Zucchini: What to Do With All Those Extra Summer Zucchini

     Some of my gardening friends may be wondering what the heck they are going to do with all those zucchini they grew this summer.  Many of you are practically swimming in zucchini!  You’ve steamed them,  fried them, made soups, breaded them, and eaten them raw with hummus.  All of which are noble endings for the simple zucchini.   I have also had to get a little creative this summer with the zucchini.  Alas, unlike my mother, I do not have a green thumb, everything dies, including weeds!  However, when I go to the local markets, what is in season?  Zucchini, of course.  So I have been eating them all summer, just like the rest of you.  With a little bit of creativity, zucchini can be delicious and fun.  I made up the following recipe while I was trying to eat up everything in the fridge and cupboards before I went stateside.  It turned out fantastic, and I have since made it many times.  This blog is dedicated to Jenny, Thomas, and my favorite baby in the world, Max.

    

INGREDIENTS:

For four people

4 tablespoon of olive oil

4 tablespoons of pine nuts

4 tablespoons of sultanas or golden raisons

4 cloves of garlic

15 cherry tomatoes

2 medium zucchini

1/2 tablespoon of dried calabrian red pepper

dry white wine

500g of whole grain fusilli

course sea salt

Directions:

Prepare everything in advance.  you will want to cut up the tomatoes and zucchini into small quarter sized pieces, or dice them, whichever you prefer is fine.  First, you are going to start with toasting the pine nuts.  To do this, take a small pan, drizzle a small amount of olive oil in it and put on full heat.  Throw in the pine nuts and flip them every 30 seconds until  they brown.  Put to the side.  In a large deep pan, use the rest of the olive oil and a splash of dry white wine and crush the cloves of garlic and red peppers and sauté with a medium heat.  Add the tomatoes and zucchini and sautè with the garlic.   Add the toasted pine nut and sultanas.  In a large pot, bring water to boil and add salt to taste.  Since I do not use salt in the veggies, I add a bit more in the water.   Add the dry fusilli and cook until al dente.  While the pasta is boiling simmer the veggies on a low heat setting.  I like to use a whole grain pasta for this dish, my favorite is pasta made from farro, or, spelt.  I think it brings out the nutty flavor of the pine nuts.    I use a whole box for four people.   Serve in large pasta bowls.  This pairs well with a dry rosato, or a lovely Vermentino di Gallura.    Enjoy outdoors if possible.

Voilà

 Buon Appetito!!

Wines of California: Graeser Winery Cabernet Sauvignon

  I have finally escaped the heat of Rome and am relaxing in sunny California.  Everyone keeps complaining about the heat, which makes me laugh to myself if I think about the absolute inferno that Rome became in the days before I left.  Can a Southern Californian ever really complain about the heat or cold?  I do not think they can or should.  I was sweltering under the Lazio sun while working at the Forum in the middle of Rome.  The only thing that kept me sane was the idea of an upcoming vacation to my homeland, California.  I envisioned potato tacos, California Burritos, leopard sharks in La Jolla, laying out on the beach and actually being able to cool off in the sea rather than just get warmed like one does in the Med, and lastly, all the California wines I would try to taste.  Unfortunately, I do not have any friends or even family members who are as passionate about wine as I am, so it looks like I will be doing this solo. 

     What is more ubiquitous to California than Cabernet Sauvignon?  Ok, maybe Zinfandel.  Though I make a lot of fuss about traditional and natural wine making and native grapes and so forth, California Cabernet Sauvignon is here to stay, and far be it from me to make a blanket judement based on the industrial wines that one finds in Vons or Albertsons.  There are excellent Cabernet Sauvignons to be had.  The last one I had from Pointer Run Vineyards is a great example of a wine that has a great potential to evolve.  I first had this wine in the winter of 2007, when my friend Harmony, a fellow wine lover and sommelier, was still living in Southern California, so I had a great time trying lots of wines and trying out a few of San Diego's wine bars in Hillcrest and downtown.  One of my favorites is the Wine Lover and 6th ave in Hillcrest.  I think they have a great wine buyer and it is in a perfect location. 

     Harmony moved to Portland,  I went back to Italy, and I took a bottle of 1997 Graeser Cabernet Sauvignon from Pointer Run Vineyards.  As I mentioned above, I tasted it at the Wine Lover in 2007, when it was 10 years old, and even then, the tannins were holding up, it still had an excellent backbone, and had a lot of potential to evolve and soften up.  This was not an oak bomb surprise.  Overly oaked wines never lose their vanilla, and sometimes the oak hides the richness of the actual wine.  I drank this wine and enjoyed it.  Ettore decided to try this this year, and I wished I had a large enough budget to allow me to buy cases of wines I like rather than having to make due with one bottle.  This is because it is very interesting to open these bottles every few years and see how they are holding up, and then to taste them when they are peaking.  Nothing is better for a wine lover. 

     Move forward to 2010 and the this wine is lovely.  It had a lovely color that was garnet with brickish reflections.  It had a very nice separation in the nails, which really showed off it's color development.  It was consistent and there was no sediment at all.   On the nose it was floral, spicy, vegetal and had subtle fruits.  The flowers were reminiscent of violets and dried roses, but they were very soft, not sweet at all.  There were black pepper notes, soft rosemary, raspberry and blackberry jam, tobacco, roasting coffee, green peppers, sage, and a slight hint of wet autumn leaves.  It was, indeed, a nice complex nose, though no minerality at all.  On the palate it was a very well balanced, dry and full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon.  The tannins were still quite strong but obviously softening from the last time I tasted this wine.  It was round and big on the palate, with a smooth somewhat velvety texture, as well as the nice sapidity and acids. It also had a very long finish, and the herbal qualities were the most persistent.   I would describe it as a slightly fresh wine.  It could handle a few more years in my opinion.  The tannins and acids were very well balanced,   It was not fruity on the palate, but rich and herbal.  I think this is a wine that is somewhat ready to drink, but could also handle a couple of years. 

     I made chickpea cutlets with a red wine roux that I made with another California Cabernet Sauvignon.    I thought it was a pleasant pairing.  I wish I had more of this wine.  Who knows, maybe it will still be available at the Wine Lover in Hillcrest.  I also read this online about this winery: Graeser Winery is also a dog friendly destination. What does that mean? Richard's two large and very friendly dogs wander freely and you can bring your dog into the tasting room (air conditioned in summer)! Love of dogs runs so deep that one of the Graeser wine clubs is called Fo Paws and raises money for the Humane Society. Dogs are also featured prominently on many of the wine labels at Graeser.  I think my dog Chardonnay deserves a trip to California.

Graeser Winery

1997 Cabernet Sauvignon, 

Pointer Run

Ban the Horse Drawn Carriage in Rome

The so-called "botticelle" that is, the Roman horse-drawn carriages are not a tradition of transport for people, but represent a degeneration of what was their original meaning and purpose. In fact, the "Botticelli" owe their name to the barrels: the carriage pulled by animals in 1800’s was used solely for transporting goods, and barrels in this case. There was never a "tradition" of tourist transport, therefore, as misleadingly one wants to make the tourist believe.

Nowadays there is no need to justify the use of animals for transport or freight, let alone people. Tourists can have, in Rome in 2009, many means of locomotion, extremely comfortable, fast, with accessories for every need, and far cheaper than the carriage. As well as transportation that does not cause suffering to horses.

Horses are obviously subject to a state of continuous suffering, being forced against their will to haul extremely heavy loads every day (more than one ton, the empty carriage weighs 800 kg ...). The working conditions are inhumane and the animal is brought along fast roads (like the Tiber) where the proximity of cars, speed and the roar of traffic so terrific, with the serious consequence of accidents, often fatal, while the horses are often forced to travel on uphill on cobblestone pavement which is slippery and uneven. These cobblestones, known as Sam Pietrini creates further discomfort when a horse is forced to stand on them without movement, often for many hours. The conditions worsen in summer when the hot sun makes the effort even more unbearable. And yet, the drivers pay no attention to laws, nor are laws enforced.

In times past, the horses traveled on isolated and relatively quiet roads in Rome. Today, the crazy traffic, chaos, smog, the sounds of horns, the speed of vehicles and scooters whizzing close to the carriages, etc. .. make this means of transport absolutely unfit to the conditions of congestion in the city. The carriage is so configured a practice that is deeply anachronistic and certainly cruel to horses, and is thus there is no longer any reason for them to exist today.

La Panzanella-Bread and Tomato Salad

It has been over a month since we designed and ordered our kitchen.  A very long and frustrating month it has been.   I have hosted a lovely lunch outside under the Gazebo, had my first swim at Lago di Nemi, and enjoyed amazing strawberries at the Sagra delle Fragole.  At the same time, I have no place to put any of my kitchenware.  We have lived here since the end of April, but I do not yet feel unpacked or settled in.  There is a lot to do.  Most of what I want to do with this house and property are landscaping and gardening projects.  I am looking forward to the enormous potential of this place, the land, and I am forging a friendship with my neighbor down the road.  She is incredibly generous and kind.  I am blessed in this regard.  The apricots and figs are finally ripe which means summer has officially begun in these parts.  How great would this time be if I could make amazing meals for the people I love?   The terrace and the gazebo were the real selling points for the house, besides the enormous size of the kitchen.  I am so anxious to get started, to put my kitchenware away, and get cooking!
     Luckily, I live in the bread basket that is the Castelli Romani.  I have bread from Genzano or Lariano available to me, there are local veggie and fruit stands so I am buying the freshest produce.  Summertime, in this case, means we don't need a lot of prep to make a nourishing and delicious meal.
   I am always amazed by the plates of the region that have their roots in total poverty.  They were born out of the concept of making due with what we have.  Sometimes, these families might have only some stale bread and a few vegetables at hand.  Nowadays, people pay top dollar for these dishes in the priciest trattoria of Rome and beyond.  Panzanella is a great example of this food culture.  Ettore and I debate whether this is a true Laziale dish or if it comes from Campagna. For me it is from Lazio.  Irregardless, is there anything more heavenly than the sweet combination of ripe summer tomatoes and basil?  Panzanella is so simple, so filling, and utterly delicious.  I have made it a few times because all that I need are the following:  A cutting board, a bread knife, ingredients and a bowl.  There is no cooking involved, and it can makes a lovely lunchtime meal.  It is light, fragrant, and cool.
    Thank goodness for dishes like this!  Without them I would be still living on pizza and take-out.

Panzanella-Bread and Tomato Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 loaf of crusty, stale, rustic Italian bread, sliced into 2 cm pieces and then cut up messy into bite size pieces(about 10 slices from the loaf)
• 1/2 kilo ripe cherry tomatoes sliced into quarters
• 10-12 sprigs of basil broken into small pieces
• 6 TBSP of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  I like the fragrant oil from Alatri
• about a 1/2 TBSP of coarse Celtic sea salt
• about three turns of the pepper grinder for pepper

Directions:

• In a Large Salad bowl, put the sliced tomatoes and basil and stir everything together
• Add the olive oil, salt and pepper
• Let this mixture stand without bread for at least an hour.  Room temperature is best, but also in the fridge would be fine.  This will ensure a much more fragrant salad as the tomatoes and basil will have time to marinate in their own juices for a time.  I also add about a TBSP of water.
• After and hour, add the bite size bread pieces, stir everything and let it sit for a few minutes so the breadt absorbs the flavors and juices.  If you need to add a bit of water and more olive oil and stir again.  The bread should be moist, but retain its bounce.

We enjoyed this with a lovely chilled Frascati, although I think it would have been nice with a Rosato

Buon Appetito!!

Kitchenless Cook

Well, this is my kitchen, folks.  I haven't been able to cook for over a week now so I am going stir crazy.  I feel like an addict trying to overcome the overwhelming desire for my drug of choice.  I find myself pouring over cookbooks, I buy magazine after magazine full of recipes I want to try.  The kitchen never arrives.  They are missing one part, so therefore, the kitchen that should have arrived by the 28th of May. is still not here.   We designed it and paid in full the first week of May!  We gutted the old one thinking it would just be a day or two before the magic would begin.  Alas, I have been forced to eat out, buy pizza, eat vegemite sandwiches for dinner, and sometimes, go to bed hungry.  My inner Buddha drives me to be patient, I know this is just a short amount of time in the scheme of things, but, I can no longer bear to look at the empty walls and the hideous tiles of the previous owner.  I think I have eaten enough pizza for two Roman legions.  I want to have people over for lunches outside in the gazebo.  At this point, they'll all be lucky to get a cracker with a sun-dried tomato.
   In my spare time I write up menus for make believe dinners and lunches I will host.  I think the lack of creative outlet in the kitchen is starting to make me hallucinate.  I wonder about last suppers or what I would serve to The Golden Girls.
I express myself through food and wine.  I make lunches and dinners according to how I am feeling that particular day.  And right now, I am craving a giant bowl of fusilli with a sauce made of roma tomatoes, onion, lots of red peppers from Calabria and some basil.  I could eat at least a kilo of the stuff right now.  You guys can decide what that says about me.
 

Party! Pizza Party!

  I felt compelled to write about pizza since I live in the land of pizza.  Many people ask me, "How can you be vegan when you live in the land of pizza?"  I tell them, "It is easy."  A lot of my friends back in the States think I must have the hardest time in Italy as a vegan.  I guess this goes back to their own traveling experiences here and maybe it was difficult for them because they did not know how to order in Italian.  I know my own transition to veganism in Italy has been relatively seamless.  Sure, I get the odd, "You don't eat Mozzarella?" But, I don't mind.  I know my pizza options and they are not that limited, in fact, they are vast.  

Since we do not have a real kitchen currently, more like something that resembles camping equipment, we have been eating our fair share of pizza since we moved.  And I have been having a string of bad pizza luck, culminating in the worst place I have ever eaten at in Rome, a place called San Marco on Via Sardegna, near Via Veneto.  I guess it is hip because they have DJs, but their pizza was more or less cardboard and the vegetables on mine tasted like rubber.  I felt bad because we were there for a work party, which I am sure was chosen by one of my colleagues.  Such a shame, too, since the guest of honor isn't in Italy all the time and was likely excited to eat good food.    I personally thought I could trust his taste, because he is attending wine school, but let me just say, wine school does not equal good taste.  Some people just do things because of the money involved.  And I should have known better when he  said, "Hey, what do you think about ordering the house wine? It is just like Brunello."  "Um, ok,"  I say to myself,  "I guess that sounds, good, you've been here, and you must know about food and wine since you are taking an 18 month wine course."  Wrong!  Ladies, never let some boasty guy who talks endlessly about how cool he is because he DJs and does wine tours tell you how to order wine when you instincts tell you to listen to yourself!  I don't know why I lack confidence when it comes to food and wine.  Ettore thinks I feel guilty about it.  I do know I learned a lesson.  I order the wine and food and I chose the places.  Whenever someone says, "Si Magna Bene,"   or, One eats well here in Roman dialect, I should always know I am in for a tasteless evening.  

  It turns out what they mean with that phrase is that one eats a lot for less.  So it is a phrase of quantity, not quality.  Ettore and I have started calling it the Si Magna Bene culture.  It is a good label for people in their late 20s and 30s who frequent hipster places where they eat a ton of food that doesn't cost a lot of money and yet has absolutely no quality, so then macho guys pretend to be throwing around cash, like in a rap video.  Sure, you can have a 4 course meal with wine and water for €10 a person, but, you'll regret it for days afterward.  Well, at least I do. Make makes this whole situation worse is the fact that this guy is from California!  I should have clued in when he ordered the most expensive dish on the menu.  He was making a show for us the entire evening.  He wanted us to know he was a regular there, he knew the wine list, he knew the most expensive things, etc.  MACHISMO at its absolute worst.  

  Which brings me back to pizza.    I wished that the party could have been in Genzano.  Our favorite place to get pizza is amazing, and also quite inexpensive.  We also don't have to be victim to bad DJs and their horrible techno music.  We go to the very old Genzanese RISTORANTE TIGELLINO where I always order a focaccia ortolana or a white pizza with vegetables.  See, here in Italy, it is not unusual to order a pizza without cheese.  Many pizzas automatically do not have cheese,  and some do not even have red sauce.  At Tigellino they are very generous with the vegetables, which are all sourced locally.  Each vegetable is cooked perfectly, with great texture and incredibly rich flavors.   Usually there are grilled eggplant, grilled zucchini, chicory or spinach, rocket, cherry tomatoes, roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary, all topped with amazing olive oil.  The crust is also out of this world.  The crust is perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside, but just tender enough to be scrumptious and to hold in flavor.  The crust has a lovely texture because they have a long levitation, which makes the pizza dough easier to digest.  So...yummy, crispy, and with the perfect amount of salt.  

  I think we'll get pizza tonight! 

  

RISTORANTE TIGELLINO
19, VIA SARAGAT G. 00045
GENZANO DI ROMA RM
Tel. 069396741  

  

Being Neighborly

    I have not been able to post much in recent weeks because of a big change in my life.  I moved to a new house!  With all the packing, organizing, unpacking, painting, lack of kitchen, and new additions to the family, I haven't had much time to breathe, let alone blog about food or wine.  We moved from town to the countryside and it is like night and day in terms of the new lifestyle.  What I lack in convenience (shops, gas station, or a bar), I get so much more from my everyday life than I ever thought possible.
    Instead of the buzzing incessant sound of traffic, ambulances and garbage pick up I have birds.  In fact my next door neighbors have chickens, geese and ducks that are all very busy living out the dramas of their lives.  Instead an alarm clock, I have roosters.  During my afternoon naps I don't wake from the annoying sound of sirens, I wake up to the startling sound of new life.  A mamma bird has nested in the rafters of the roofs right above our bedrooms.  I am thoroughly enjoying the squeaks and peeps of the little ones.  She seems to be very attentive.   My cats are very confused about the situation.  They can hear the birds but they can't see them, so they have spent many wasted hours attacking the walls.  Bless their silly hearts!
     We also have the fortune of amazing neighbors.  The next door neighbors are very friendly with us.  They are restoring their house alone, so it is a long term work in progress.  In just a week we have learned about all the edible plants that are growing wild in our land.  Greens like Chicory, Borage, and Radishes.  We also discovered that this area is overrunning with wild asparagus.  One of the first meals I made was from the bounty of the "hunt."  We spent about an hour gathering edibles around the house and I cooked them up.  I made an amazing penne with wild asparagus, I sauteed it with olive oil, garlic, Celtic salt and some lemon juice.  It was superb. 
     The day after we officially moved in, our neighbors presented us with a welcome-to-the-neighborhood basket.  It contained the harvest of their land and included things like jams, olive oil, and wild asparagus.  One of the jams was cherry which I happened to eat in about a day it was so delicious.  What made it delicious is that it was not overly sweet.  It tasted like cherries not like cherry candy.They have a delightful family.  We noticed that when the kids come home from school in the afternoon they don't just go inside and turn their TV on or play with video games.  They are outside with the parents or hanging out with the geese and chickens.  They are very polite as well...unlike our neighbors before.  We lived in a building of eight apartments.  The neighbors upstairs were constantly fighting and yelling at their kids.  They were also teaching them at a young age to be the next generation of animal abusers.  Every time we would meet in the building they had to make some lame comment about my dogs being disgusting and dirty.  My dogs are far from being dirty.  They smell like fresh rain because they don't eat nasty dog food.  The neighbors below never cracked a smile or said hello.  The man was OCD and had to bleach the elevator anytime we had used it.  So besides being a jerk he wants to cause everyone's cancer from the fumes of chemicals.  But I digress...I no longer have to live in that Eco-monster HURRAY!!  In stead of having 6 animals in a cramped apartment my furry friends run around all day among olive trees, fruit trees and lots of overgrown grass.
    The other great neighbors we have are two houses down from us.   The woman is an American woman from Boston who is a vegetarian and a hippie.  They have over an acre of property.  She lives with her boyfriend who is a gardener.  His gardening philosophy is called Synergistic gardening which is based on the idea that there are no straight lines in nature and therefore there should not be in gardens.  The gardens are typically horseshoe shaped or round and raised above ground.  They are organic as well, and use veganic compost.  They have already invited us to dinner, which is very kind of them.  As soon as I have a kitchen I will return the favor and cook them an amazing vegan meal.  I think I will try to get into their hearts and minds through food.
    I can't emphasize how lovely it is to have neighbors that say hello, that I have something in common with, that don't have televisions, that care about animals and the earth, and that thrive off of producing their own food. 
    When we started this house hunting journey two years ago, I knew that when the right house came to us we would "know."  We must have looked at 15 different different houses all of which had characteristics we liked but most had characteristics that would would not want to deal with down the road.  Kitchens that were the size of an ant hill, a house that was beautiful but next door to an egg factory farm.  I was afraid of cancer from the pollution or becoming a hoarder of liberated hens.Now, two years later, we are in the "right" house and I think we are in a very blissful state.
     When we first started house hunting our main interest was in finding a garden large enough for our puppies and cats.  I promised myself and the powers that be that when we found this house I would go straight to a kennel and adopt an old dog that has been in the shelter for at least 10 years.  I found her!  Her name is Bumba and she is a survivor of hell and for me, she is a living miracle.  She was thrown away in the Canile of Rieti which was formally a Canile Lager, which I have written about in a former post here:
                                             Thousands Linger in Hell

Bumba was thrown in the canile in 1998 and was never taken out again, not even for a walk, until we picked her up on Saturday.  She lived 12 years in a concrete cell day in day out with no break.  She lived in her own waste and survived the period of time when the canile was really nothing more than a death camp for dogs.  She is my living miracle and teacher.  Who else but a dog can live like that and enter into the world without a stain on her personality?  She is so sweet and kind.  She is also very happy and affectionate despite never being socialized.  She plays with her new brothers and is curious about the cats.  The first night she was here she didn't stop walking around the land for about 12 hours.  I think she was overwhelmed.  Today I took her to the vet for a check up, but he couldn't analyze her blood because her ears are severely infected and full of pus.  Who knows how long she has lived like this.
   Our family is complete with her in it.  My new life begins now, a life of sustainable food, gardening, and being neighborly.  I also want to share the bounty of the land come harvest time. I am so grateful to the universe for allowing me the life that suits my family and I.