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Italian food

Italian Restaurant: La Quercia di Rosa

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On our way down to Abruzzo for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday, we stopped for lunch near Modena, the home of balsamic vinegar. Quite by accident (although this kind of accident is not unusual in Italy), we found an excellent restaurant, La Quercia di Rosa (the Rose Oak – ?).

They make their own balsamic vinegar, and, as the proprietress said, it’s so good that you can put it on everything or even drink it by itself as a digestivo (after-dinner digestive drink). The thin industrial balsamic vinegar that you can buy at the supermarket is only a very distant relation to this syrupy, sweet-sour nectar.

For starters, we had it sprinkled on aged parmigiano (parmesan cheese). The combination of flavors somehow reminded me of walnuts, though there was not a single nut in sight.

For my first course, I had pockets of lasagna dough baked with a zucchine filling, with a creamy basil sauce. Light, flavorful, and not too filling – perfect for the season.

Enrico had tagliatelle with fresh porcini (wild mushrooms) – also in season now and absolutely yummy.

My second course was zucchine flowers, dipped in a light batter and deep fried. These were very good just as you see them above, and even better with a few drops of the house balsamic.

Enrico had tagliata di manzo (sliced steak) – very good meat, well flavored with rosemary and pepper. Ross had sole cooked with… balsamic vinegar!

As a side dish, Enrico and I shared radicchio di campo (field greens) with a dressing of crispy pancetta (bacon – unusually for Italy, sliced thin) – we put some balsamic on that, too.

We were not surprised to notice a flask of balsamic vinegar on the dessert cart. I asked what it was used for in desserts, and here’s what I had:

Fresh strawberries with gelato di panna (cream-flavored ice cream) and balsamic vinegar. Heaven!

Total cost of the meal for three of us (two primi, three secondi, three desserts, half-bottle of wine, lots of water) was just over 100 euros.

La Quercia di Rosa

via Scartazza 22

localita’ Fossalta

41100 Modena

phone 059 280 730

email querciadirosa@libero.it

closed Tuesdays

more information about real, traditional balsamic vinegar

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Italian food, living in Italy

Italian Garden 2007: July

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Unintended Consequences

Here’s what happens when I leave my garden unattended: I get beautiful wild grains like the above – otherwise known as weeds.

A weed I had been assiduously removing (but, obviously, missed one) turns out to have charming puffy purple blossoms.

The insalata riccia (curly lettuce) bolted into meter-high stalks with delicate blossoms. Wasn’t very edible at this point, however, so I took some pictures, tore it all up, and planted onions, herbs, and more lettuce in that space.

The wild fig that I never even planted, in the lower wall, came out with a promising crop of fruit.

And the vegetables just kept on producing – I picked our first tomatoes this morning.

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Uncategorized

Italy’s Amazing Summer Fruits

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sculpture above done by Ross when she attended liceo artistico

Summer has arrived, and with it everyone’s favorite fruits – along with the desire to mangiare leggero (“eat light”) in the heat. At this time of year it’s not unusual to see mounds of cherries served as dessert, antipasto, or snack at parties and dinners. Juicy, sweet, bursting with flavor, all these need is a place to discard the pits and stems:

An Italian saying related to cherries (and applied to other things) is: una tira l’altra (“one pulls another”), as in: “I ate so many because they just kept coming out of the bowl, one after the other, their stems entangled…”

Have you ever seen more perfect plums? They come in many varieties and colors (blue, red, yellow, pink, purple), and all taste as good as they look:

If you’re visiting Italy in summer, here’s a restaurant tip: instead of dessert, order frutta di stagione (seasonal fruit). You may be asked what you want specifically, so here’s a little vocabulary:

  • pesche [PESS-kay] peaches
  • prugne [PROON-yay] plums
  • albicocche [al-bi-KOK-kay] apricots
  • ciliegie [chili-AY-JAY] cherries
  • pesche noci [PESS-kay NO-chee] nectarines
  • fichi [FEE-key] figs – these are often served as an antipasto, with prosciutto crudo – don’t miss it!
  • lamponi [lam-PONE-ee] raspberries
  • mirtilli [meer-TEEL-lee] blueberries

NB: Berries are known collectively as frutti di bosco (“forest fruits”). If you get a chance to eat fresh-picked wild blueberries (very occasionally available at restaurants and fruitsellers) do NOT pass it up. If you hike, keep your eyes peeled: you can find wild raspberries and blackberries free for the picking.

Peaches, plums, apricots, and cherries may be served floating in, or alongside, a large bowl of cold water. Dip the fruit in and swish it around to clean it, then eat! Many Italians peel their peaches with a knife before eating (often they are so ripe that the peel will slip away from the flesh with very little assistance), but you’re not obliged to – you’ll find that the skin is much thinner than you’re used to on American peaches.

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US travel

An Over-the-Top Italian Restaurant in the US

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I usually avoid Italian restaurants in the US – why bother, when I can get far better Italian food from the grocery store at home? But during my last US trip I did end up going with friends for takeout to an Italian chain restaurant, Buca di Beppo (whose name is already funny to an Italian speaker: it means “Beppo’s hole'”). The scallop-and-shrimp pasta was more than decent, with just enough spice to make it interesting. The grilled vegetables were good. The garlic bread, while not resembling anything you’d ever see in Italy, was tasty.

But what really got me was the decor. You just never see anything like this in Italy. Never.

For starters: the restaurant is hung with banners and scarves from several different Italian football teams (besides Inter and Roma seen below, there were also AC Milan and others in other rooms).

This just ain’t gonna happen in Italy. You will occasionally see places, more often bars than restaurants, decorated with memorabilia from ONE football team – the one that the owner supports (sometimes defiantly, in the teeth of local prejudices). No one would dream of hanging a banner for an opposing team: that would risk bringing bad luck (sfiga) to his team, or would be like a devout Catholic putting a garlanded Ganesh in his place of business!

Dan Maslowski

(No, that is not the proud owner of the restaurant- it’s my friend Dan.)

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Italian food, living in Italy

Italian Garden 2007: June

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The garden has been largely left to its own devices in the last six weeks, and is thriving. We’ve had monsoon-like rains almost every day for weeks, so it certainly doesn’t need watering, and the vegetables are large enough now that they’re mostly holding their own against the weeds. Only three of the six zucchine plants survived: two at the bottom of the retaining wall, one in the main flat part of the orto. It looks as if the latter plant will be more productive, probably because it gets more sun. Six or so eggplant plants remain after attacks by beetles and slugs – we had a lot of beetles this year, I’ve never seen the like in Italy! – and are just now flowering:

eggplant blossom

eggplant blossom

We have lots of tomato plants, though a couple of them are hard-pressed to find sun around the enormous leaves of the broccoli plants. The broccoli had better be damned productive (in fall/winter) – they take up a lot of room!

broccoli plants

broccoli plants (the yellow blossoms in the center are zucchine) – compare with their size earlier!

The fennel stopped producing bulbs and got long and stalky, then it flowered. I pulled out most of it as it was shading out the lettuce, parsley, and green onions. But it’s so pretty I left some just to look at.

fennel blooms

fennel blooms

While I was away in May nobody dead-headed the roses, so the plants put all their energy into seeds and stopped blooming. Now that I’ve been cutting them back savagely, they’re starting to bloom again, though not as spectacularly as before.

zucchini flower on the plant

zucchine blossom – the plant produces male and female flowers. The female ones turn into zucchine, the male flowers do not, so are eaten as flowers – stuffed with ricotta cheese and fried in batter, if you’ve got the cooking skills for that (I don’t)

figs

a promising crop of figs – yum!

harvest in a basket

Jun 15, 2007 – today’s harvest from our garden: leggy lettuce (the turtles like it), parsley, zucchine, apricots (all we’ll get this year – 6), raspberries

photo at top: herbs for sale at an Italian garden center

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