Category — Travels

Last week Charles and I taught cooking and wine classes aboard the Crystal Serenity on a 12 day cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean.  This magnificent cruise ship, which has often been named the best in the world, has everything you could want — great accommodations,  activities, classes, entertainment, a spa, restaurants, bars and amazing food. I say the food was amazing because I read somewhere that during the course of one voyage, as many as 10,000 meals are served!  

[Read more →]

Tuesday morning in Vaison, Sunday at L’Isle sur La Sorgue, the farmer’s market every evening at Vallerons — each day in Provence is a market day where you can buy anything from tapenade and olives, to fresh fruits and vegetables, to roast chickens, ribs and quail.  It was hard to resist buying too much.

Fortunately our rented house had a well equipped kitchen and with so many good ingredients available, it was easy to put together great meals.  In fact, we all agreed that our home cooked or assembled meals were the best we ate.  Every evening, we drank an apero poolside and watched the sunset.

Egg and Cheese Fritters from Tarallucci e Vino

In Italian,” finire a tarallucci e vino” (literally,  to finish up with cookies and wine), means to say that there was a happy ending.  At the Tarallucci e Vino restaurant at 15 East 18 Street near Union Square in NYC,we were happy not just with the ending of the meal, but everything else from appetizers to dessert.

We had the tasting menu, so we got to try a number of different things.  My photos don’t really do them justice, so I’ll just post a few of the best ones.  Above is a roasted sea scallop with wild mushrooms and a poached quail egg.

Among the starters were these fried sage leaves stuffed with anchovies and mozzarella.  I like to stuff zucchini blossoms this way, but this inspired combination means that I can make them even when the blossoms are not available.  The sauce was nice and fresh, but the crunchy sage and tasty filling really didn’t need it.  Many more good things followed.

Did I mention the bread basket?  Charles could not stop eating the flatbread flavored with squid ink, rosemary and olive oil.  I know it sounds odd, but take my word for it, I was glad he ate it all so I could not.  There were also warm little baguettes and olive rolls.

We’ve long been fans of Tarallucci e Vino and weekend mornings often find us there enjoying one of New York’s best cappuccinos and a perfect Italian-style cornetto.  On our recent trip to Abruzzo, we met Lorenzo, who is the manager for all 4 of the restaurant’s branches.  He invited us to come by for dinner to the 18th Street location and we were glad we did.  It’s one of New York’s best kept Italian restaurant secrets.   The place was cozy and the atmosphere lively.  Charles had only good things to say about the wine list and in honor of our last trip ordered the Cantina Frentana Coccociola, an unusual white wine from Abruzzo, and the Emidio Pepe 2003 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which was superb.

We ended with this dark, totally fudge-y semifreddo topped with chocolate and cognac gelato.  We’re looking forward to going back again soon to try the rest of the menu.

Last week, Charles and I spent a few days in Rome, then headed to Abruzzo.  Here is my Roman favorite dish his trip, the Spaghettoni alla Carbonara at Roscioli.  The bits of guanciale were chunkier than usual and had been fried until crisp around the edges.  The sauce was perfectly made, with just eggs and cheese and lots of black pepper.  Perfection!

In Abruzzo, we stayed in the area known as the Costiera dei Trabocchi where we were the guests of the Cantina Frentana winery.  Trabocchi are wooden platforms built for fishermen that are now used as restaurants.  For a better look at them, see my blog on the i-Italy website.  Not surprisingly, the star attraction in this area is very fresh seafood.

Of course, there was lots of great pasta, too, both fresh and dried.  The town of Fara San Martino is the home of several major pasta companies, including De Cecco, Del Verde and Giuseppe Cocco.

The last one above had tiny little lamb meatballs tangled in spaghetti alla chitarra, fresh pasta made on a chitarra, a wooden frame strung with thin wires used to cut sheets of fresh pasta into long square spaghetti.

Cheese, of course, was only served on pasta with meat sauce.  A plate of long, skinny fresh green chilies was passed with every pasta.

Tender little tarts filled with chocolate and grape preserves were a tasty dessert on at least two occasions.

Throughout our stay, we drank wonderful wines of the region from Cantina Frentana.

This fall, join Charles and me aboard the beautiful Crystal SERENITY for a 12 day cruise from Athens, Greece to Istanbul, Turkey.  The Crystal Serenity has been voted the number one cruise ship in the world by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler.  As part of Crystal’s Wine & Food Festival Theme cruises, there will be cooking classes and wine tastings on board in addition to sightseeing, relaxing and having a great time together!

For more information about this cruise, go to http://www.crystalcruises.com/VoyageDetail.aspx?CID=1322&RK=MED

Radicchio Trevisano Tardiva

With its pointed leaves and gorgeous wine and cream color,  Radicchio Trevisano seems to jump right out of the produce aisle.  It is a welcome sight, especially at this time of year, when choices are limited.

Radicchio Trevisano Precoce

Radicchio Trevisano is grown in the Veneto region of Northeastern Italy near the city of Treviso where the climate is just right for the painstaking production process.  When I was in that area recently, I had the chance to visit Lucio Torresan who grows 2 types of Trevisano:  the early season bullet shaped heads known as precoce, and the later curled leaf kind known as tardiva.  Lucio explained that the process for growing radicchio was devised in the 19th century by a Belgian agronomist who applied techniques similar to those used for growing Belgian endive, is a member of the same botanical family. Lucio showed us how he harvests the plants, then places the bushy untrimmed bunches in shallow tubs of cold fresh water that is kept constantly circulating for between 15 and 18 days where the radicchio develops its distinctive flavor and color.  Then the plants are trimmed down to their tender hearts, rinsed again and packaged for shipping.

Radicchio Trevisano is good raw in salads, and cooked in risotto, in appetizers, and as a side dish.  The flavor of radicchio goes especially well with meats.  At a dinner at the  Ceccheto   winery organized by Buon Italia, the Italian food and wine promotional organization that had organized our trip, we had a chance to sample juicy grilled sausages made with radicchio and red wine,  radicchio roasted in a wrapping of pancetta, and in a mixed salad.  The sausages were made by Master Macellaio (butcher) Bruno Bassetto.  Bassetto is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records with having prepared the world’s longest salamella — I am not making this up– a skinny sausage that reached  7.018 meters (nearly 8 yards) in length!  While we watched, Bassetto demonstrated his meat cutting skills by first breaking down a beef carcass, then chopping the beef for carpaccio with 2 scary looking butcher knives.  With the carpaccio, he served a tangy and bittersweet roasted radicchio salsa that I could not wait to get home to my kitchen to try to duplicate.  I serve it with grilled sausages, steak or burgers, or on toasted Italian bread.

ROASTED RADICCHIO SALSA

This is really 3 recipes in one.  Make the radicchio for the salsa, or serve it plain as a side dish, or top it with a slice of Asiago and bake it a minute or so more until slightly melted for an appetizer.

Makes about 2-1/2 cups

12 ounces radicchio, preferably Trevisano

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained and finely chopped

2 or 3 anchovy fillets, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced red onion

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Oil a large baking sheet.

Trim off a thin slice from the base of the radicchio.  Cut the radicchio into 1-inch thick wedges through the core.

Brush the radicchio with 2 tablespoons oil and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.

Bake the radicchio for 12 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom.  Turn the pieces over and bake 8 minutes more or until nicely browned and softened.  Remove from the oven.

(At this point, you can serve the radicchio warm as a side dish or appetizer, drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar.)

In a bowl, mix together the capers, anchovies and onion.  When the radicchio is cool, place it on a board and chop it fine.  Transfer it to the bowl and add the vinegar and season to taste with more olive oil, salt and pepper.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Crostini with Roasted Radicchio Salsa