Mommy and daddy had hotdogs and burgers with all the trimmings for a quiet Fourth of July celebration at home as we continued to wait for the big day to arrive.
We’re now nine days away from Baby P 2013’s expected due date.
Georgia P came nine days early. So mutatis mutandis… Our bags are packed and ready to go.
Those crazy-assed Texan republicans have nearly prevailed in delivering some of the the most restrictive reproductive policies in the U.S. And when they’re done, they will have closed all but a handful of Planned Parenthood clinics through out the state (one of the richest in the U.S., home to its fourth-largest city, and the fastest growing in the nation). The few remaining will nearly all be in major urban centers. As a result, financially challenged families living in rural areas will have virtually no access to affordable women’s health services. And services in the big cities will be more limited.
But it’s hard to find a bad tortilla in this town, capital of the Lone Star State.
Above: One side of my friend Tony Vallone’s family is from Corleone, Sicily. All of last night’s dishes were “alla corleonese”.
Last night, I made one last trip to Houston before the arrival of Baby P 2013 (I drove in and back the same day).
How could I not?
My good friend and client Tony Vallone was hosting a sold-out dinner featuring cucina casereccia siciliana (homestyle Sicilian cooking) at his casual restaurant Ciao Bello. And I should be more precise: the official theme was cucina casereccia corleonese, the cuisine of his mother’s family’s hometown, Corleone. And he had asked me to speak to the guests about the Sicilian wines chosen for the meal.
In case the mimetic desire has not yet taken hold, here’s a photo of the wine we paired with the lasagna casalinga (homemade lasagne, with mini meatballs and peas) above:
That’s négociant Arianna Occhipinti’s Grillo: salty and jumping with acidity, the wine tasted SO good on a sultry Houstonian evening.
As I left the dinner, everyone wished me and Tracie P well for the arrival of Baby P 2013.
Tony handed me a couple of boxes of his gallina mollicata (chicken baked with mollicata, Sicilian Corleonese-style seasoned breadcrumbs).
“Mi raccomando… I’m serious,” he said. “I want you to call me when the baby arrives.”
Man, I love this guy… We’re so lucky to have him in our lives.
And here’s a little video (below) I put together this morning with scenes from the event (does anyone recognize the song I’m playing?).
Above: Grissini — bread sticks — are one of Italy’s great gifts to humankind. I’m not talking about the hydrogenated oil-charged grissini that come in a plastic wrapper. I’m talking about the ones that chefs like the amazing Vittorio Fusari bake in-house. Georgia P couldn’t get enough!
Franciacorta Chef Vittorio Fusari and his Dispensa Pani e Vini have become a happy Parzen family obsession. Last week I wrote about the first of two meals we had there earlier this year.
Vittorio’s ability to match brilliant technique and precision with his uncanny knack for sourcing wholesome materia prima have fascinated and thrilled me. Bringing Tracie P and Georgia P to lunch there was one of the highlights of our family trip to Italy in the spring.
Here’s what we ate on the second day.
There is so much great beer being made in Italy right now. We loved the richness of aroma and flavor in the Oppale by 32 Via dei Birrai.
The salmon wasn’t cured. It was served raw, expertly sliced and dressed with a gentle drizzle of olive oil. So simply yet ethereally satisfying.
Vittorio made these penne with green beans especially for Georgia P. Mommy and daddy couldn’t help stealing a bite.
Vittorio’s risotto agli asparagi was a masterpiece. This dish left me speechless.
Poached chicken salad. That’s a lightly breaded, fried egg in the middle. It’s yolk was perfectly runny.
The Bresciani (ethnonym for natives of Brescia, Lombardy, the province that claims Franciacorta) love beef. This was Vittorio’s take on the hamburger. All the bread is baked in-house at the Dispensa.
Manzo all’olio — literally beef with olive oil — is a classic dish of Bresciana cuisine. Slowly braised beef usually served with polenta and/or potatoes.
If I’m in Franciacorta, you’ll usually find me in the company of my bromance Giovanni Arcari (left), winemaker extraordinaire and grand personage of Italian wine. He met us for lunch and we bumped into Eugenio Signoroni, editor of the Slow Food beer and osteria guides. That’s the kind of place the Dispensa is. You always run into food and wine professionals and personalities there.
What a joy to watch our sweet baby girl enjoy her meals at the Dispensa. Our family life is centered around eating well (and by “well,” I mean deliciously and wholesomely) and there is no chef I know who devotes more attention and passion to the wholesomeness of what he serves his guests.
Thank you, Vittorio! The Parzen family is your unabashedly and eternally devoted and grateful fan!
Above: At the Austin Ale House, Chef Emilio Oliva is making tortillas and refried beans using extra-virgin olive oil instead of lard. Currently, the pulled pork tacos are a speciality item. If he made them a regular item, I might have to eat there once a day.
To hear Chef Emilio Oliva tell the story, the taqueros who work on the famous Calle del Taco — where taquerías line the street — in his native Reynosa, Mexico, risk their lives daily.
“I come from a town of men and mice,” he told me.
The patrons of the calle, he said, are often armed and if they don’t like your cooking, they might decide to end your career right then and there.
His advice for the taqueros of this rough border town (on the Texan frontier)?
“If you can’t cook a good greasy taco, you might as well go to Wisconsin and pick cotton.”
When I saw this claim, “98.9% natural,” on a bottle of baby liquid bath soap, I couldn’t help but think of the 1955 single by one of my favorite R&B singers Big Joe Turner: “Lipstick, Powder, and Paint” written by Jesse Stone, who also wrote “Shake Rattle & Roll” (also recorded for the first time by Big Joe Turner).
The song is about a transgender person: lipstick, powder, and paint/either you is or either you ain’t.
It’s kind of like being pregnant: you can’t be a little bit pregnant.
I think that one of the reasons why the expression natural wine stirs such controversy and can evoke such vitriol is how the precious word natural is so often abused in marketing today.
Above: Coppa cotta, “cooked coppa” at the Dispensa Pane e Vini in Franciacorta.
Whenever I lead a guided wine tasting, I make a point of asking the guests to consider what I believe is one of the most important elements in wine appreciation: how do you feel the day after you drink the wine?
I’m not talking about being hung over. We all know about the physical and emotional fallout of excessive alcohol consumption.
No, I’m talking about the role that wine plays in digestion.
Above: Fried coregone and coregone “ice cream,” made from Coregonus lavaretus, European white fish from Lake Iseo (Franciacorta).
We spend so much time talking about how wine tastes, the rarity and prestige of certain bottles, etc.
But we devote too little time — in my view — in reflecting on wine’s value as a nutrient and digestive.
Above: The “Milanese” antipasto is a panino stuffed with a mini cotoletta alla milanese. A schmear of potato purée is applied to the bun before the dish is plated.
Sadly, I believe that the western world’s fetishization of food creates a disconnect between the food we consume and our bodies (excuse the paronomasia).
Ask anyone who’s ever worked at one of our country’s temples to the fetishization of fine dining, Per Se: they’ll tell you that guests, especially elderly diners, often regurgitate at the dinner table.
Above: Pasta e fagioli. The health-enhancing properties of this dish were truly remarkable. I speak from personal experience.
And so with wine, so with the foods our family consumes. One of the most important ways we gauge the quality of meal is how we feel the next day.
On our last trip to Italy, I was so thrilled about taking Tracie P and Georgia P to Vittorio Fusari’s Dispensa Pani e Vini in Franciacorta that we booked a hotel down the road just so we could eat there at least twice before we headed to our final destination in the Veneto.
Above: Spaghetti with green beans. One of the things that was so remarkable about our visits was how Vittorio created dishes especially for Georgia P. She loved this.
Vittorio’s technique is astonishing and his work is renowned throughout Europe. But it’s his maniacal attention to the materia prima that makes his cooking a game-changer.
Although Tracie P has been avoided raw fish and uncooked cured meats during our pregnancy, she consumed both at the Dispensa (and we discussed our concern and our desire with Vittorio beforehand; he assured us that the provenance of the salmon and the prosciutto was impeccable).
As much as I enjoyed this meal — our first on our recent trip to Italy and one of the best — I was reminded of how good it was the next day when I visited the bathroom (and I apologize for the level of detail here but if you’ve read this far, I know you’re with me on this).
This was one of two meals authored by Vittorio during our day-and-a-half stay in Franciacorta. I’ll post about the others tomorrow.
As soon as I typed the title for this post, I realized it was an amphiboly.
It could be construed as how Cajuns fry their food or how does one fry a Cajun.
Tracie P sent me to the store last week to get some peanut oil to fry up this year’s first batch of fried green tomatoes.
I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of this jug of Cajun Injector Cottonseed “Premium” Frying Oil.
Food shopping in Texas is as commercialized and homogenized as anywhere else in the U.S. But “regional” brands still appear in mainstream supermarkets.
Another one that gets a lot of mileage at our house is Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.
Above: I paid less than $100 “on premise” for this 2003 Barolo Villero by Brovia at a restaurant in Houston. Unbelievable.
The Houston food and wine scene continues to amaze me. In part because of how disappointing, uninformed, and naive it can be at times. In part because of the unbridled talent and the extreme value that you find there in the most unlikely places.
A few weeks ago, I had a superb bottle of wine from one of my favorite producers, the 2003 Barolo Villero by Brovia, one of the few growers who released their crus from the 2003 vintage. The wine was simply stunning.
But the most incredible thing about the experience was that I paid less than retail for it. Even more more unbelievable was how difficult it was to navigate the restaurant’s tablet-based wine list, out of date and poorly organized.
I wrote about the frustrating but rewarding experience today for the Houston Press.
There are some Houston restaurateurs and wine professionals who never seem to leave the Houston bubble and they sadly remain unaware of what’s going on in the world beyond.
And then there’s my friend and client Tony.
Above: Tony Vallone is one of the most dynamic Italian restaurateurs in the country imho. I’m so proud to call him my friend and client.
In the words of one Houston food critic, he’s the dude who “virtually defined” fine dining in Houston over the last four decades (his first Tony’s opened in 1965).
I’ve enjoyed some amazing meals in his restaurants and I’m excited to share the news that he and I will be speaking at a Sicilian Regional Cuisine dinner on June 26 at his Tony’s casual restaurant Ciao Bello.
Tony’s half Sicilian and half Neapolitan and he travels to Italy every year (he just got back from a trip to Chicago for the Fancy Food festival, Sicily, and Paris).
I’ve spoken about Italian wine at a number of dinners in Tony’s restaurants but we’ve never presented together. I couldn’t be more thrilled.
Above: Tracey Brandt of Donkey & Goat recently came to Austin to present her family’s wines.
Another event I’d like to bring to your attention is a wine dinner at Sotto in Los Angeles where I co-curate the wine list.
On June 25, Tracey Brandt (above) of the Donkey & Goat winery will be presenting her family’s wines.
I’m super bummed that I won’t be able to be there (I’m grounded until Baby P 2013 gets here in mid-July).
But I highly recommend the dinner and the wines to you. Donkey & Goat is one of the Parzen family’s official wines: we drink them regularly at home, mamma Judy (my mom) drinks them in La Jolla (the rosé is her favorite), and Rev. B (my father-in-law) loves him some Donkey & Goat Helluva Pinot Noir.
I’m very proud that we feature the wines at Sotto.
That’s all the news that fits today… Have a great weekend, yall! Buon weekend!
Above: The Chicago dog at Frank in Austin, Texas.
Thanksgiving turkey? Apple pie? Burger and fries?
Is there any dish that embodies the American culinary spirit more than the hot dog?
Even the French love hot dogs…
Above: Polish sausage with the works.
Yesterday, I finally made it to Frank, Austin’s local temple to hot dog and hipsterdom.
If ever there were an asylum run by the inmates, it would be Frank.
I got there mid-afternoon and every seat at the bar was occupied by handlebar mustaches, pierced nostrils, tattoo sleeves, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. The scene was a mirror reflection, minus the beer cans, of the bar staff.
Above: Drinks are served in ball jars.
I loved Frank. I loved its Austinite originality. I loved its unabashed embrace of americana. I loved its affordability and approachability. AND Frank is both family- and hipster-friendly.
And who doesn’t like a hot dog?
To not love the hot dog would just be flat-out, downright unAmerican!
Happy summer, yall
Do Bianchi 