MARIANI’S

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  April 26, 2020                                                                                            NEWSLETTER



Founded in 1996 

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"Cabbages" (1936) By Polly Thayer

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IN THIS ISSUE

Mom-And-Pop Need To Be Heard In Washington
About The Future of Restaurants in America

By John Mariani

SIRIO MACCIONI, R.I.P.
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
LOVE AND PIZZA
CHAPTER FIVE

By John Mariani


NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
WINES FOR SPRINGTIME'S BOUNTY
By John Mariani




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Mom-And-Pop Need To Be Heard In Washington
About The Future of Restaurants in America


By John Mariani



If Rezdora, one of the big hits of 2019 in NYC, re-opens it will have to cut at least 30% of its few seats to maintain social distancing.
 

  

 

    The White House has announced the creation of  “economic revival industry groups,” drawing on more than 200 “executives, economists, scholars, and industry leaders” for advice on their industries’ future during the coronavirus crisis. Among the food and beverage group, by far the majority of members come from major restaurant chains, industry associations and food and drink manufacturers, plus a handful of celebrity chefs that include Wolfgang Puck, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, all of whom are partners in smaller worldwide chains.

    The big corporate advisers include McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy (left), Subway CEO John Chidsey, Papa John’s CEO Rob Lynch, Waffle House CEO Walt Ehmer, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson and several others.

    Missing from the group are the small restaurateurs, the Mom-and-Pop eateries most crippled by the pandemic’s effects on the economy. According to CHD Expert data service, as of October 2017, there were more than 480,900 independent restaurants in the United States (CHD Expert defines an independent as a foodservice enterprise with fewer than 10 units), making up 68% of the total restaurant landscape; by comparison, there are more than 231,400 chain restaurants representing 32% of the restaurant business.

    The imbalance is striking, with independent restaurants making up more than two-thirds of the industry having no input whatsoever when it comes to their post-pandemic future. Clearly they are the backbone and, it might be argued, the heart and soul of America’s food service industry, the kind of restaurants and restaurateurs whose profit margins are low, with 90% of gross income going to employees, vendors and rent, and face-to-face relationships with their customers high. They are the restaurants that created the food dishes that became the models for the big chains’ menus.

        The New York Times has reported estimates that 75 percent of the independent restaurants that have been closed to protect Americans from the coronavirus won’t make it back.  Large restaurant companies have deeper pockets and can hold out longer, even if their restaurants are closed. They also have easier access to banks with regards to paying off debt and getting new loans. Mom-and-Pop stores have little recourse in such matters, even if banks and landlords are lenient. Indeed, there was a vociferous outcry by independent restaurateurs when Ruth's Chris Steakhouse chain and Shake Shack received, respectively, $20 million and $10 million from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), causing Shake Shack partner to return the money, with partner Danny Meyer announcing, “we’ve decided to immediately return the entire $10 million” so restaurants that “need it most can get it now." (The PPP aid was supposed to go only to restaurants with less than 500 employees, but a loophole allowed individual units of a national chain with less than 500 to apply.)

    “We are very fortunate to own the building our restaurant is in,” says veteran New York restaurateur Ken Aretsky (below), who with his wife Diana runs Patroon, now 25 years old. “We just got funding from the Payroll Protection Program,” says Diana, “but it must be used for that purpose. We still have a mortgage and still have to pay taxes.” If Patroon re-opens hiring back 80 former personnel will be near impossible until the business comes back, which she says could take a year or more.    But it is in the laying off of employees—among the worst paid in any industry, with minimum wage a base for many and medical benefits not often provided  that the real suffering occurs.   Restaurant employees are a transient lot even in good times, when restaurants are doing banner business, finding good people to fill jobs is daunting. But the core of those who work long hours six days a week both behind and in front of the house are dedicated and become like family to the owners. This camaraderie can certainly exist within individual franchises of corporate chain restaurants, but decisions on firings, closings and re-assignment are done at the higher management levels with little regard for employees’ welfare. Chains can shift some workers to other units; independent restaurateurs usually cannot.

    For these reasons, and because their needs and requirements are very different from those of corporate groups, the independent restaurateurs need to be heard from in Washington. They are the ones most in need of help, not a company like Subway with 40,000 locations, McDonald’s with 38,000 or Starbucks with 31,000.

    Mom-and-Pop restaurants are also the ones that keep the specialty food market going by buying the kind of ingredients chain restaurants do not, especially when it comes to the artisan food industry that supplies everything from cheeses and vegetables to meat and fish never seen on chain menus. Chains do not buy free-range chickens, line-caught fish, heirloom potatoes, small estate wines or small batch liquors, which is how independent restaurants distinguish themselves from the mass feeding places. One farmer in Louisiana may supply only a half dozen restaurants with his salad greens; a raiser of lamb in Vermont may only service ten restaurants in New England and New York; a country ham producer in North Carolina may have only local accounts.

    Clearly these hard-working people need federal help, and the federal government needs their help in deciding how to navigate the raging storm upon us. Restaurants are wonderful places to go to and enjoy ourselves, and they are a vital part of every community, but Mom and Pop will vanish from the scene if they are not heard from, and helped. 


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ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT RESTAURATEURS,
SIRIO MACCIONI, PASSES AWAY AT 88


By John Mariani



 

    Sirio Maccioni, the Tuscan-born restaurateur best known for his New York restaurant Le Cirque, died April 19 at his home in Montecatini Terme, Italy, after a long period of failing health (unrelated to Covid-19).
    No American restaurateur was more  revered by his colleagues than Sirio—everyone called him by his first name—and few cut as glamorous an image. Tall, as handsome as an Italian version of John Wayne, multilingual and more demanding on himself than on his staff, Sirio reveled in the rewards of the restaurant business even as he believed it was insanity to go into it. All three of his sons, Mario, Marco and Mauro, did so anyway.
    Though a proud Tuscan, Sirio Maccioni rose through the service ranks of deluxe French restaurants in Europe and New York to become one of the most influential restaurateurs in America and the world, and his company ran restaurants in several countries, including India and Abu Dhabi.
        Born in Montecatini Terme in 1932, Maccioni escaped poverty in his country after World War II,  in which his father was killed (his mother died in 1938), to take jobs in French restaurants in Europe and on the Home Lines cruise ship Atlantic, which brought him to ports such as Nassau, Port-au-Prince, Havana and New York, where he disembarked in 1956, penniless, to pursue his career in America. There he eventually rose to become maître d’ at the high society restaurant The Colony, where he acquired the knowledge and trust of its monied clientele, many of whom became his regulars upon the opening of his own restaurant, in 1973, with partner Jean Vergnes and a $100,000 loan undersigned by real estate titan William Zeckendorf Jr. 
He called it Le Cirque, which not only evoked the gaiety of the place but recalled young Sirio’s reaction to the arrival of American troops in Montecatini in 1944: “The Americans? Well, they looked like a circus coming to town!”
        At the time, Maccioni regarded New York’s French restaurants as places “for masochists willing to submit to the French culinary act,” but contending that he wouldn’t dare to serve the kind of simple Italian food he truly loved.  “Right or wrong,” he said, “the way of restaurants in America was French. I love the trattorias of Italy, but America was not ready for this kind of cooking.” Nevertheless Le Cirque quickly became known as much for its cuisine as for its clientele, who were constantly being photographed entering or exiting the restaurant for magazines like Town & Country, Vogue, New York, and W.  Regulars included Sophia Loren, Paloma Picasso, Bill Blass, Barbara Walters, Luciano Pavarotti, several U.S. Presidents and the royalty of Europe.
        In contrast to the staid, formal, cookie-cutter décor of French restaurants of the era, Le Cirque was more frivolous, with an orangerie motif and images of cavorting monkeys.  Food editor Michael Batterberry explained Maccioni’s methodology: “He dares to have fun. He is the quintessential dashing Italian. But behind all the bravura, he’s in a perpetual state of high hysteria.  And all of his best customers are a part of it. He involves you in some kind of ancient Italian agony that is far beyond the dashing maître d’.”
    Despite Chef Vergnes’ refusal to serve any Italian dishes at Le Cirque, Maccioni came up with one of the most popular spaghetti dishes of the century—pasta alla primavera—which became an international sensation.
    After most of New York’s old-line French restaurants closed in the 1980s and 1990s, Le Cirque thrived and became a showcase for many of the finest chefs in America, including Alain Sailhac, Daniel Boulud, and Sottha Kuhn, and a kind of grad school for those who afterwards became famous in their own right, including David Bouley, Alfred Portale, Terrance Brennan, Jacques Torres, Michael Lomonaco, Alain Allegretti, Bill Telepan, Alex Stratta and Geoffrey Zakarian.
    Maccioni moved Le Cirque twice, in 1997 to The Palace Hotel in midtown, and in 2006 in the Bloomberg Tower on East 58th Street.  With his wife, Egidiana (“Egi”), he finally realized his dream to bring Tuscan food to New York upon opening Osteria del Circo in 1996, with a branch to follow at Bellagio Hotel and Sirio Ristorante in The Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. By the 1990s, Maccioni’s three sons were working in their father’s restaurants, helping to expand the Maccioni brand to other cities, including branches of Le Cirque in Mexico City (now closed), the Dominican Republic and New Delhi.
As a pioneer advocate for simple Italian food, Maccioni allowed the menus at Le Cirque to become more and more Italian as the years went on.
    In 2004 Maccioni (with writer Peter Elliot) published his memoir, Sirio: The Story of My Life and Le Cirque. In 2003 Egi Maccioni published The Maccioni Family Cookbook.  The family was the subject of a 2007 HBO TV documentary called A Table in Heaven.” 
    Maccioni’s awards included the Joe Baum Lifetime Achievement Award from The Food Allergy Initiative (2000) and a Fine Dining Legend Award from the Nation's Restaurant News (2003).
       
I was fortunate to have known Sirio and his family (right, with Egi, Marco, Mario and Mauro in front) quite well over five decades, and from the very first time I met him at Le Cirque I sensed he was always the smartest man in the room, who, in true commedia dell’arte fashion,  enjoyed making himself out to be a simple man constantly under assault from chefs, celebrities and social climbers who demanded special attention. His mix of soulfulness, savoir-faire and wry humor was always on display, and every woman wanted to believe he was flirting with her. Yet, Sirio always sensed that his hold on his own celebrity was fleeting, noting, “These people say they are my friends today, but if I disappoint them just once, they’ll say I’m just an Italian spaghetti maker behind my back.”
 
     
Sirio was a fierce realist and knew that behind every detail of running a restaurant were a thousand others. He could not resist moving a fork a quarter of an inch on a table or interrupting a conversation by nodding to a captain to take care of the guests coming through the door.  “Never complain,” he would say, “because nobody cares.” It was hard work that made his gracious professionalism seem effortless—what Italians called sprezzatura, the art of effortless ease.
         His greatest love was his wife and his family, and it had always been his dream as a child to own a big house in Montecatini of a kind he’d looked up at on the hillside where the wealthy Italians lived.  He got his wish and many others, and his spirit lives on in the myriad chefs and cooks and captains and waiters and busboys he had educated in the art of making it all look easy.


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NEW YORK CORNER
                                                           

LOVE AND PIZZA

    Since, for the time being, I am unable to write about or review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to print a serialized version of my (unpublished) novel Love and Pizza, which takes place in New York and Italy and  involves a young, beautiful Bronx woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian family impassioned about food.  As the story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at Columbia University, struggles to maintain her roots while seeing a future that could lead her far from them—a future that involves a career and a love affair that would change her life forever. So, while New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run a chapter of the Love and Pizza each week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I shall be offering the entire book digitally.    I hope you like the idea and even more that you will love Nicola, her family and her friends. I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com
—John Mariani


To read previous chapters go to archive (beginning with March 29, 2020, issue.

LOVE AND PIZZA
 
 

By John Mariani

Cover Art By Galina Dargery




© John Mariani, 2020


CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

    Nicola’s first two years at Columbia passed quickly and her reputation as a fine student only increased by the time she was a junior.  Her devotion to her studies was as fulfilling as it was all-consuming.  What with the class work and visits to the art museums of New York, she had little time for much else, which included applying the kind of light makeup her sisters said she needed to bring out her best features.

    “At least use some eyeliner,” her sister Natalie would implore her. “You’ve got beautiful eyes already, so enhance them a little.”  Then their mother would say, “Enough with the makeup. Nicky is more beautiful without it.”

    Nicola didn't give much thought to makeup one way or another, though, like most girls her age, she did have an interest in fashion. As a teenager she read Glamour and Mademoiselle magazines—whose cover models were all blonde—and, on occasion, dipped into a copy of upper crust Vogue or Bazaar to see what was new for spring or fall, though she thought the prices of the clothes shown were preposterous and so many of the Parisian couture fashions outrageous. She preferred American designers, and the Italians who had been making such a splash in Milan in the past few years, names like Versace and Armani, whose clothes were always exquisitely made from the finest fabrics.

         Growing up and always being reminded of the universally acknowledged expertise of Italian tailors, Nicola had a strong sense of Italian taste imbued by her father and grandmother.  In his business, Anthony knew what a perfect cut of fabric was, how the armholes should fit, how the collar should be turned, all knowledge he had gleaned from his father, whom he had watched at home trying on and discarding three or more stiff shirt collars before he chose one to wear.  He also learned marketing and sales at his company.  No coat maker in New York used better fabrics than Originala, all of which were imported from the best mills—Florence for silks, Milan for wool—this at a time when American women still wore shirts made of rayon and coats woven with a percentage of polyester, all of it sewn on machines, with plastic buttons and fake fur trim. 

    All the Santini children, even the boys, had grown up very well dressed—no hand-me-downs!—with special occasion clothes for a graduation or wedding made by hand by women hired by Nino.  Anna Santini never bought clothes in the stores around Belmont—the cheap leather shoes, the heavy wool jackets with exaggerated shoulder pads, the packages of cheap nylon socks.  For whatever was not made for her children she bought in New York stores like Best & Co., Arnold Constable, Lord & Taylor, and B. Altman.  Nino also knew a lot of people in the industry and could get discounts on just about anything.


                                                                                                    Originala Coat


   
    But Anna, who resolutely wore fine sweater and skirt outfits unless she was cooking, was wise enough not to meddle with those fashions her children saw on others and wanted very, very badly so as to fit in. Although the Santini girls seemed fascinated by the clothes on the TV shows “Dallas ” and “Charlie’s Angels,” they also were girls of the Bronx, so that Anna and Anthony had to clamp down more than once on the amount of skin their daughters wanted to show in summer and the height of the heels on their shoes.  Anthony knew a lot of people in the industry and could get discounts on clothes, so silk leopard skin blouses, Pucci prints, Diane von Fürsternberg wrap dresses and chiffon bridesmaid dresses all hung in the Santini girls’ closets at one point or another, right next to the impeccably tailored skirts and coats that never seemed to go out of style. 
    
 
Lord & Taylor

 
T
he other Italian girls around Belmont rarely did themselves any favors by exposing so much flesh, with all the girls in the parochial and private high schools hiking their pleated uniform skirts up above their knees as soon as they left the school building at three o’clock.  Knowing the wrath of the nuns and their parents, none would dare to toy with the idea of body piercing or tattoos.

Nicola never went through a grunge phase and thought most of the flashy disco clothes of the 1970s just plain cheap.  Yes, she admitted, she was a snob about clothes, spoiled to believe in quality rather then mere fashion.

        On campus at Columbia, Nicola’s jeans were invariably black, her t-shirts white with blocks or splashes of color, many of them bought at the museum stores she frequented.  Indeed, she loved very simple graphics on her t-shirts, something in a bold Helvetica font with the name of the museum on it.  She never gave any thought to parading around in a light blue-and-white Columbia t-shirt, which she regarded as self-promotion. Nor did she ever fall for the faux-military Army and Navy store look that passed as a uniform among both the male and female students on campus.  If she ever wore the colors olive or khaki it was always with a burgundy-colored wool scarf, as the women in Italy would, and her corduroy jeans were always perfectly fitted to her long, slender legs, which she kept in shape by walking everywhere she could. 

          Nicola loathed adults who wore baseball caps, especially those hideous plastic net ones.  At least the legions of Yankee fans around the Bronx wore the real wool or cotton caps, curling the brims just so, like their favorite players did.  The sight of a man wearing a baseball cap backwards—especially at Bella Napoli—made her cringe, and after six p.m. Joe Bastone asked that they be removed.

          She was also distressed by the cliché of big hair in the 1980s, splayed out from women’s heads, frosted, with bangs, without bangs, with sideburns and mullets.  Nicola had little time or patience for hairstyling, usually wearing her hair in a pony tail, and if she let it down and shook it free, she let it cascade around her neck and shoulders with dramatic flourish, its shine and thickness the envy of her sisters and of many others in the neighborhood.  Nicola would never admit it, but perhaps she did save those moments of letting her hair billow down for occasions when she thought it would have the greatest impact on people, especially men, who always found the display an event worth waiting for.

Once, in sophomore year, while going through her serious art student phase, she actually cut it into a kind of shag, the kind that her favorite rock singer, Pat Benatar, wore, a style that did seem to require eyeliner in the bargain.  Her mother and father hated the hairdo—her grandmother just smiled and said, “You look like a street urchin”—and her sisters thought she was being way too artsy for their taste. 

On campus no one paid much attention to Nicola’s hair, and, having passed through her cool coif moment, she let it all grow back that summer, down her slender neck and broad shoulders, and again pulling it back into a ponytail. 

 

*                  *               *    

    

    Despite Nicola’s workload at school, she still needed to make some money working at Bella Napoli, for which she had increasing disdain.  Her brother Tony told her that Joe Bastone was probably going to retire soon and that if was able to buy the restaurant, he’d make it into a place the Santini family could be proud of.

    “I know exactly how to make the pizzas, Nicky,” he told her one night after she’d closed the cash register.  “That will never change. What will are the ingredients we’ll buy, the cooks I get back in the kitchen. Hell, I’m ripping out the whole thing and doing everything brand new, maybe a glass wall looking out on the dining room.  I’m going to do some pastas tableside, the way they do at those downtown places that charge a fortune for a plate of fettuccine with cream sauce, and we’ll have specials every day, and Mom and Grandma are going to give us the recipes. And I’m going to change the stupid name—first thing!—to Trattoria Santini.  People love that word `trattoria’ now, and it means we can get away from the same menus every other damn restaurant in the neighborhood serves.  Put in a good wine list. We’re going to bring things up to date and make us all proud.”

    “What’s this `we’ business?” asked Nicola. “Is the whole family going to work here?”

    “Hey, they could do worse. Natalie loves to cook, Roseanne says she’d really like to get back to work when the kids are a little older,  and Mom can lend her expertise.  Then there’s you.”

    “Me?”

    “You.”

    “Sorry, but how do I figure in this business plan?  I’m hoping to go to graduate school and then teach, remember?”

    “Hey, what time do teachers get off? Three o’clock?”

    “Oh, so I finish my classes then I come over to Trattoria Santini and work the cash register till midnight, correcting papers in the meantime?”

    “Ay, don’t be ridiculous, Nicky.  You know you're a very smart, good looking girl.  I want you to be, like, the `Face of Trattoria Santini.’  You welcome people, talk to them, bring in a classier crowd that’ll spend some money, maybe some of those artsy people, y’know?  For sure, one thing you gotta do for me is to get rid of these freaking pictures of dead Yankees and put up some really great artwork.  You know about all that stuff like nobody’s business.”

    Nicola stretched her arms, yawned and said, “That I’d like to do, Tony, but I’m not sure I’m always going to be around here.  I may get a teaching job in, I don’t know, California or Chicago,  or I may be off on a research project in Rome or Florence.”

    Tony nodded, took her by her shoulders and said, “Hey, Nick, you know I want you to do whatever you want to do.  But if you do stay here—maybe you can teach at Columbia or N.Y.U. or C.C.N.Y.—then maybe you can stay connected to me, to the family, to the neighborhood, y’know? That’s all I’m saying.”

    Nicola smiled and gave her brother a hug and a huge loud kiss on the cheek.  “Tony, if that’s in the cards, you got me.  Just don’t bank on it.”

    “I won’t, Nicky, but this is going to something terrific.  You got your dreams, I got mine. Maybe”—putting two fingers together—“maybe they can mesh at some point.”

    “Maybe they will, Tony. Love you, gotta go, I still have fifty pages to read for tomorrow’s class.”


   
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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR


WINES FOR SPRINGTIME'S BOUNTY
By John Mariani

 
"White Asparagus" by Eduoard Manet

 

    I’m not fond of people who serve me produce out of season, like the tasteless, sinewy asparagus people eat all year long and tomatoes that were picked in the middle of January. I therefore look forward with baited breath to what springtime brings to market, and I love nothing more than to match up wines appropriately. Now’s the time for strawberries, radishes, peas, arugula, basil, mint, fennel, morels, apricots, cherries, dandelion greens, fava beans, fiddlehead ferns, new potatoes and rhubarb to come out. (Artichokes are also in season but, despite the earnest efforts of  some wine writers to match them with wines, none really work.) And spring lamb is readily available and at its best. Here are some wonderful match-ups.

 

MacRostie Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2018 ($20)—At 14.5% alcohol, this is considerably more powerful than most Chardonnays, even from California, but, if you like this style, with pronounced oak and vanilla, this well-priced Sonoma example is your best choice for lobster with clarified butter, bluefish and soft-shell crabs.

 

Domaine Weinbach Famille Faller Sylvaner 2017 ($25)—Grown around the Clos des Capucins in Alsace, the sylvaner grape has to be of high quality to achieve distinction, and it does in this wine. Its floral character is enchanting, its velvety feel on the palate and the good acid and dryness will go splendidly with fiddlehead ferns and minted dishes. 

 

Tenuta Regaleali Cataratto Antisa 2018 ($22)—This Sicilian medium-bodied white gives you a good blast of acid up front and the southern sun provides ripeness, all to the good for any spicy foods that contain peppers or Mediterranean spices.

 

Tasca Perricone Guarnaccio 2017 ($15)—Very clean, pronounced balanced flavors and acid complement each other, and a burst of fruit all mean this will go with dishes that may contain balsamic vinegar, like swordfish or some other seafood. The Guarnaccio grape is fermented in stainless steel and spends 12 months in used French oak barrels, and while increasingly planted in western Sicily, it is fairly new to the market and well worth trying at this very reasonable price.

 

Domaine de Cala Rosé 2019 ($17.50)—Chef Joachim Splichal of the Patina Restaurant Group found his ideal vineyard in Brignoles in Provence, planted with Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah and Rolle, to which he has added Carignan and Grenache Blanc to make a remarkably complex, 12.5% alcohol, stainless-aged rose that will go with spring salads, tuna, even strawberries for dessert.

 

Dry Creek DCV Estate Block 10 Chardonnay  ($34)—A more restrained Chardonnay at 13.8% alcohol, more in line with Burgundian models, this Russian River Valley wine from 18-year-old vines has a lot of creaminess, backed by pleasing acid and citrus, so that with any grilled seafood this season it will be in complete harmony with the olive oil and lemon components.

 

Mi Sueño Syrah 2016 ($55)—Syrah is fast gaining favor in Napa Valley, where Cabernet Sauvignon rules, and this example is 100% Syrah (no other Rhone varietals), making it a singular style with admirable ripeness and the forward fruit and tangy minerality the varietal should provide. If you find morel mushrooms in the market, or pick them up in the forest, this is the wine to uncork and enjoy.

 

Gagliole Pecchia Colli della Toscana Centrale IGT 2015 ($190 to $200)—Another fine example of how the IGT (geographically typical) appellation works at its best, for this relatively unfamiliar wine from Tuscany is remarkable for its body, boldness and soft tannins from 100% Sangiovese, making it a good match for a grilled sirloin.  But it’s alcohol level is high at 15.5%, and the next day I found it had lost a good deal of its initial charm. So enjoy it all in one evening. 

 

Zenato Alanera Rosso Veronese IGT 2016  ($13)—Although pesto made with spring’s basil is a Ligurian dish, it is made all over Italy, and it is best enjoyed with a wine not too complex but still with enough tannin and bite to go with the peppery quality of the basil, garlic and pignoli nuts in the sauce. This Veronese wine will go well, and it is quite versatile as a springtime al fresco wine. For $13 it is a high achiever.

 

Tenuta Saint’Antonio Famiglia Castagnedi Amarone della Valpolicella Selezione 2015 ($45)—Most Amarones don’t taste the way they once did, which is not necessarily a bad thing since some were oxidized on purpose.  But this example has the best of the old ones. There’s a leathery flavor on the palate, good tannins and a long finish, making it a good marriage with roast pork or suckling pig.

 

Lievland Bushvine Pinotage Paarl 2018 ($15)—Pinotage tastes nothing like any other varietal, and its best expression is in South African wines, as this shows in its assertiveness up front, the pleasant vegetal flavors and the acid that makes it wonderful with roasted baby lamb this season.

 

Costantia Glen Three 2015 ($30)—Imitating a Bordeaux blend, this South African mix of 62% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon gives proof of the complexity that can be achieved outside of Europe while demonstrating its own character and softness, which means it will go well with buttered peas and new potatoes.

 

Yarden Galilee Golan Heights Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 ($27)—If you want to smell the big, bold essence of Cabernet Sauvignon, one whiff of this will tell you of its depth and a sip will give you plenty of tannin that will allow this wine to age well.  Now more than three years old, it’s starting to mellow, and with Israeli/Middle Eastern dishes like hummus and other vegetable purees, as well as goat and lamb, this will make an impression.


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Sponsored by




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Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com.



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“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight, soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing. Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James Dalessandro, author of Bohemian Heart and 1906.


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The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by John F. Mariani (Bloomsbury USA, $35)

Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but let me proudly say that it is an extensive revision of the 4th edition that appeared more than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and so much more, now included. Word origins have been completely updated, as have per capita consumption and production stats. Most important, for the first time since publication in the 1980s, the book includes more than 100 biographies of Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.


"This book is amazing! It has entries for everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.

"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.




Now in Paperback, too--How Italian Food Conquered the World (Palgrave Macmillan)  has won top prize  from the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.  It is a rollicking history of the food culture of Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st century by the entire world. From ancient Rome to la dolce vita of post-war Italy, from Italian immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from pizzerias to high-class ristoranti, this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as much about the world's changing tastes, prejudices,  and dietary fads as about our obsessions with culinary fashion and style.--John Mariani

"Eating Italian will never be the same after reading John Mariani's entertaining and savory gastronomical history of the cuisine of Italy and how it won over appetites worldwide. . . . This book is such a tasteful narrative that it will literally make you hungry for Italian food and arouse your appetite for gastronomical history."--Don Oldenburg, USA Today. 

"Italian restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far outnumber their French rivals.  Many of these establishments are zestfully described in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by food-and-wine correspondent John F. Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street Journal.


"Mariani admirably dishes out the story of Italy’s remarkable global ascent to virtual culinary hegemony....Like a chef gladly divulging a cherished family recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the secret sauce about how Italy’s cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David Lincoln Ross, thedailybeast.com

"Equal parts history, sociology, gastronomy, and just plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the World tells the captivating and delicious story of the (let's face it) everybody's favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews, editorial director of The Daily Meal.com.

"A fantastic and fascinating read, covering everything from the influence of Venice's spice trade to the impact of Italian immigrants in America and the evolution of alta cucina. This book will serve as a terrific resource to anyone interested in the real story of Italian food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's Ciao Italia.

"John Mariani has written the definitive history of how Italians won their way into our hearts, minds, and stomachs.  It's a story of pleasure over pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer, owner of NYC restaurants Union Square Cafe,  The Modern, and Maialino.

                                                                             





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FEATURED LINKS: I am happy to  report that the Virtual Gourmet is  linked to four excellent travel sites:

Everett Potter's Travel  Report

I consider this the best and savviest blog of its kind on the  web. Potter is a columnist for USA Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury  Spa Finder, a contributing editor for Ski and  a frequent contributor to National  Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com  and Elle Decor. "I’ve designed this site is for people who take their  travel seriously," says Potter. "For travelers who want to learn about special  places but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for the privilege of  staying there. Because at the end of the day, it’s not so much about five-star  places as five-star experiences." 






Eating Las Vegas JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (as well as the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas. He can also be seen every Friday morning as the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3  in Las Vegas.



              



MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani,  Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish, and Brian Freedman. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 

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© copyright John Mariani 2020