Restaurant recommendations

Tags

coffe, Food, Italy, Restaurants, Rome Italy, Wine

I have on FB post from Italian sites run by Americans in the USA. The Italian site promotes property for sale, restaurants, cities to visit, cultural tips, etc. It also promotes news items from Condé Nast and CNN travel.

Having lived in Italy, I am less and less enamoured with such sites. One like Condé Nast, tend to recommend the same spots over and over again, Tuscany being one, Florence and Venice is another, there is also the constant refrain of pursuing authenticity.

What I find disappointing is that often what they recommend is neither authentic and is usually expensive or they go budget and it is so cheap that you wonder if it makes any sense to even go.

There are also a lot of expat Americans who have made a business of luring tourists into their business as tour guides or Italian cooking classes. They are popular because they speak english and what they propose is not challenging and made to make you believe that this is how it is done.

This week Condé Nast was proposing a restaurant as authentic in Rome near the Pantheon, first it is not near the Pantheon at all. This establishment has been there since 1930, it is very simple and non discript. Then Anthony Bourdain on his show on CNN went to this restaurant and he makes a point of not telling you the name of the place. Interviews a young woman while he eats with his fingers and speaks with his mouth full, because he is a celebrity. The young woman goes on about how ”la mamma” has been cooking since for ever, if the restaurant opened in 1930, ”la mamma” would be at least 100 years old now. Then a blogger who lives in Rome, wrote about the place and though will no recommend it because the wine is cheap and undrinkable, the owners Mario and Teresa will sometime pad the bill and the food has apparently been the same for many decades. So the concept of no menu, we serve the daily special is out the window, the special has not changed in 85 years.

The restaurant is called Settimio al Pellegrino on Via del Pellegrino 117,  it is a trattoria, meaning a cheap eats place. I get really annoyed with Bourdain who I consider a fraud who is trading on his past in NYC restaurants as a Chef apparently. He is certainly very clever at promoting himself but then so was Paris Hilton and that Kardashian women.

I can understand that a traveller who may have this one trip and who may want to make this into the trip of a life time, who only has a few days in Rome or Italy will do whatever they can to make it worthwhile. So Condé Nast or Bourdain come in and sell their wares, it may be what you want and it may not, buyer beware, but the whole authentic thing is a fraud.

Condé Nast like many travel sites hires writers to produce articles about a place, this does not mean that the writer has been to the place they write about. Last year per example Air Canada had a list of the best restaurants in Canada. Most of them were in Vancouver, Toronto, there were 2 in Montreal. Considering the vast distances between those cities, I was wondering if the writer had travelled to any of them.  I looked up who had written the article, it was a young Asian woman who lived in Los Angeles. I sent her an email telling her that I really found her choice of best restaurants very odd. Ottawa has good restaurants, none mentioned, Quebec City, no, how about in the Maritimes, none mentioned. She replied that she in fact had picked her choices from another magazine and travel guides and simply re-wrote a newish article, she had never been to Canada. Well she was honest. I have to say that I usually find airline recommendation of hotels or restaurant very strange. The segment they wish to appeal to is usually the traveller on large expense accounts who can drop $400 dollars a night or more and pick $200 bottle of wines on the menu.

It all comes down, in the case of Italy, Rome or any other cities, if you really want authentic, well I am not sure what that means anymore. However there are plenty of good restaurants with typically Roman style cuisine and reasonable and good wines on offer all over the city. First stay away from the restaurants on a famous Piazza like Piazza Navona or around the Colosseum. Don’t go to pizza joints, remember in Italy pizzas are like fast food, in neighbourhoods they are sold in small pieces to simply eat quickly for a couple of Euros. Go to restaurants frequented by Italian families and avoid places with tourist menus or kids menus, that is so not Italian.

The same with coffee shops, Condé Nast and others have been pushing Caffè San Eustachio , on Piazza San Eustachio. It has been there since 1938 and his famous for its roasted coffee beans which are still roasted on a wood fire. Though I wonder given the popularity of the place and the hordes who descend on it everyday if this method is still followed. They only have 6 tables and an espresso is meant to be drunk standing up at the counter in 3 sips. Since 1999 the Ricci brothers who now own the place use Fair Trade Coffee and will charge more for an espresso than other coffee shops. I never liked that place because there are far too many people at any time. Rome has thousands of coffee shops and you can find in any neighbourhood a good one devoid of tourists. The one I liked was in our old neighbourhood, on Via Alessandria near the corner with Corso Trieste, a real neighbourhood caffé.

There are lots of other place, it just requires a bit of flair.

 

 

 

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Cooking

Tags

cooking, Entertaining, Food, Gourmet, life, style, Wine

How many people remember Gourmet Magazine? We use to receive it monthly and it had all manner of recipes with all kinds of strange ingredients you knew would not be on the shelf of your local grocery store.

Those were the days when we would give dinner parties and try to replicate one of the recipes in Gourmet. We went through a lot of effort, me shopping for the mystery ingredients and Will cooking it all.

Then came Martha Stewart and we were now on another level all together, it took me quite a bit of time to realize that she had a staff of 50 behind her in the kitchen, house, garden to do all those little simple chores. You never saw them and no mention was ever made of them, but if you tried to do something she suggested you quickly realized that you needed days of preparation in order to achieve a decent level. Then came Bon Appétit and then America’s Test Kitchen with Christopher Kimball, love that show on PBS.

With those dinner parties and luncheons, table setting was also important, the right flowers for the centre of the table, linens and dishware to accompany the food, crystal glasses, silverware, plate or sterling. I use to spend a lot of time on thinking about the details. I still do some planning but it is a lot simpler now.

We did a lot of those dinner parties throughout the years and did entertain but that was a different time and we did have people to help with the service at table, cooking, cleaning etc.

I would not think of doing any of this nowadays, fashion has changed, everyone is more in favour of simpler dishes and smaller portions, people also do not drink as much. Many only drink wine, cocktails are out and after dinner drinks are no longer offered. We also entertain differently more casual and relaxed.

Though I still like to cook something special and try a new recipe, I am just not willing to spend the time we use to spend in the preparation. Well prepared, good food does not need to be complicated to please. Each meal on a daily basis is simpler but all are made from scratch and we have resisted so far the frozen entrées or processed can foods. My motto is If I have to eat it, then it should be good. When we have guests we always try to surprise them with a dish they never had at our house, no repeats and no take-out.

I still like a good bottle of wine and will go to some effort to find what is best but at reasonable price.

Simple is good and still looks beautiful! Next weekend we are having friends over to celebrate our first Winter visit to PEI one year ago this month, this is when we decided to move here. The menu will be gourmet pizza with various toppings, I asked our guests what type of pizza they like, some are vegan and others have toppings they really like so will try to please all. We will have wine paired depending on the flavours. It will be all about conversation, good food, wine and the moment.

Tomorrow Sunday our friends will skate across the street from our house on the improvised skating rink, it is fairly cold right now, the ice is like a polished mirror. I told them to come to our place afterwards for hot chocolate, I have a reserve of two flavours Chocolate truffle and white chocolate to warm them up. It should be fun.

My computer died

Tags

Apple, cars, Computers, dealership, MAC, Rideau Centre, service, Wine

My 4 year old Mac has serious health problems. Some of the letters on the key board no longer work. So I took it in to the Apple Store for a look and a diagnostic. Funny how the Apple store is a lot like a car dealership, lots of shinny things flashing at you.

You could get this or that, a new product which allows you to do all kinds of things at the speed of light. The things is, if you sit down and think about it for one moment, ask yourself what do I use my Mac for exactly? What functions are most important to me. In my case it’s Gmail and then this blog, the third would be Skype which has nothing to do with Apple. I also like to write documents on a separate program. That’s it.

So the young man at the Apple store calls me and says that the original estimate of what needed to be done to bring my computer back to life went from $250 dollars CDN to $1000 dollars CDN. There are more problems than anticipated despite the fact that the original prognosis looked good. It has to do with a liquid spill, red wine, some 3 years ago while reading ancient Hebrew texts. Which goes to prove that Ancient Hebrew texts, wine and Apple computers are incompatible. Lesson learned.

Guess what a new computer similar to do one I have is only $1019. dollars CDN. So the young man says to me, do you want to go ahead with the repairs, there is no guarantee it will work. I strongly suspect at this point that the policy of Apple is to try to get you to buy something instead of trying to repair your computer.

I wish something could be done but it’s a case where you cannot get a second opinion since there is no one to go to.

The Apple Store is very much in the corporate image Apple wants to give of itself, all the staff are young, under 35, mostly young men, white, wearing the Apple uniform of a blue T-shirt and jeans. You come in report to staff, who does not acknowledge you as much as simply ask your name, you made an appointment online to see someone at the genius bar, you are always addressed by your first name, you are just another customer, staff will assign you to the long table where 20 customers can sit, side by side and discuss there problems with another staff, the genius bar. The conversation is fast, there is a lot of noise and you must pay close attention. I ask them to repeat pointing out that I did not hear what they said, so much background noise, nor fully understood them.

Apple makes no accommodation for the fact that older customers may not fully understand what they are talking about since their speech is peppered with technical jargon. The Apple store does get older customers who are usually more moneyed the the young crowd who will have a iPhone and are looking for a cheap quick fix.

It is too bad that I have to replace my computer but I really do not see what else I can do. What is strange is that the car dealership has the same approach, they do not want to repair your car, they want to sell you a new one, I have received bi-monthly calls since I purchased the car 4 years ago about a trade or buying a new car.

What corporations like Apple fail to realize is that I would not go to their store simply to browse or look at new product because despite the sleek look, it is unwelcoming and Apple is clueless about that. Their flag ship in Ottawa also offers a lot less services than 5 years ago. Less staff, less helpful, more focused on sale and the front area which use to welcome customers has been abandoned and everything happens at the back with as many as 100 customers jammed in the genius bar area.

At this point I always wonder what would it be like if I was shopping in the USA. I am pretty sure the experience would be very different simply based on my own personal experience through the years in various American shops and cities where service standards are higher and different.

 

 

 

 

Meal Time

Tags

daily, Europe, Food, imagination, planning, portions, shopping, Wine

The idea or inspiration for this meal time planning entry was suggested by a post from sporeflections.wordpress.com who lives vicariously in Arizona, apparently they are having an early Spring.

Many people live stressful lives and work far too much, in my humble opinion, work as a concept is highly overrated, in post-modern times we have forgotten to enjoy a meal and just relaxing about life in general. So with this in mind and since I am the generous sort here is a pragmatic little secret I share with you.

I do most of the food shopping and I shop on a daily basis instead of one giant trip to the grocery store each week. I find that every day you can plan ahead and have lots of choices on what you want to serve at meal time. I also follow the rule of Helen Corbitt (1906-1978), the head chef for many years in the kitchen of the flagship Neiman Marcus, who really believed in having a pantry with emergency supplies for guests who just appear. She had a long list of items but oh so practical.

Usually by 8am I know what I am serving that day for dinner or lunch or both. If people come for dinner or for lunch, we do a lot more luncheons now, I can plan a complete menu 3 days in advance, so no surprises, the secret is too keep it simple, good and enjoyable.

All you need is a bit of imagination, discipline and planning and know what works for you. I would never do a new recipe on people in the hope that it might be ok or might work or say to my guests, ”I have no idea if this is good or bad, never tried it before.”

Chef Helen Corbitt of the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus, Dallas

I am retired but still fairly busy each day with all manner of things to do around the house and in town. If you are really run off your feet and feel tired by the time you get home, here are some tips on what could help you along instead of going to a fast food outlet or eating frozen processed meals, which is equivalent to rat poison in my book.

The first thing to do is establish what both of you at home like to eat, that should be fairly easy. I usually buy daily a small amounts of fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes which I leave on the counter because the fridge is bad for them, apples, clementines or oranges but only a few, never a bag, in winter because of cost I will buy other fruits more of the season and not imported. Our Canadian dollar is only worth 0.67 cents US right now so it does make a difference in the final bill. Also many other green vegetables or root vegetables, I usually serve 2 vegetables minimum with a meal.

By buying selectively, I can decide ahead of time what green vegetables, root vegetables or potatoes, a variety of them, I wish to prepare with the meal. As for meat, since we have a crockpot, we can prepare spaghetti sauce, stews and soups, etc. I will get Will to tell me what he wants me to buy and then we will spend a couple of days preparing cooking dishes which can be frozen and you have a variety of things in the freezer you can pull out.

I also like to buy chicken, but never whole, parts, deboned and skinless, escalope style or thighs etc… Ham steaks or meat balls my butcher makes. I will also look at other cuts of meat or fowl. Am not buying steaks any more because of the cost again but burger meat like beef, veal, I can mix up with spices and do burgers which I can then freeze. So I have about 7 days of meals prepared ahead of time.

As for fish or seafood, given the state of the oceans nowadays, it is becoming very problematic to buy fresh or wild. Most of the stuff sold in supermarkets is from Asia or South America so do consider that it has been on the road for at least 3 weeks before it gets to you. Though I do look for product from Canada in fish and seafood, PEI being a good source well known for quality.

I also get things like good cheeses and deli meats at my butcher which is cut fresh, I do not buy the pre-packaged processed meats because of the salt content. Fresh eggs can be cooked hard boiled or you can make an omelette and this is simply enough for a lunch. Sicilian Olives because they are sweet and not vinegary and assortment of nuts, but always in small quantities because it looses its freshness quickly.

I also try hard to stick to what I like to call European portions, meaning meat is 5oz steak or pasta is no more than 100 gr. and sauce simply to cover not drown. You can serve a salad with that, dressing just olive oil or a nice gourmet dressing. These days we love blue cheese which is made by our food store and has none of those unpronounceable ingredient names. As for breads I buy small quantities daily or every 3 days, fresh, never that processed white bread stuff that looks like insulation. I do like the hard crust and dense bread.

So by shopping everyday and buying only according to what I planned, we have a diversity of things to eat. Having also a variety of prepared meals which can be reheated makes for variety every night of the week.

As for inviting people over for lunch usually on a Saturday or Sunday, I try to plan a meal that is nice but requires simple steps and everything is ready when the guests arrive. We can have a pre meal drink, to keep things easy I will offer a bubbly and some olives or radishes. I remember reading in my manual from the Hotel School in Lausanne that liquor or cocktails before meals is not a good idea since it spoils the palate for the meal to come. Since we are going to have a meal, you don’t want to ruin your guests appetite with chips and dips.

I also try to keep the desserts light, no heavy cakes or anything too rich. Usually if it is just the two of us, there is no desserts, maybe a fresh fruit not canned. If we have guests then it will be a nice sweet but something that accompanies the meal instead of fighting for first place and displacing the main dish in texture and taste. I find that serving a small glass of dessert wine is a good alternative dessert. I always think that our guests will thank us for not overloading their stomachs with too rich foods.

Pesaro, Capri or Sicilia?

Tags

art., Capri, culture, Etna, Food, Future, opera, PEI, Pesaro, Rossini, Sicily, Wine

Well we have been to those three places, Pesaro is a small town South of Rimini on the Adriatic Coast of Italy and the birth place of the celebrated Opera and Music composer Gioachino Rossini, Barber of Seville Fame. It is also a resort beach town with a long history, excellent restaurant, art galleries, culture, Italian Fashion Creations and a famous Opera Festival in August each year devoted to the music of its famous son, who did not live many years in Pesaro and preferred Paris. We love the place and had many wonderful times there.

 

Inside the Palazzo Moschi-Tosca in Pesaro, books as art installation.

Intermission during an opera performance, patrons on the square in front of the theatre. If you look closely you will see us in the crowd.

Capri, the Island in the bay of Naples, facing the Volcano Vesuvius. Capri is of course famous as a resort for Emperors like Tiberius and the millionaire jet-set, spectacular views, no beaches really because the Island is one big cliff and the few places where you could swim is made of narrow stretches below the cliffs of black flat stones, this is why the wealthy have pools instead. The restaurants are great, so are the hotels, most are small but luxurious, no motel 6 here, it is a lovely place to relax, the hordes of tourists are kept on paths, usually with a guide near to shops so they don’t disturb the peace of the Just. We visited once and I liked it but could not picture myself enjoying the languid lifestyle.

Sicily, we took our car from Rome on the ferry overnight and sailed for Palermo. We arrived at 7:30am and disembarked, we then spent 2 weeks travelling around this wonderful Island once part of greater Greece in Antiquity and then part of the Duchy of Normandy, then France, until the incident of the Sicilian Vespers, see opera of the same name, finally Spain until 1860. From Palermo we travelled to Trapani, Marsala, Mazara del Vallo, Agrigento, Gela, Ragusa, Noto, Siracusa and Catania.

A beautiful island full of surprises, spectacular views, great sea food, wonderful wines, a complex history separate from Italy and a rich ancient culture. Worth many return trips.

 The best quality Marsala wine you can buy, it is not for cooking, not at those prices and it is very good to drink!

Different variety of top quality Marsala wines served by Salvatore the owner of the Wine Bar La Sirena Ubriaca in Marsala.

Wonderful seafood we had in Marsala

Spanish architecture in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. Much of it built during the period of the Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicily when Spain was ruling that part of the Peninsula.

Siracusa a wonderful city founded by the Greeks 2800 years ago. In the far distance the snow cap volcano Mount Etna.

The famous Greek Classical Theatre Festival of Siracusa, plays are in Greek. Telling all those famous story from Antiquity. Plays are performed in an ancient theatre built originally for that purpose in antiquity.

The small town of Noto and its beautiful architecture.

The symbol of Catania the little Elephant named Liotru, an old story involving a magician and his elephant made this the symbol of the city

Catania’s famous pastry known as the Tits of St-Agatha, delicious.

As seen from the centre of the City of Catania, Mount Etna acting up again. It is known as a gusher volcano not an explosive one, otherwise there would be no Catania today.

So why am I talking about these three places, yes we visited them and yes we enjoyed them immensely. But what is the connection with the future? Ah! there is the riddle, all three, Pesaro, Capri and Sicilia have a connection and point to events yet to come. So stay tuned, all will be revealed!

Pensée du jour

Tags

drink, happpy, life, Wine

In 2016 we should have such inspirational messages to uplift our lives.

Wines & Chocolates in PEI

Tags

Chocolates, Cocoa, cuisine, Food, Fruits, hand made, PEI, Wine, winemaking

Canada has a very good maturing wine industry. Several regions of Canada produce good wines, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, PEI. Prior to 1990 Canadian wines were in their infancy and production was not as professional as it could be.

So while we were in PEI I discovered they have their own wine production. I made a point of sampling the white and red wine. The company is Matos Winery.

There production in PEI is as follows; In the summer of 2007, 16,000 Gamay Noir and Chardonnay grapevines were imported from France and planted on 10 hillside acres. In the spring of 2008, the Matos family sold their wine business in Ontario and moved to PEI. Most of 2008 was spent on tending the young vines – the size and shape of the vine is the result of the grape variety and the climate, but the way vines are pruned, trellised and spaced is also critical. The vines are pruned based on trellising and are trained on fruit and catch wires. The summer months were spent installing the thousands feet of wire necessary to properly train the vines.

A solar-powered weather station was also installed with wireless telemetry to relay data – benefiting water consumption and irrigation needs. In PEI solar power is big and so are electric cars with rechargeable stations everywhere for free. So am not surprised by Matos going the solar power route.

Construction of the winery began in the spring of 2010. The first harvest occured at the end of October and parts of the building had been completed in preperation for that harvest. This would house the destemming equipment, membrane press, peristaltic pump and fermentaion tanks. Construction in the winery was completed in early 2011 for the grand opening. Matos has won quite a few awards for its wines and I can see why, good quality wines.

We tried the Chardonnay and the Gamay Noir, very good wines indeed. Did not have an opportunity to try the Rosé but it did win a Gold medal at an international competition. Only goes to prove that good wines do not need to come from fancy wineries in Europe and as my late father use to say do not judge a wine by the price tag or the label, taste it first.

The other Winery we encountered was Rossignol Estate Winery which started back in 1994. They produce wine and red wines and also fruit wines. We tried the L’Acadie bland a dry white wine, very nice indeed with seafood.

They too have won many awards for their wine production. There is on PEI a culture of liquor making which goes back centuries, from the Rum brought up from the Antilles to  liquor made from various fruits and other spirits. Woman on the farm would make Red Currant wine and Raspberry, Strawberry or Blueberry cordial for the kids among other things to offer visitors, just a tipple you understand since many were Presbyterians.

There is also one other discovery we made during our week on the Island and this was a chocolate maker. Now I am not very fond of chocolates at the best of time, I really do not care for desserts with chocolates or the whole chocolate craze. I simply do not understand where this craze comes from and what the appeal is. Having said this, we did visit Victoria-by-the-Sea and in a house in this small hamlet is a company called Island Chocolates, we bought a small box of their high quality, high cocoa content hand made chocolates. They were delicious and that is saying a lot coming from me.

What to bring to someone’s House as a gift

Tags

Friends, Gift, Millenials, people, rude, Sloppy, Wine, wine gift

You know the old way of doing things, you get an invitation to a dinner party or someone’s house and you think, I have to bring a gift, it is simple courtesy and the polite thing to do.

When I was a kid in the 20th Century, my Mom would bring flowers and my Dad a bottle of wine. Something he had chosen and by the label the Host and Hostess would see it was quality. My Mom always seem to know which flowers to chose for her bouquet usually something the hostess would like. It always had to be flowers who were not heavily scented, a light fragrance and soft colours. Never roses or white lilies being attuned to the meaning of what some flowers might represent in various cultures.

Usually today people bring wine, a bottle of wine. I never could understand people who  brought nothing at all, especially if it was the first time you visited someone’s home. That is thoughtless and rude and says you do not think much of the host who invited you.

If you bring a bottle of wine, a little research ahead of time is a good idea, does your host like Red or White Wine. Some people do not drink one or the other, they may have likes for one kind of wine and not for another. There is also the question of how much to spend, here in Ontario where wine prices are well known, you have to be careful, your host may notice that the wine you brought is supermarket quality. There is no need to go overboard in choosing a wine but just a little thought before hand can go a long way.

I feel sometimes that those little things in life are lost on people, either people don’t think or say ”it does not matter”, but it does. It is those little things in life that make the whole difference in inter-personal relationships. If you care about people, it will be noticed. Often it is the thought that counts most. It says I care and thank you for inviting me. If you do not want to give wine for various reasons, other gifts like a book, nice chocolates, flowers, a gourmet food item is also good.

The overly relaxed, informal approach to life we see today everywhere leads increasingly to careless attitudes and that is very unfortunate. Better to surround oneself with friends who are caring and cultivate them.