Italy, Day 6, 6/20/2008

Special guest post!

As Toby was suffering from his regular vacation illness (it first struck in New Orleans, then Prague and Munich, and now Italy), I faced our first homecooked Italian meal alone. We went to Sulmona to visit Fabrizio, a very distant cousin of mine, and arrived to find he was stuck in America. Even from America, though, he arranged our hotel room and generously footed the bill! Luckily there were other relatives to show us around. His sister Elisabetta invited us over for dinner cooked by their mother Lucia. Lucia is quite the cook (well, maybe just an average Italian one given my experience with the Italian cuisine).

Upon stepping foot in their apartment, I was reminded of the Italian custom of harassment (it’s at least a custom for the old Italian women I've met in Sulmona). They (mostly Lucia, and only in Italian) repeatedly harassed me for not knowing Italian (‘why hasn’t your mother taught you, even though you’ve been an ocean away struggling with the Hungarian language?’), for the ridiculousness of the English language (as it’s clearly my fault it’s written one way and spoken another), for my brother’s apparent lack of interest in Italy (which was evident to Lucia, though not to me, from the fact that he wasn’t traveling with me), and even for my father’s failure to master Italian. But I was most frequently harassed for not eating enough. Granted, it’s wonderful food, but there’s a limit to how much your body can take. So, while they pressured me to eat more, I tried to figure out how to avoid joining Toby on the sick bed.

Despite the ridicule, the meal was quite pleasant. We first had gato di patate (which is not ‘cat of potato’ as I first interpreted, but the French gateau, not that I’m familiar with that). It was like a fritatta, but, to my knowledge, eggless. It had a base of potatoes (of course), some kind of cheese (if Toby had been there you’d probably know what kind), prosciutto and mortadella. It was delicious, though quite creamy and filling. It was followed by one of my Italian favorites, prosciutto e melone. The homemade, natural meal was concluded by Magnum ice cream bars (a strange choice in my opinion in the country of gelato). My accomplishment for the evening was getting away with not finishing my ice cream bar.--Giovanna

Italy, Day 5, 6/19/2008

• breakfast: the usual
• lunch: cheese; sandwich with bresaola, eggplant, pecorino, eggplant, and arugula
• dinner at Hotel Pinguino: gnocchi with tomato sauce; roast beef; roasted potatoes; roasted peppers; crema Catalana

The owner of our hotel in Pescasseroli was a wonderful woman who helped us out with everything, despite barely speaking English. She drove us out into the Abruzzo National Park and picked us up there at the end of the day. In between, we hiked all over the park. We stopped in the town of Citadella at lunch for sandwiches and a plate with two types of cheese. The first was forgettable, but the other one was sharp and tangy and came slathered with honey.

We ate dinner at our hotel, where the friendly owner cooked for us and a huge group of children. The gnocchi were pleasantly pillowy, and the beef was juicy and tender.

Addresses:
Hotel Pinguino
via Collacchi, 2
67032 Pescasseroli (AQ)

Italy, Day 4, 6/18/2008

• breakfast: pastry, cappuccino, fruit
• lunch: bruschette with tapenade, roasted peppers, roasted pepper dip, sausage, and ham; olives; Campari and soda
• dinner: cheese plate; pasta alla chitarra; ravioli with eggplant in tomato sauce; broccoli; tiramisù

Our day's trip was from L'Aquila to Pescasseroli, and to get there we had to switch buses in Avezzano, a town that I'll always remember for its ugliness. (Ugliness stands out in Italy.) We found a bar for lunch while we waited for our bus. Behind the counter they had some nice-looking plates of toast, spreads, and focaccia. When I ordered one, the bartender said something about "un aperitivo" and when we shook our heads, she fetched an English speaker who thought about the translation for a second, looked confused, and then asked us if we wanted an aperitif. Apparently, the plate came with one, because he insisted that we have one. We brought the plate and my Campari and soda (it came in a pre-mixed bottle, like a soda) back to our table. Before we had sat down, the bartender brought us a bowl of olives. As we ate, more and more things were delivered to our table. First there were some extra pieces of focaccia, then some extra toasts, and finally an orange dip that tasted like roasted red peppers. We tried to turn down each of these when they brought them since we worried we'd be charged for each of them. When we were done, Giovanna went to the register to pay. The total price? Four euros, including the drink.

After an afternoon hiking to the Castel Mancino--or actually, an afternoon wondering around Pescasseroli looking for the trail that went there--we were hungry. We found a restaurant whose menu was scribbled on a piece of graph paper out front. The cheese plate we started with had two hard cheeses and some jam, and this satisfied our immediate hunger. Giovanna's pasta was really terrific: a bright, fruity tomato sauce on top of ravioli stuffed with eggplant. My pasta was good, too. It's traditional to Abruzzo, as I read in many tourist pamphlets. Here's an article from the New York Times about it. Each strand of pasta was long and rectangular with funny little bumps. It was wonderfully chewy, something I've never been able to achieve in my own homemade pasta. The sauce was made from oil, pancetta, and an enormous amount of pepper. It didn't look like much but it was incredibly flavorful. Last we had some broccoli, which was served as its own course because I hadn't quite figured out all the details of Italian dining. (More about that later.) A broccoli course is silly, but it was delicious, garlicky broccoli.

This restaurant was tiny and completely abandoned. Unfortunately, I have no idea what its name was or where it was, and I cannot direct you to this undiscovered gem. But if you're in Pescasseroli and see a tiny, empty restaurant with a handwritten menu, you should go there.

Italy, Day 3, 6/17/2008

• breakfast: cappuccino and pastry; fruit
• lunch: porchetta sandwich
• dinner: prosciutto and melon; pizza with olives, anchovies, oregano, tomato, mozzarella; pizza with tomato sauce and raw cherry tomatoes, arugula, mozzarella, and corn from Pizzeria Ristorante da Nonna Cristina

Porchetta--a whole pig deboned and roasted on a spit--is the perfect combination of pig parts: juicy meat for depth, herb-scented fat for richness, and crispy skin for, well, crispiness. Some arugula would have been nice on the sandwich to cut into the porchetta's saltiness, but the place in the market where I got the sandwich only had meat and rolls.

The pizza at dinner wasn't particularly good. The memorable thing about the meal was how the France-Italy soccer game had transformed the restaurant. A projector beamed the game onto a wall, and the patrons had moved their chairs to the same side of the tables to watch it. We left in the middle of the second half. The waitstaff thought we were crazy.

A church in L'Aquila

Addresses:
Pizzeria Ristorante Da Nonna Cristina
Via Paganica, 36
67100 L'Aquila (AQ)

Italy, Day 2, 6/16/2008

• breakfast: cappuccino and brioche
• lunch: spinach and mozzarella sandwich
• dinner from Ristorante Ernesto: plate of local cured meat; lamb with saffron and artichokes; saffron pudding; fruit

On the metro as we were going to the bus station, we saw a large family speaking Hungarian. After a few minutes, I got up the courage to talk to them in Hungarian. They were bemused by the sight of two Americans speaking Hungarian in Italy. Two of them turned out to speak excellent English, which made communication easier. They were actually from Transylvania, not Hungary. Their summary of Rome compared to eastern Europe: "It's a different world here."

We bought our bus tickets and sat down in a cafe for lunch. I got a sandwich with beautiful cooked spinach and mozzarella. The spinach had some red pepper flakes mixed in with it. Giovanna had a sandwich with prosciutto, pecorino romano, and lettuce, which reminded me that pecorino has plenty of uses besides grating.

We spent the afternoon walking around L'Aquila on the routes designated by our tourist map, which were designed to show us all the sights. These were mostly churches from the 14th-16th centuries, along with a lovely 13th century fountain.

The Fountain of the 99 Spouts

We started dinner at Ristorante Ernesto with a wooden tray of cured meat, including a dense, black liver sausage that tasted alternatively bad, good, and then bad again, as Giovanna said. Our next course was lamb in a lemony sauce with saffron, rosemary, and artichoke hearts, which tasted as good as it sounds. Alongside this, we had beautiful tomato wedges, pink tinged with green, served with olive oil and basil. My dessert was basically panna cotta that was bright yellow, with some currants on top. The fruit plate wasn't great. But besides it and the liver sausage (which I'm sure some people would have liked a lot), everything we had was terrific.

Addresses:
Ristorante Ernesto
Piazza Palazzo, 22
67100 L'Aquila (AQ)

Italy, Day 1, 6/15/2008

• lunch: pizza with zucchini; pizza with mushrooms and sausage
• dinner from Fratelli la Bufala: stewed buffalo with arugula and mozzarella; pasta with a creamy tomato-basil sauce and two kinds of buffalo milk cheese

The most exciting part of our day's transportation was the taxi ride from the Fiumicino airport. On two-lane roads, our taxi driver invented a third lane for himself. Whenever a red light stopped the flow of traffic, he used his imaginary lane to skip to the front of the stopped cars. When the light changed, he sped ahead of them.

After we saw the ruins at Ostia Antica, which were so extensive we got lost in them, we went to a pizzeria for lunch. They sold their pizza by the weight. Our two slices were covered with nicely charred mozzarella. One had zucchini on it and the other had mushrooms and sausages. Neither had tomatoes. The crust was thin, oily, and crunchy. The pizza wasn't especially good for Italy nor was it especially fresh. Nevertheless, it's probably better than any pizza you could find in Hungary. The vegetables in particular were delicious.

A mosaic in Ostia Antica

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. The neighborhood didn't have many restaurants, but we found one that looked nice whose specialty was water buffalo. All the meat on the menu was water buffalo; all the dairy came from water buffalo milk, including the ice cream. The stewed buffalo meat was lean but still tender, with a flavor like beef but stronger. Apparently Hungarians like it too, though I never saw it available there at any butchers or restaurants.

When I looked up the address of Fratelli la Bufala, I discovered it's a big chain that even has a location in Miami. See, even chains are good in Italy!

Addresses:
Fratelli la Bufala
Via delle Antille, 41
00121 Rome

Meggyes Muffins

Recently I've seen a lot of fruit that had previously existed to me only as names. At our market there have been gooseberries, red currants, and the star of this post, sour cherries. I bought some of them out of curiosity and discovered that they are rather sour. As I was awash in sweet cherries, I didn't want to eat the sour ones raw. And so, I made muffins. I used my normal oatmeal muffin recipe, with one exception: I separated the eggs and beat the whites, and I think it made the muffins especially light and fluffy. This makes twelve normal-sized muffins.

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tbs. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 pound sour cherries
• 1/4 cup (4 tbs.) butter, melted
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, separated

Preheat the oven to 375 and butter a muffin tin.

Combine all the dry ingredients except for one tablespoon of sugar and mix. Mix in the butter, the milk, and the two egg yolks.

Pit the sour cherries, put them in a bowl, and combine them with the remaining tablespoon of sugar. Add them to the batter.

Beat the egg whites till they hold soft peaks, and fold them into the batter. Put the batter into the muffin tin and bake until the muffins are brown on top, a bit more than 20 minutes.