The Food Maven Diary
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Return from Italy Part 1
I just returned from Italy and I'm back where I belong, in Brooklyn.
I see that some of you have found the new store on my website. I get reports. In October alone, I've made enough commissions to buy myself the least expensive wine in a cheap Manhattan restaurant. I'm not kidding. I won't be getting rich on this, or drinking well either. But I would appreciate your clicking through my store and doing a little shopping. Besides books - books to cook by, as well as books just to read -- there are hard-to-find ingredients - Southern Italian and otherwise ("Flavors by Mail") - small kitchen appliances, knives and other cook's tools, pots, pans, even some cookbooks and food-oriented books that are now on Kindle. The store is still being stocked, but there are already many full shelves, most items with my own annotations; okay, sales pitches.
As my ethics have always been, even when I did commercials on the radio, I will not recommend anything for which I wouldn't spend my own money. Indeed, I just bought my new and wonderful Waring toaster from my own store. By the way, even if a book or a product is not listed in my store or on my site, any time you order from Amazon.com by clicking through at TheFoodMaven.com, I get a few cents, which pays for the upkeep of the site, even if not for Chateau Margaux.
SPEAKING OF FOOD MAVEN UPKEEP
Gaia DiLoreto is my new webmaster. I would have hired her because of her name alone - isn't it musical? And so Italian, even though she's not really. She made pasta with her great grandmother as a kid, but what she craves is green chile sauce from her childhood in New Mexico. She is, however, very computer savvy. She's the one who has revamped this newsletter, making it much more attractive, easier to read, and linked to my website.
Among other things you wouldn't necessarily notice, she also recently changed the search engine on the site. The new Google-powered search makes it much, much easier to find things than the last software.
What's to search? More than 300 recipes in the archives, travelogues about Southern Italian destinations, my Rome, Naples and Sicily restaurant guides, etc., etc., etc.
Put a keyword in the search box - how about "Thanksgiving" -- scroll down beyond the few Google ads at the top, and you'll find the citations that apply to my site.
TO RECAP ITALY, PART 1
The first week in October, I spent nearly a week in Le Marche, which I wrote about already. The second week in Italy, I was preparing for, scouting excursions for, and food shopping for my Cook at Seliano group, and, well, also goofing around near Paestum and the Amalfi Coast. Among the highlights was a dinner party that Cecilia gave featuring some of the dishes we ate in Le Marche, namely vincisgrassi, the regional lasagne I've already written about, and a chicken "in porchetta," in the style of roasted pig. In Le Marche, they make duck, chicken, rabbit and who knows what else "in porchetta." I've decided to try it with a boned turkey breast. I'll give you a report when I do.
After a week with my group, which is very intense, I rested for a few days in Rome before boarding Continental Airlines to Newark.
Although Rome is endlessly fascinating and gorgeous to me, I am in Rome so often that I no longer need to run around to see things. I can rest a little - walk around aimlessly, sit in a piazza and people watch, take a nap. Still, as I am always compelled to when in Rome on a Sunday, I went to the vast Porta Portese flea market, where, because I got lost down a wrong and seemingly endless aisle, I ended up not seeing nearly as many of the "antique" vendors as I'd hoped. 
All I found was a nice, small ceramic serving spoon for $2.80 - that's 2 euro at the currently horrible exchange.
After the flea, we headed to the National Museum of Rome in the Palazzo Massimo, near the main train station, where the "Roman standards" are now on display. Bob Harned is trained as a classical archeologist, and he had to see them. For years and years and years, they have either been on tour, in Florence being cleaned, or yada, yada, yada -- in any case, not on view.
The "standards" are the scepters, orbs and spears that were the symbols of the emperor's power, authority and command over his empire. They are depicted in sculptures and bas reliefs and coins, but only this set, belonging to the emperor Maxentius, has been found. It survived because these standards were secretly buried when Maxentius went to battle with his arch rival, Constantine. Usually, the standards were destroyed when the emperor died. In this case, they escaped destruction and were found centuries later. Constantine won that battle, by the way, and was the emperor who declared Christianity legal, and established the Eastern Roman Empire in - where else? - Constantinople. And, as the old song goes, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople. 
That was a busy Sunday morning, so we indulged at La Tavernaccia, also called Da Bruno, at Via Giovanni da Castelbolognese, 63 (06-581-2792), in Trastevere. It is a totally traditional Roman trattoria, family run, and on a Sunday there are tables with family groups. My friend and Rome guide, Iris Carulli, told me they had the best pasta with pajata in Rome, so I ordered it. Pajata is not for everyone. They are baby lamb's intestines. Technically, they should still be filled with some of their mother's milk, but they hardly ever are. Here they were, and they were also as tender and delicate as they can be in tomato sauce on rigatoni, served with a light blanket of grated pecorino. Da Bruno's baked lasagna, stacked high with meat and cheese, was also excellent as were, well, everything - roasted baby lamb (abbacchio, a Roman specialty), roast baby pig, the rigatoni all'Amatriciana (one of the classic Roman pasta dishes), even the several vegetables we ordered, including braised artichokes Roman style, with garlic and mint.
I can't help but comment on the flavor of the pale green cauliflower that looks like crystals and that Romans call broccoli and we call Romanesco. I've bought this stunning vegetable at my local farmer's market, but it tastes like nothing. I've ordered it in New York City restaurants, or rather dishes that feature it. It not only tastes like nothing, but you are likely to be served a meager flowerette, a garnish, as if cauliflower was as precious as truffles. In Rome, on the other hand, broccolo is tender and full of sweet cauliflower flavor. I can't eat enough of it when I am there and it is in season, as it is now.
ROME RESTAURANTS, PART 2, IN THE NEXT NEWSLETTER
MAY IN CAMPANIA
The next time I will be in Rome will be the next time I am in Italy for Cook at Seliano. I am still booking, but I am more than half-full now. Write to CookAtSeliano@aol.com if you're interested.
WHAT I'M COOKING
Now that I am not working on a book project I am free to cook as I please. I've even been revisiting old favorites from my own cookbooks. Last night I made a big pot of Mushroom Barley Soup, using the recipe that appears in different versions in two of my books. In Soup Suppers, I use flanken and some soup bones to flavor the soup, as my grandmother would have done. In Jewish Home Cooking, I use chicken soup or broth. I opted for the later yesterday, only because I found tetra packs of Swanson Chicken Broth at a serious discount. In a highly flavored soup like this, commercial broth works just fine, and Swanson is actually the brand I prefer; certainly over the much more expensive boutique brands that, to me, often taste more of vegetables than chicken.
MUSHROOM BARLEY SOUP
Makes at least 10 generous servings
3 tablespoons canola, corn or peanut oil
2 medium onions, cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 2 cups)
1 large carrot
2 outside ribs celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 generous cup)
1 1/4 cups (1/2 pound) barley
1/2 cup dried baby lima beans
1/2 cup split peas (green or yellow or mixed)
1 ounce dried mushrooms (see head note), coarsely crumbled
3 quarts chicken soup or broth, plus 1 quart or more water, or all water
(for a vegetarian soup - in which case, add some more carrot and celery)
1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, or more to taste
(Several dashes of a product such as Maggi, if the soup is vegetarian)
In a 5-quart or larger pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat and, when warm, sauté the onions until tender and just beginning to brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
Grate the carrot, using the coarse side of a box grater and holding the carrot perpendicular to the grater so the pieces are short. Add to the pot with the celery. Sauté the vegetables another 3 to 4 minutes.
Add the barley, lima beans, split peas, dried mushrooms, broth and/or water. Bring to a boil, then partially cover the pot and adjust the heat so the soup simmers gently. Cook at a slow, steady simmer for about 1½ hours, until the lima beans and barley are tender and the split peas have dissolved. After about 45 minutes, add the salt and pepper.
At the end of the cooking, add a little more water or chicken soup, as and if necessary, to bring the soup to a thickness you like. Then taste and adjust the salt and pepper. (If you've made a vegetarian soup, add a few dashes of Maggi or Kitchen Bouquet, tamari or soy sauce.
Serve very hot.
NOTE: The soup can be kept refrigerated for several days or frozen for several months. Reheat gently, stirring frequently, thinning it out with water and re-seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.
