La Merenda di VictorWhen my husband was a schoolboy in Bologna, his favorite afternoon merenda was a crusty slice of grilled bread that his grandmother would top with Parmesan cheese and olive oil. It doesn't need a recipe, just a description.
Insalata di Sedano, Avocado, e Peperone con Olive NereI find the flavors and texture of this salad to be particularly agreeable immediately following a seafood course.
Salmone Sockeye al Forno con Peperoni e CapperiFresh wild salmon, including the late-season ones from Alaska, would be the best choice for this preparation. What to do when the season ends? Well, there are always available steelhead trout and Arctic char and, of course, farmed Atlantic salmon.
Semifreddo al Torrone e CioccolatoThe frozen dessert that Italians make at home is usually a semifreddo, which translates literally as half-cold. It comes by its name because a semifreddo always contains some ingredient such as biscuits, candied fruits, nuts, or ricotta that does not freeze solid and hence does not require the freezing power of an ice cream machine. All it needs is an overnight stay in the freezer. The key ingredient in this semifreddo istorrone,the hard Piedmontese nougat bar made from egg whites and almonds that in northern Italy is an inseparable part of any well-stuffed Christmas basket.
Zuppa di Cozze Come la Fanno a BosaLike other coastal towns on Sardinia, Bosa also has an excellent maritime cuisine. An example is this excellent mussels soup. Two ingredients unique to it are the grated sheep's milk cheese that cooks along with the mussels, deepening their flavor, and the bread crumbs—some Sardinian cooks use couscous instead—that add texture and density to the mussel juices.
For some time I had been thinking: How can I pare down a classic meat sauce for those occasions when I have neither the time to make nor the voracity to consume a full-scaleragù? The sauce below is the answer I came up with. I replaced beef with veal; eliminated the milk, the wine, the carrot, and the celery; and reduced the cooking time from several hours to half of one. It is as easy to take as it is to do. Is it a favorite dish? Sure — it is my favorite simple meat sauce. Suggested pasta: The ideal carrier for this simple meat sauce is a homemade noodle, in particular one scented with rosemary and sage, cut into fettuccine ortonnarelli.Boxed dry pasta in a short tubular shape such as penne ormaccheroncinican be a satisfactory alternative.
Caffelatteis what Italians of all ages have for breakfast at home. For small children it is a cupful of warm milk lightly stained with coffee, the ratio of coffee to milk increasing with one's years. It is often accompanied by some store-bought biscuits, but not in my assistant Nadia's family. She lives on her father's farm outside Venice with her husband and small boy, and for her son Tommaso she bakes wholesome cakes with fresh fruit. He has some with hiscaffeelatteand takes another piece to school to eat formerenda,recess. I was particularly taken with the cake Nadia makes when there is no more summer fruit on the farm. She uses pears and apples and always adds a banana she buys in town. The proportions of one fruit to another may vary, and indeed Nadia says they always do, but nothing much can go wrong or affect the cake's plainspoken, engagingly fresh taste.
In the kitchen of Piedmont's splendid country restaurants it is usually a woman who rules. Invariably, she has been schooled not by chefs, but by her mother, and her professional accomplishments are founded on the region's home cooking, a cuisine that, for finesse and variety, is unsurpassed in Italy, or even in Europe. One of the most gifted of these women is Ilvia Boggione of the restaurant Vicoletto in Alba. Among her specialties is this deft rendition of a classic game bird that is sometimes served withtajarin——薄自家做的面条。称之为酱可能是misleading, however, particularly if one's idea of a pasta sauce is something juicy and all-enveloping. There is nothing runny or sauce-like about this one. Quail is cooked until its meat slips succulently off the bone, and small bite-size pieces of it are nestled among the pasta strands. A more accurate description of the dish would be pastawithquail. Suggested pasta: Homemade noodles make the only satisfactory pairing for this sauce, particularly thick, square shapedtonnarellior the broadpappardelleor fettuccine. In Piedmont (as noted above) they usetajarin,a thin noodle that in restaurants is made almost exclusively from a large number of egg yolks.
