This white blend from Campania was SO FRIGGIN’ good. Thanks Tom for hooking it all up!
Fantastic buffalo mozzarella from Tramonti at Pizzeria Francese in Asti (highly recommended, the place where EVERYONE goes on Sunday night). Beppe Francese’s pastiera was also off-the-charts good.
More tomorrow… gotta go sleepin’ now!
After a long night and day of travel, I made it to Asti where I found this bag of goodies from the Pasticceria Giordanino in my hotel room waiting for me.
So far, so good…
Meeting the blogger team for an aperitivo and then to a pizzeria that everyone says is great…
Stay tuned…
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go…
Above: Whole fish at Andrew Weissman’s Sand Bar in San Antonio.
It’s hard to believe but it’s true: tomorrow I’ll be leaving again for Italy, just three weeks after our return from our honeymoon there and our move into our new home, a little rental on the northwest side of Austin.
Above: Josh Cross’s Duck burger topped with foie gras at Oloroso in San Antonio.
Life has been so rich and flavorful lately, as the wine world seems to regain its footing and I can only thank my lucky stars for all the interesting projects I’ve got lined up for 2010. It’s a wonderful time for me and Tracie P (née B) but I know that the glow I feel is for the joy that she has brought to my heart. When she smiles at me, it feels as if the whole world smiles at me as well.
Above: A marinara with marinated, fresh anchovies at Doug Horn’s Dough Pizzeria Napoletana in San Antonio.
I feel so fortunate that I’m getting to travel to Italy for the second time this year — and with a group of really cool bloggers. We’ll be posting about our tastings and adventures in the land of Barbera over at the Barbera2010 blog. (Today, we posted an awesome guest spot from McDuff, one of my favorite wine bloggers, who wasn’t able to join us in realtime.)
Above: Alfonso and I enjoyed a bottle of Barbera last night in San Antonio at Il Sogno.
Once upon a time and a very good time it was. I can’t help but thank my lucky stars for this special time in our lives. I’m so happy to be surrounded by loving folks these days and all the good things that are happening work-wise right now. As my friend Slava back in New York used to say, I should “suck a lime.”
But it’s going to be awfully hard to board that plane tomorrow. I know I’ll be back soon but it only gets harder and harder to tell that lovely lady of mine good-bye. I’ll miss her terribly…
All my bags are packed I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin’ it’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’ he’s blowin’ his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die
Oh babe, I hate to go…
Wow, thanks, everyone, for all the wonderful comments and emails about yesterday’s post on dinner in the home of the lovely Bindocci family in Sant’Angelo in Colle (Montalcino, Siena). I thought I’d post a few more photos from the dinner. And thanks, especially, to Stefania and Fabrizio, who so graciously welcomed us into their home. That’s Stefania, above, slicing the chestnut-flour polenta with a string.
The incredible sensual experience of the chestnut-flour polenta is its combination of its sweet, chestnut flavor combined with its inimitable texture. The night we were invited, Fabrizio’s niece was there with her husband. They had just returned from Libya, where they had been living (they’re agricultural engineers and they work to create sustainable farming in the third world). To celebrate their return, Stefania had created this traditional Mt. Amiata menu (she was born in the mountains, while Fabrizio was born on the Orcia River Valley floor).
@BrooklynGuy the delicate but firm-to-the-bite texture of the pork facial glands (almost like candy), which have imparted their flavor to their cooking liquid, combined with the pillowy softness of the polenta was an unforgettable sensorial event in our mouths. The porousness of the polenta proved an ideal receptacle and medium for the rich jus of the offal. The two worked in concert, in a dynamic dialectic that rewarded the senses with its seamless ingenuity.
In another era, the slaughter of a pig was an important event in the familial and societal rhythm of life. While most of the pork was “put up,” as they say here in Texas, in the form of cured thigh and sausage, the offal was consumed in celebration of the good fortune of avere le bestie, as they say in Italian, of having beasts (i.e., livestock) on your estate. One of the coolest things about Il Poggione is that it is a working, integrated farm, where livestock is raised and sent to pasture in fields adjacent to the vineyards and olive groves. The integrated approach, says Fabrizio, is an important element in creating the terroir-driven wines for which their winery is so famous. We paired the 2006 “owner-selection” Rosso di Montalcino with the chesnut-flour polenta and pork facial glands (we served the 07 Rosso di Montalcino by Il Poggione at our wedding reception).
Some of the most memorable meals I’ve had in Tuscany have been centered around pig and boar liver. It’s so important to experience the wines of Montalcino (and Sangiovese in general) in the context of food and pairing. The 2001 Brunello by Il Poggione was such a fantastic wine — a great vintage from a great producer. But the greatest treat was to taste it in the context and flavor “economy” of traditional pairings. The tannin, red fruit, and acidity of Il Poggione’s Brunello, paired with nearly impenetrable richness and deep flavor of the liver, assumed a new ontographical significance, by which, I mean our ability to describe the nature and essence of things.
We ate liver again on the next day of our trip in Bologna… and there was an important reason for that. More on that later…
Please stay tuned and thanks, again, for reading and for the thoughtful comments… :-)
The second night and second dinner of our stay in Tuscany, we had the great pleasure of being invited into the home Stefania and Fabrizio Bindocci in Sant’Angelo in Colle. I’ve known Fabrizio, the winemaker at Tenuta Il Poggione, for many years now and Tracie P and I were thrilled to get to taste his wife’s cooking.
“We’re not having ‘Tuscan’ food,” joked Fabrizio when he invited us. “We’re having ‘mountain’ food,” he said. He met his wife, he told us, when he attended a dance as a young man on Mt. Amiata (to the south of Montalcino and Sant’Angelo in Colle). There were no women in the valley back then, he joked.
Dinner began with a nice light chickpea soup, accompanied by Sbrancato, a Sangiovese rosé produced by Il Poggione.
Next came a dish I’d never had before: chestnut flour polenta, a classic dish of the Tuscan mountains, said Fabrizio and wife Stefania. She used a string to slice the individual portions.
Fabrizio’s son Alessandro authors a blog about Brunello and life in Sant’Angelo, where he has posted about the pigs they raise at Il Poggione. We dressed the chestnut flour polenta with facial glands (above), butchered from the estate-raised pigs.
Next came the true “stick to your ribs” dish: pig liver wrapped in caul fat.
The liver was followed by sausage made from other organs, the darker of the two was spicy.
To my knowledge, Il Poggione was the only producer to make a “riserva” Brunello in 2003, an extremely difficult vintage throughout Europe because of the heat and lack of rain. Brunello di Montalcino does not allow irrigation (not even emergency irrigation). But the elevation of the vineyards and their age (and thus the depth of the roots, which allows the vine to find the water table even in drought years) made it possible for Il Poggione to make a superb expression of Sangiovese despite the growing conditions. This was my first taste of the 03 Riserva, which is the first vintage that the winery has labeled as its “cru” Paganelli (the oldest vineyard on the estate, with vines more than 40 years old, and the source of the clones that inform the estate’s identity). The 03 Paganelli was superb: its fruit was bolder than most vintages I’ve tasted from Il Poggione, but the surprisingly powerful tannin and acidity kept the fruit in check. Very impressive. The 2001? To my palate, that’s one of the greatest vintages for Brunello in recent memory. The wine was unbelievably good, nearly perfect I’d say, a glorious balance of fruit, tannin, and acidity, with many years ahead of it but already showing gorgeously — and what a wonderful opportunity to taste it a stone’s throw from the estate, with the winemaker, paired with his wife’s traditional cuisine!
Winter means fresh chicory as a side dish in Tuscany, red and green chicory, dressed with the estate’s olive oil.
What Tuscan meal would be complete without castagnaccio, a short bread made with chestnut flour, topped with pine nuts and rosemary, for dessert?
Oops, I didn’t mean “Tuscan” food. I meant “mountain” food! ;-)
Thanks, again, Stefania and Fabrizio, for an unforgettable meal…
Maybe it’s the way she grates her cheese,
Or just the freckles on her knees.
Maybe it’s the scallions. Maybe she’s Italian.
I can’t reveal her name but Eggplant is her game.
When my baby cooks her Eggplant,
She don’t read no book.
She’s got a Gioconda kinda of dirty look.
—Michael Franks, “Eggplant,” The Art of Tea, 1976
Lately, life has been brimming over, teeming with some wonderful “firsts.” Our first dance as a wedded couple, our first trip to Italy together, our first Saturday night at home together, our first meals cooked in our new kitchen — whether a quesadilla, a tuna fish sandwich or Tracie P’s killer chicken and dumplings (a wonderful new recipe she clipped from a magazine), every meal feels special and all-the-more flavorful if only because with every meal we christen another piece in our new flatware, dishware, and cookware. Can you see how much my super-fine lady likes her new Cuisinart sauté pan? Perfect for one of her signature dishes, sautéed broccoli raab.
Last night, although exhausted after a weekend of unpacking and hanging photographs and art work (and finally setting up my little home studio), we threw our first dinner party and Tracie P made her first ragù in our new home. Beyond the fact that it is unbelievably delicious, Tracie P’s ragù holds a special place in my heart because when we first started writing each other, in the very early times of our relationship when we were just pen pals, we traded a lot of notes on our respective ragù philosophies… As many of you know, ragù can be a deal-breaker in any love affair! ;-)
She served the ragù, which she made in our new Le Creuset, over penne rigate by Rustichella d’Abruzzo, one of our favorite dried pasta brands. The whole penne rigate (ridged penne) vs. penne lisce (smooth penne) could have also been a deal-breaker but luckily my gorgeous Tracie P and I are of “one mind” on this issue. ;-)
When choosing the colors for our table setting, Tracie P went with our wedding colors: robin egg blue and pomegranate red.
(Btw, some super fun wines were served as well, including the 2007 Villa Bucci Verdicchio dei Castelli di Iesi, paired with appetizers, and a wonderful 2006 Vin de Paille by Vins de Vienne, 100% Marsanne, that we paired with a cheese course for dessert.)
Maybe it’s the way she grates her cheese… I’m just crazy about her… :-)
Above: This is not marijuana. It’s za’atar, a traditional Arabic spice mixture, not only delicious but with magical — miraculous, I might say — properties.
Tracie P likes to tease me: “I can’t take you anywhere,” she laments with a grin on her face, without me striking up conversation with the sommelier, chef, or in this case, the pizzaiolo.
To celebrate our wedding, my friend and client Julio Hernández and his lovely wife Lauren took me and Tracie P out to try a new Italian restaurant and pizzeria on Congress Ave., Quattro Gatti. After taking a bite of my pizza (which was delicious, see below), I couldn’t help compliment the pizzaiolo, whose wood-burning oven was an earshot from our table.
In what was a true una faccia, una razza (one face, one race) moment, he beckoned me over and offered me a taste of his za’atar. The traditional Arabic spice mixture, he said, should be sprinkled over toasted bread that has been drizzled with olive oil. Not only is it delicious, he noted, but it also helps to stimulate the digestion. How can I say this? Let’s just say it helps with your daily “miracle.”
Above: Arabs sprinkle za’atar over a pizza crust or over toasted bread. Being an Ashkenazi Jew, I sprinkled mine this morning over cream cheese spread on my toasted bagel.
Pizzaiolo Melad, an Iraqi raised in Syria, was too kind: he sent me home with a baggie (I can’t resist the term) of za’atar for me and Tracie P to enjoy with breakfast. And I’m here to tell you folks, it works! ;-)
The other good news is that the pizza at Quattro Gatti is fantastic.
Above: We’ll definitely be returning to the newly opened Quattro Gatti for the pizza (that’s the Quattro Stagioni, above). Located smack-dad in the middle of downtown Austin, this place is sure to be one of the hottest tables during the upcoming SXSW music festival. The wine list was more-than fairly priced.
Owner Gianfranco Mastrangelo hails from Campania via Manhattan and he knows his pizza. We loved it: the crust was savory, firm to the bite on the outside, and slightly moist and chewy toward the center of the pie (and his house-baked bread was excellent, as well).
A Neapolitan, an Arab, and a Jew walk into a pizzeria… and the Jew leaves with the za’atar…
Thanks for reading and buon weekend, ya’ll!
Today finds me “in the market” in Dallas… in other words, meeting with buyers, sommeliers, and a winemaker (you will not believe who! but I’ll reveal that later… let’s just say that I’ll be tasting a 100-point Parker wine today…).
Posting hastily but wanted to share the good news that I’ve been asked to be the official blogger for Barbera Meeting 2010 in Asti (Piedmont): four days of tasting and meeting with Barbera producers, March 8-11.
But the really super cool thing is that the PR firm who’s organized the tastings has asked me to bring some of my best blogging buddies and friends along for a veritable Barbera blogfest!
Not that I needed ANOTHER blog but here’s the blog I’ve created just for the event. The whole affair is pretty darn blogicious, if I do say so myself! And I am completely geeked to taste through scores and scores of wines with some of my favorite bloggers in the English-speaking world…
In other news…
I can’t reveal the super-secret identities of the folks who had me over for dinner last night but suffice to say she’s a nationally renowned food writer and he’s a famous music writer.
Steamed giant asparagus and vinaigrette (with home-baked white and brown bread) and roast herbed chicken and potatoes were fantastic but the coolest thing was that he let all of the guests call out requests from his music library.
Mine was: “Thelonious Monk, 1957, New York City.” Famous French music writer then turned me on to a super cool recording I’d never heard before, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall in 1957. I know the Monk canon well and to hear different (new-to-me) versions of some of his classic was a real treat… and it paired nicely with the 1999 Tertre Roteboeuf.
I think Right Bank always goes better with Monk, don’t you? Miles? Definitely, Left Bank… ;-)
Thanks for reading!
A chair is still a chair, even when there’s no one sittin’ there
But a chair is not a house and a house is not a home
When there’s no one there to hold you tight
And no one there you can kiss goodnight…
A flute is still a chair, even when there’s no Champange in there…
I’m not sure why I woke up with a sad song in my head this morning: today is one of the happiest days in a long, long time… even in a month and a new year that has been filled with moments of joy that I would have never imagined in my lifetime.
Last night, Tracie P and I opened a bottle of Champagne to celebrate our first dinner and evening at home… our very first night in our first home together… our very first sip from our Waterford crystal flutes, a first bite from our Charlotte flatware and Portmeirion “Sophie Conran White” plates…
A desk is still a desk…
The joy of this moment doesn’t erase the challenges we face: a dear and beloved family friend who is dealing with serious health issues, a misunderstanding and a useless quarrel with another good friend, and the financial and professional mountains Tracie P and I have yet to climb…
As I sit at my desk for the first time and sip my morning coffee (out of our new coffee cups), as Tracie P slumbers on an early Sunday here in Austin, I’m taking a moment to breath in the magic of this moment, this first sip of coffee, and this first blog post at my “new” desk… in our new home…
I love you so very much Tracie P and I love our new (and first!) home together… With you by my side, this little, humble house is so much more than just a house…
Thanks for reading and letting me share this moment with ya’ll… Buona domenica…
Just like people, restaurants have “good days” and “bad days.” The night we went to Trattoria il Pozzo in Sant’Angelo in Colle (Montalcino), it was one of those off-the-charts good days (and not every meal we had in Italy was worth writing home about, believe me). I’ve been going there since 1989 when I first began to “frequent” Montalcino (the fons origo of my passion for Italian wine). Paola (in the kitchen) and Franca (front of the house) Binarelli have owned and run Trattoria il Pozzo since 2001 and honestly, the food there has never been better. It was just one of those magical culinary nights, when everything came together just perfectly. I’ll let Tracie P’s superb photos do the talking…
Salt-less bread crostini topped with liver and spleen (the chestnut-colored spread, classic Tuscan), chopped mushrooms, and tomato (not so traditional but now part of the pan-Italian culinary lexicon).
Salt-less bread soup, drizzled (rigorously) with extra-virgin olive oil by Il Poggione (more on Il Poggione later).
Pici (long, hand-rolled noodles) with sausage, mushroom, and tomato (this was UNBELIEVABLY good).
Pici with wild boar ragù (the boar meat was so tender and flavorful and the combination of textures and flavors was sublime).
We had to sneak a peak in the kitchen since they were still rolling out the pici that evening.
One of the sine qua non elements of the bistecca fiorentina is that it must be charred on top — to heat the meat on the bone without cooking it through.
Need I say more? To look at the meat you’d think it was over cooked. But the secret is that the beast is slaughtered young. Older than a calf but still relatively young and so the meat has a pink rather than blood-red color.
Fried artichokes. Franca told me that Italian celebrity chef Gianfranco Vissani once complained that they had served these with lemon wedges. So no more lemon wedges!
The chicory was at once bitter like Tuscan dirt and sweet like Tuscan heaven.
The 2004 Brunello di Montalcino by the dearly departed Gianni Brunelli, one of the great Tuscan restaurateurs of our lifetime. Beautiful acidity, gorgeous fruit, and man, the combination of the red fruit flavors of the wine and its acidity against the fat and flesh of the steak was better than… well, actually, it wasn’t better than… it was our honeymoon after all! ;-)
Ristorante Il Pozzo
53024 Montalcino (SI) – Piazza Del Pozzo, 2
tel: 0577 844015
closed Tuesdays
You shall learn how salt is the taste/of another man’s bread… Cacciaguida to Dante, Paradiso 17, 58-9.
Do Bianchi