I had the good fortune of dinning at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles the other day with a friend.  The restaurant is a joint venture by Mario Batali, Nancy Silverton and Joseph Bastianich and boasts a beautiful menu, great atmosphere and wonderful service.  The reservation process is very “LA” in that you’ll be disappointing to find out that they’re booking a month is advance… don’t let that discourage you!  (They have plenty of great bar seats.)  My friend Jeremy is from LA and well versed in the process, so he talked his way into a 5:45pm reservation a few days in advance.  Ok, so it’s not the ideal time but with a 10:25pm red-eye back to the East Coast it worked out just fine.

What we ordered:

Grilled Octopus with potatoes, celery & lemon… it was ok, a bit chewy for me.  I actually enjoyed the potatoes, celery & lemon more than the octopus and I’m a big fan of octopus.

Smoked Bufala Mozzarella with prosciutto di San Daniele… The prosciutto was delicious and the Bufala was pretty good.  I must admit, after having Bufala from Caserta and Battipaglia… everything else pails in comparison.

We skipped the primi and went directly to secondi (did I mention we had lunch at 2:30pm?)

Rabbit con Salsiccia, roasted garlic, lemon & rosemary… First of all, the fact that rabbit was on the menu made me very happy!  It did not disappoint.  The rabbit, the salsiccia… it was all delicious!!  A wonderful dish, perfectly portioned and a beautiful presentation.  The only disappointment was that the restaurant was on the classier side and I felt like I left too much meat on the bone (tough to get it all with just your fork if you know what I mean.)

Jeremy had the Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta with sage & honey and by the looks of the end result (clean plate with bones) he enjoyed it very much.

We went next door to Pizzeria Mozza for a drink before dinner… also a wonderful spot for a less formal dinning experience. They do not take reservations but from what I hear, get there early because the line is out the door.

The ceremony location

The Favors (Olive Oil from our family grove in Calabria)

Centerpieces & table names

The Venue

Italians drink LOTS of bottled water. In fact, they have one of the highest consumption rates of bottled water per person in the world.. if not THE highest.

So what’s your favorite Italian bottled water?  Naturale?  Frizzante? I’m a big fan of “Ferrarelle” (leggermente or slightly frizzante) and “Futura” from a spring around the corner from my nonni’s house in Calabria. My father on the other hand, has managed to find a natural spring in the mountains of Western Massachusetts where he gets his… like a good Calabrese!!

Which brings me to frisoli.  In the spring, a lot of families (used to be more) in southern Italy buy piglets and raise them during the year feeding them scraps, acorns, bad castagne (chestnuts), etc. and in the winter months kill the pig to make sopressata, salsiccia, pancetta and much more.  Everything would be used… I mean everything!  The blood would be fried, the lard used for soap, the feet were eaten, skin, ears… and so on.  In order not to make the cured meats too fatty, some of the fat is cut away but there are also small pieces of meat that remain with the fat.  The fat is then boiled down and the result it frisoli!  It’s not for the light hearted, the dieter or you whole grain pasta eaters but take a tablespoon of frisoli and mix them in with scrambled eggs and you get a party in your mouth! Another way to use frisoli is to bake them in bread… out of this world!  Gotta love la Cucina Povera!

After roasting my hard drive, we roasted and jarred some red peppers.  Here’s the link from last years post on how we roast our peppers. It’s a simple process that is time consuming but  well worth the effort!

From my inbox:

*Joe C. from New Jersey has a couple fig trees that have produced a whole lot of figs (lucky Joe!) and he’s looking for a fig jam recipe.  I don’t have one but maybe someone can help Joe out.

*Michele D. asks for the family sopressata recipe…. let’s not get crazy Miche.  How many times do I have to tell you… there are no recipes.

*The Debate continues… I’m talking about THE DEBATE - Sauce vs. Gravy.  Todd thinks Gravy is cRaZy and Stacy grew up using Gravy in Boston.

* “How to be a Good Italian Daughter” by Antoinette LaVecchia is playing in New York City.

Pasta for me is about texture… I can’t stand linguini but love spaghetti.  Odd? maybe.  Anyway, back to my love of Gramigna… it’s even fun to say: Gramigna!!  Ever since I left Bologna, I’ve been wanting to make Gramigna con Salsiccia (Gramigna with Sausage) one of my favorite primi but without Gramigna, all you have is salsiccia (and no one likes a sausage party.)

I didn’t follow a recipe but it came out really good if I do say so myself.  Here’s an easy recipe if you’re lucky enough to find some Gramigna.

What you’ll need:

• Gramigna
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion
• a few cloves of garlic
• about 2 tbls of butter
• ground sausage or ground pork
• heavy cream
• salt, pepper and other seasonings of your choice

Fry your chopped onion and garlic in some olive oil in a large sauce pan for a few minutes and then add your ground sausage.  Let the sausage cook for about 10 minutes until it’s almost thouroughly cooked, then add the butter and seasonings… We use Goya “Adobo” seasoning a lot along with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  Add some heavy cream and let it cook for a few more minutes.  Once your Gramigna is cooked to your preference… al dente for me, add it to the sauce pan and mix it up.  There you have it!  Simple, easy and delicious. Enjoy and buon appetito!

“Get a taste of Italy with premium breaded chicken, melted provolone cheese and tangy marinara sauce.”

Really?  I’ve never had one (and it’s safe to say, I never will) but I highly doubt that anyone will “Get a taste of Italy” when they try one. {for the record, I’m not saying the product doesn’t taste good… it might and it’s probably a great product for DD}  What do you think?

Here’s a more realistic photo of a Chicken Parmesan Flatbread Sandwich compliments of the guys over at We Rate Stuff. (Click on the link for their unbiased review on the sandwich)

**To make matters worse (much worse) I heard a commercial for the Chicken Parm Flatbread Sandwich a few weeks ago.  The commercial revolved around an Italian American “tough guy” with an accent making threats to someone to try the sandwich.  I tried to find it online but couldn’t.  I haven’t heard it since but I’m hoping that the Ad Agency or Brand Manager at DD smartened up and pulled it.

Well folks, tomorrow is the big day but I wanted to get a post in before taking off for the festivities.  It will be a big Italian wedding with too much food, dancing la tarantella and everything else that goes with it.  It will also be my parents’ 39th wedding anniversary, which makes it even more special… that’s them sitting in the window at the top of the page.  Here’s my last “single” post and I promise to pick things up when I get back.

Terracotta rooftop (Tegole)

I took this photo on my last trip (so I obviously think it’s fantastic!) .. gotta love the terracotta rooftops! Keep sending in those Fantastic Italian Photos.  A presto ragazzi!

A - I was away for work August 26-Sept 4th… and was in Houston, Chicago, Las Vegas and LA during that time.

B - I’m getting ready for another work trip to Miami and Atlanta next week.

C - I’m getting married at the end of the month… friends and family start arriving from all over soon and it seems like the planning never ends!

What do you think?  Busy schedule?  Not to mention that we have been trying to get our tomatoes so we can jar our sauce for the year.  The tomato situation doesn’t look good here in New England because of a tomato blight that has affected many of the local farmers.  We actually visited a local PYO (pick-your-own) farm yesterday and there wasn’t much to pick, so we’re looking into other farms in our area… keep your fingers crossed.  A great site to find local PYO farms in your area is pickyourown.org The site lists farms all over the country that offer PYO fruits & vegetables.

I wish we had these beauties from last year.

I got an email from Johnny Tomatoes yesterday who was jarring some sauce… so I know I need to hustle to get ours done soon, otherwise we go the canned route for the year! You know how I feel about that.  If your planning on jarring tomato sauce this year, here’s a link to last years post when we made our sauce to give you an idea on how we do it.  I’ll start posting more soon.  Til then…