The Yum Diary

Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in Bishopville, SC

2013-05-19T12:28:00.000-04:00

When I moved back to South Carolina from San Francisco in 2009, one of the marvels of which I had heard much tell was the legendary topiary garden of Pearl Fryar. After meeting him twice in the last year, and, embarrasingly, feeling like an idiot for not having seen his garden yet, I decided that it had to become a priority.

This past weekend, I finally made it to Bishopville for a visit with my dear friend Mary, who was in town from Morocco.

I first became aware of Fryar's odd, beautiful brand of genius at Moore Farms in Lake City, where boxwood hedges are carved into asymmetrical shapes, a tiny bit like these.

These are really fun to brush past and watch them wiggle.

Pearl is a bit of a celeb. For one thing, he has been featured in a fancy John Deere commercial, along with Jenks Farmer, who was the horticulture manager at Moore Farms (and thus the person who introduced me to Fryar's work).

Also, there is a full-length documentary film about Fryar, called A Man Named Pearl. It's lovely, and you can stream it on Netflix, last time I checked. People come from all over the world to see this garden.

Fryar was just honored by the S.C. Arts Commission with its coveted Verner Award, one of those big, statewide, lifetime achievement in the arts dealios.

It's not hard to see why.

City Roots Farm to Table Dinners

2013-05-18T14:00:00.000-04:00

Finally made it to one of the "Getting to the Root" Farm-to-Table Dinners at City Roots urban farm in Columbia, SC. It was excellent! And charming.

Born out of the Outstanding in the Field model of lush, chef-driven menus served at long, lovely banquet tables in the middle of a field, this series has been thriving at City Roots since ramping up over the last couple of years under the leadership of City Roots Co-Founder Eric McClam and The Southern Greenie, Vanessa Driscoll.

Men, meat, and fire. Caw Caw Creek pork chops as thick as your fist.

Formerly called The Harvest Dinners when it was co-founded with 116 State chef/owner Ryan Whittaker, the event is now a partnership with Kristian Niemi of Rosso Trattoria and the soon-to-open Bourbon Columbia restaurant on Main Street. (Read Jeff Wilkinson's feature on Bourbon in The State newspaper.)

Guest chefs pop in, like the upcoming June dinner with the rad Mike Davis of Terra.

The Nose-To-Tail Dinner series, run by the same folks, recently featured heavy hitter chefs like Alex Suaudom du Monde of Baan Sawan and Tim Peters of Motor Supply.

Having had plenty of time to iron out any inevitable newbie kinks, they've got it on lock with these dinners. I recommend!

Ham Loaf in the Kitchn with The Shop Tart

2013-05-17T13:21:00.000-04:00

The other night, my friend Anne invited me over to help her cook something absolutely horrible from a 1977 Southern Living cookbook.

Read her post about our grody, grody dinner on national food site, The Kitchn (part of Maxwell Ryan's very cool Apartment Therapy brand):

The green beans were so foul, but it was my pleasure to prepare them.

Walking garlic steps out at last

2013-05-03T09:40:00.001-04:00

Walking garlic is so cool. The stalks grow pop-tops, which sploosh out a spray of baby sproutlets, which then grow into long stalks from there. Gets loopy.

This is from back when I was doing flowers for Motor Supply Co. Bistro in Columbia, SC. I've since turned that over to one of my heroes, flower farmer Donna Mills of Floral and Hardy Farm in Lexington, SC -- the only flower farm within hours of the Midlands. She sells at Soda City Market on Saturdays.

I had cut the garlic stalks, above, out of my friend Jenks Farmer's yard. He is an amazing horticulturist whose plant collection is pretty much Beyond. He hosts really cool events out at his farm near Augusta/Aiken in Beech Island.

Took the little bulblets from the top of the stalks, and planted them over a year ago. Was kindof ho-hum there for a while. Then the other day, I noticed that my tops were popping. Sweet!

Thanks, Jenks.

Vintage type glassware and ConvergeSE hero worship

2013-05-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

I have a precious two of these juice glasses (also marked with ounce and cup measurements) that belonged to my paternal grandfather. He worked at a Midlands appliance store called Cate McLaurin way back in the day.

Yep, in the background, that's a copy of the inaugural issue of Modern Farmer magazine, which is truly fan-flippin-tabulous. Kudos to my bro Reyhan Harmanci, 2nd in command on the masthead. W00t!

After meeting Field Notes founder Aaron Draplin while running the logistics for the ConvergeSE digital design conference last week, I find myself noticing more vintage business promo typography than ever before. (He admitted to hoarding such things while on tour around the US.)

This is Draplin, btw, giving a keynote presentation on the stage we designed.

The decor concept: Congaree Swamp takes over the technology conference. We had cypress knees made of wood, chicken wire and sheet moss, with a 12-foot tall tree commissioned from artist and Tapp's Arts Center co-director Billy Guess. Congaree is the only National Park in SC, and at 20 minutes from downtown Cola, it's the closest to a city of any National Park in the country.

Also on that stage? (Brace yourself for more hero worship.)

Josh Higgins, Obama's Design Director for the 2012 campaign.

Higgins talked about the 125-page brand guide they developed for all of the visual communications materials for the campaign, great backstage moments with the POTUS, and other awesome marketing nerd stuff that was a delight for me to hear.

It's been a good week at Flock and Rally HQ. Can't wait to get our new Draplin-designed South Carolina iconography poster framed. Printed by The Half and Half!

The insane Torta Cubana at Real Mexico in Columbia, SC

2013-04-17T09:52:00.000-04:00

After falling in love with the Torta Cubana at El Varadero de Oscar in Isla Mujeres, MX, I was emboldened to order this classic Mexican diner dish on a recent brunch outing to Real Mexico in Columbia, SC.

This monster sandwich contains at least the following fillings, griddled and then stuffed into the Mexican bakery version of French bread: ham, milanesa (breaded, fried pork cutlet), chorizo sausage, scrambled egg, hot dogs (I jest not), avocado, cheese, mayonnaise, and more.

If you saw celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" TV episode on San Francisco, CA, back in 2009, you saw him dive face first into this exact type of torta at the legendary Mission District corner store, That's It - The Center of the Mile.

(We used to stop in there for travelers of Tecate and Modelo on the way to Dolores Park when I lived in the neighborhood.)

Seriously. Look at those hot dogs.

Even after a couple of brunch-time top shelf margaritas, I couldn't finish even half of this sandwich. I guilted my business partner's boyfriend into taking it home with him, because he is avid about not wasting anything. Thanks, Derek!

Loved by local foodies for their small, street food-sized tacos smothered in chipotle chicken, queso fresco and cilantro, Real Mexico is the restaurant I recommend when people ask about an authentic Mexican place in the Midlands.

Close second: La Fogata. I also hear that El Poblano in Chapin is the bomb. For fresh, hipster burritos and salads? El Burrito, of course! For upscale agave nectar margaritas? Cantina 76, although their fancied up Mexican menu is just ok in my book. (That said, I would happily hoover up their queso, guac and salsa trio any day of the week.)

Out front at Real Mexico: a planter made out of an old candy dispenser. Is there anything more awesome than pansies and dirt planted in an old gumball machine?

That's right. There's not.

Burger Time video game nostalgia

2013-04-15T10:02:00.000-04:00

When's the last time you played the 1980s video game, Burger Time?

Um, turns out it is really hard. How did I play it so brilliantly as a kid in the Putt-Putt video arcade?

Do you remember it being that hard?

Growing fennel bulbs in your garden is a weird challenge

2013-04-10T10:10:00.000-04:00

Last spring, I planted fennel seeds in my garden and got nothin' and was a little demoralized by it. (Only a little.)

This spring, I got a big, fabulous fennely surprise!

This one is starting to bolt. I'd better cut it out of the ground and roast it before it's too late. Got like 10 of these! So stoked.

Have you ever grown fennel bulbs successfully in your garden, O gardeners of the intarwebs?

The great Butter Lamb beheading of 2013

2013-04-01T10:16:00.000-04:00

Butter lamb!

My awesome friend Anne, who writes for The Kitchn and publishes The Shop Tart blog, hosted an Easter dinner that was a little bit extra special this year.

The private elementary school at St. John Neumann church in Northeast Columbia, SC sells butter lambs as a fundraiser each year. Anne got like 4. IT WAS AWESOME!

I got to sit next to her Dad at dinner. He beheaded the lamb for me and put it on my bread plate. There's a reason why The Wolfe Company real estate is a great family business, y'all.

My favorite thing from Trader Joe's

2013-04-01T08:59:00.000-04:00

This national grocery chain has much to love, despite being a national chain.

This is my favorite:

Spinach and kale dip w/greek yogurt base. Crunchy carrots and water chestnuts take me to a 70s place, while the kale and Greek yogurt feel so late 2000s.

If your dip can span 3 decades of nostalgia and have half the calories of normal dip, you've won me over.

Hotel Esencia Estate, Riviera Maya, Mexico

2013-01-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

I'm at my desk, looking out at the jungle of the Riviera Maya through a plate glass window the size of King Kong's palm. The Esencia Estate near Tulum? Pretty awesome.

The in-room speaker system is playing a mix of Euro-chill, Feist, Aretha Franklin, Missy Elliott, indigenous folk, Madonna, Nina Simone, and jazz via iPod playlist. Note the enormous pocket doors to my private palapa porch. Sweet.

My giant bathroom features a giant pocket door, which leads out to my private soaking tub. Beautifulness.

Although I will complain that my tub never got truly warm until the last morning I was there, despite repeated requests to have it turned on and left on for specific periods of time. Weird, because the service at Esencia is otherwise amazing.

Terrific selection of useful things, left for guests' use, in one of the guestroom cabinets: snorkel hoses, bug spray, big flashlight, and incense burners.

Next to my computer, on which the wireless is working beautifully, there is a glass of Don Julio tequila and soda on ice, procured from the pool bar without need for cash or credit card, 'cause they know my by my room name, Mentha (mint).

This is what breakfast at the pool bar looks like, btw.

This is what it feels like.

Over on the bar above the fridge stocked with complimentary beer, water, juice and soda, is a bottle of great Ikal malbec and a a little tray of fruit, brought to my room as a welcome gift shortly after checking in.

Never mind the icy glass of lemonade handed to me as I was given a tour of the premises, part of the check-in process. Which went like this:

The private car I hired from Cancun turns into driveway for Esencia, whose entrance is decidedly not bombastic, monstrous, or ostentatious like most of the overdone resort entrances on highway 307 from Cancun to Tulum. It's just over an hour by car from Puerto Juarez to Hotel Esencia.

USA Transfers is a great private car company recommended by Mapchick, and they gave the best price of 4 different companies from whom I requested quotes via email. My driver was super nice and the trip felt faster than it was.

The car is stopped at an unassuming checkpoint, and my name is confirmed against a guest registry by a smiling lady. Car proceeds down a jungly driveway, arriving at the opening to a jungly path. If you're lucky, you'll spot a sereque, a lovely local critter that frequents the jungles of the Riviera Maya.

Porters take my luggage, a staff member escorts me down this jungly, delightful path, and I am handed off to a member of the reception team who speaks terrific English. I attempt to practice my Spanish on him and it is inwardly very hilarious for me. He takes it super gracefully as we walk down beautiful, manicured -- but not too manicured -- paths through the estate.

I am taken around the property to the different resort elements. First, the Aroma SPA, housed in a giant palapa with no sharp corners, only rounded edges on the walls within to maximize energy flow. Do I care if this is hokum or not? No. I prefer to believe that it is real. That is my privilege as a snooty spagoer. You either believe the hokum or you don't. Me? I'm a Mulder. I want to believe.

Then, I'm led to the main house of the estate, which was owned by an Italian duchess at one point. Oh man, is it private here. Long, jungly paths; lush, green expanses of lawn; a sizeable garden which supplies the spa with aloe, citrus, and more; and a colonial Spanish-looking center of activity, which houses a large living room, a smaller TV lounge, a veranda, and a concierge desk.

We walk out to the main lawn, where there is a yoga tent to the left, two swimming pools out by the beach, a pool bar, and little private mini palapas with nice, solid beach loungers on the beach.

Only the kids' pool is heated (pictured). The adult pool is not. It's January.

Why isn't the adult pool heated? That seems crazy to me at a resort this fancy. Still, it's very, very beautiful. And there were a grand total of two -- just TWO -- children the whole 3 days I was there, and they were probably the best behaved little nuggets I've ever seen (aside from The Shop Tart's children, who are the most well behaved on earth).

Ceviche. Margarita. View. Boom.

Dinner at the highly atmospheric restaurant, housed under a grand palapa, is fairly top notch. Much better than the resort norm, and definitely more like fine dining in a major city. Live music. Friendly, professional servers. Fantastic cuisine.

Except the wine list is terrible. I don't know how they are getting away with that. Columbia Crest? Seriously? Hence the Modelo beer with this excellent dish.

The crescent-shaped beach at Esencia, with super soft sand, personal palapas + sunbeds, is sweet. Very few other hotels nearby, so it feels remote in a good way. A little rocky in the water, though. Not as swimworthy as Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres, for example. The sea at Xpu-Ha is really quite fierce compared to the calm, tranquil waters of Playa Norte.

More time to chillax in your palapa, I suppose.

El Varadero Cuban restaurant, Isla Mujeres

2013-01-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

Our dinner at El Varadero is going to haunt me. And not just because the owner's name is Superman and he makes the best mojitos on Isla Mujeres.

This is Superman.

We first heard about El Varadero from a millionaire stock trader-turned-yacht owner from NY, who gave us a ride in his golf cart from the Fenix bar to Fayne's on Hidalgo one night last weekend. (His stories were excellent. We 100% do not care if they were true.)

He's been coming to Isla for over a decade. Over cocktails at Fayne's, a place where the partyrific retiree set goes to get obliterated on 2 for 1 drinks, we asked Mike about his top 3 restaurants on Isla Mujeres.

After citing Casa Rolandi (liked it) and Lolo Lorena underground restaurant (loved it), thus confirming that he had good taste, Mike told us, "Ohhhh, and there's this AMAZING Cuban place on the island, but it's down a dirt road."

Did he know how to get there?

"Oh, I could find it on my golf cart, but I couldn't tell you where it is from memory."

Great. How were we going to find the awesome Cuban place down the dirt road?

Soon thereafter, from a totally different source, we heard about -- yes -- a Cuban place, down an old dirt road, on the water, called El Varadero. It was posted in the Hollyeats restaurant review site, and we had also heard recs from some very awesome fellow diners at the Lolo Lorena supperclub the other night.

Note: this is a different place than El Veradero de Oscar, about which I posted last year!

First, I present the amazing Torta Cubana at El Varadero. It was a towering, glistening, crunchy pile of awesomeness that cannot be described adequately.

The chicken fricassee was amazeballs.

It's on the menu under the Pork Chonks.

There's a reason Superman is known for his mojitos.

Who do we run into at El Varadero? None other than Chef Lolo of Lolo Lorena Supperclub.
That's Lolo on the right. She likes to party.

Spicy shrimp, recommended by Lolo, did not disappoint. Would love to be eating another pile of these right now.

Could it get more charming? Right on Makax Bay, a secret hidey sliver of sea protected by mangrove forest.

Derek and Debi with their vacation game faces on.

That's a big oven that makes delicious things come out of it.

Can't wait to sit by the bay and put the hurt on some more mojitos next January!

Cochinita Pibil & Tortilla Factory, Isla Mujeres, Mexico

2013-01-06T12:18:00.001-05:00

This morning, we kicked off day three of the Flock and Rally Annual Winter Company Retreat on Isla Mujeres, Mexico with a trip to the cochinita pibil man at the public market. First, we took a company photo to commemorate the occasion. That's Cancun in the background. We are far from there, on lovely Playa Norte, on an island whose southern tip is the easternmost point in Mexico. Super rad.

The cochinita pibil vendors are only at the public market on Sunday mornings, although the breakfast and lunch places out front are open daily. Our favorite cochinita pibil vendor is from Valladolid, the original home of the sour orange + achiote suckling pig, roasted in banana leaves, that is such a Yucatecan culinary standard. Cochinita pibil is basically pulled pork, but the juiciness and savoriness are far beyond most Carolinian varieties. Sorry y'all, but it's true.

Rick Bayless may be too famous a chef to have any hipster cred, but I did a big Mexican recipe project for a client in the mid-00s, requiring me to review a lot of his recipe work, and I learned that his recipes are pretty authentic, almost on par with the demi-goddess of Mexican recipe writing for Anglos, Diana Kennedy.

Here's Bayless' recipe for cochinita pibil: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=169

The guy at the Isla Mujeres public market is the o.g., and if you don't get there by 9 on Sunday morning, you're SOL. Last year, we got there at 7:30am and had unlimited pork magic access. This year, we got there on the late side and were able to get plenty of tasty, tiny tacos from the magic man -- but there was not enough pork to get a kilo to go.

No fear! Across the hall is the way less popular cochinita pibil vendor, who still had plenty. Honestly, it's still really quite good. We got a mess of fixins and fresh juices from the jugo ladies, from pineapple-chaya leaf to carrot-beet-apple to grapefruit, so we can make palomas and grapefruit-cilantro-tequila margaritas, modeled after Josh at Motor Supply and his killer cocktail recipes. Our haul:

Oh, and those tortillas? So hot and fresh from the tortilla press that they were uncomfortable to hold in one hand for very long. Props to Debi's man Derek for carrying them back to the condo at Ixchel for us. Loud machine, cheap tortillas! Our stack, above, cost 10 pesos (that's 8.5 cents at the current exchange rate, roughly).

Now that we've had tacos, we're getting some work done. Our penthouse roof garden makes a swell office.

This is where we hang out at night. Big ups to Rod at the Ixchel Beach Hotel for helping us select the unit with the new hot tub, which actually gets hot up to 100 degrees -- unlike pretty much every other hot tub on the island.

Roof access via spiral stairs.

Time to start on some of those fresh juices. With a little Corralejo reposado tequila thrown in. After all, it's 5 o'clock somewhere.

Fancypants Lasagna. Gluten-free style.

2012-12-11T23:20:00.000-05:00

The other day, I noticed gluten free lasagna noodles in the refrigerator case at my favorite local health food market, Rosewood. RP's brand, made in Madison, Wisconsin.

Seems like a great excuse to make a lasagna, particularly since I have been craving it with the cold weather. First step: make a killer sauce.

This one wanted tons of vegetables: seared cauliflower, caramelized mushrooms, white corn, baby peas, and spinach, on top of a mirepoix (red onion, carrot, celery) and many cloves of garlic. Also, just one Marconi pepper in a nod to the trinity.

Oh, and like 2-3 pounds of meat: thick bacon, fancy Caw Caw Creek Pastured Pork sweet Italian sausage, and local ground beef.

Also: two big cans of whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes, over half a bottle of Nero d'Avola red wine, some beef stock, 2 little cans of tomato paste, and a bunch of dried thyme, fresh oregano, rosemary, parsley & basil from the autumn garden. Good olive oil, salt, pepper, black pepper.

Definitely went for it. Much simmering ensued. The next evening, time to layer up. Cheeses? Ricotta, gorgonzola, parmesan & mozzarella.

Bake time.

Cut it.

The gluten-free lasagne noodles, made with brown rice flour, are fantastic. Love them. Will use them again in a heartbeat. Also will cut them to make short pappardelle and maltagliate. Victory.

French venison stew, bourgignon style

2012-12-10T12:35:00.001-05:00

As we near the end of deer season, the hunter's spoils come the way of the lucky. You can't buy or sell local wild game meat in South Carolina -- if you want it, you have to hunt it -- or be on a hunter's gift list.

My cousin Owen, a fearless master of beasts who usually hunts with a bow and arrow, "'Cause a rifle is too easy," took down a buck recently and butchered it himself, which I think is thoroughly fierce. Generously, he gave me a big, honking bag of fresh venison, as red and lovely as great, grass-fed beef, but leaner and fresher to the nose.

I tweaked a great venison bourgignon recipe I found on a blog called A Spicy Perspective:

http://aspicyperspective.com/2011/11/venison-bourguignon.html

Go to that link above for the recipe. My tweaks:

I added 4-5 stalks of celery, didn't bundle my fresh herbs (just threw 'em in), used beef stock, and might have been a little heavy-handed with the bacon. You've got to love any dish that requires an entire bottle of red wine, no?

I used Gnome Grown oyster mushrooms from the Soda City Farmers Market instead of crimini mushrooms.

Oh, and this is important: I simmered it overnight for about 8 hours on super low heat on the stovetop. My heavy lidded Le Creuset cast iron pot was essential for that, so that none of the steam or liquid could escape from inside while cooking.

In the morning, I consulted Mastering the Art of French Cooking by her highness Julia Child to see if I couldn't be taught an old trick: making brown roux. (I like the above recipe's shortcut of making a butter-flour paste, but I was in the mood to nerd out.)

I used bacon fat and grapeseed oil and locally milled Adluh Flour to make my roux. Reincorporated it after much whisking with cooking liquid in a separate saucepan, and bang: gorgeousness.

Fresh gigante parsley from the yard, a little Maldon sea salt, and it was done. So awesome. I can't believe it had been so long since I'd made any variation on Beef Burgundy, or Boeuf Bourgignon, if you're feeling snooty today.

Going to revisit that recipe soon, for sure!

If I'm lucky.

Butternut squash, gorgonzola, & pumpkin seed gratin w/balsamic drizzle

2012-11-19T10:14:00.001-05:00

I've been working on shoring up my eating habits. (More on that below.) This recipe is something I made up as a way to get through the transition back to being gluten-free, *mostly* vegan/vegetarian, and all that healthy jazz:

Butternut Squash, Gorgonzola and Pumpkin Seed Gratin, with Balsamic Drizzle
Serves 4-8 ppl

1 butternut squash, cut into quarters or sixths, de-seeded
2-4 TBSP crumbled gorgonzola (reduced fat variety works fine)
2-4 TBSP toasted pumpkin seeds (buy raw, shelled seeds from bulk bin + toast yourself)
Good salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Pre-bottled balsamic vinegar glaze/gelee or homemade balsamic reduction
High temp oil or cooking spray, ideally organic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray roasting pan and squash, then roast for 1 hour or so, until squash is fork tender all the way through.

Let the squash cool a bit, then cut off the peel (much easier after cooking!), and mash with a fork or potato masher into a shallow baking dish. Crumble gorgonzola, salt and pepper over the top, just a light scattering -- too much cheese will throw off the balance. (You could try this with goat cheese too.)

Broil until edges brown a bit and cheese gets melty. Sprinkle with freshly toasted pumpkin seeds (not raw, trust me), drizzle with balsamic reduction, and serve. If you don't have balsamic reduction, don't freak -- it's not essential.

Yum!

About This Health Kick
I'm not going as extreme as I have during past health kicks, but it seems to be working so far: cook a lot more, be gluten-free and dairy free at home, stop making cocktails and pouring wine at home, stop coffee + caffeine, and avoid refined sugars (except a few treats like frozen, gluten-free chocolate cookie dough by Immaculate Baking Co. -- OMG delicious).

When I'm out, I let myself nibble on party hors d'oeuvres and have small portions of guilty pleasures, like lobster mac & cheese at a brilliant friend's party the other night, made from scratch and 1000% amazeballs.

And I'll have a glass of wine or two over the course of a night if there are social and professional events to attend, but only a few times a week, max. I'm trying to lose the idea that my body can handle anything I throw at it. I don't have to be a "cool girl" who can knock back two martinis and a steak dinner as though I'm Don Draper. I'm not Don Draper. Duh.

There was a time when I tried the extreme health kick: going without gluten, sugar, dairy, caffeine, booze (except for sulfite-free red wine) and anything not organic, which -- as you can imagine -- was incredibly hard to sustain beyond 4-6 weeks. Add a full regimen of fancy organic supplements and macrobiotic remedies, and cooking from a recipe book which combined French culinary techniques with the macro stylings of Aveline Kushi, and most of my free time and extra cash was thrown into the project.

Granted, I lost 10 lbs. in the first 9 days and got rid of that all-over puffiness and inflammation that comes with eating whatever you want. These fancypants macro eating habits really, really, work -- they just require a lot of time, dedication, and money.

I learned how to eat and live this way from Asheville, NC nutritionist + chef, Roxanne Koteles-Smith after doing her website content writing and editing at http://www.foodwisdomrx.com in trade for her training and services. Working with Roxanne was life-changing. (She's also been helping my cousin successfully fight breast cancer for the last 4 years.)

Now, a few years later, I'm trying to pull together what I consider to be the best parts of the extreme plan, while being a little more realistic about my lifestyle and the areas where I'll need to be lenient.

Hence, making up little recipes like this one. I hope it's helpful!

The rad phenomenon of Italian aperitivi, & a lady dance party on the beach

2012-09-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

So, in Italy, at happy hour, something magical happens.

Let's say you stop off in a hilltop town piazza for an aperitivo. Just a round of drinks and a snack.

The piazza in Sirolo, an awesome hilltop town up from Marcelli beach, near Ancona. (Yes, that is an inflatable sofa.)

You order a couple of glasses of Prosecco at happy hour time, but you don't actually *have* to order the snack.

Because they bring out a complimentary platter of like 10 different hors d'oeuvres without you even asking.

Sirolo, where two glasses of Prosecco come with this enormous spread of snacks.

Same goes if you order an Aperol Spritz or something like that.

Or if you don't even order it yourself. And thus begins the story of...

THE TIME TRACIE AND ANNE HAD A LADY DANCE PARTY ON THE BEACH AND LEARNED ABOUT APERITIVI THANKS TO THESE OTHER COOL ITALIAN LADIES
by Tracie Broom

Part I: THE BEACH

The first time I encountered aperitivi was a very wonderful experience.

Our crew of grownups and children went for the afternoon to the Acquamarina beach club in Marcelli, on the Adriatic coast near the Monte Conero. (That's it in the distance, there.)

Acquamarina is realllllly nice. If you're trying to choose a beach to hit in the Ancona area and you like food and wine, choose this one, in Marcelli, near Numana. Our friend Amy Wadman chose it. She is a genius and runs a great tour company called DiVino Tours.

Anyway, back to the aperitivo story. We had all just had an enormous lunch at the restaurant there.

Crudo

More crudo

Mussels. Magic.

Linguine with telline, a super tiny kind of clam that is a flavor bomb.

Fritto. Shrimp, calamari, little fishes, zucchini. Mwah.

Good design.

Limone alla vodka. That's lemon sorbet with vodka, y'all. It's a thing.

Do I like dining by the sea? Yes. Yes I do.

After a huge lunch and a nap on a beach chair...

It was time for a coffee.

Part II: THE BEACH PARTY

I think I had just won the favor of the ladies working the beach bar by ordering (at my friend Peldi's suggestion) a caffe corretto, which is an espresso with a little shot of liquor dumped in it.

(As opposed to a macchiato caldo with a side of Amaro Montenegro [served in a cute Averna glass that I kinda wanted to steal, below], which I had very much enjoyed while standing at the counter at the Oasi beach club in Porto Recanati the week prior.)

They seemed really impressed with the fact that I asked for my coffee to be corrected with grappa, a super volatile spirit made from grapes that only old men and food snobs tend to drink.

Liquor brings people together!

There had been a break in the rush of topless children ordering gelato pops from the big yellow and blue freezer out on the wooden deck.

They entertained themselves during other slow periods, btw, by throwing little cocktail shakers full of cold water on the naked torsos of teenage gentlemen who would swing through in packs to get sodas between rounds of beach volleyball. Pretty funny.

After I had my caffe corretto at the counter, the super cool ladies (far left and far right, below), nabbed me and The Shop Tart as we were waiting for the restroom and said they wanted to buy us a drink.

It was about to become a beach party.

They turned on the top 40 dance jams and whipped up a round of Aperol Spritzes for the four of us.

They insisted that the four of us needed to pose behind the counter of the beach bar for a photo with our cocktails.

The one on the left is of Cuban descent, and her grandfather lives in Miami. She is also a flippin' awesome dancer.

We thought the comped round of fizzy lifting drinks and the beachfront lady dance party was awesome, but then they started bringing out little plates and bowls of snacks for us. Also comped.

Um, with little drink umbrellas stuck into the snacks, just to make it even more of a party.

We were like, "What did we do to deserve this awesome VIP treatment?"

There was no reason, really, except some cool ladies seeing some other ladies and snagging the opportunity to have an Aperol lady dance party on the beach.

And the magic of aperitivi! What a brilliant tradition! Bar snacks on steroids!

Then our whole crew ambled over, one by one, and the grown-ups and kids, all 10 or so of us, had cocktails and aperitivi and enjoyed the balmy afternoon. (Thank goodness for the children, who hoovered up the snacks we were too full from lunch to truly enjoy.)

I'll never look at bar peanuts the same again. Sorry, America. Italy's got you nailed on the bar snacks.

The Marche region is just kinda magical like this. Italy's kinda magical like this.

And those ladies are super cool.

Why Italians vacation in the Marche instead of Tuscany

2012-09-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

No offense to Florence, which is a beautiful city, but if you love food, wine, support the Slow Food movement, and adore saving money...

...Skip Florence. (Am I seriously saying this? Yes, I am.)

Heck, skip Venice, Rome, and Florence altogether. (I know, heresy!)

Instead: Go to the Marche.

Stay near Ancona and go eat at Maiale Volante and all of the other killer restaurants I was lucky to visit while staying in the Marche: Ristorante Da Silvio, Acquamarina, 2 Michelin star chef Moreno Cedroni's Clandestino Susci, Casolare dei Segreti, Osteria dei Segreti, and the list goes on.

Da Silvio beach from above

Unbelievably, the prices are the same as dining out in Columbia, SC (except for Clandestino, which is priced more like San Francisco restaurants, and rightfully so because it's the bomb).

Antipasti prices at Da Silvio

Starters are 6-9 euros, pastas are $9-14, and second courses like grilled meats and seafood are $12-$18.

Pasta course prices at Da Silvio. Total steal for primi of this caliber.

Tip is included in these low prices, so the 20% up charge (as of summer 2012) built into the euro/dollar exchange rate ends up being like leaving a tip in South Carolina, so the price totally evens out.

The walking path down to Da Silvio beach and restaurant

Amazing, intimate experiences and fresh, gorgeous farm-to-table cuisine, and at the coast, lavish seafood feasts with crudo, fritto, pastas, risottos, and potfuls of shellfish, with Verdicchio on tap from the spina everywhere you go.

Handmade pasta with lobster-like prawns at Acquamarina beach club in Marcelli, south of Ancona. Tied with Da Silvio for best beach restaurant, in my opinion.

Da Silvio seafood gluttony

Alici -- little fresh white fishes. Vinegary and brilliant. At Da Silvio.

Not everyone is as lucky as some who get to go to Italy multiple times in their lives. (I got to hit Florence for a day while on a high school trip around France. It was rad.)

If you only get one chance to go to Italy, and you are a big food and wine nerd like me, you're going to get the best value for your traveling dollar by hitting a lesser-known region filled with agriturismos and Slow Food peeps.

Casolare dei Segreti restaurant, inn and wedding venue in Treia

Maiale Volante agriturismo farm and restaurant in Cingoli

And cool, random places like the National Accordion Museum in Castelfidardo.

Castelfidardo, Italy is the accordion capital of the world.

National Accordion Museum, Castelfidardo

Having had the luck to be invited to stay with friends in the Marche, an area about which I knew nothing before traveling there, I can fully recommend this region as one of the best vacation values in the world.

In Italy, it's known as "Tuscany for Italians."

View of hills around Recanati from Castelfidardo

Word on the street is that while European tourists have bought up all of the vacationland in Tuscany, Italians go to the Marche for the rolling, rural hills and charming hilltop villages...

Lack of crowds...

Historic piazzas...

Super cool architecture...

Loreto, Italy

Nifty old man liquors at nifty cocktail bars...

Cynar amaro in a bar in Sirolo

Really fabulous cheeses, meats and liquors at the grocery store for your stay-home cocktail hours...

Cool Medieval festivals...

Casual outdoor dining at said Medieval festivals...

Fabulous multi-course meals...

Trappist ale gelee over a caramel pot de creme at Maiale Volante

Scampi al Sale -- giant prawns buried and baked in salt at Da Silvio

Phenomenal handmade cargiu pasta at Osteria dei Segreti, in Appignano

Beautiful Adriatic beaches...

The beach at Da Silvio

Aperol Spritz in a bottle from the beach bar at Da Silvio. O holy magic.

And killer restaurants on or above those Adriatic beaches...

Acquamarina restaurant in Marcelli, near Numana, Sirolo and Ancona

Interior at Da Silvio

Ristorante Da Silvio, like a big treehouse overlooking the sea

Clandestino Susci bar

Clandestino

Appenine mountains and foothills, and great prices.

Maiale Volante

When in Italy, go where the Italians go.

Doublemint moment with two pairs of Italian twins, in the cathedral piazza in Loreto, Italy

If anyone happens upon this blog post on the interwebs while making expensive vacation decisions, I hope you find it useful! Here are a couple other posts I did on the Marche:

Casolare de Segreti, Treia: http://www.yumdiary.com/2012/09/il-casolare-dei-segreti-treia-italy.html

Clandestino Susci, Portonovo: http://www.yumdiary.com/2012/08/clandestino-sushi-portonovo-italy.html

The flying pigs of Maiale Volante

2012-09-20T06:00:00.000-04:00

The flying pigs of Maiale Volante in Cingoli, Italy, in a video moment, for you.

The Hidden Magic of Maiale Volante, the Rockitchen.

2012-09-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

Maiale Volante might be one of the best restaurants in the world, and it's hidden away in the middle of nowheresville, Italy.

View from the hilltop, where the pigs fly

The approach from the parking lot, past a plum orchard and fields of Queen Anne's lace

Talking points:

1. It's a contemporary, hip, progressively-designed dining room in the middle of a small, sustainable pig farm and vineyard.

Doors and windows flung open, the restaurant rarely fills up in summer since everyone's at the beach. Which means you get to have a secret, magical dining experience with only 3-5 other tables at any given time.

Maiale Volante Agriturismo, Loc. Fonte Antica, 17, 62011 Cingoli (MC

I love dining at big, square tables for 8.

2. The chef, Andrea Tantucci, crafts his lengthy, all-local, prix-fixe menus to correspond to indie rock, classic rock and alt folk albums, which play in their entirety throughout your meal.

Chef Andrea Tantucci and farm owner/restaurant GM, Roberto Sancricca, in Jamie Oliver's magazine summer 2012

It's an article about the hip food of the Marche region, in the "Italian Issue."

An excerpt of the article, for you

When we walked in the first time in July 2012, my favorite Cat Power album, The Greatest, was playing on the stereo. The menu for the evening:

2a. The stereo itself was crafted and manufactured by a friend of theirs who lives nearby. (Shades of Caroline Guitar Company in Columbia, SC.)

3. Andrea published a super cool cookbook pairing menus with full-length albums, called Rockitchen, co-written with music critic Paola de Angelis. Bands like the Velvet Underground, Traffic, Bjork and Radiohead. Solid. It's in Italian and everything is measured in grams, but if you speaka the language, I recommend: http://www.rockitchen.it/

Menu from our second visit in August 2012. I think Joni Mitchell's record, Blue, my favorite of her discography, was playing for this one.

4. Before and after your meal, you get to stroll around the farm and pet the farm dogs. My friends' children dubbed them the "Friend Dogs" and it stuck.

This little friend dog likes to swing through the dining room during dinner to say hey and get some covert petting under the table.

He's also extremely brave. Of all of the giant farm dogs, when a wolf was picking off sheep from the pasture, he was the only dog in the pack to fight back and attempt to protect the sheep. Pretty cool lil guy.

Lamborghini tractor.

Farm geese.

Honk.

5. Walk up the hill through the vineyard, and you can check out the flying pigs, named thus for their hilltop residence. The restaurant is named for them.

Maiale Volante = Flying Pig.

Pigs do fly. And also are delicious.

There are also farm cats. This mother and kitten in the photo below provided endless cute overload by wrestling with one another in the yard of Roberto and Annalisa's house, which is right on the property.

Kittehs

6. This crumbling old building on the property used to be a postal service outpost -- for carrier pigeons. Seriously.

Pigeons still roost like crazy at this historic old carrier pigeon station, a postal facility wayyyyy back in the day.

7. Now, the owners use the building's interior to hang their housemade salumi. They also leave ridiculously cool-looking junk lying around, an Instagram fiend's heaven.

Gratuitous pic of cool old Italian bottles and jugs and baskets and stuff

The smoky, rich, red Lonza (top right, below) is on my top ten list. It's kinda ruined me for other salumi, I'll be honest. The cheeses are by a friend of theirs, branded Piandelmedico. Look for it on good menus in the Marche.

The cured sausage in the bottom left is almost like a steak tartare, it's got such a great combination of dense, intense meatiness and light, airy texture. It's not compressed to death -- you can feel in your mouth that the salami casings were filled with care, not pumped by some giant machine.

8. Just try to dine out with savvy Marchigiano peeps and not fall in love with Verdicchio. It's a white wine varietal unique to the region, with a round, full mouthfeel but dry, minerally qualities and just the right amount of hardwood fruit. It's everywhere, and for good reason. This one is particularly excellent.

Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi 2011, di Gino, Fattoria San Lorenzo

Don't think I missed the opportunity to try this weird, borderline super-nasty amaro from the regional producer, Varnelli. It was austere, bitter as heck, and kinda awesome.

Amaro di erbe Tonico-Digestivo, by Varnelli erborista.

9. Maiale Volante is located near Cingoli, Italy, in the Marche region on the eastern side of the boot calf, all the way across Italy from Florence.

Do treat yourself to this very special little place, should you find yourself planning a trip to Italy!
xoxo
Tracie

Grilled Jalapeno Dove Poppers, Wrapped in Bacon

2012-09-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

My friend Jules Beesley makes the best jalapeno poppers ever. He's from San Angelo, Texas, so this makes sense.

Got this recipe in the email box the other day from Jules to me and our buddy Ryan Junell, also a San Angelo-type Texan, and also a lover of preparing and eating delicious things from the grill.

In honor of dove season in my remarkably awesome home state of South Carolina, I give you:

Jalapeño Dove Poppers

15 whole plucked dove breasts
garlic salt
black pepper
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
15 jalapeño slices, each slice halved (fresh or canned)
2 packages regular-sliced bacon, cut in half

With a paring knife, separate breasts from breastbones to make 30 lobes. Sprinkle very lightly with garlic salt and pepper. Take a breast lobe, some cream cheese, and a jalapeño slice and wrap in bacon. Secure with a toothpick. Grill over mesquite, oak, or charcoal for 3 to 5 minutes, then turn and continue grilling until bacon is crisp. Serves 8 to 10.

A friend who will email you wild game recipes is a friend indeed. Here's a post and pic of the last time I had the luck to be around when Jules was making BBQ'ed jalapeno bacon chicken poppers. Holy heck they are good.

Il Casolare dei Segreti, Treia, Italy - Marche Region

2012-09-15T12:11:00.003-04:00

Had a beautiful meal with my Italy vacation hosts at their friend's restaurant, Casolare dei Segreti, this summer. Meant to post about it earlier, but life's tricky, isn't it?

I wrote this review for Trip Advisor to add a little English language reviewage to the coverage there, a few days after dining at the Casolare. I'm going to be 100% lazy and reprint it here!

LAZY AMERICAN REPOSTS HER OWN TRIP ADVISOR REVIEW

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Il Casolare dei Segreti -- The Secret Cottage
Treia, Italy
Marche region near Cingoli and Ancona, in Macerata

Perfect mix of intimate, family-run restaurant/event venue with upscale, foodie, chef-driven menu from the Slow Food tradition, and delightful organic wines like Verdicchio (native to the region) and Nebbiolo from local producers known personally by the restaurant family.

Bonus: a beautiful, stunning view of the valleys around Treia. For impeccable, relaxed service, amazing Marchigiano cuisine and expertly chosen wines, it is a must if you are in the Marche region of Italy. And it's near Cingoli, where they have little cafes for aperitivi and a sidecar museum. (Seriously.)

My favorite dish out of a multi-course meal (we asked if the chef would send out little tastes of each and every aperitivo, as well as a couple of the primi pasta courses) was a maltagliate (torn handkerchief pasta) sauced with a sugo of tomato and slow-cooked guinea hen. Good gracious. So good. So rich. So light, all at the same time. No picture of that, but here are pictures of a lot of other great stuff.

Path from parking to entrance at Casolare dei Segreti

Central interior dining room with view of exterior patio

One of the Lucamarinis being stylish and hospitable

This outdoor patio is on a hillside and has quite the beautiful view.

If a bed and breakfast has a swimming pool, I'm in.

Meatballs in the old style, w/peas. All of the Italians at the table remarked that this dish was fully authentic comfort food they remembered from when they were kids.

Don't even get me started on the gnocchi.

You like deep-fried squash blossoms? So do I.

Gatti Prosecco, made in the Champenoise method (ferment in the bottle) instead of the big batch Prosecco method of fermenting in big batches. O, the tiny bubbles. Female winemaker, a friend of Amy's. Rad.

Fab wine. Find it. Vignale di Cecilia, Cocai 2011.

Grumello Rocca de Piro, Riserva 2004, Valtellina Superiore. What a refined, beautifully aged, smooth, rustic red wine. Oy.

Dishes don't stretch past $8 to $14 euros, pricewise, with most primi hovering at 9 euros and secondi at 12-14 euros. It is amazing to me, actually, how affordable it is to dine in amazing farm-to-table restaurants in the Marche -- at least in the region around Ancona and Macerata where we were staying.

Apologies for these crummy quality images. Instagram no so good at night, no?

And don't even get me started on the wild herb-filled agnolotti at the Casolare -- the wild herbs are foraged by the family matriarch, and the pasta is made by one woman, Delfina, who makes all the pasta for the restaurant and for all of the weddings held on site.

(The venue is booked out 2 years in advance for weddings.)

There is a giant tree in the middle of the dining room, surrounded by cylindrical glass and lit rather hiply. Like.

Her sons run the restaurant, and one of them, Mirco Lucamarini, lives upstairs with his fiance Amy Wadman, who runs DiVino Tours and Costa Digiano olive farm and knows EVERYTHING about eating and drinking well in the Marche and all over Italy.

As an American who has lived in Italy for 25 years, Amy is pretty much the perfect resource for food and wine geeks researching the best cuisine in Italia -- not just the east coast, either. (She is cited in a recent issue of Food and Wine magazine, in fact.)

I asked her about good hotels and restaurants in Rome over coffee one morning, and 20 minutes later had a bucket list in hand with anecdotes about dreadlocked Champagne experts and hotels where they will wash your Ferrari for you. Ha! Look her up for guidance if you're going to Italy -- she steered us the right way every time!

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Check my post on Clandestino for a photo of this cool lady with the yurt she and Mirco and their friends were building this summer on her olive farm, but here's another just for fun:

Clandestino Susci, Portonovo, Italy - Marche Region

2012-08-04T22:31:00.003-04:00

Things I like separately: sushi, regional Italian food, exquisite cuisine, white cliffs, barefoot waiters, the Adriatic Sea, hip music, and a relaxed ambience.

Things you will get all at the same time if you make the journey to Clandestino, popped like a collar into the Monte Conero coast in Italy's Marche region in Portonovo:

Those same things.

Mariah's friend Amy Wadman turned her on to this place, Clandestino, which is a sister restaurant to Michelin 2-star Chef Moreno Cedroni's little restaurant empire. (More on Amy below.)

Anne and Mariah had brokered some kind of deal with the guys that they would babysit all three of Anne's boys as well as Mariah's boy to do MAN NIGHT at the house.

Was I excited to eat at a restaurant owned by a Michelin 2-star chef while in Europe? Oh yes. Was I excited to do it with two of my most favorite lady gourmands on the planet? HECK YEAH!

You drive around about a frillion loopy mountain roads across the Monte Conero, park your car, and walk about a football field's distance on a paved pedestrian street through a woodsy campground out to the beach. There are birds singing and Italians in Speedos sauntering past with their fanny packs stuffed full of $2 Euro pieces. Or something like that.

Get an aperitivo.

And a view. Oh just wait til you see this freaking place.

At Clandestino, pre-appetizers are served with a paired glass of something yummy, like a chilled verdicchio from the region, or a bubbly something or other.

This convention is common and is called aperitivi. You order a couple of proseccos in a plaza, and suddenly they descend on you with a mid-size appetizer platter, gratis. It's a great gimmick and if all restaurants did it I would not complain.

The colors at Clandestino are wicked pleasing. Beachy, cream, white, deep sea blue, etc. Everyone there can tell we're American and they are too busy smoking, petting their leashed dogs, and being casually fab to care. Oh, and no one is fat.

Turning my attention to the kitchen, it does not escape me that it is an adorable kitchen. Later, we learn that the chef de cuisine is also adorable, and speaks great English having cooked at an Italian restaurant in San Diego for a year back in the mid-2000s. See those jars stacked at the top left? That's the MorenoCedroni product line of tinned octopus, smoked sturgeon sauce, etc. and yes, heck yes, we bought some to bring home. What, are we crazy?

This, my dears, is your view. Yes, that is a big old tower that looks really flipping cool with the sun setting behind it. It is. It does.

I just like these blue wood railings. I think I am trying to tell myself something, like "paint your house this color, Tracie; who cares if it's batty, just do it."

I really enjoy observing Italians in their natural vacation habitat. We enjoyed something smoked salmony called Happy Toast, a dry cured bresaola of tuna, and cubes of a premium grade mortadella from/by Pasquini that Mariah says she has seen others go bananas for in Bologna. S'good. Served with true champagne with tiiiiiiiny bubbles.

Once we finished a round of aperitivi, we moved inside, which is still open-air, and right on the water.

As you and I know, it is actually kindof weirdly hard to find great waterfront dining. Like, exquisite, inventive, blow your mind good cuisine, but in a pretty place. AND rustic/hip/casual. Those 3 things together = hard to find in America. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Please comment war with me so we can discuss -- I am certain that in my Italian vacation fog I am forgetting like 6 great places. It's just that to fit my triumvirate of hip, rustic-casual ambience/exquisite cuisine/waterfront location, it's hard.

I mean, they were playing "Here Comes Your Man" by The Pixies as we sat down at our table overlooking this ridiculously cool rock.

Time for oysters and champagne, DUH! They were so briny and sweet and light and good.

Next, a total favorite: raw shrimp crudo in fresh orange juice with some kind of ridiculously delightful pimenton-ish-tomato relish/sugo thing. Holy holy holy. Scampi all'arancia. Scampi scampi scampi.

Time to order wine. Turns out that the guy who makes Fattoria Coroncino wine is one of our friend Amy's favorite winemaker peeps, and the Gaiospino line is his reserve good stuff. Yes, we'd be happy to plunder through this beautiful bottle of Verdicchio dei Castelli de Jesi 2009. Grazie frille. (That's "Thanks a frillion," if you'd like to know.)

Which, on the back, in the little red flag in the Marchigiano dialect, says something to the effect of, "However far I've gotten today, that's where I'm plantin' ma flag, y'all."

Verdicchio. It's what's for lunch, dinner, and second dinner in the Marche -- incredibly versatile grape varietal, and Amy tells me that it has enormous aging potential and rarely has to be put in any sort of wood, as it already possesses lovely nutty, toasty flavors. Which it does indeed.

This tuna tataki dish below looks kindof unremarkable, but it was actually quite special and has secret anchovies in it.

Now we get into REALLY RAD territory, where we will remain for the rest of the meal. [God, I could use a verdicchio alla spina right now. I love how Marchigianos put their white wine in a tapped keg and serve it all bubbly like punch in a pitcher. Grown-up punch! The kids were always a *little* jealous of our pitchers of fun, which is, I think, why they often ended up with big, fat, fabulous desserts to make up for the age inequality.]

OK so this pizza jr. has burrata on it. That's one really great thing about it. And it's not just bleh burrata -- it is rich, creamy, decadent, bright and delightful burrata .And it's got tomatoes. Pretty normal combination right? But what is that dark looking stuff on the burrata? Eggplant? NO DUDES IT IS SMOKED FRICKIN MACKEREL. I just shouted that in caps cause that is how it was in my mind when I realized what it was.

I usually eschew mackerel for its fishiness, but Handsome Chef, as he will forever be named by me, (who should not be confused with Moreno Cedroni himself, who I have not met and thus have not made an aesthetic assessment), has done something virtuousic with this mackerel.

It is utterly meaty, smoky, roasty and succulent. And goes perfect with the burrata, weirdly enough.

Then it's all you can do not to plow through this fresh bass crudo, dreamy and lovely with arugula and mashed potatoes and other things I cannot remember because sometimes I just drop a detail here and there.

Quick style break to note our dinner utensils. Love them! Not for my house or anything, but for a seaside gustatory experience, they are the ideal set of tools. Bravo.

Great for twirling spinosi pasta, fashioned into birds' nests with a smoky, creamy coconut lime sauce and a bunch of unlawfully supple smoky salmon underneath, with some yuzu thrown in. This was so good I saved a bite on my plate until I had gone around and tasted everything else so that it could be my last bite.

Then we proceeded to order more entrees, including a genius roast quail paired with seared tuna and a crazy delicious sauce of roasted fennel, candied orange and black olives, of which there is no picture because we got to it too fast.

And these rosettes of raw amberjack with Jerusalem artichoke sauce, cherries and black sesame made us just want to go and air-kiss the Handsome Chef a frillion times.

And THEN we asked that very, very gauche question: "Can us Americans order a la carte off the tasting menu?" So tacky.

Well, because it was a slower Monday night, and because Handsome Chef took pity on three poor, starving young women, we got to try the Ugly Duckling and Momotaro from the tasting menu.

Which is fairy tale themed, btw.

The Ugly Duckling was totally crazy and amazing. A pitch black cooked egg, oozing yellow yolk all over some fancy fixins, well that was the best toast soldiers *I've* ever had. Looks gnarly, right?

And the Momotaro blessed us with just-barely-fried squid egg balls with light fixins.

They spell Sushi as Susci because they do what they *want* with raw fish, so they wouldn't want to insult any Japanese sushi purists.

There is a sweet and kind explanation of this on the other menu.

But back to the important stuff:

We could have eaten like twenty of those squid egg balls. Dang!

There are about 3 other desserts that they sent out, one after another, which made our toes curl. In addition, they sent out a tiny creamy thing in a glass, as well as a separate little strawberry popsicle for each of us. Love them.

And we got purrrrrrrfect macchiato coffees. [Shout out to Jason Blalock, who taught me how to sugar the rim of my macchiato or cappucino so it's like a margarita -- kinda.]

Huge high fives to Amy Wadman, sommelier, Slow Food-focused tour company owner (DivinoTours.com), olive farmer of delicious olives for delicious olive oil at her organic farm in Treia, Costa Digiano (Costadigiano.com), and yurt fabricator (now that's just rad) for all the hot tips.

She and her fiance Mirco Lucamarini, of the deeply delightful Casolare dei Segreti restaurant and special event venue in Treia (also co-owner of Costa Digiano and its yurt-tasticness) are all entrenched in a really pretty fabulous network of young or young-ish professionals in Italy who have taken up the culinary, viticultural or agricultural arts and sciences in a super cool way.

[This just in -- Amy and Mirco are in Food and Wine magazine this month! She discovered that it was live online and showed it to us over coffee this morning. Hello, huge f-ing deal! Very happy for her. She is brilliant and works very hard. And is fun! And she and Mirco built a freakin' yurt in like 4 days! (With some loving friends, like Peldi, who helped her, of course.)]

Amy Wadman and her yurt at Costa Digiano organic olive farm

Anyway, I am done sharing pictures of my intellectual and gustatory gluttony for one night.

Just leave this page knowing that A. I appreciate you reading along with my craziness! B. You are a good internet user. I just have a feeling about it. C. I totally did not scale down my extravagant meals either before this meal or afterward. In fact, I am currently full from VISIT NUMBER 2 to Il Maiale Volante, another one of the greatest little restaurants in the whole wide world.

If I can get packed, learn to make pizza from Peldi and Mariah tomorrow, complete some work documents, and get myself all set for about 20 straight hours of traveling on Monday, I will post my extravagant food nerditude on the subject.

Til then, happy trails and buon appetito and all that I-talian stuff!
xoxo

The Old Man Festival, Italian Style

2012-07-29T06:41:00.000-04:00

While visiting friends in Italy, I am enjoying as man old man liqueurs as humanly possible. It is not hard, as a bottle of Campari is like 12 bucks, and they sell it at the grocery store.

I knew already that I loved bitter, rooty, lightly sweet Averna, an Amaro I first tried at a dinner at Rosso Trattoria back home in Columbia, SC. Then I found a bottle of Amaro Lucano in my hosts' liquor cabinet -- it is pretty similar, but a little smoother.

(We're out in the country at the home of dear friends in the far-flung Marche region near Ancona (in Macerata province on the east side of the country), no major cities in sight, so there is blessedly little to distract me from my personal little old Italian man festival.)

I was already in lurve with bitter, herbaceous (and let's face it, borderline nasty) Fernet from my days as fancy restaurant server in San Francisco. Pretty fun to just throw it in the grocery basket at less than half the price than in the States.

Is part of the appeal the fact that the bottles are slathered in gorgeous, old-timey graphic design and illustrations? Never underestimate the power of good packaging. I am a sucker for it.

At the beach the other day at Porto Recanati, I had the great pleasure of choosing from many, many little old man liqueurs at this beachfront liquor bar. (Btw, good luck getting any sort of "normal" liquor in Italy. Embrace the old man festival.)

Amaro Montenegro might be my most favorite thus far! Bitter and a tad sweet like Lucano and Averna, but much lighter and less syrupy. (Nice Averna glass in which it was served!)

Pretty delish with a macchiato caldo.

Apparently it is socially illegal to order a cappucino after 10:30am in Italy. So, people cheat (including me) by ordering macchiato, an espresso "marked" with foam.

After a casual beachfront lunch like this with The Shop Tart, a digestivo and a macchiato were just what the doctore ordered. Grigliata di pesce (grilled fish on the American translation) apparently means a bunch of random fried fried. This is good.

Chitarrine con gamberi = square long noodles with giant prawns and delish red sauce. Awright.

Also? In the Marche region, they like to serve the local white wine varietal, Verdicchio, all fizzed up from a tap. Um, it is delicious.

Y'all know how the little old man inside me feels about a beach chair and a beach umbrella. At the Italian beaches, there is pretty much no other way.

That? Oh, that's the Adriatic Sea. No big deal. Just chillin' in Europe. (This is ridiculously surreal.)

Fired up after a beach day, the three Southern girls got the Italian man (the real one, not the imaginary one living inside my head) to go to the IperSimply mega grocery store to get piles of fresh clams and mussels.

Then The Shop Tart commenced to whip up a lemongrass-ginger-coconut broth for all those cozze and vongole that was pretty much beyond awesome.

I have no idea how many kilograms of shellfish were demolished by the four adults and four children at the table, but suffice it to say that the only vessel big enough for the empty shells was this giant, Euro-style Beaufort stew pot, which is about a foot tall and 18 inches wide.

Then, unsurprisingly, it was time for the old man festival to recommence. Averna Amaro, some Blonde Redhead on the iPod stereo, and a few rounds of Rummikub and Bananagrams on the porch.

Long live the old man festival.

Tasty Tomato Magic from Thackeray Farms on Wadmalaw Island, SC

2012-07-15T07:41:00.003-04:00

Dear America,

Today my colleagues and I are throwing a giant tomato festival in Columbia, South Carolina. Giant for us, anyway. Expecting anywhere from 2000-3000 people at City Roots urban farm, and there's not a cloud in the sky. Good juju.

Clockwise from left: Homestead tomatoes from Sumter Organic Co-op, then Cherokee Purple, German Striper, and Red Brandywine tomatoes from Thackeray Farms on Wadmalaw Island, SC, for the Heirloom Tomato Taste Test at The 3rd Annual Palmetto Tasty Tomato Festival, July 15 2012 at City Roots farm.

I will say this: our team at Slow Food Columbia, one of the festival's two presenting organizations, researched and procured 700 lbs of heirloom tomatoes for our Heirloom Tomato Taste Test, an integral part of The Palmetto Tasty Tomato Festival.

The bonus? They're from Shawn Thackeray's farm on Wadmalaw Island, SC, near Charleston. You may have read about him in The New York Times or Garden and Gun, or seen his 'maters on Chef Sean Brock's menu at McCrady's or Husk.

You know, no big deal. Just one of the best tomato purveyors in the country, growing on one of the most legendary tomato growing islands in all the land.

Big ups to Tasty Tomato Festival host committee member April Jones and to City Roots Farm Manager Eric McClam for doing the legwork, research and 'mater procurement. Eric, my fellow board member at Slow Food Columbia, is going to be our delegate to Slow Food International's Terra Madre event this Fall, one of only 5 from the Southeast!

Our sustainable chefs here in Colatown have been matering it up on our behalf all week, btdubs.

From judging and providing hors d'oeuvres to the Tasty Tomato Contest judging last Wednesday (Executive Chef Tim Peters, Motor Supply Co. Bistro; Chef/Owner Kristian Niemi, Rosso Trattoria; and the team at Rosewood Market & Deli) to throwing down apps at the VIP tomato potluck later today at the festival (Chef/Owner Ryan Whittaker, @116; Chef/Owner Mike Davis, Terra; Chef/Owner Alex Suaudom du Monde, Baan Sawan; Chef/Owner Ricky Mollohan, Mr. Friendly's).

Our Slow Food Columbia potlucks are becoming the stuff of legend. People bring really cool stuff.

We have also been particularly stringent about our food vendors for the festival. Each vendor has to have at least one sustainable ingredient on their menu, and these guys should have no problem making that happen, as they are kindof the cream of the crop around here:

Chill Out Pops handmade popsicles, Bone-In Artisan BBQ on Wheels (fancy Q and such), Rosewood Market (tomato sandwich bar), Pawleys Front Porch food truck (burger-licious), Good Life Cafe (raw, vegan), and Spotted Salamander Catering, the only full-service caterer in the state that uses 25% or more locally sourced product. Love those guys.

Last year, El Burrito did amazing 'mater sandwiches, and this year it's Rosewood Market. Stoked!

I am excited. Despite going to bed past midnight, I was up at 6am thinking about easels and clipboards and punch bowls.

Cause 'maters matter!

Plenty of regular price tickets will be available at the gate at 5pm, so should you happen upon this post today, Sunday July 15, 2012, put on your farm-casual party pants and come on down.

The Palmetto Tasty Tomato Festival
Sunday July 15, 2012
5pm-9pm
$15 gate
$20 “Supporter” ticket & covered tomato dish w/sustainable ingredient grants access to special VIP tomato potluck at 4pm.
Kids 12/under free with adult
$5 early advance discount $5 and $10 advance discount levels sold out, thank you!

City Roots urban farm
1005 Airport Blvd, Columbia SC 29205
Free parking

MAP: http://bit.ly/CityRootsMap