blogfromafar

Betty Nadalini inspired us. We tasted this at her house in Tuscany earlier this month, found the special zucchini-coring tool in Trieste, and tonight we’re trying it at home. You can use a simple apple corer instead of the zucchini tool, we just loved this one and show it in a potted plant because we bought it in a hardware store.

To make the stuffed zucchini, core out the middle. Then saute finely diced shallots, carrots, celery, garlic, and some of the cored zuccini in a wonderful extra-virgin olive oil. Afterwards, put in a bowl, add Italian breadcrumbs and cheese, stuff the cored zucchini, then bake to warm in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until warmed through. Savor, and enjoy!

What was it about buying an organic chicken at the store that made me more cognizant of its life?  Almost given in vain, this chicken languished on the shelf of our suburban supermarket until today, the Last Day and was offered at 50% off the going rate of $20.  I bit, and was glad to take home a chicken that (I hoped) had had some sort of life.  

I took it home, and began preparing it – washing it, noticing there were still some tail feather stems left in (odd).  As I worked, the body felt heavy, the wings felt like arms, not ready to be folded back underneath, as in the recipe instructions.  (more…)

  Mother Nature’s Easter Eggs come in all shapes and sizes (see if you can find the turkey and goose eggs in this picture!).   Just for Easter, Flavors From Afar is taking orders for dozens of all-pastel, all-Araucana eggs such as those pictured above.  The eggs come from Fruth Farms in East Texas (click here for more information) and emanate from chickens who live normal lives, feeding on insects and natural grains.  The result?  An egg with an “eggier” taste and bright orange yolks.  A warning:  after tasting these eggs, you may no longer be able to order eggs in a restaurant.  The flavor simply isn’t the same.

To make your own all-natural Easter Egg dye, follow Caroline Fruth’s directions: (more…)

OlioCapitale, Trieste, Italy March 6-9 2009

This post first appeared in The Gourmet Retailer Blog Bites on March 20.

As gourmet retailers, it seems to us that we could spend the entire year at trade shows. There are several each month, each one clamoring for our attention. We both need and want to go: to get new ideas and inspiration, particularly in these troubling times. In addition to the shows stateside, there are conventions overseas as well, where you can potentially meet producers directly and get a sense of the environment in which they are produced. Is it worth the trip?

We recently attended Olio Capitale in Trieste, Italy. It was a three-day fest of everything olive, where you could meet producers first-hand, learn about the production methods, and experience the difference in flavors in what some Americans consider to be a commodity. (more…)

             

         

We spent a few days at Sarah’s place:   Fattoria Poggio Alloro, or Laurel Hill Farms to you!  It was a chance to go a little bit deeper, learn some more about this side of Tuscany just east of San Gimignano.  It was a gray, drizzly day, in early Spring when the glories of the Italian hillsides are muted and subtle.  Many tourists skip the surrounding countryside and head straight into San Gimignano, the “New York” of Tuscany, with towers standing tall within the circling walls.   Next time you go, follow Sarah’s advice and try out the smaller towns of Certaldo and Colle di Val d’Elsa instead. 

Probably our favorite day, however, was the one we spent with Sarah at her farm.  (more…)

       

 Up it popped, down in the valleys, on a rainy day in Tuscany:  a vibrant orange tree, ball-shaped, with last year’s new growth glowing warm in the gray countryside, an inverse of fall.  Turns out it’s a “salice”, or willow in English, and it’s got a specific purpose in viticulture. done old-Tuscan style.   

After the autumn gold leaves shimmer off the grape vines, what’s left are a gaggle of twisty-turney branches heading up in every direction that look like Madame Frankenstein’s coif on a bad hair day.  In the early spring, workers file through the fields and prune the stock down to one or two main branches, then tie them off with the salice, as have generations long before them.   To watch the slow, steady work is to see tradition in motion, using the materials at hand to prepare the vines for spring.   The result:  order from chaos, the grape vines now eyes right, arms left, in formations as precise as any drill team under the Friday night lights, rolling up and down the Tuscan hills. 

Got to love it!  Small businesses help each other.  As it turns out, when we visited Betty and Cesare Nadalini at their home in Tuscany, they had a big shipment of their 2008 olive oil heading to the states in a week.  After a typical Italian three-hour lunch  (see our March 5 post to find a recipe for Betty’s Cenci) and subsequent nap, we were in a sociable, but not hungry mood in the evening.  What to do?   Why, label the bottles, of course!  You’ll see them March 21st at the Nadalini’s tasting at Flavors From Afar.  Any crooked labels?  Blame them on Nancy!

Last night’s meal at La Fortezza in Castiglione della Pescaia on Grosseto’s seacoast was a “fantasy.” That’s a word of ours that Italians use, that probably does not translate the way it’s meant to, but in fact it fit the experience perfectly.

To get to La Fortezza, we walked up, uphill past shuttered summer stores, clacking up cobblestones, panting as our paradigm of being in shape fell by the wayside. We walked up through the old city walls into a restaurant hidden therein, the dark rocks painted bright white, which felt just perfect, a bit nautical. (more…)

  

Our last night in Trieste, we were on the hunt for Jota, a local soup 
with beans, sauerkraut, and pork in a broth:  very simple, hearty, 
exactly capturing the essence of the Italo-Slavic fusion that is 
Trieste.

Sadly, it was not to be.  Sunday being what it is in Italy, all the 
wonderful family restaurants were “chiuso,” or closed for the night.  
Left to our own devices, we ambled through Trieste’s lovely Piazza 
del’Unita one last time.    We pressed on through a charming 
neighborhood with winding streets and of course, closed stores. (more…)

Call them Cenci in Tuscany, Sfappole in Bologna, or Chiacchiere in Milan:  they’re crispy “rags” of fried dough with powdered sugar, distant kin of New Orleans beignets or Mexican sopapillas.  Here, they’re thin and crispy, delicate and lacey floating in clouds of sugar.  Tradition has it that they’re munched while gossiping, and they’re certainly addictive; must have more than one.  Shown above with a Sicilan orange, yesterday’s dessert carries through as today’s breakfast, just right to get you started.  Here’s how you do it: (more…)