One of the best parts of Taste is the section devoted to non edible tasty bits. That would be books, of course (I always spend hours at the Guido Tommasi stand) but also aprons, plates, and my favorite: tablecloths and place mats.
It’s not that I’m a table linen hound. It’s just that I love seeing what Tablecloths.it has been up to. This Prato-based company somehow manages to combine adorable with stylish in a way that is so completely Tuscan.
I’d been meaning to go to the Gucci museum in Florence for a while. And when I say ‘go to the Gucci museum’ of course I don’t mean the actual museum. I’d been to the museum itself a few weeks after it opened, when I was in town updating Eat Florence. As you’d expect, it’s Gucci times ten. Fun. Especially if you are a fashion addict.
Unfortunately when I visited I was running to catch a train back to Rome, and so didn’t have time to sit down in the extremely cool caffe/bookstore that is on the ground floor facing directly out onto Piazza Signoria. Yes. The most innovative and elegant restaurant opening in Florence in the past year is located on the most historic piece of property in town.
One of the best reasons to go to Taste, the food fair in Florence, is what’s going on in the city outside of the fair proper. Fuori di Taste, (Outside of Taste) has developed over the last few years to become a reason in itself to get yourself up there.
Almost all of the restaurants in the city participate, preparing special tasting menus featuring some of the products featured at the fair. The great thing is that it goes beyond restaurants. Anyone having anything even remotely related to food joins in the fun. I attended a tasting at a silver shop, another at a kitchen supply store and even cocktails at a museum.
One of my most delicious stops was for merenda at Carapina. Merenda, in Italian, is ‘snack time.’ But unlike Americans, who snack all the time, the Italian idea of merenda is very fixed: late afternoon, mid way between lunch and dinner. For kids, it’s after school, usually sweet and filling enough to recover from a hard day at school, to keep up your strength through homework time, until you sit down to dinner.
Among the professional skill sets I’ve developed over the years (being able to eat six meals a day; asking total strangers if I can visit their homes; accepting invitations to places like Iceland) I am proud to say that I can ‘do’ a food fair in a fast, efficient and totally productive way.
First of all, I know which ones to go to, and which ones to avoid. For instance, this week is Vinitaly. The mega wine fair located in Verona draws zillions of food and wine professionals from around the world - including many of my best friends and colleagues. But I don’t go. It scares me. Why? a) too big; b) too commercial; c) not my subject.
What do I like in a food fair? Artisanal is best. I love to talk to the people actually getting their hands dirty making whatever it is I’m tasting. This is why I love the Salone del Gusto, even though it’s become almost overwhelmingly huge. I also choose to visit smaller events, about topics I don’t know a lot about, so that I can learn something. Which is why I attend things like last year’s beer fest in Rome.
One of my favorite yearly visits is Taste, in Florence. It’s got everything I like: small in scale, highly curated and every single stand is manned by someone making something I want to learn more about. Founded by food journalist and self-styled gastronaut Davide Paolini, Taste is located in the super cool Stazione Leopolda in Florence and brings together about 250 producers, hand picked to represent the best of what’s happening now in Italy, food wise.
I keep thinking ‘that’s it’ for the Iceland posts.
And then I realize I still have photos - and experiences - like these to share.
I’ve been posting about Iceland for the last week. And at the bottom of each post you’ll see I credited the Food & Fun festival for bringing me there. Yes. Food AND Fun. What more could you want?
The festival is actually even more delicious - yet slightly more serious - than it sounds. F&F has been going on for ten years, and brings chefs from all over the world to Reykjavik, where they work with local ingredients, collaborating with local restaurants, to create and compete in the kitchen. While the contest is the main event, the festival also brings journalists (like yours truly) from all over the world to a place that is off their usual itinerary. In other words, Iceland 101.
Living in Rome, I’m always shocked when tourists tell me “Isn’t the Victor Emmanuel Monument in Piazza Venezia gorgeous?” No. It’s not gorgeous. It’s horribly ugly and I wish it would just go away.
I guess I sounded like a tourist when we had dinner at Solveig’s house in Reykjavik. I kept going on and on about how much I loved the cathedral, the Hallgrimskirkja. After babbling on about it’s clean lines, stark silhouette and monumental presence, Solveig’s husband, Gunnar, finally said “Hmm...well, we think it is kind of ugly.”
It’s always so hard to fit in all the foods I want to try on any given trip. My visit to Iceland seemed even more challenging than most. First of all because it was just so different from anywhere else I’d ever been, therefore there was so much to try that I’d never had. And secondly, I was there for such a short time - only four days - that it was almost impossible to fit it all in (literally).
But I tried. I really did. Between scheduled meals like breakfast, lunch and dinner, I managed to fit in stops after breakfast, post lunch and even an early pre-dinner.
Cafe Loki was in that grey area I’ll just call ‘tea time.’
My trip to Iceland was not all about eating elaborately prepared food in dream-like restaurants. Even though I was there for the Food & Fun festival (which brings some of the best chefs from around the world to cook with Icelandic ingredients) I managed to fit in some more down-to-earth meals.
And if by down-to-earth you think I am referring to hot dogs, why, yes I am. But these are not just any old hot dogs. These are Icelandic hotdogs, which are more or less one of the national dishes. And I’m going to stop calling hot dogs right now and start calling them by their rightful name: lamb dogs. Ok, they are not 100% lamb, but a mixture of pork, beef and lamb. But since there are no cows in Iceland, few pigs, but more sheep than humans, I’m betting the lamb content is what makes these weenies so special.
Dear loyal readers,
I don't usually post over the weekends, since I figure you are busy out doing things that don't involve looking at a computer screen. So think of this as more of a letter, than a blog post. And like most letters you receive these days, this one is asking you to do something. (remember the olden days when 'letters' weren't just bills and annoying catalogues?)
In this case, I'm asking you to vote for me.
Saveur has started accepting nominations for the Best Food Blog Awards of 2012.
Here's how you can help:
1. Go to this page and enter my blog's URL (http://www.elizabethminchilliinrome.com/) in the URL section.
2. Choose a category. You can pick three. The ones that seem to work for my blog are :
- Best Culinary Travel Blog
- Best Regional Cuisine Blog
- Best Restaurant Dining Coverage
3. Add a brief explanation of why you're nominating Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome. (I guess it's probably best if you don't just say 'because Elizabeth asked me'.)
4. Enter your name.
5. Enter your email (sorry!)
6. Now, just un-check those three little boxes so you don't receive unwanted emails.
7. Hit 'submit' and you've done your duty.
Thanks so much, in advance, for taking the time to do this.
Now you can go back to not checking your email or twitter account or facebook for at least the next 30 minutes.
I won't post again until Monday morning.
Promise.
Have a great weekend,
Elizabeth
If there is anything approaching a perfect restaurant in my universe, I think it is getting awfully near to it at Dill. First of all, anything I could possibly do - eat or otherwise - in a building designed by Alvar Aalto is going to be heavenly in my book. Throw in an extremely talented, cute and super nice chef, and you can see where I’m going.
Dill was the only restaurant I knew about before I landed in Iceland. I had actually met the chef, Gunnar Karl Gislason, at the last Salone del Gusto last year, but his fame goes well beyond that. And when my friend Anya von Bremzen insisted I make my way there, as soon as I landed in Reykjavik, I knew I was in for greatness.
You know when you’re traveling, and wandering around a new city and you start looking in windows? Even though you might be on your way to a great restaurant, or headed back to your cozy hotel room, don’t you always wish you could just pop into one of those homes, pull up a chair, and really find out what it’s like to live local?
While we were in Iceland two weeks ago we got to do just that. The day before I left for Reykjavik, I sent off a desperate email to the only person I knew living anywhere north of Amsterdam. Katrine Klinken is the head of Slow Food in Copenhagen, and we had become friendly during a beer tasting at the last Salone del Gusto (yes, that's how I meet people). Katrine wrote back right away, with one important name: Dominique, her Slowfoodish counterpart in Iceland.
I had the great luck to be invited to Iceland last week. It was a last minute thing, but I decided to adjust my schedule, and do everything possible to go.
I mean, how often do you get invited to Iceland?
I’m not a huge player of games. And I don’t usually join in on contests. I’m not real big on rules, and deadlines are something I usually get paid for to suffer.
But a few weeks ago I was invited by a fellow blogger, (the extremely nice and talented Rossella over at Ma che ti sei mangiato) to join in on a contest she was helping to organize. The challenge (should I choose to accept it) was to be to incorporate saba (more on that later) into a recipe. I need only mention her website (done!), as well as that of another very good wine blogger Andrea Pertini (Percorsi di Vino. Done.) and of course the saba makers (Azeienda Mariotti. There. Done) And did I mention, there was a prize. I love prizes. In this case a basket full of goodies from Il Gusto di Ferrara.
I'm so in.
So, now to on to the saba. For those of you who don’t know (and I don't expect you to) saba is cooked down grape juice. The grapes get picked, then crushed. At this point, rather than making their way to the wine-making process, the juice gets strained from the pulp, and the liquid is cooked, slowly, for up to 24 hours or sometimes even longer, until it is thick and syrup-like.
I love it when food and design
intersect. One place they do this - in a happy, sunny and totally feel
good way - is Sicilian orange wrappers.
I
had the great pleasure of attending the first of a new lecture series,
The Occasional Lunch, being organized by my friend Cornelia Lauf, in the
Sabine hills outside of Rome. The series hopes to bring together
people, projects, good food, interesting ideas. In other words: lunch +
learning. The first lecture, by Carolyn Smith, was “Orange Wrappers: The
Rise and Demise of a Popular Italian Art Form.” Carolyn generously
shared her personal collection of orange wrappers with us, which I took
the opportunity of photographing. These small, square sheets of tissue
paper are used to individually wrap oranges. Each company uses their
own logo which somehow expresses what is uniquely special about their
oranges.
As many of you know, I’ve started leading Food Tours around Rome. I’ve been doing it informally for years, with visiting colleagues, food importers, restaurant owners and chefs who make their way to Rome. After getting so many requests I decided to start offering the tours on a more regular basis, and it’s turned out to be not only enormous fun, but very popular. So thank you all for that!
But one thing I’ve come to realize is that while wandering around Rome may be a fabulous way to learn about the food and culture of Italy, there are still some subjects that remain beyond the scope of normal itineraries.
That’s why I’ve decided to start leading Food Workshops. The 2-hour workshops are fun, food- and drink-filled, in-depth explorations of some of my favorite Italian obsessions.
I’ve never understood why people are so scared of cooking with dried beans. “Canned beans are so much easier,” they say. Canned beans also taste like (excuse my language) canned beans.
If you’ve never had dried beans, then I can understand your confusion. But let me tell you, the taste difference is night and day.
And they aren’t hard to cook either. Yes, they do take a smidgen of planning. But I mean if you’re cooking dinner, you’re in planning mode already aren’t you?
I’m going to share with you the easiest way to enjoy beans. This is the dish I make when I know I’m going to be having a long day (leading a Food Tour or Workshop for instance) and realize ahead of time I won’t feel like spending much time in the kitchen by the time I get home.
I never make any claims that this blog is trendy. Although it’s a lot about style, it isn’t about fashion. And while I’m all up with the latest restaurants and places to go, it’s rarely cutting edge new.
But I’d like to break from tradition to recognize a new trend (and you heard it here folks): grano arso. I mentioned it in passing the other day, but I’ll tell you more about it now. Farina grano arso is a type of flour from Puglia. Traditionally this flour was made from the bits of wheat that were left in the field after the harvest. The landowners would harvest the wheat and then burn off the stubbles that were left in the field, to be plowed under. But in that short period post-burning and pre-plowing, poor farm workers would hurry across the field, gathering the burnt remnants of wheat, which they would then grind into what was basically burnt flour.
