Road trip

We rented a car over the weekend and drove to the eastern side of the island. We spent Saturday in Modica, where we visited Antica Dolceria Bonajuto and stocked up on chocolate. Sunday we went to Piazza Armerina to check out the gorgeous mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale. Here are my favorite pics from our weekend.

cinnamon gelatin

ricotta cannolo with pistachios

morning cappuccino with pastries

cinnamon chocolate bar

chocolate samples at Bonajuto

The bizarro Han

When Scott and I worked at Di Bruno Bros. in Philly we became really good friends with an Indonesian guy named Han. He was hired by Genji to make sushi for the upstairs café during lunch. Han would treat me to his awesome sushi daily and I would seriously eat it for lunch almost everyday when he was there. In fact, he would get a little offended if (for some odd reason) I wasn't hungry or just didn't want any on a particular day. On those days when I said "no thanks" he would sometimes leave sushi in the fridge for me anyway...or (and this is the best part) call me later on and drop off a tray at our apartment. He was our sushi guy and every time we happened to get sushi from some other source, Scott and I would agree that Han could make it better, or we just straight up felt like we were cheating on him.

Alas, times changed: I left Di Bruno's and so did Han, he started working the sushi counter at the Whole Foods on South Street. I would stop in from time to time to see him (and get my daily fill). It always seemed like he genuinely enjoyed making it for us. But, I digress...

Scott found this place called SoSushi in Palermo and yesterday we found ourselves sitting at the bar for lunch. We are all the way on the other side of the Atlantic, missing home, friends and family, but we happened upon something yesterday while we were eating: it seems we have found our bizarro Han and also a little taste of something we miss from home. Read Scott's analysis on lunch at Getting Lost in Sicily.

A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a vest

After lunch on Saturday we spent the rest of the day walking around Palermo. Sometimes when I'm walking the streets there it's very easy to forget where I am and think for a second that I might be on a movie set. There have been times when I'll think to myself that all of these people (the old lady wearing an apron outside of a rundown apartment building sitting on a really old wooden chair gripping rosary beads, the guy in a dirty butcher's apron standing under a dismembered cow's head, the young boys kicking around a tin can in lieu of a soccer ball) are actors hired by the Italian government just to display what we think of as typical Sicilian culture.
And then I remember that they do almost nothing in Sicily to promote tourism on any real level. My vision couldn't possibly be true - these peeps be keepin' it real.

I always tell people that Palermo embodies EXACTLY what I imagined Sicily to be before I got here. By that I mean: clothes hanging from balconies above cobbled, dirty streets; shady old men drinking in those kind of wine bars that most people would never have the balls to go into to, even though it looks so cool from the outside and would probably make a hell of a story later on; street markets with fishmongers and butchers yelling at you (and each other) as you walk by.

Sometimes I'll have a feeling of total disgust when passing a stinky, overflowing dumpster (the trash problem has reached catastrophic levels here) only to turn a corner and be in complete awe at the sight of a ray of light dancing across a beautiful building that's centuries old. These are the feeling that cannot be topped. At times Palermo can be both sacred and profane, both hideous and gorgeous, both ancient and new. I love a good puzzle. I assume that's why I keep going back there and I can't seem to get enough of that insane, chaotic city.

On a food related note, we finally bought a treccia di aglio or garlic braid. I have been known to have a heavy hand when it comes to garlic and recently I've taken to barely touching it with my knife. I like to keep the chunks big because I really want to taste it, so I'll usually peel and cut 4 or 5 cloves in half and sauté them with whatever veggies I'm using that night. On other occassions I'll mince it and throw it into the pot towards the end of cooking, so that it's still really pungent and only slightly cooked.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out some health benefits of garlic, just because I love it oh so much. Read this to see just how good for you it is. Or just eat it because, like summertime, it's a natural aphrodesiac and it also tastes really good. What else do you need me to say?

I love me a good texas tommy

Dear Philadelphia, please send a hot dog to meet me at the airport on December 3.

I've never seen this hot dog truck before, but that might be because it's only there Monday through Friday and probably gone by 4pm. I'll be sure to make a special trip there when I get home. I have to admit though that Texas Weiners at 15th and Snyder holds a special place in my heart. My favorite combo is a texas tommy with a side of waffle fries.

A perfect afternoon

I love moments like this.

Torta di pane, zucca e patate

I've been using my springform pan a lot lately. Tonight I made a 3 layered savory pie: bread stuffing, the last of some roasted pumpkin I had hanging out in the fridge and mashed potatoes. I did write the recipe down, but I don't have it on me so I will post it later. This is a very simple idea, yet I have to admit that I've never made anything like it before. In spite of this being my first effort, it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I love it when that happens.

It was basically just a layer of stuffing (day old bread, eggs, a splash of milk, chicken stock, celery, onion, garlic), followed by a layer of roasted pumpkin, followed by a layer of mashed potatoes mixed with (a lot of) garlic, olive oil, butter and chicken stock. All of these layers went into the springform pan and I topped the potatoes with a shower of parmigiano.

We ate it with roasted red and yellow peppers, green salad and a little leftover lentil salad that I added chopped tomatoes and jarred balsamic onions to. It would be a REALLY great vegeterian entree for Thanksgiving if you just substituted the chicken stock for vegetable stock.

The hand - redefined

In the spirit of Halloween I present you with...
a creepy meat hand.

Find out how it was made here.

Any by the way...that thing is a meatloaf hand with onion fingernails.

Strange

I was just looking through old emails and found this one from Saveur I received on Monday...one day before I made a version of this dish at home. I know that I wasn't doing anything innovative by baking breaded chicken, I just thought it was a little weird considering it's not something I do very often at home. Spooky.

The addition of almonds to the breading is a good one, but the honey mustard in this recipe includes low fat mayonnaise (ewww). If you are going to eat mayo, I say, go full fat. If you are using really good honey and dijon, I guarantee you that you won't miss the mayo. And I'm a real mayonnaise lover, so that's saying something.

Sfincione and a quick dinner

I spent the day in Palermo on Tuesday doing some shopping and walking around the city. I got a quick lunch at a panificio near Teatro Massimo that has really good sfincione. Traditional sfincione is thick focaccia bread topped with a little tomato sauce, onion, anchovy and maybe some grated cheese (usually caciocavallo). Some bread shops make more than just one type and the toppings can vary widely. It's very basic Sicilian street food and you really can't go wrong ordering it. It's also served a lot in bars as an accompaniment with a cocktail during aperitivo time. They usually cut it up into small squares and you can munch on it with your negroni before dinner. This is one of my favorite things about living in Sicily: the overwhelming presence of well made negronis and salty snacks before dinner...

Most sfincione I've had in Sicily is good, in fact, I can't EVER remember having a bad one, but some bakeries just do it better than others and this place is one of them. I walked in with my heart set on a slice with prosciutto, arugula and parmigiano...but they were all out. I settled for olive and tuna and found a bench in a little square about a block from the shop. The focaccia was dressed with a very light coating of tomato paste, olives, tuna, mozzarella and a few leaves of parsley. Perfect.

I got home late that night and Scott had been to the market already to buy some things for dinner: bread, fennel, carrots, thinly sliced chicken breasts and a bottle of wine. Side note here: clearly, Scott purchased this chicken because I hardly ever buy chicken breasts. I'm much more of a thigh girl. Braised chicken thighs are my favorite. I'm getting hungry for it right now as I type this.

Back to Tuesday night: we were hungry, it was getting a little late and we didn't feel like messing with a lot of things in the kitchen. I turned on the oven, scrambled an egg, got some breadcrumbs out of the freezer and drizzled some olive oil on a sheet pan. The chicken was dipped in egg, then breadcrumbs and placed on the pan, I drizzled the top of it with a little more oil and then it went into the hot oven for about 15 minutes. While the chicken was in the oven Scott made a fennel salad: thin slices of fennel, shreds of carrots, golden raisins, parsley, a pinch of cumin and a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar. We also whisked together a little sulla honey and dijon mustard as a super quick and seriously tasty sauce for the chicken. Think of it as a healthier version of chicken fingers with honey mustard. There's also the added bonus of having less to clean up after dinner and you can't beat that.

We finished off the meal with a ridiculous amount of camembert and bread - which of course cancelled out the lower calorie version of the chicken. Whatever - I am who I am and that means I will probably never turn down an oozing piece of camembert on crusty bread. I refuse to apologize for that!

Fruttivendolo

All of this for only €5.50 at the veggie stand around the corner. Not a bad deal, eh?

Although, I almost killed myself trying to carry all of this plus 2 bags from the grocery store.

Rain + slippery shoes + too many bags + walking up a hill and then 2 flights of steps = annoying.

Soup season is upon us

The weather here lately has left much to be desired. Lots of rain and dark skies. It even got cold enough last week for me to start wearing a jacket outside. Luckily, I've been keeping up with my knitting and I have an assortment of scarves ready to be worn. I guess it's only a matter of time before my borsa dell'acqua calda makes an appeance tucked between the sheets in our bed.

I actually love cold weather, when I'm at home in Philly, that is. I think that part of the fun of winter time is warming yourself up with a glass of red wine and a hot bowl of soup. And for me a fleece blanket, a hot water bag and comfy ugg boots. You won't believe it, but last winter here felt colder to me than any winter I've spent at home in recent years. I think it was a combination of things: we don't have heat in our apartment, my lack of proper winter clothing, proximity to the sea putting a serious chill in the air and distance from family and friends.

Making soup is comforting and wonderful on so many levels. It's economical, a great way to use up things in the fridge, you can make a huge pot of it and have meals for a week, it warms you up and it makes a house smell like a home. It just makes me smile.

Last week I did Tomato Potato soup, Scott's Grandfather gave us his recipe last year. It's super easy and delicious: diced potatoes, a couple cans of diced tomatoes and chicken stock (I also add an obscene amount of garlic and thyme to this, not part of the original recipe). The best part: caramelize a mess of onions and then add that to the pot before you serve it. Incredibly simple and really, really good with a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on the side.

This week was Spicy Carrot Ginger soup. Not much to it: carrots, a lot of garlic (I have a problem), ginger, celery, onion, red pepper, salt, cumin and vegetable stock. Would it have been even better with a little cream added? Of course, but I didn't have any, it was raining and I was determined to ONLY make this soup with what was in my kitchen. We had it for dinner (and lunch for the next 2 days) with bread, asiago, salame and a few arancine I made with some porcini risotto that was hanging out in the fridge from a previous dinner. All in all a good use of what I had on hand. Cream Shream, who needs it.

Leftover Bread

I'm always looking for uses for it. Some of the things I do frequently: bread crumbs, sweet bread pudding and it's savory cousin called "strata", crostini and bruschetta, bread salad, croutons, quick "pizza" by topping it with chopped tomatoes and mozzarella and then throwing it under the broiler, thickening soups...this list could go on. You name it, I've probably done it.

About 2 weeks ago I came up with my best leftover bread invention yet. It was on pizza night (Friday night in our house) and I wanted to put a quick dessert together. My train of thought went like this: I already have the oven on, I might as well throw something else in. Sounds silly, but we have an electric oven and since electricity isn't cheap it's quite practical to bake two (or more) things for the price of one every time I turn it on. I seemed to have an unusual amount of day old bread laying around and after surveying what else I had on hand I put this little tart together. I even had the presence of mind to write down the recipe...and it's definitely a keeper.

Day Old Tart

This is seriously the first thing that came to mind for a name. I just typed it out and stared at it on the computer screen and thought: maybe I should give it another name, this sounds both unappetizing and a little risqué. But, now I'm thinking that it sounds intriguing and risqué and that's precisely why I should leave that as the name.

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup leftover bread, cut in small cubes

1 tsp cinnamon, plus some for garnish

1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa

pinch salt

1 tbsp jam (I used pumpkin pinenut jam because it was open and in my fridge, but you could use whatever you have on hand)

1 tsp honey

1/2 cup chopped almonds

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 pear peeled, cored and sliced thin

Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together the eggs, milk and sugar. Add in the bread, cinnamon, cocoa, salt, jam and honey and almonds and mix making sure to coat all of the bread. It should be pretty moist, if not just add a little more milk. I used bread that was 2 days old, so it was still a little springy to the touch. After mixing it I covered it and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour. If using bread that's more on the dry side you should let it sit in the mixture for a few hours to soften it. I use this trick for bread pudding also - it will always come out more moist if you do it this way. Put a small skillet (I used a 6" crepe pan) over low heat and melt the butter. Once the butter is melted add in the bread mix and using a rubber spatula pull the mix away from the edges of the pan (like you would for an omelette). Once the edges have firmed up turn off the heat. Fan the sliced pear around the top. I chopped up all the leftover misshapen pieces of pear and put them in the center to hide the the little hole that forms. Bake for approximately 20 minutes and then garnish the top with a dusting of cinnamon.

I used a crepe pan because I don't have a small tart pan here; my Sicilian kitchen is quite scarce when it comes to supplies. I started it on the cook top because when I poured it in the crepe pan it wasn't perfectly round (because the sides of the crepe pan are fluted) and by cooking it over a low flame first I was able to maneuver the sides into a perfect circle. If I had the proper tart pan I could've just skipped that all together and put it right into the oven. I'm sure this wouldn't have effected the outcome at all.

I suppose that I am always just making do with what I have here. C'est la vie. The end result was fantastic though and I will certainly be making this one again.

A vegetable tart fit for a carnivore

I know it looks kind of like a pizza from this angle, but it's not.

I was sitting in the kitchen the other day listening to my usual round of NPR podcasts and out of nowhere something popped into my head: pie. Before I knew it I was digging my hands into butter and flour and making some pâte brisée. I wasn't sure at that point what it was going to turn into, but I figured that by the time I pulled the rested dough out of the fridge I would have an idea. I remembered seeing a recipe in Gourmet last winter about a mushroom and farro pie. Conveniently, I had farro and some dried porcini mushrooms on hand. I love it when dinner happens like this - you know, when you try to make something out of the ingredients you have in the kitchen. It's like putting together a tasty puzzle. Projects are fun.

I cooked the farro, soaked and drained the porcini then opened up the fridge to see what else I could throw in. This is what I scrounged up: roasted red peppers, onions and garlic from dinner the night before, a little red sauce I made for a pizza 2 days prior, a little passata (tomato puree) that needed to be used up and some chopped celery leaves. I combined all of this with the farro and mushrooms and then added a little balsamic vinegar, some of the porcini liquid, salt, pepper, a touch of cocoa and cinnamon, and an egg. After resting the dough for a few hours I pressed it into a pan and par baked it. The the filling went in and I showered the top of it with some parmiggiano.

I popped the tart in the oven, put on a Fresh Air podcast, poured a

glass of red wine, grabbed a People magazine (it's my thing, let it go) and retired to the couch. At any point during all of this did I look for the Gourmet recipe? Umm, no. Here's where I should explain something about myself.

I rarely follow recipes, meaning actually measuring ingredients out and following rules. I tend to follow recipes more when I'm baking, but I have to admit that even then I sometimes make little changes. My usual thing is to just take ideas from a recipe and go with it. Also, I have an obsession with trying to use up what's in my fridge and cupboard - I'm an obsessive recycler. So I'm all for substituting ingredients and spices whenever I need to. My aversion to rules is working to my advantage right now while living in Italy. I'm convinced that Italians think some rules are specifically made to be broken. Stopping at red lights, waiting in lines, customer service...Italians hate all of these things. Thanks to my ancestors I have that same rebellious streak in me. I'm sure it can be traced back through my bloodline. But that's neither here nor there.

I served the tart with a simple fennel and celery salad: fennel and celery sliced very thin with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and zest and some more chopped celery leaves (a Bittman inspired recipe you can find here). The tart was so filling and honestly tasted meaty, and that's not a word I throw around lightly. I NEVER say things like that about vegetarian dishes, but this was something special.

Here's a link to the Gourmet recipe Mushroom and Farro Pie. It looks delish.

McDon't!

Behold this freak of nature, the McMacaron. Just one year after the first Starbucks opened very, very close to the Louvre a McDonald's is scheduled to open next month. I just thank god that it will be underground and those dreadful golden arches won't be obstructing the view of that "hideous" glass pyramid.

I suppose I am sleeping with the enemy though, because last week I got an espresso at the McCafé in the train station in Palermo. There was nothing else around and I needed a fix! I just hope I don't find myself underground at the Louvre saying the same thing after I've devoured a royale with cheese.

Also in hamburger news: the bacon cheeseburger minus a bun plus 2 doughnuts known as the "Craz-E Burger" has landed in Massachusetts and is a huge hit. I believe this can quite literally be described as a hot mess. The Daily Telegraph says it hails from a bar in Decatur, Georgia. I'm sure none of us will be surprised when I say that Paula Deen has her own version (pictured at left) that takes it up a notch and adds a fried egg. As if there is a notch above a beef pattie topped with bacon and sandwiched in between 2 doughnuts. Yikes.

I just had a vision of myself wrapped in an American flag standing atop the glass pyramid at the Louvre, a craz-e burger in one hand and a starbucks coffee in the other. Man, I really miss home.

Lattuga Romana

Isn't this gorgeous? Believe it or not, a decent head of lettuce was not easy to come by in Balestrate until a few months ago when a little produce stand opened up around the corner from our apartment. There are produce vendors all over this town, but it seemed like I could rarely find anything good READ: not half rancid. All I could find was romaine (I would end up throwing half of it out because slugs were burrowing into it) or iceberg (I can get the same amount of nutrition from drinking a glass of water). Since we eat salad just about everyday this was proving to be a problem. All is well now though, since my favorite little fruttivendolo is just around the corner and supplies me with bright green lettuces and only a mere 2 minute walk. This beauty only cost €.85, it doesn't get much better than that. My everyday salad dressing: a tablespoon of dijon mustard, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper. It doesn't need anything else.

Modica Chocolate

There is a chocolate bar so delicious that I squeal like a small child when it is in my possession. Not only do I love the chocolate itself, but everything else about it too: the packaging, the color, the font they use, the wax paper under the paper wrapper. I'm kind of a stickler for details. And I'm a total weirdo when it comes to fonts. I'm at the point in my life where if I see anything written in comic sans I just completely ignore it.

It’s absolutely dreadful.

Back to the chocolate. First, a little history on it. It lives in Modica, in southeastern Sicily. Sicily has been ruled by everyone, it's old (umm, really old) news at this point: Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germanic tribes with punk rock names like the Vandals and the Goths, just to name a few. When the Spanish came in the 15th and 16th century they brought their chocolate tradition (that they received from the Aztecs) with them and the Modicani people carried it on. I wasn't kidding when I said, "a little history". I just skipped over about 500+ years of goings on in Sicily. I wonder what the the Vandals would think if they knew that I eliminated them down to a single sentence. And not even a good sentence.

Again, back to the chocolate. The Modicani people inherited this chocolate tradition from the Spanish. The ingredients are about as simple as it gets: cacao paste, sugar and cinnamon or vanilla. The result is not the smooth creamy texture that most people are used to, it is a granular texture. When you break up the chocolate bar, you can see sugar granules in it. It's like some sparkly, red-carpet version of boring old regular chocolate.

The chocolate I am in love with is from Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. It's intense, dark, slightly sweet and has that wonderful granular texture that just adds a whole other dimension to it. Here's a breakdown of the process: semi ground cacao is heated and mixed with caster sugar and spices - either cinnamon or vanilla. The mix is kept at a temperature cool enough NOT to melt the sugar. This process is referred to as a "cold process". It's not exactly cold, but it's also not hot enough that it will dissolve the sugar. The mix is then poured into molds and formed into bars.

Thank you, Vandals, because in some strange way your history is in that bar too. Big ups to ya.

Living in my kitchen

I'm an "open door gazer". You know my type: if you have an open door or window in your house, I'm looking through it. Sometimes I'll even strain my neck as I'm walking by trying to get a glimpse. I know it's rude, but people should expect this when they have shutters wide open, just begging for me to take a glance. You can imagine how well this usually goes over here in Sicily, especially given the fact that everyone knows that we are "the American couple" in the village. I've received more than a few unwelcome glares from little old Italian ladies dressed in aprons looking at me through their lace curtains.

After my first few days of staring into houses in Balestrate I noticed something about the layout of them: most of them have a combined kitchen/living room area and it's usually the first room you walk into off the street. Seeing families in their kitchens, especially on Sundays, reminds me of my home and family in Philadelphia. People crowded around a long table, laughing (and sometimes yelling at each other), telling stories of their day, something bubbling on the stove.

Our apartment has this combo kitchen-living room and I simply adore it. It's got all the essentials of a kitchen plus a couch, a tv and a shelf for cookbooks. I spend a lot of time in there (actually...all of my time) and it's especially great because I don't have to be in there alone cooking while Scott is in another room watching tv. This really is a great thing considering I make lunch and dinner for us both in there everyday (another thing I love about Europe, the 3 hour lunch). Unless we are sleeping or drinking wine on the terrazza, when we are in the house we are in the kitchen.

As I'm living in my kitchen, I will be reporting back on here all of the delicious things that I'm fiddling around with. Yesterday was chicken stock day, soba noodle soup for dinner and chocolate chip cookie dough while I brushed up on New Yorker podcasts. More on the chocolate chips in a later post. Stay tuned.