Category Archives: de cibo

A Roman sine qua non: la pajata

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No stay in Rome is complete without a serving of rigatoni con la pajata: rigatoni tossed in a tomato sauce made with the small intestines of an unweaned calf, in other words, a calf that has been fed exclusively with its mother’s milk (today, in the post-mad-cow world, it is made with lamb intestines, as in the photo above). When the animal is slaughtered, the intestines are tied at either end. As the intestines cook, the rennet in the walls of the organ coagulates the milk and makes cheese. The resulting sauce has an inimitable creamy consistency… simply delicious. Last night at Perilli in Testaccio, I paired with a 1999 Taurasi Radici, which was showing beautifully. Ben had taglioni cacio e pepe and the owner also gave us some carbonara, which he makes with rigatoni instead of long noodles.

Running to catch my plane back to Berlin but wanted also to share this image of a 1992 Gambero Rosso Guide to the Wines of Italy being recycled, snapped in Testaccio. It’s good to know that the guide is being put to good use.

In other news…

The father of Brunello di Montalcino, Franco Biondi-Santi, has proposed a change in the Rosso di Montalcino DOC that would allow for other grapes besides Sangiovese. Read about it here.

Italy day 2: desperately seeking Sangiovese

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Above: in my book, penne should be rigate di rigore (obligatorily ridged as opposed to smooth). Otherwise, the pasta doesn’t absorb the sauce properly. Yesterday at Il Poggione in Sant’Angelo in Colle (Montalcino), we were served penne from Gragnano dressed with a rich ragù.

Yesterday, My Life Italian wrote a post about that “epiphany” wine where it all got started. Wine, she wrote, is a “stained-glass window to the world, a way to touch another culture… a way to travel that is much more visceral than vicarious.” The post got me thinking about my own “epiphany” wine.

Above: lunch began with classic Tuscan antipasti — prosciutto toscano, salame, chicken liver and spleen crostini, and a slice of saltless Tuscan bread drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

It was nearly twenty years ago that I first came to Montalcino, to stay in my friend and composer Michael Convertino’s apartment in Bagno Vignoni, a small village in the south of the township, where a Roman hot springs bath still dominates the main piazza. I became friends with Riccardo Marcucci and his brothers Leonardo and Andrea. Riccardo ran the wine program at his family’s hotel and he took it upon himself to teach me about Tuscany’s grand winemaking traditions. It sounds unbelievable now but every night we opened bottles of Sassicaia, Solaia, Ornellaia, Tignanello, Pergole Torte, and every other Bordeaux-inspired wine under the Tuscan sun. The year was 1989, the Super Tuscan craze had not yet begun in the U.S., and the wines didn’t command the prices they do today.

Above: next came stewed wild boar and beans. Not very photogenic but delicious.

But my “stained-glass window” wine was the wine their father Augusto used to make. 100% Sangiovese vinified in a natural style (natural yeasts and no temperature control) and aged in large old oak casks. I’ll never forget the night (it was 1994 by then) that my then band was invited to dine at Augusto’s home on the hill above the village. We ate fried wild boar liver (from road-kill boar that Augusto had collected and frozen), drank Sangiovese, smoked and told jokes late into the night. Augusto couldn’t understand a word we were saying but he laughed and clowned with us all through the evening. We played a show the next night in the town piazza.

Above: the stars of lunch were a 1997 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva and an 18-month pecorino. What a fantastic pairing. We tasted the ’97 side-by-side with the 2003. Both vintages were warmer than usual in Montalcino. The 2003 is still very tight and will need many years in bottle to come around. The ’97 was showing beautifully. It will be great to come back to the ’03 in 5-10 years or so.

The same way a junkie seeks forever to recreate that same first high… I’ve been looking for the flavors and aromas of Augusto’s Sangiovese since that day.

Epilogue: in May, Eric le Rouge and I had a chance to taste Il Poggione going back to the 1970s. I’ll do a post on our tasting when I get back Stateside.

Italy day 1: Trattoria Il Pozzo, one of my all-time favs

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Above: twilight in the Val d’Orcia (Orcia River Valley) is stunning. The sun was setting as my friend Ben and I arrived yesterday evening.

Whenever I come to Montalcino, Trattoria Il Pozzo in Sant’Angelo in Colle is at the top of my list. It’s one of the few classic trattorie that has remained unchanged since I first came here nearly twenty years ago. The cuisine is traditional Val d’Orcia fare, no frills and no fuss. And while the arista di maiale (the roast rack of pork loin) is excellent at Il Pozzo, one of the highlights of any trip to Montalcino is always the restaurant’s fiorentina, the Tuscan porterhouse (made from gigantic Chianina cows slaughtered young).

My dinner at Il Pozzo always begins with an assortment of crostini: chicken liver and spleen, tomato, and caramelized onions.

Pinci or pici are traditional hand-rolled long noodles, made with just flour, salt, and water. I like mine with ragù.

Ben had his with mushrooms. Also very good…

We had our choice of steaks: I would have liked to order the large one with the tenderloin, but in my book it’s the striploin that counts (more flavorful) and I didn’t want to overdo it on my first night in Montalcino.

Now that’s one MEAN PIECE OF STEAK!!! I’ve been to Il Pozzo with winemakers in the past and the ladies who own and run it are always cool about bringing your own wine. But last night we just did a simple old-school, food-friendly “locally produced” Sangiovese.

Trattoria Il Pozzo
Piazza del pozzo, 2
Sant’Angelo in Colle
53024 – Montalcino (SI) Italia
Tel. 0577.844015
closed Tuesdays

****

I am currently blogging from Le Logge, a classic Montalcino mainstay, and the ONLY place I can find to get online in this town!

I can’t find a listing on Google for Le Logge (man, this place is old school, but how cool is that, that they have free wifi? Some German girl at an enoteca down the road overheard me asking about internet and hipped me to it. There’s no sign or anything.).

So I’m just reading the address from the street: 1 Via Giacomo Matteotti.

That’s 2005 Canalicchio di Sopra in my glass. I think that Canalicchio may have declassified some of its Brunello in 05 (a warm vintage) and this wine is drinking really well right now.

Bees in Berlin

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Above: Céline Dijon (Verena Wiesendanger) and Bonnie Day (Emily Welsch) had so much fun dancing the night before in Frankfurt an der Oder that they had to recreate their dance moves the next morning on the train back to Berlin.

Sunday, Nous Non Plus took the train back to Berlin where I spent the afternoon and evening with my childhood friend Noah Isenberg, who’s on sabbatical in Berlin this year (he’s a professor of German), his wife Melanie Rehak, and their gregarious son Jules. The four of us had a leisurely stroll in their neighborhood in Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, ate a sandwich and drank a Radeburger, and hung out at their favorite playground, or spielplatz as Jules likes to say.

Above: there are so many bees in Berlin at the end of the summer that shopkeepers have no choice but let them have the run of the place.

Noah’s guide to Weimar cinema is to be released later this year and Melanie has just completed a book on a favorite restaurant of hers in Brooklyn (the name of which I cannot reveal! to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

After Jules was put to bed, we stayed up late, talking and talking and sipping a nice, very food-friendly Zweigelt, which weighed in at 13% alcohol and paired well with a much-needed, simple and wholesome repast of roast chicken, potatoes, and cauliflower.

Today, I leave for Montalcino… stay tuned…

Above: Radeburger and a cheese sandwich really hit the spot on a lazy summer afternoon in Berlin.

Above: people are really into vintage scooters in Berlin.

Above: Jules really loves this über-cool pirate ship in his favorite spielplatz.

Lunch in Poland

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Above: Nous Non Plus was reunited yesterday afternoon at the train station in Berlin and headed down to Frankfurt an der Oder to check into our hotel and sound check for our show tonight.

After sound check in Frankfurt an der Oder and a good night sleep (much needed), we walked across the bridge to Słubice, Poland. What a thrill for me to return to the country where most of my great-grandparents and a lot of great aunts and uncles were born (of course, that was another time and they all left because their lives were pretty hard, pretty much all of them before the Russian Revolution). My last name, Parzen (which comes to me through my grandmother’s second marriage, not through kinship), was the name of a shtetl outside Warsaw.

We found an awesome little smoke-filled place in the heart of the local market (the bazar) called Smakosz. Kielbasa, schnitzel, and skewers of roast pork cubes alternated with lard and onions, and a variety of pickled cabbage salads. Seems we found the best place in the market because it was packed. If you ever make it to Słubice, definitely check it out. The food was fantastic and the beer cold.

Above: the facade at Smakosz. The girl behind the counter told me they have another location in town.

Above: chanterelle mushrooms are in season and many vendors had them for sale.

Above: the ladies in the butcher shop had a laugh when I asked if I could photograph the sausage.

Above: a view from the Oder river that divides Słubice and Frankfurt.

Above: Jean-Luc Retard aka Dan Crane aka Bjorn Turoque really enjoyed his lunch in Poland. Dan’s nickname in the band is “Snackboy Junior” or just “Snack” because of his propensity to snack. He arrived in Germany from Finland where he had MC’d the International Air Guitar Championships (I’m not kidding).

Holy tomato

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My flight for Berlin leaves shortly but I couldn’t take off without posting on my dinner last night with my buddy David Schachter at Il Grano in West Los Angeles. During the summer, Chef Salvatore Marino (from Naples) does an all heirloom tomato menu using fruit he grows in his yard in Hancock Park (Los Angeles). David and I did six small-plate dishes featuring the sweet solanaceae. Highlights were chef Salvatore’s tomato risotto with candied lemon peel and his “PBT”, a prosciutto, burrata, and tomato sandwich served on toasted white bread. The crudo was also excellent and the sepia-ink grissini were pretty darn sexy.

Chef Salvatore rightly calls his menu the “sagra del pomodoro” or tomato festival.

Salvatore’s playful take on the BLT, his PBT.

David brought 2004 Silex and I brought La Chablisienne 2004 Chablis Premier Cru. Both wines paired well with the acidity and sweetness in the many different types of tomatoes we tasted.

The sagra del pomodoro continues for a few more weeks at Il Grano. Definitely worth checking out.

Il Grano
11359 Santa Monica Blvd
between Purdue and Corinth
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 477-7886

Brooklyn Guy in da house at Bahia

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Jon and Jayne brought 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris for our dinner with Brooklyn Guy and Brooklyn Lady in La Jolla.

When Brooklyn Guy and Brooklyn Lady sat down with me over ceviche tostadas, camaronillas (deep-fried corn tortillas stuffed with shrimp), grilled mahi mahi and battered and fried pollock tacos the other night at Bahia Don Bravo the other night in Bird Rock (La Jolla), we mused about the fact that even though we’d never met, we feel like we know each other well from reading each other’s blogs and getting to know each other’s palates. As it turns out, Brooklyn Lady is from San Diego and went to high school in La Jolla like me (she at Bishops, me at La Jolla High). I was geeked to meet Brooklyn Guy (the masked man of our bloggy blog world), as were Jon and Jayne, Robin, and my wino buddy John Yelenosky. We’re all fans of his blog and we had gathered a pretty cool collection of wines for the occasion.

The Rully was showing exceedingly well and its lightness was great with the fish tacos.

Highlights were the 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris (brought by Jon and Jayne), a killer 2005 Rully Premier Cru Les Cloux by Jacqueson (Yelenosky), a smoking 2000 Dessilani Ghemme Riserva (my contribution, drank so friggin’ well, if I do say so myself), and not to be outdone, Brooklyn Guy showed up with a bottle of 1996 Fleury, one of his favorite grower champagnes — simply off-the-charts good.

I ventured back into the kitchen and poured Dora a glass of the 96 Fleury.

Brooklyn Guy, Brooklyn Lady, and I actually had a pretty heavy talk about life, relationships, and marriage. He and I had never met in person but he’s been a very generous friend, often sending me notes of encouragement and moral support when he could sense unease in my life through reading my blog. It’s one of the most amazing things about blogging: by sharing our thoughts and palates, we somehow form meaningful bonds, woven (thanks to the dynamic medium) into the human fabric of experience in an entirely new way. You might think that friendships born of blogging would be superficial, but as it turns out those ties often reveal themselves to be more significant than those forged in other spheres of our lives.

It’s a small world after all…

Lifeguards and tattoos, classic beachtown culture at Bahia Don Bravo in sleepy La Jolla. Roberto and Salvador have been really cool about me bringing my own wine to Bahia but we really outdid ourselves this time: I mean, come on, 1996 Fleury at Bahia???!!! Awesome… They both tasted with us, as did Dora.

I may not be a rock star part II and a killer Rosso di Montepulciano

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From the “I may not be a rock star but sometimes I get to hang out with rock stars” department…

Above: Michael Andrews has become one of Hollywood’s hippest producers and film composers. He recently produced Inara George’s An Invitation, a collaboration with legendary arranger, songwriter, and producer Van Dyke Parks. That’s boogaloo and jazz master Robert Walter behind Mike.

Living in Los Angeles has been really fun. I’ve been catching up with so many of my old places, checking out new ones, digging the city where I lived for so many years, and reconnecting with old friends.

Last week Dan Crane (aka Jean-Luc Retard, vox and bass, Nous Non Plus) threw a little party for our friend Inara George, whose An Invitation was just released by Everloving Records. The album is fascinating and the tracks, arranged by the legendary Van Dyke Parks, were produced at the historic Sunset Sound studios by my childhood friend Mike Andrews. Check out the liner notes at Inara’s myspace. I have to say, I’m a fan: it’s thrilling to hear contemporary music with orchestral arrangements and Inara’s writing has never been better. My favorite track is “Don’t Let It Get You” but the album is really a cohesive arc of characters, moods, and musical colors draped in a gorgeous orchestral score. Listen to it in one sitting.

Dan (above, center) prepared a great menu:

  • Pierre Robert and Petit Basque cheeses
  • Arugula salad with grilled figs, goat cheese, toasted almonds and fresh mint lemon vinaigrette
  • Five-spice rubbed pork chops with orange marmalade glaze
  • Couscous with pine nuts, cinnamon, raisins and parsley
  • Grilled fennel, zucchini and italian yellow squash with fresh thyme
  • Fresh berries with limoncello mascarpone cream

    • And he had asked me to do the wines. Standouts were a 2007 Tocai Friulano by Venica and Venica,* with great acidity and fresh fruit flavors to pair with arugula salad, and a 2006 Rosso di Montepulciano by Sanguineto, which went great with Dan’s killer pork chops. My buddy Lance at Wine House recently turned me on to Sanguineto and it has catapulted to the top of the list of my current favorite red wines. It’s made from Prugnolo Gentile (the name of the Sangiovese clone used in Montepulciano) with smaller amounts of Canaiolo and Mammolo grapes (the Rosso di Montepulciano appellation was created in 1989 and appellation regulations for both Rosso and Vino Nobile allow for the blending of Cannaiolo and other varieties in the wine). The wine is brilliantly traditional in style (aged in large, old oak barrels), with great acidity, beautiful red fruit flavors, and just the right amount of tannin to give it some backbone. Both the Tocai and the Rosso di Montepulciano retail for about $20. ($20 is the new $10, btw.)

    In our high-school days, Mike and I used to enjoy playing Beatles songs. I had to pinch myself: there I was singing and strumming, “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” and “Here, There, and Everywhere,” accompanied by Inara, Mike, Dan, and Robert Walter (probably best known for his work with Greyboy Allstars but also an amazing avant-garde jazz cat).

    Life could be worse…

    Hauling all the stuff you have from one place to the other side
    Humming all the notes you heard in no particular order
    …
    You’re coming out, you bought the ticket
    …
    Don’t let it get you…

    * Producers of Tocai Friulano are no longer allowed to label their Tocai Friulano as such and so they write “Friulano” these days. Some years ago, the Hungarian government petitioned the EC (European Commission), asking it to disallow the use of “Tocai Friulano”: the homonymous Tocai created confusion in the marketplace with regard to their Tokaj (a toponym and appellation name), claimed the Hungarians, who ultimately prevailed. I continue to say “Tocai Friulano” and the Hungarians can kiss my ass.

    Click here to read the EU press release on the court’s ruling and then click on the second release, “Opinion of the Advocate General in the case C-347/03” for a PDF.

    From one French extreme to another in Hollywood

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    Above: oxidized Brin de Chèvre (Menu Pineau) by Puzelat at Lou on Vine.

    There is more interesting wine in Los Angeles than the skeptic in me expected to find here. This week found me at Lou on Vine, a fantastic natural wine bar located next to a Thai Massage parlor in a strip mall on the corner of Melrose and Vine. Lou is my new favorite Southland hangout and I’ll be devoting a post to it soon. Sommelier David poured me a glass of super stinky, excellent 2006 Menu Pineau — a rare Loire variety — by natural winemaker Puzelat. Its initial nose of nail polish remover (noted my friend and Nous Non Plus’ manager John Mastro) gave way to nutty and fruit flavors. I really dug this wine, as did John.

    Above: halibut with bacon, sorrel and gribiche paired nicely with the Corton-Charlemagne generously opened by David Schachter.

    Yesterday delivered the other extreme in the spectrum of French viticulture with a 2005 Corton-Charlemagne by Jadot, corked by my friend and collector David Schachter at AOC, one of Tinseltown’s wine-centric mainstays. This was one of the most gorgeous expressions of Chardonnay I’ve ever tasted and whatever minerality it may have lost in the warm vintage was made up for by a wide range of fruit flavors that revealed themselves over the course of the evening (I reserved a glass to drink at the end of the night). The restaurant seemed a little off (a “B+ evening” for the venue, said David) but the wine service was excellent and I definitely want to check it out again. He also opened a 1999 Cascina Francia by Conterno. It was very tight but opened up nicely.

    Life in the City of Angels seems to be defined by extremes like these. So far, so good…

    Per Bacco! The virtual sommelier

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    Last night found Mr. Bianchi on the floor of Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego, where I’ve been working as a sommelier on Friday and Saturday nights (we’ve been having a lot of fun with the wine program down there). During service, I received a text from a college friend, Beth, who was dining at Perbacco* in San Francisco with her boyfriend (they live in Santa Barbara): “What wine should we order?” I slipped into the back office, went online, and within moments was viewing the wine list. I’ve never dined at Perbacco, but I have to say I was impressed with the carta dei vini, both for its breadth and the reasonable prices. There were a number of excellent options. Massolino 1998 Barolo Rionda (left, photographed by Beth using her phone), I wrote back, “have the sommelier taste it for you and then have her/him decant it.” It was a romantic getaway for them and they wanted to drink something memorable. At 10:50, she texted me back: “Loved it!” 1998 is one of those “sleeper” vintages, often overshadowed by 97 (overrated but very good), 96 (one of the greatest in recent memory for Langa, still too tight for their palates), and 99 (also a classic Langa vintage). 98s can drink really well right now and so I knew with a little aeration Beth and her beau would dig it (and I wanted the onus of tasting the wine to lie on a sommelier since she is a wine lover, not a pro). Gauging from their list, I’m sure that the somms at Perbacco are top-flight folks. But wouldn’t it be cool if everyone could text a “virtual sommelier” from their table and get a personalized wine recommendation? Hhhhmmm…

    *Perbacco! or per Bacco! is a euphemistic blasphemy, for Bacchus’ [sake]!, akin to our for goodness’ sake! It’s used to express surprise or wonderment. Vietti makes a Langhe Nebbiolo called Perbacco. It’s a declassified Barolo, winemaker Luca Currado told me. He uses it as a “loss leader,” a wine that he can sell at a lower price point to turn people on to his brand. The 2004 was insanely good and the 05 — on the list at Jaynes — is also showing really well right and represents one of the best values on any wine list.