Georgia P is plum crazy about plums…
Can you blame me for being proud? ;)
Tracie P has been chronicling Georgia P’s baby-led weaning here.
Category Archives: de cibo
Georgia P’s first pasta!
Tracie P has been chronicling our “baby-led weaning” here and it’s been a lot of fun: twice a day, Georgia P sits in her high chair and we offer her different foods to eat. She loves yogurt (with blueberries), her mango phase is already over, avocados are still in, steak is king and chicken is fun, too, and she even likes baba ghanoush!
But you can imagine the anticipation — for two food lovers and Italophiles — on the evening and occasion of her first pasta (above).
Tracie P had picked organic wholewheat fusilli at Central Market (our local crunchy-feely gourmet store) and I made a summer pomodoro using tomatoes, onion, and garlic from our community-supported-agriculture farmer at Tecolote Farm (who delivers a basket of fresh produce each week).
I only lightly salted the sauce and the pasta cooking water (because salt is a concern) and of course, I overcooked the pasta (so it would be mushy enough) and I let it cool before we served it to her.
She seemed to like it and ate maybe three or four fusilli before she lost interest.
It wasn’t the first time she ate something that I had prepared (she DEVOURED thinly sliced steak I had grilled for her the other day). But, man, what an emotion to feed Georgia P pasta for the first time!
Thanks for letting me share…
A Michelin guide for Houston? @TonyVallone @TerraUomoCielo
Photo via Spread Some Awesome.
When I took Giovanni to eat at Tony’s last week, he turned to me mid-meal and asked discreetly, “how many stars does Tony have in the Michelin guide?”
When I explained to him that Michelin doesn’t have a guide for Houston (or Texas for that matter), he was genuinely surprised.
Today I posted my translation of his post on our lunch at Tony’s on Tony’s website (for the original in Italian click here).
In it, he makes his case for why Michelin should come to Texas and it’s a lot of fun to read his impressions of fine dining in the U.S.
Quintarelli Valpolicella & Lucy’s fried chicken (Giovanni’s Easy Rider tour comes to an end)
There was one sine qua non pillar of Americana that Giovanni had not yet experienced on his “Easy Rider USA Tour 2012”: fried chicken, the way its done in the South.
And so on his last day in Texas, we decided to take a ride to the south side of Austin to Lucy’s Fried Chicken, where irony and hipsterdom collide in a deep frier (photo above by Giovanni). We picked up a bucket of chicken, which, according to Lucy’s serves four but could easily accommodate a party of six (unless folks squabble over who gets the breast).
When we visited Houston on Tuesday, Giovanni had spied a bottle of Quintarelli 2000 Valpolicella, which he generously bought for us to share. As deep as our friendship may run, Giovanni — a top Italian winemaker — and I often disagree about wine. The “rough edges” of many of the Natural and old-school wines that Tracie P and I cherish preclude his nod of approval. He even turned his nose up at a bottle of 2006 Romangia Bianco by Dettori that we opened — one of our all-time favorite wines, showing gorgeously right now! Blasphemy at the Parzen residence!
But one thing we can all agree on is Quintarelli. And the superb bottle inspired an interesting conversation on the use of oxidation and filtration, with Giovanni pointing to Quintarelli as a master in both regards (where many Natural winemakers use excessive oxidation and don’t filter at all).
The richness of the wine (served slightly chilled) was simply brilliant with the fatty, juicy (and delicious) fried chicken and its dark red fruit ideal with the flavors of Tracie P’s mouth-watering fried okra (above) and mashed potatoes.
This morning I took Giovanni to the airport and he’ll be back in Brescia by lunchtime tomorrow. It was great to have him here and share our lives with him. (Italian-speaking readers, please check out his posts on Texas truck culture and his impressions of a Texan wine.)
Thanks again, Giovanni, for the visit and the Quintarelli! Travel safe, friend. As we say in the South, come back and see us, ya hear?
Nothing like lunch at Tony’s, a Napa Cab I actually liked and Aldo Sohm and Levi Dalton
From the department of “Jar, you’re just bragging now” says Jon Erickson…
Above: Tony’s foie gras au torchon is one of his signatures and one of the dishes where simplicity and purity of flavor is offset by detail in the presentation.
How could Giovanni’s visit to Texas be complete without a meal at Tony’s in Houston?
Tony is my client (I curate his website and his media relations) but he’s also become one of my best friends in Texas and he is the architect and author of some of the most stunning meals I’ve ever had. Yesterday, Giovanni and I drove to Houston to meet Cousin Marty for lunch and a confabulatio that centered around… yes, of course… food and wine…
Above: Orecchiette with seared mortadella cubes and runny quail egg.
The secret to the rich yellow color of his pasta, said Tony, is locally sourced, organically farmed eggs. “But it’s also the fact that I use only flour and mineral water imported from Italy,” he added. Some would argue that sparkling mineral water is key to super pasta like this. But Tony insists that still water (acqua naturale) is a sine qua non.
Above: Halbut and seafood medley “al Mare Chiaro,” named after the neighborhood in Naples.
Tony’s is the only place in Texas where we eat fine seafood (a category we reserve otherwise for our trips to California). This dish was simply stunning in its simplicity and presentation (and my camera didn’t do it justice, frankly).
Above: Lamb chops.
Tony likes to tease me, calling me the chiodo (the nail) because I’m so careful about what and how much I eat. Lamb chops would have been a bit much for me for a Tuesday lunch but Giovanni dove in with gusto.
Above: General Manager and wine director Scott Sulma’s selection was right on.
And the wine? A tall order considering the fact that one of Italy’s top winemakers was seated at our table. And let’s face it, my general disdain for the Californian style is well known to my colleagues at Tony’s. But it also seemed right to have Giovanni taste something from my home state. GM Scott’s selection, Palmaz Vineyards 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, delivered acidity, earth and gorgeous dark fruit, and balanced alcohol and wood. It was superb with the Bucatini all’Amatriciana that I had as my second course, playing beautifully against the savory guanciale in the dish. Chapeau bas, Scott!
Above: Nobody does it better than Tony.
I can’t conceal my pride in sharing the Tony’s experience with my good friend Giovanni, who made the trans-Atlantic crossing to see, hear, taste, and feel what life is like in Texas, California, and America.
Above: Two of my favorite fressers.
Thanks, again, Tony for yet another fantastic meal and an unforgettable experience. Ti ringrazio di cuore…
In other news…
Question: What could be better than a conversation with one of my favorite New York City sommeliers?
Answer: An interview with one of my favorite NYC sommeliers conducted by one of my favorite NYC sommeliers.
Click here to listen to Levi Dalton’s conversation with Aldo Sohm (pictured above).
This just in from @Pike_Place (Seattle)
Brother Tad just sent this photo from the Pike Place Market in Seattle where he and family are visiting today. I’m envious!
Georgia P hearts avocados
Obsessed with K-ZO in LA
Since I began commuting monthly to Los Angeles to work with Sotto where I curate the wine list, I’ve become obsessed with K-Zo, a wonderful Japanese restaurant on Culver Blvd.
I took Giovanni there yesterday for lunch before we headed to the restaurant. It was fantastic.
Chef/owner Keizo Ishiba (above) is so cool and I’ve waited on him at Sotto. Super nice guy and a master in his kitchen. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
In other news…
Sweet potatoes!
Tracie P has been blogging about Georgia P’s baby led weaning here…
Giovanni and I are heading to Napa today… Stay tuned!
Happy anniversary Joanne and Marty! @TonyVallone
Above: Dinner in the wine library at Tony’s last night began with a simple risotto alla parmigiana topped with a few black truffle shavings.
The Levys gathered last night in Houston to celebrate Joanne and Marty’s fortieth wedding anniversary.
A second earthquake devastates Emilia (remembering the Emilian Renaissance)
Above: The Duomo in Mirandola had withstood the earthquake of May 20 but crumbled this morning in a 5.8 magnitude earthquake. Photo by Cris Provenzano via Instagram.
According to the reports I’ve been seeing this morning in the Italian news feed, there were at least 39 tremors in the region of Emilia this morning beginning at around 9 a.m. At 11:24 a.m., a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the town of Mirandola (which lies at the center of a triangle formed by Ferrara, Modena, and Mantua).
The New York Times reports that at least eight persons died this morning. Thousands of people have been left homeless and scores of factories have collapsed or been closed because of structural damage.
Photo via AGI.it.
In an uncanny twist of fate, the township of Mirandola had planned a town hall meeting this evening with earthquake experts who had hoped to calm local residents (the Mirandola township has a great website, btw, an indication of the industriousness and uprightness of the people who live there).
Of all of Italy’s regions, Emilia and its beauty are perhaps the most challenging for foreigners to understand. Emilia is a land of intellectual and sensual pleasures and partly because it is not a producer of fine wine (aside from a few exceptions like La Stoppa in the province of Piacenza), most enogastronomic travelers tend to gloss over its cultural patrimony after they’ve dined at one of the regions many culinary meccas. (My favorites are Trattoria Bianca in Modena and Ristorante Canossa in Reggio Emilia.)
Whereas the Venetian and Florentine Renaissances produced iconic works of figurative art that continue to attract tides of tourists each year, the Emilia Renaissance delivered the great epic poems of the sixteenth century (think Ariosto and Tasso), wildly popular intellectual hits of their day but sadly forgotten in comparative literature curricula today in Anglophone countries.
To contemplate [historic] Humanism without one of its greatest voices, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (whose family hailed from the town where the epicenter of today’s earthquake occurred) would be to disregard one of the greatest chapters in humankind’s intellectual development.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Emilia…
Do Bianchi 