Pat and David

What to buy in an Italian grocery store

Posted on by Pat and David
Since so many of the regional Italian cuisines are based on food that is fresh, fresh, fresh, we're limited in what we can bring back home. But there are some dry goods and conserves that turn out to be very useful in cooking Italian dishes. We've learned not to bother with colored pastas, which cook up to a gray mess anyway, because we can buy good imported dry pasta for about the same price we'd pay for it in Italy. Here's our Italian grocery list: Anchovies. Many Americans think they don't like anchovies because they have never tasted good ones used with the restraint characteristic of Italian recipes. We look for anchovies packed in glass jars so we can make sure they are firm and...Read More

What to buy in a Spanish grocery store

Posted on by Pat and David
We love visiting fresh markets when we travel. But except for dried herbs and spices, most of the goods won't make it through US Customs. Once we've snapped dozens of photos of mounds of vegetables and tables of glistening fish on ice, we head to a neighborhood grocery store (the kind where homemakers, not tourists, shop) to stock up on food essentials to bring home. Here’s our Spanish grocery list: Saffron Spaniards claim their saffron is the world’s best and price it accordingly. The larger the container, the better the deal. We usually purchase saffron in 20-gram boxes or larger. (A half gram is sufficient for a 15-inch paella.) Stored in an airtight container out of the light, it will keep up to seven years—or...Read More

Bringing food through US Customs

Posted on by Pat and David
Sometimes you can’t bring the taste of travel back home. We learned the hard way by trying to bring in a large block of mountain ham from Spain. Mind you, this was the choicest grade of jamón ibérico (from acorn-fattened black-footed pigs), and priced accordingly. The salesperson at the factory in Jabugo assured us that it would go right through U.S. Customs because it was vacuum-sealed. When we declared the ham, Customs promptly confiscated it as if we were smuggling uncle Guido’s homemade country sausage. You can argue the validity of the policy all you want, but Customs people do not make policy. They only enforce it. One of us was already tired of pungent Spanish ham anyway. To avoid disappointment, costly or not, it...Read More

Cold turkey warms to the Hot Brown

Posted on by Pat and David
[caption id="attachment_459" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hot Brown sandwich"][/caption] The chefs at the Brown Hotel, which has been one of Louisville’s social centers since it opened in 1923, probably didn’t have Thanksgiving leftovers in mind when they created the Hot Brown Sandwich. But it’s one of our favorite ways to use up excess turkey. Chef Fred Schmidt dreamed up the open-faced turkey and bacon sandwich in 1926 as a treat for up to 1,000 hungry dancers at the hotel’s swanky soirees. Schmidt’s solution to the light-night rush on the kitchen used ingredients readily at hand: toast, roast turkey, Mornay sauce, and bacon strips. With the unbeatable combination of bacon and cheese sauce, it’s no surprise that the popularity of the Hot Brown has spread well beyond the...Read More

Raclette made simple – in a grilled cheese sandwich

Posted on by Pat and David
And speaking of cheesemongers…. We have fond memories of eating raclette--a big plateful of melted cheese with cornichons and boiled potatoes--after a tough day of winter snow hiking in Switzerland. It has always seemed too much trouble to make at home: Buy a big block of raclette cheese, find or build an open fire, etc., etc. But one day when we were in Rubiner’s Cheesemongers in Great Barrington, Mass., we wandered into the Rubi’s Cafe for lunch and found the perfect solution to our raclette craving. Rubi’s piled shredded raclette cheese and sliced cornichons onto sourdough bread slathered with Dijon mustard and stuck the sandwiches into a panini press. Voila! Instant raclette in your hand. (And easily duplicated at home.)

Cheeses that stand alone

Posted on by Pat and David
[caption id="attachment_370" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Formaggio Kitchen, Cambridge, Mass."][/caption] Few foods so directly conjure up their origins as artisanal cheeses. Walking into Formaggio Kitchen in our home town is like taking a trip around the world. This is where we went for the Cabrales to serve with apples, and FK is our go-to vendor whenever we need something really special. Ishan Gurdal first opened a cheese monger’s shop here more than 30 years ago and built his own ripening caves in 1996. His cheeses are so special and so perfectly cared for that even Thomas Keller of the French Laundry orders from Ishan. Formaggio Kitchen has a second location in Boston’s South End, and also sells through its web site: Formaggio Kitchen.

Cabrales – why it’s good to get the blues

Posted on by Pat and David
We saw many more cows than sheep or even goats as we drove the twisting mountain roads through the Picos de Europa mountain range last spring. Although the Principality of Asturias is the oldest of Iberia’s former kingdoms, the steep green mountains looked more like Switzerland than Spain. Cows may have predominated, but milk from all three dairy animals goes into Cabrales, possibly the most pungent blue cheese in Europe. When we stopped for lunch in Las Arenas de Cabrales, we made sure we got the blues. The cheese is made by shepherds in the nearby hills, but Las Arenas (pop 797) is the market town. In Sidrería Calluenger (tel: 985-646-441), a hard-cider bar on Plaza Castaneu, we enjoyed a sumptuous lunch of stuffed red...Read More

Seeking pressure at home

Posted on by Pat and David
[caption id="attachment_292" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Kuhn-Rikon 3.5 liter pressure cooker"][/caption] We love risottos, but always saved them for special occasions because they were so time consuming. But Anna Maria Andreola had demonstrated in her home kitchen in Venice that it was feasible to make great risottos in a pressure cooker in almost no time. We were eager to try it at home. Finding the right pressure cooker wasn’t easy. Most pressure cookers in we saw in Venetian and U.S. kitchenware stores were lightweight, flimsy aluminum pots. Many U.S. shops didn’t carry them at all. “They’re dangerous,” clerks told us. “They explode!” To which we say, “bah” and “humbug.” We’ve been using a venerable Presto pressure canner for years (David bought it in 1970) to process sauces...Read More

Pressure cooker artichoke risotto

Posted on by Pat and David
[caption id="attachment_276" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Castraure, or baby artichokes"][/caption] We’d always thought of making risotto as a laborious process that required standing at the stove and stirring for nearly half an hour, sometimes with disappointing results. Not for Anna Maria Andreola, the pressure cooker queen of Venice. Earlier in the day, we’d gone together to the Rialto market and bought gorgeous baby artichokes, which we trimmed as Anna Maria talked us through the risotto she was going to make. She sauteed the trimmed artichokes for three minutes in the open pressure cooker with a clove of minced garlic and a splash of olive oil. Then she added a teacup (about a half cup or 110 grams) of arborio rice per serving, and dumped in a half...Read More