Buried in tomatoes? It’s time for tomato jam on burgers

Posted on by Pat and David
When we were working earlier this summer on a New England burger roundup for the Boston Globe (see Sample articles), we had no idea that we would discover a partial solution to the late-August glut of tomatoes. When we dug into the basic hamburger served at Christie's in Newport--the casual restaurant of the luxurious Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North--we just knew that chef Kim Lambrechts' tomato jam was the perfect complement to the rich beef burger. With a little cajoling, we found out how it's made. TOMATO JAM Chef Kim Lambrechts is the director of all food and beverage operations at Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North in Newport--including the casual restaurant, Christie's. He serves this brilliant ketchup substitute on beef burgers. We find...Read More

Watermelon steak from José Andrés

Posted on by Pat and David
When we first tasted this at Cayman Cookout on Grand Cayman Island in the middle of January, it was hard to think about watermelon. But José Andrés was thinking nothing but—demonstrating eight recipes for watermelon in an hour-long session. Andrés is perhaps the best ambassador of Spanish cooking to America. His Washington, D.C., restaurants include Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, Café Atlantico, and minibar by José Andrés. His grand Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills has taken Los Angeles by storm. We always think of watermelon as the most juvenile of summer fruits, but José showed just how sophisticated it can be. The preparation that stuck with us was his version of bistec de sandia, or watermelon steak. As every calorie-counter knows, watermelon is actually...Read More

Three (delicious) flavors of ‘bistro’ in Montreal

Posted on by Pat and David
Our latest book, Food Lovers' Guide to Montreal, is finally hitting the bookstores in the U.S. and Canada. The city has always been one of our favorite places for a quick getaway, a winter shopping spree, or a romantic weekend—in large part because the food is so good. We've enjoyed watching the Montreal dining scene evolve over the years, and many of our favorite places to eat are bistros—with or without the French ''t'' at the end. They tend to be small, casual neighborhood places with hearty food and plentiful drink. The old-fashioned French bistro persists in Montreal. La Gargote (351 place d'Youville, 514-844-1428, www.restaurantlagargote.com, Metro: Square Victoria) is one of our favorites in this style. The name is French slang for a diner, but...Read More

The company you keep

Posted on by Pat and David
We're already looking forward to reading Paris to the Past: Traveling through French History by Train, the newest thoughtful volume from Ina Caro. Her first book about traveling around France, the 1994 The Road from the Past: Traveling through History in France, came out of road trips where her husband, Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Robert Caro, did the driving. We love it that the new book tours France by train, especially capitalizing on the vast distances made possible by booking the high-speed TGV. As she explains, she can cover 800 years of French history by train and still be back in Paris to sleep. But what really drew us in is her attitude about the food: ''It's a terrible thing for a historian to admit, but...Read More

Truffles on demand (more or less)

Posted on by David
I confess to being a truffle snob—and an ignorant truffle snob at that. Following some pretty spectacular truffle eating and hunting experiences in and around Alba in November 2004 (see Truffle Pursuit under the ''Sample Articles'' tab), I was convinced that nothing measured up to the white truffle (Tuber magnatum pico) and that nowhere in the world could compete with the white truffles of Piemonte. Slowly but surely, I am learning better. The people of Acqualagna, a small village of 4,000 in the hills of Le Marche, changed my mind when I paid a visit at the end of March. Located near the Furlo river gorge, the area has been known as a great truffle hunting ground for centuries. The white truffle—still the greatest, I...Read More

All menus lead to Rome

Posted on by Pat and David
Ultimately, we did visit the amazing museums at Vatican City—and here's our sneaked photo of the Sistine Chapel ceiling to prove it. (Yeah, like we were the only ones....) But we have to admit that we were originally waylaid by Rome's greatest gourmet food shop. And who could blame us? Gastronomy is Italy's other art. Or maybe its other religion. When we'd finished eating lunch at Franchi (see previous post), we decided that it was a good time to stop in at Castroni (Via Cola di Rienzo 196, Tel: 06-68-74-383, www.castronicoladirienzo.it, open Mon-Sat 8am-8pm), reasoning that since we were already stuffed, we would be immune to the lures of the merchandise. It was only next door, and we'd still have plenty of time to get...Read More

Bites worth standing for

Posted on by Pat and David
It's easy to get a good, quick lunch in Rome. Usually we opt for a couple of slices of pizza in whatever pizzeria is closest when we're hungry. But for even more variety, we sometimes head to a tavola calda—an amazing array of hot and cold dishes ordered at a counter, served up quickly and almost always eaten standing up. One of the best in Rome is found at Franchi (Via Cola di Rienzo 200, tel. 06-68-74-651, www.franchi.it.), which is also one of the city's most extravagant alimentari (local food stores). Outside of meal time, this is the spot in the Prati neighborhood to buy sliced cold cuts, cheese, and cooked dishes to take home for dinner. But at lunchtime, the shop is swarmed with...Read More

Stuffed tomatoes from Roman pizzerias

Posted on by Pat and David
Like many Roman visitors (and many Romans, for that matter), we took advantage of the city's many pizzerias for quick meals or snacks. Once our Zone 6 garden swings into production around mid-July, we hope to revisit the subject of Roman pizza for the myriad of vegetable versions. But it was in the pizzerias that we stumbled onto another quintessentially Roman dish: stuffed tomatoes on a bed of roasted potatoes. Tomatoes stuffed with rice are a standard dish in a lot of parts of Italy, but Rome was the first place where we had seen them served with a big batch of potatoes. The simplicity of the single combined dish appealed to us, as it clearly does to many Romans getting an inexpensive casual meal....Read More

And then there was amatriciana

Posted on by Pat and David
While Tsatsu Nicholas Awuku was teaching us to make bucatini cacio e pepe (see below), Alessandro Sillani, the chef of Ristorante-Caffe di Rienzo (Piazza del Pantheon 8/9, 06-686-9097, www.ristorantedirienzo.it), demonstrated the equally popular and almost as simple sauce for bucatini all'amatriciana. Tradition holds that this sugo (sauce) originated in Amatrice, a town in the mountains of Lazio on the border with Abruzzo. Many families from the region settled in Rome, adding this dish to the capital's own cuisine. Sillani heated olive oil in a large frying pan, sautéed sliced onion until it was soft, and then added a thick pinch of hot pepper flakes and a handful of diced guanciale -- cured pork cheek that is similar to pancetta but typically leaner. He kept cooking...Read More

Learning Roman pastas (#1)

Posted on by Pat and David
Much as we love Trastevere and its restaurants, one of our other favorite eating establishments is right on one of Rome's most tourist-thronged plazas—just the type of location that we usually avoid at meal time. But when we stopped for coffee one morning at Ristorante-Caffè di Rienzo (Piazza del Pantheon 8/9, 06-686-9097, www.ristorantedirienzo.it), we struck up a conversation with Marianna Di Rienzo, whose father opened the restaurant in 1952. She even invited us to come back at dinner time so that the chef could show us how to prepare some classic Roman pasta dishes. Chef Alessandro Sillani has been with Di Rienzo for 15 years. When we returned around 6 p.m., he and his assistant Tsatsu Nicholas Awuku were not even breaking a sweat sending...Read More