Saturday, September 30, 2000
You Don't Have To Be Jewish
I met Marcy Goldman through her work. She is the author of A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking and the host of www.betterbaking.com, a great website full of recipes, information (lots of links), and good writing. Because Marcy is based in Montreal, where French is the second language, the site is also known as Baker Boulanger. [more]
Thursday, September 28, 2000
Wine Splurge
I love this wine: Pieropan Soave Classico Superiore, “la Rocca” 1998. I think it is a best of its kind. But beyond its clearly superior quality as compared to run-of-the-mill Soave, or even really good Soave, it is the kind of white wine I personally find extraordinarily appealing. It is dry without being acidic. It is elegant, but not so subtle that I actually have to concentrate on each sip to appreciate its qualities. It has a golden straw hue that makes it a pleasure to look at in the glass. It smells of ripe tropical fruit and has an almondy, buttery flavor, balanced with some earthy mineral notes. It is full-bodied and suave, which, in fact, is what the name Soave means in Italian. [more]
Tuesday, September 26, 2000
Great Seafood Stews in Livorno, French Riviera
“It’s time to go home and smell our own coffee,” said my dear friend Rozanne Gold, who, with her husband, Michael Whiteman, I’d met in Nice for the last two days of my trip. After two weeks away, I felt the same. When the great city of New York is your home, and gorgeous Park Slope your neighborhood, ending a trip, even to places as magnificent as Naples, Sorrento, and the Italian and French Rivieras, is not a hardship. [more]
Saturday, September 23, 2000
Nice is nice
The WOR cruise on the Radisson Diamond ends today in Nice. Thanks to Alice Travel and Travel Four, the agencies that arranged the trip. I'm taking off the next two days, spending some time in Nice, staying in the lap of luxury at the Negresco hotel before I fly back to New York. I'll be back -- live -- on the radio this Monday, telling you all about it.
Thursday, September 21, 2000
Grand Aioli on the French Riviera
Tonight, aboard the Radisson Diamond, I hope this is what we are eating. We docked in Cannes yesterday, today in Monte Carlo, tomorrow in Nice, and Grand Aioli is one of the grand dishes of the French Riviera. I am also hoping to get some bouillabaisse in. My friend Francesco de' Rogati, who lives in New York but summers in Monte Carlo, is supposed to arrange for us to have one when I visit him today. [more]
Wednesday, September 20, 2000
Wine Buy of the Week
Saint-Veran (pronounced San Ver-On) is a white burgundy that's still affordable. Some of the best white wines in the world are Burgundies - Puligny Montrachet and Meursault, for instance - and prices are usually very, very steep unless you buy something more generic, such as Macon Villages. Pouilly Fuisse is another white Burgundy. In fact, it comes from the commune (or village) right next to Saint Veran, which has, essentially, the same microclimate and the same soil as Saint Veran. However, it too brings a higher price than Saint Veran, mainly because it is a more famous and familiar name. I think it's mainly because people just love to say Poo-ye Foo-say. [more]
Tuesday, September 19, 2000
Ravioli Nudi
My WOR group stops in Livorno today, but most everyone will be going to Florence for the day, an excursion that has been included in the cost of the trip. I'm staying in Livorno because I have never had the opportunity to explore it before. Kyle Phillips, the "guide" of www.italianfood.about.com is meeting me. We are supposed to have cacciucco for lunch, which is the city's famous fish stew, and we are also going to see if we can find some of the city's Jewish food. The Jewish community here is still quite large (for Italy, that is) and the modern synagogue is apparently very impressive. The old synagogue was bombed and destroyed by the Allies during World War II. This is all according to a story I just read in a magazine called Italy Italy (www.italyitalymagazine.com ). [more]
Monday, September 18, 2000
Lasagne Portofino
Our ship takes us to Portofino today, which is a small port where chic Italians stroll and sit in cafes. This is the Italian Riviera at its most beautiful. Some of us are taking an excursion to Camogli, a more real-life town that you can read all about in Fred Plotkin's wonderful book about Liguria, Recipes From Paradise: Life and Food on the Italian Riviera. Fred has an apartment in Camogli and he has given me some addresses to check in on - I am hoping to visit his butcher and baker. [more]
Sunday, September 17, 2000
Neapolitan Refrigerator Cake
Today, the WOR cruise docks in Porto Cervo, a very fancy resort on the island of Sardinia. We don't arrive until 1 p.m., so I am using the morning, the only full morning we have aboard ship, to do a cooking demonstration. Besides the following recipe, which everyone will have an opportunity to taste before we disembark and check out the port, I am cooking monkfish in tomato sauce and making Frank Garofolo's cauliflower and pasta, the recipe for which you can find in the Maven's Diary item dated Sept. 6. The other two recipes are from my book Naples At Table. We'll have the possibility of tasting them at dinner. [more]
Saturday, September 16, 2000
Spaghetti with Eggplant and Mozzarella
The Radisson Diamond docks at Sorrento today and the WOR group has a choice of visiting the beautiful but very touristic town of Sorrento, or going around the tip of the Sorrento peninsula and touring the Amalfi Coast, or day-tripping to Capri, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the geography, is an island right off the tip of the Sorrento peninsula. The following recipe, from my book Naples At Table will be one of the choices at dinner on the ship tonight. [more]
Wednesday, September 13, 2000
Wine Buy of The Week
Morgante Nero d'Avola 1998 is from Sicily. Morgante is the producer, Nero d'Avola is a grape variety that we are just beginning to see on labels of wines from Sicily. It's a grape, at least in this case, with very a spicy bouquet that smells also of ripe, black cherries. Indeed, the color is like that of a dark, ripe Bing cherry. [more]
Monday, September 11, 2000
Off to Italy -- See What's Coming
Dear Friends,
I am off on the WOR trip today. We go first to Naples for two days, then to Paestum, which is south of Naples, in the province of Salerno, for a day in the country. My friend Baronessa Cecilia Bellelli Baratta will be taking care of us down there, offering us a tasting of local products and a buffet of cooked foods. If the weather holds up – it has been gorgeous there the last few days – this will all be set up around her pool. We’ll also visit a mozzarella factory, see the water buffalo on the farm, and take in the three Greek temples of Paestum (and the wonderful little museum across the road). [more]
Thursday, September 7, 2000
Wine Buy of the Week
Domaine Duffour was Carol Berman’s Wine Buy this week. It has the legal designation Vin de Pays de Cote de Gascogne, which is a level under Appelation Contrôlée, but we have both drunk many a higher level wine with less appeal. [more]
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
Cauliflower
Frank Garofolo is a senior culinary instructor in the professional program at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. We’ve known each other ever-so slightly the last few years through the New York Association of Cooking Teachers (NYACT). Besides being a fellow cooking teacher and an Italian-trained chef, he is of Neapolitan decent, and he recently moved to Brooklyn. We figured, given all that and the instant feeling of simpatico we had for each other, it was about time we got to know each other better. [more]
Tuesday, September 5, 2000
I'm Back -- Big Time
You may have wondered where I’ve been.
I mean, I’ve been on the radio almost all summer but I haven’t written a Maven’s Diary entry since late June. A few of you, including my brother-in-law Milton Alexander, have scolded me for not putting up some explanation, not even a “Gone Fishing” notice, and you are all right. All I can say at this point is, “I’m back!” [more]
