Pink and black (or birthday lunch number one)

We've just got back from a week in Sicily (or, as the Ewing, who flicked through the phrasebook for five minutes would say, See-cheee-lee-uh). As ever there was food and drink. And more food and drink. And several afternoon naps. And it was lovely.

It's also been increasingly difficult to get the blogging mojo back since returning. Mostly because I have spent most my time since I've been back swathed in blankets, with the heating on full blast, bemoaning the fact I'm not still in shorts, looking out at the view above, sipping cold rose and eating cannoli.

While we ate many delicacies - including goat's intestines, gelato and granita for breakfast - but my favourite meal was my birthday lunch (part one of two, stay tuned for the next instalment) at Trattoria Al Vecchio Club Rosanero a shrine to the S.S.D Palermo, or the Pink and Black - named for the colour of their strips - the city's revered football team.

On arrival we were given a comprehensive menu but then, from my very limited understanding of Italian, informed that we should go and chose from the dishes chalked up on the boards around the room. Of course I had already studied it comprehensively on social media before our visit.

Which was lucky as it saved us standing over someone's table attempting to figure out random local specialities such as glasa, pasta topped with leftover stew, and triato, pasta with a 'chopped' sauce.

Our first antipasti was sarde a beccafico, or stuffed sardines, a dish we had seen Giorgio Locatelli cooking for Andrew Graham-Dixon on Sicily Unpacked (worth searching for online if not available on iPlayer). Made from butterflied sardines, stuffed with raisins, pine nuts and breadcrumbs, it's a peasant dish that has remained popular in Palermo.

I have say to I wasn't overly-excited about ordering them but felt duty-bound as I knew the Ewing wanted to try them. As things turned out, they were one of the best things I ate on the trip. Maybe it was the location, or the atmosphere, or the litre of vino blanco we had eagerly got stuck into, but they were simply perfect.

Equally as good was the caponata, a sweet and sour aubergine dish with celery, tomatoes, raisins and capers. Here served with the addition of chunks of spada, or swordfish, another fish found plentifully in local waters.

A heavenly mix of soft slippery aubergine and meaty cubes of grilled fish, bathed in local olive oil and mopped up with chunks of warm, sesame studded wood-fired bread that was delivered to every table on arrival. This was so good we had to come back just to order it again before we flew home.

For our primi platti, the Ewing ordered a bowl of spaghetti with sweet red prawns and briny sea urchin; with this heaping plateful being a half portion. I can confirm the full sized portions were at least twice as large, and I spent half my time trying not to stare in awe at the svelte local lady next to us who was quietly and elegantly demolishing a gargantuan heap of spaghetti bathed in a pool of jet-black squid ink sauce.

I chose the ravioli, with the robust pasta parcels pleasingly reminding me of the tinned squares in a lurid orange sauce which most 80s kids in England were subjected to as children. Rather than a mystery grey 'meat' filling, these were stuffed with a mousse of grouper fish, and served with a wonderfully glossy and buttery sauce of fresh tomato and topped with parsley and tiny pink shrimp.

In all honesty, after all that had come before, the squid was probably superfluous, but there was no way I was going to pass up ordering one of my favourite things. It was also good to see it available simply chargrilled (as well as stuffed and fried), the smoky cephalopod served bathed with olive oil, lemon and sprinkled with wild  Sicilian oregano.

In fact, the oregano was so good that I'm very  I bought a big bag in the famous Capo market and carried it home in my suitcase. I am  also retrospectively very glad I wasn't questioned more when coming back through customs.

As good girls who always eat our greens (along with pretty much everything else) we accompanied the squid with some giri  which can refer to various long-stemmed, spinach-like greens, but in this case meant swiss chard - that had been slowly cooked until soft in yet more olive oil and lemon juice and tasted deliciously sweet and delicate after all the big flavours that had come before.

We finished the meal the way all good meals should finish; with two icy cold glasses of local Sicilian amaro, a pleasingly small bill (less than fifty 50 Euros, including water and and the aforementioned litre of wine) and a long afternoon nap. The perfect way to herald the last year of the fourth decade of my existence.

2012: The Best of the Rest

So, Twenty Twelve was a bit of a cracker. You can read about the two most exciting parts here, but there was also the excitement of two honeymoons; the Olympics and Paralympics (where we Brits decided it was ok to cry and be gratuitously nice to each other); various get-togethers with family and friends (including an 80th birthday and a  New Year spent with some of my oldest and dearest pals); and, of course, plenty of eating and drinking along the way.

As has become the yearly tradition on the blog at around this time, here's some of the random food, drink and other miscellany that I haven't got around to writing about somewhere else but seemed too delicious not to remember. (Less a conventional 'best of', more a reminder of good time past, and why these trousers feel so tight....)

The turn of the year saw a trip to Stoke Newington, to finally meet my cousin Seth and catch up with his Mum and Dad. After a lovely lunch of bread, cheese and salad from the local farmers market we walked amongst the sheep's heads of Ridley Road before calling into Tugra, on the Stoke Newington Road for baklava. It was so good we had to walk back and pick up another box to take home with us. Not the best pre-wedding diet, but certainly the tastiest.

Paris was all about steaks, pastries, foie gras and trotters. Oh, and a little romance, of course. I also can't omit to mention the fabulous cheese; not only did we bring our Neals Yard leftovers from the wedding (we had travelled straight from the reception), but we also had the most fantastic choice of French specimens at every shop and restaurant we visited. My favourite - well, certainly the most welcome - were a chestnut leaf and raffia wrapped Banon, and a little ash dusted pyramid of chevre we bought on our last morning. This, along with a bottle of vin rouge and some Poilaine raisin bread, provided the most perfect train picnic when we were delayed due to snow on the journey home. (I'm not sure our fellow passengers quite relished the pungent fromage as much as we did.)

March saw a visit to my Nan in Norfolk, with a stop off in Cambridge along the way. As well as eating  Fitzbillies buns for breakfast we also made a trip to the Cambridge Chop House. This was a great little place, with some stunning views of King's College from the ground floor dining room (there's also a large subterranean space), as well as some great, gravity dispensed local beers. 

The real star of the show, though is the meat. Specialising in good old 'British' grub, there is a focus on steak and game. We shared a pheasant wellington with red cabbage to start, followed by a whopper of a beef chop that made me feel a bit like Fred Flintstone, and some exemplary venison for the Ewing.

Considering our location there could be only one choice for pudding; Cambridge Burnt Cream with shortbread biscuits and a glass of something sticky. Those with a sweet tooth may also be tempted with the rest of their desert  their selection, including crumble, trifle and home-made arctic roll.

While writing up our cross-country American adventures, our stop in Chicago seemed to get rather  forgotton. Here were a few of the (many) best bits:

We headed to Carson's in River North for the Ewing's birthday. Serendipitously Carson's has been around since 1977, exactly as long as the Ewing (sorry, Darling), and they both seem to be wearing pretty well. Carson's specialises in baby back ribs, as well as serving brisket, pork chops and chicken, smoked low and slow in a hickory wood-burning pit. As it says on the menu - 'no boiling, no marinade, no rubs or tenderisers, no liquid smoke, NOT 'fall-off-the-bone'. Real, authentic slow-cooked barbecue'.

The Ewing and I both ordered the half rack of ribs, served with coleslaw and a choice of side; in our case their famous potatoes au gratin (spuds sliced and served with vast amounts of cheddar and cream). Ribs were good; smoky, sweet, a little chewy. The potatoes took years from my life but I like to think I added a couple of months back by eating all my veg in the form of the tangy coleslaw. They also have a surprisingly decent beer menu; my pint of Three Floyd's Alpha King went down very nicely. 

The infamous Chicago style dog 'dragged through the garden'. Chi Town weiners come served on a poppy seed bun and traditionally garnished with a luminous green relish, ball park mustard, sport peppers celery salt and a wedge of fresh tomato. Absolutely no ketchup allowed. We washed these down with Old Style beer, while watching the Cubs loose at Wrigley field on a Saturday afternoon. The quintessential American experience.

The first memorable breakfast in this round up was at Chicago's Lou Mitchell's; a classic diner, found at the start of Route 66, that's been serving breakfasts to the masses for over 85 years and where baskets of warm donut holes and packets of Milk Duds are still handed out to the lines of patrons eagerly waiting to get inside and enjoy the vast array of pastries, cakes, eggs and cereals.

On our early morning visit we enjoyed endless cups of coffee and a great, old fashioned, fresh fruit salad, followed by malted pecan waffles and ethereal banana pancakes served with crispy bacon and jugs of maple syrup. Just the sustenance we needed before our 52 hour train trip all the way to San Francisco.

The second breakfast; a perfect British fry up. We enjoyed this at Greendale's Farm Shop and Cafe in Devon, and it proved just the ticket after four days of partying hard down in Exeter. While it was a shame they had run out of hogs pudding (a West Country speciality), I still enjoyed some of the best black pudding I have eaten. Never was a plate of food and pot of tea so warmly welcomed. (If you were wondering, the Ewing ate her breakfast plus my unwanted fried eggs on two rounds of toast. An impressive effort.)

No summer would be complete without one of the Ewing's celebrated swiss rolls. This year her fluffy whisked sponge had been stuffed with lemon curd and home made limoncello-spiked cream, before being rolled up and finished with a crunchy sugar coating. Boozy, rich and sticky and too good not to have a second slice.

The world's greatest cake-maker being introduced to Mary Berry. Joking aside, this exciting meeting came about as the Ewing was helping to coordinate a local library volunteer event and the lovely Mary came to give a talk and present the awards. Although she seemed immune to the charms of all the baked goods on offer (I suppose there is too much of a good thing), I did feel rather proud as Ewing's victoria sponge was the first cake to be polished off.

While I blogged about the pasta on our tour of Tuscany, Marche, Umbria and San Marino there was plenty more to write home about in this charming corner of Italy. 

Contender for the one of the best things I ate this year was this rather modest looking scoop of pistachio gelato from Cafe Italia in Cagli. The kindly chap serving us pointed out the flavours that had been freshly churned that morning (all ably translated by our friend, Marinella) before we sat and ate our ice creams and drank our espresso in the shade of the town square. Maybe it was the heat, maybe we were soaking up the Italian gioia di vivere, but never has the simple trinity of frozen milk, sugar and nuts tasted so good.

Another speciality of the Umbria/Marche region is the the black truffle. During our trip we enjoyed them with shaved on pasta and beef carpaccio; studded through cheese and salami; and infused in wild honey. I was in my element when we found this shop selling local treats in the charming town of Gubbio, and I still have a jar of gloriously funky truffle paste, ready to slather over crostini or roast chicken, waiting in the cupboard.

During our trip we made the drive over to Fano; firstly to ogle the impossibly bronzed and beautiful Italian holiday makers, slowly baking in huge rows all across the beach; and secondly to sample the Brodetto di Fanese, the local interpretation of an Adriatic fish stew. Our waiter did patiently explain everything that was in it, including monkfish, mussels and mullet, but while the finer points have been lost to the midst of Frascati and too much sun, I do still remember was how good it tasted. There can be little more pleasing than sitting eating the day's catch as the fishermen were still mooring their boats metres in front of us.

We finished with a Moretta, a type of  cafe corretto, or 'corrected' coffee which the local fisherman would use to fortify themselves on cold mornings. Consisting of a sweetened ristretto fortified with brandy, rum, aniseed liquer and a twist lemon peel, which makes you wonder how they landed any fish at all. Bloody good, though.

Another Marche speciality is agnello scottadito or finger burning lamb chops. Cooked on an open fire, they're so named as they're so tasty people can't wait for them to cool down before tucking in. They featured on the menu at Ristaronte Maria - a gem of a place up in the mountains, where we stopped for our last lunch - alongside these tiny mutton kebabs with bitter wild greens. Served pink, they were impossibly tender and full-flavoured, with just the right charred fat to meat ratio and a sprinkling of salt and lemon. Simple perfection.

And to finish our trip, a glass of icy cold campari and soda enjoyed on our terrace, complete with stunning views out across the Appenine Mountains. Salute!

In October we took a trip to Wales, via the West Country, and ate lots of ice cream on the way. 

First up the 'ice cream from an Airstream', made by Harriet's Jolly Nice and served at Westonbirt Arboretum. We picked a  double scoop of Westonbirt Damson and Herefordshire Victoria Plum, seen here teetering precariously atop its cone. To be honest, I'm not really sure which was which, but both were lovely. The top scoop was light and refreshing, more like a sorbet than an ice cream, while the bottom scoop was rich and almost cream cheese-like in flavour.

Wales has a, rather surprisingly, strong ice cream heritage thanks to the influx of Italian immigrants that moved to the area from as early as the 18 century who soon began opening cafes, ice cream parlours and fish and chip shops. Two of the best known purveyors of frozen deserts in South Wales are Verdi's and Joe's, both of whom have branches in the Mumbles. 

Our first port of call was Verdi's, where I chose a  DIY sundae consisting of scoops of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, hot chocolate fudge sauce, mini marshmallows and a sugar wafer. While this was good (smother anything in marshmallow and chocolate and it would be hard to refuse), the coffee and stunning views were better.

A brisk walk along the Mumbles seafront and we were ready for our second ice cream of the afternoon. While the surrounding may not be as aesthetically pleasing (the outdoor table we sat at faced on to the Mumbles Road) the place was packed with pensioners and school kids all happily tucking in to cones and coffee.

I was tempted by another marshmallow and chocolate sundae, to compare with Verdi's effort earlier, but in the end I couldn't turn down a scoop of the intriguing-sounding Welsh cake. This was right up there with Cafe Italia as my scoop of the year. A rich, spicy nutmeg and cinnamon ice, studded with juicy raisins. A scoop or two of this on a warm Welsh cake would be a very fine thing indeed.

Or final stop was Shepherd's in Hay on Wye. A beautiful, old fashioned parlour that specialises in, as you may have gleaned from the name, sheep's milk ice creams. After dutifully eating our pannini and soup, alongside a couple of well made macchiatos, we made sure to leave enough room to sample a scoop or two. 

As it was the day before my birthday, I decided to celebrate with a slice of their homemade ice cream cake; stripy layers of hazelnut, chocolate and vanilla ice cream on a sponge base, all doused in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Worth getting another year older for. The Ewing's choice was slightly more refined; two scoops of sheep's milk ice in the intriguing, and delicious, blackcurrant and liquorice, and amaretti and marsala flavours.

What better way to end the year with yet more cake. This time it was Dorset apple, one of my favourites.  The first slice was eaten on Weymouth Harbour; a well deserved breakfast after missing our original hotel breakfast as the Ewing was 'struggling' somewhat after the merriment of the night before. Clotted cream crowned the weekend's excesses.

The second slice was eagerly consumed after a very wet and windy Boxing Day family walk on Burton Bradstock Beach (just down from the more famous Chesil, scene of some very tedious, but not yet forgotten, pebble measuring on my school geography field trip). This time there wasn't a tape measure in sight, just a slice of this, rich with fruit and spice and with a crunchy sugar crumble topping, and a cup of hot tea. 

After all the year's far-flung excesses it's cheering to remember that sometimes the simple things in life are still the best.

Butta La Pasta!

 

I like pasta; I like it a lot. Barely a week goes by without at least one pasta dish gracing our dinner table. And therein lies the problem; its very ubiquity. Being seen as a cheap choice, or a quick fix, serve to diminish its lustre and turn it into mid week meal fodder for those times when you can barely be bothered to boil the kettle and pop open a jar of pesto.

 

My recent trip to Italy served as the perfect opportunity to become acquainted with the simple delights of dough again. Wherever you go, from the high up in the Alps to the heel of the boot, you will find it on every dinner table. It may come in different shapes (or the same shapes with different names), dried or fresh, stuffed or with sauce, but it will always be there, made with an understated  love and care that elevates it far above merely flour and water.

 

Here's some of the highlights we sampled on our travels in Tuscany, Umbria, Le Marche and San Marino.

 

Pici with ragu. This formed the primi piatti of our meal at the wine cellar in Dievole, the day after my sister's wedding. Despite most of us feeling pretty second rate, this plate of pasta summed up everything that's great about simple Italian cuisine. The pici, a sort of thick Tuscan (more particularly from the Siena region) spaghetti, was served perfectly al dente (as were all the pastas in this blog) with a sparing amount of rich and deep meat sauce.

 

http://www.dievole.it/en/home/home.aspx

 

Gnocchi with hare ragu. We ate this in another cellar, this time in the beautiful Umbrian town of Gubbio. The gnocchi were springy and light, but I found the ragu rather too tomatoey, with the acidity overpowering the chunks of lean and tender meat.

Our friend Marinella's choice; tagliatelle with porcini and bacon. Wonderful deep, meaty flavours that worked perfectly with the local red. Although this was a dish that may have been better suited to a chilly autumnal evening rather than a stifling August night it still went down a treat.

Umbracelli, the local spaghetti-like pasta, with fresh summer truffle. Umbria is known for it's truffles, and it's almost impossible to go anywhere in the region without seeing them on the menu in one guise or another. Even though the black summer truffle is the mildest of all truffles, throughout the evening the heady scent slowly filled the whole dining room with its musky perfume.

This was like the crack cocaine of the spaghetti world. A light cream sauce with tiny pieces of rocket leaf, liberally covered in a thick dusting of fresh fungi. In no time at all I was scraping the tine of my fork across the plate in order to scoop up the last scraps of sauce.

 

http://www.tavernadellupo.it/it/index.php

Lasagne. I honestly can't remember ever ordering lasagne in a restaurant, but an unforeseen 'incident' with the hire car meant we had ended up in San Marino for the evening, and the Ewing assured us the Blue Guide had said 'you wouldn't get better lasagna than that served in San Marino'.

The Ewing loved it, and even claimed, rather controversially, it was better than my efforts. Good as it undoubtedly was, it was the inverse of my lasagne, containing multiple layers of pasta, or 'stodge' as the Ewing usually calls it, and only very small amounts of sauce; something that would usually be shunned by her at home. It was very good though, and made a lovely match for the bottle of sangiovese made from grapes grown on the slopes of San Marino itself.

http://www.cantinadibacco.net/

Another night, another baked pasta like dish; this time it was vincigrassi, eaten in a restaurant in Urbino; a dish that is a speciality of the Marche region. This again featured multiple sheets of lasagne and was very tasty, being milder in flavour from the night before, but with a slightly richer sauce. The ragu, according to their website, was a mixture of chicken giblets, pork and veal, topped with bechamel and browned in the oven.

Marinella chose the malginatti, or 'malformed', pasta with a silky a sauce of aubergine and Parmesan; the rough cut mis-shapes being the perfect vehicle for the sweet, thick sauce.

The Ewing chose the wonderfully named strozzapretti, or 'priest strangler' pasta, coloured green with spinach and served with a sauce of bitter red radicchio and local Urbino cheese. The last two dishes being the perfect examples of quick, cheap and delicious plates of food that eschew meat without losing out on flavour.

http://www.vecchiaurbino.it/english_version/home.htm

And finally, fresh homemade pappardelle with wild boar, a famed dish from the region. We had enjoyed this at my sister's wedding feast, but too much prosecco during the aperitivo meant I had forgotten to get a picture. It took me until the last day of the trip to have it again, and it was well worth the wait.

The wedding dish was one of the best bowls of pasta I have eaten for a long time. The ragu had a glorious depth and richness, and despite the four courses to follow it was all I could do not to start attacking my neighbour's plates. This version had a sauce, that was lighter and thinner, with a more pronounced tomato flavour, which proved a better choice for a lighter lunchtime repast.

 

http://www.ristorantemaria.com/

 

Ten glorious days, a paunch regained, and a love of pasta restored.