1/2 head Napa or Savoy cabbage(sliced into strips)

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

2 fresh rosemary sprigs, (leave on stem)

2 cups canned tomatoes (I like Pomi) in most cases canned are better than fresh in winter

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 baguette (day old is actually best for this)

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Over a low flame saute your celery, carrots, onions and garlic for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the tougher portions of the swiss chard to this mixture leaving the leafy portions to add later. Add your herbs and tomatoes and saute for another 15 minutes. Add your swiss chard, cabbage and half of your chickpeas with enough stock to cover all your ingredients and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Puree the other half of your chickpeas with the rest of your soup stock and then add this and about 3/4 of your baguette to the mix.  Add salt and pepper to taste and pluck out the sprigs of rosemary.

The prep time and cook time combined on this soup are a good 1 1/2 hours but only need careful watching for the sauteing of the veggies (especially for the garlic) so this is a great rainy Sunday soup.  Two hints–1)add the bread slowly, you can always add a little more 2)a little winter squash can be a tasty addition when added at the same time as the tomatoes.