MARIANI’S

Virtual Gourmet


  January 3, 2021                                                                                            NEWSLETTER



Founded in 1996 

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By Jack Rivolta, 1933

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IN THIS ISSUE
THE FOOD, WINE AND RESTAURANTS OF TURIN
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
LOVE AND PIZZA
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

By John Mariani


NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

SOUTH AFRICAN WINES REVISITED

By Geoff Kalish 



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On this week's episode of my WVOX Radio Show "Almost Golden," on Wed. January 6 at 11AM EST,I will be interviewing Susan Goldman Rubin, author of dozens of young adult books  and  biographies. Go to: WVOX.com. The episode will also be archived at: almostgolden.











On the next video episode of Celebrating Act 2 on January 6, I will be speaking with hosts John Coleman and Art Kirsch about the differences between Cajun and Creole Cooking.
Go to: CA2.





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THE FOOD, WINE AND
RESTAURANTS OF TURIN

 
By John Mariani


         Last week I wrote about the undiscovered attractions of the royal city of Turin, whose gastronomy is also unique and not well known to travelers.
   
There is a distinctly Turinese, or at least Piedmontese, gastronomy in Turin, one that observers—not least other Italians—will say is more than a little tinged with French culinary ideas. The Po Valley produces the majority of Italy’s rice, and in autumn the magical appearance of Alba’s white truffles occurs in the oak, poplar and hazel tree forests. Excellent freshwater fish is brought out of Lake Maggiore, and cold weather makes game dishes, usually braised, highly desirable. The region’s beef, called razza piemontese, is well regarded everywhere in the country, and there is an official government list of more than 100 different types of salumi, many artisanal; every bit of the pig is used, so that the frisse of Cuneo is rich with offal meat, while testa in cassetta di Gavi is made from the head.  Lonzardo is a loin of seasoned pork, and brod is made with the blood and offal, flavored with cinnamon and fennel.

        The food culture of Turin has, since the 1960s, been one of abundance, and the huge Turin food market, where at least one generation of Italians who have never known hunger come to buy amazingly inexpensive fruits and vegetables that are, to sight and smell, of the highest quality.  There are so many competing outdoor stalls selling the same long-stemmed artichokes and cardoons, oranges as bright as the sun, wild mushrooms in profusion, so vendors sing out praise of their wares as they slice off the outer skins and stalks of the asparagus and fennel.
         Inside are the butchers and fishmongers, a horsemeat stall, and myriad shops selling cheeses from all over Italy, with 48 from Piedmont alone.   Langoustines and red mullets glisten on beds of ice; the butchers slice the hams paper thin and pull down sausages from hooks; the good lighting shows it all off to best advantage, and the big room hums with people ordering amounts of food once unimaginable to their grandparents, who now join the throng.
        Of course, the wines of Piedmont have long been among Italy’s finest, at least since post-war winemakers and contemporary innovators like Angelo Gaja, Bruno Giacosa, Aldo Conterno, and others raised the bar within the region to concentrate on terroir over quantity.  The wide range of Piedmont wines—Barbera, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Barolo, Barbaresco, and many others—is too immense to speak of here, but a visitor can taste his way through dozens of fine examples at just about any restaurant in Turin.
        Turin’s restaurants reflect its citizens’ genteel self-image, for just as the baroque in Turin is less flamboyant than in Rome or Naples, so, too, the restaurants show a certain restraint.  “You have to understand that the Turinesi both respect and support their arts and music,” Gianandrea Noseda, the Milanese-born artistic director and conductor of the Turin Opera, told me. “This is a royal city with a strong devotion to refinement and it shows in their cuisine and restaurants.”
         Almost every restaurant has tablecloths, at night they light candles and set down good silver and wineglasses. They are never very loud; people dress well, with no rap music or Lady Gaga being pumped into the room.
        Tradition has a firm hold in the kitchen, with seven sacrosanct dishes: vitello tonnato, veal slices with creamy tuna sauce; veal tartare called carne cruda (left); the tiny meat-filled agnolotti called plin; the egg-rich tajarin; various braised brasato dishes; the lavish finanziera, made with chicken livers, gizzards, cockscombs, and porcini; and for dessert, a Marsala-laced cocoa and amaretti cookie custard called bonèt.
        At Caval ‘d Bròns, located since 1948 above its own beautiful confectionery (now owned by Lavazza) on the Piazza San Carlo, chef Cristoforo Di Muro may send out a slice of culatello ham and spoonful of Castelmagro cheese dotted with balsamico, and a mere sip of Carpano Antica Formula amaro. That might be followed by a quivering sformatino of artichoke with foie gras, arugula, and pomegranate, and a hot fondue of raschera cheese and Jerusalem artichokes flavored with truffles.  Plin  comes, characteristically, in a simple but luscious veal sugo with a touch of tarragon and sprinkling of Parmigiano. Venison ravioli comes with a rich sauce of braised beef and funghi porcini.  Dessert may be a semifreddo of nougat with rum sauce and a mousse of chocolate and hazelnuts in a vanilla custard with Morello cherries.
          Ristorante del Cambio (left), open since 1757, according to culinary historian Luciano Tamburini, “put Turin on the map of the Grand Tour to Italy” and was a favorite well known to Casanova, Cavour and Goldoni. On my last visit the restaurant showed signs of neglect, and the Piemontese food lackluster. Since then, however, Cambio has been purchased and renovated in 2014 by young chef Michele Baronetto, who has preserved tradition but innovates on the fare in a series of tasting menus, ranging in price and number of courses from 105 euros to 210 euros.
        The amiable Ristorante Monferrato (right), across the river, is composed of  three pale yellow rooms that by one o’clock are filled with businessmen scarfing up large portions of carne cruda and ladies out to lunch on a fine antipasto of cooked vegetables, a generous platter of stuffed zucchini, polenta with Gorgonzola, a spinach flan, cheese in puff pastry, red peppers with ground meat, and simply cooked cardoons.  The plin comes in butter and sage, and gnocchetti in a rich sauce of Toma cheese. Follow up with a marvelous, steamy bollito misto of beef, veal, and chicken, with condiments that include sweet and hot mostarda.
         Sotto la Mole (left), across from the Cinema Museum, under a brick barrel vault ceiling, serves up a hearty onion soup with melted cheese; fried rabbit with artichokes; and the surprising braised donkey stew, which tasted a good deal like venison, served with yellow polenta.
         The name of the very popular little trattoria Le Vitel Étonné is a French pun on the Italian I Vitelloni (also the title of a 1953 Fellini movie). Packed with locals, this is a fast-paced, friendly, youthful spot with bare wooden tables and paper mats that serves modern cucina  anchored in traditional Piedmontese cooking, including an open-faced raviolo with peppery rabbit sausage; an assertively spiced breast of duck; and for dessert a very rich hazelnut torta lavished with golden yellow zabaglione.


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NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani
                                                           

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  and paintings By Galina Dargery




CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

 
           

    This being Sunday, the private art galleries were not open, so Marco could not show Nicola his work at any of them, though through the window of one shuttered gallery he pointed to one painting hung on the wall, depicting a woman on a bed with a half-eaten cake.  The woman was licking icing off her fingers.
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Most of my work these days is about women and food,” said Marco.  “I could show you what I have and what I’m working on in my apartment, if you like.”
       
   
Nicola, a little tired from the red wine, tried to bring her thoughts together. Was Marco making a play for her, especially after she kissed him in the pizzeria? Or was he just really interested to show off his work to her.  She said the first thing to pop into her mind: “Sta luntano? Is it far?”

    "No, sta ‘cca avvicino.  Cinque blocche addo stamme nuje. No, it’s nearby.  Five blocks from here.” So, Nicola assented and Marco took her hand, not her arm, as they walked at their leisure to his apartment.

    Marco opened the door to the apartment, which looked about the way Nicola hoped it would. Not much furniture, a small kitchen with an espresso pot on the two-burner stove, an artist’s table with cans of brushes, tubes of paint in various states of usage and stacks of canvases, many unused, leaning against the walls.

    “Excuse the mess,” said Marco, “but I haven’t been here much during the season.”  He said he would make some coffee and told Nicola to make herself as comfortable as possible.  “I really haven't touched a paint brush in weeks,” he said, “the cooking takes all my energy, and I have almost no time off.”

    Nicola was flipping through canvases, and, as Marco had told her, most were paintings of women—many were of the same woman—with food.  In one, a woman in a low-cut red dress lay on her back with a box chocolates; in another a tall layer cake floated above her head; in another just the lower part of her face could be seen eating a brioche.  All of them were done in a realistic style, but the brushwork and composition went far beyond those of hyper-realism, where what one sees is all there is to see.

    “Marco, these are marvelous!” said Nicola. “I really think they are excellent.”

    Marco came back into the room with the coffees.  “Some are, some are not, some are not yet done.  I’m not yet finished with this series on women and food.  There are many more angles I wish to pursue.  You see, for me women and food are, obviously, very elemental life forces, but I see so many women today for whom food is some kind of enemy, something to be feared rather than something to be loved and embraced. 

    “In my paintings the women feel no guilt in indulgence.  They are not voluptuous like many of the women in Renaissance paintings, but they are not thin like the women in the magazines.”

    Nicola wondered if he meant women like her, but he redeemed himself by saying, “Now, Nicola, look at you.  You have a beautiful body, a woman’s body, and I could see by the way you ate last night—I was watching you from the kitchen—and from the way you ate the pizza today that you are not one of those, what do they call them?”

    “Anorexics?”

    “Yes, women—beautiful women—who literally starve themselves to death for some irrational idea of what a woman should look like. For me a woman without an appetite for good food and wine is not even a woman at all.”

    Nicola was not sure if Marco was telling her all this as the prelude to a seduction, although he was not, yet, heaping flattery upon her.

    "It’s also part of why I love to cook,” he continued.  “When I cook, when I conceive of a dish, it also has to be elemental. I am trying to get at the sensual essence of the foods, not blow them up into some fantastical, like so many chefs do.  If you do not taste the soul of the tomato, or the fresh cheese, or the newly pressed olive oil, then I have failed as a chef.”

    “So where did you learn to cook?” asked Nicola.

    “Both my mother and grandmother were excellent cooks, and often they made something very good out of nothing, because during the war they had so little.  So when they were able to buy more food after the war, they made sure nothing was wasted and everything—even the water they boiled the vegetables in—would be used to enhance the flavor of something else. What about you, Nicola, do you cook?”

    “I do,” she replied, “and it was my grandmother, who was from Bologna, who taught me.”

    “Ah, the Bolognesi are excellent cooks. A little heavy in their sauces, but excellent.”

    “So, how did you start cooking professionally?”
   
    “Little by little, rather than spend money at restaurants, I learned as much as I could, always staying simple, simple.  I would buy the best ingredients, sometimes a single pear or two langostini, and I would treat them with respect.  As time went on I cooked for my friends—artists really are always starving—and then one day a few years ago, when I needed the money—which was always—I was recommended for a job as a cook in a good trattoria.  After that, I was never hungry and I was doing the two things I loved doing the most in my life.”

    “Well,” said Nicola, “I haven’t told you, but my brother runs a trattoria in the Bronx, and he could certainly use a cook like you, Marco.”

    Marco shrugged and said, “That’s a nice idea, but I tell you something.  A little secret: I have actually been offered a job cooking in New York for a family that once ate at Benedetto.  They are apparently very rich and they want me to be their personal chef, cook for them at night and when they have dinner parties.”

    Nicola was surprised both by the revelation and by the thought that Marco would actually move to New York. “So you may take the job?” she asked.
   
    “I already have.  The season ends here in another two weeks and then, after Christmas, I will go to New York and work for the family.  I already know that there will be plenty of time when they don’t need me.  They have a house here in Tuscany and another in Colorado, I think.  And in the summer they go away to someplace called a `Vineyard’?”

   
“Martha’s Vineyard. It’s very beautiful.”

    “So, I will have plenty of time to myself to paint, make very good money, and get out of Napoli for a while.  I need the change.”

    “Well, that really sounds like a great plan.  I hope it all works out for you.”

    Marco finished his coffee in one slug, set down his cup and smiled at Nicola, saying, “And perhaps, when I come to America, you can show me New York and this Belmont place you live.”

    Nicola laughed and said, “Well, don’t be surprised if you find it’s a little like Napoli.”

    “That would not be bad at all!”  He then became quiet and lifted a painting from behind a few others.  It was a woman sitting in the palm of a man’s hand and she was holding Eve’s apple.  Nicola joined him in front of it, remarking how much she liked it, as Marco slipped his arm around her waist.  “You know, Nicola, I think we are two of a kind. Art, food, Naples, New York. We are simpatico, eh?”

    Nicola saw where this was leading and she was not unhappy about it.  He was in front of her now, his hands on her hips, then he put one hand through her lustrous hair.  A moment later he leaned in to kiss her.  Nicola received the overture without opening her lips.  Marco kissed her more forcefully and brought her very close to him, saying her name.

    Nicola turned her head and gently tried to disengage from his arms, saying, “Marco, I find you very, very attractive.  I love your work and I love what you do, but . . . “

    “But what?” he asked.

    
“But we both have to go back on the ferry in the next hour and then I am gone tomorrow, so this is not a good idea right now.”
   
Like all men, Marco sank into childish despair, apologizing but still pushing his intentions on her until Nicola put her hand in front of his face and said, “No! No, Marco. Not here, not now. Maybe when you come to New York we will see each other and get to know each other better, but I don't want this to happen here and now.”
      In Neapolitan Marco said, “A jatta, pe’ ghì ‘e pressa, facette ‘e figlie cecate.”   
    Nicola wrinkled her brow and  translated the cryptic saying as,  “A cat in a hurry gives birth to blind kittens?’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

    “It means, you're right,” said Marco. “It means that going too fast may bring bad results.”  Then all of a sudden he became remarkably good natured about the short episode.

    "Nicola, okay, we go back on the ferry now, we say goodbye, and tomorrow we part, but only for a little while.  Then when I come to New York I will call you and then, we’ll see, okay?”

    “I think that’s a very good idea, Marco.”

    With nothing more to gain, Marco looked at his watch and said, “Ah, we should get going if we want to catch the next ferry.”

    Nicola smiled and said to herself, “Well, that went well.”

    On the way back to Capri, Marco was quiet but didn’t seem at all glum.  Occasionally he would point out something in the sea or landscape but otherwise said little.  And when they arrived at the Quisisana, Marco thought for a moment that perhaps this wonderful American girl would invite him to her room but realized from the look in her eyes that it was not going to happen.

    “So, Nicola, buon viaggio. I will see you in the new year. M’barete ‘o Napulitane! Practice your Neapolitan!”  Then he kissed her three times on the cheeks, gave her a tight embrace, and waved goodbye.

   
Nicola went back to her room feeling oddly elated.  But she also thought a swim in the pool would do her a lot of good.


 

© John Mariani, 2020

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

 
                                                   SOUTH AFRICAN WINES REVISITED

By Geoff Kalish 


 

        While Pinotage and Chenin Blanc are considered South Africa’s signature wines, I have not found either very satisfying. Almost all the Pinotage wines (made from a grape that’s a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault) I’ve taste have been either too full-bodied, with a bouquet and taste of mushrooms with hints of banana, or too light, with a scent of acetone. And the Chenin Blancs range from sweet, to off-dry to very dry without indication on the label as to what’s inside the bottle, making choosing an unknown brand difficult.    
  
On the other hand, I’ve found many of the reds made from Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Syrah and the whites fashioned from Chardonnay worthy of seeking out. In fact, when visiting the country a few years ago we found many “world class” Cabernets Sauvignons, Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah Blends and Chardonnays, all drinking well in their youth with the potential to age. In particular, we found the reds of Rust en Vrede exceptional. And we recently had the opportunity to taste the current vintages of these wines, with the results reported below.

         But first a bit about the winery itself. Established in 1694, but even now little known in the U.S., Rust en Vrede (meaning “rest and peace”) is situated on the slopes of Helderberg Mountain, a few miles outside the center of Stellenbosch, in an area that’s noted for its Mediterranean climate and well-draining sandstone soil. Since 1977 the winery has been owned by the Engelbrecht family, with the goal of producing full-bodied, complex reds, with an annual production of 10,000 to 15,000 cases of wine from estate-grown grapes. In addition, the winery houses a restaurant (below) that perennially places among the top restaurants in the world. Seating is at tables surrounding an open kitchen where current chef Fabio Daniel cooks cuisine that’s contemporary French with touches of Italian and Brazilian flavors and importantly uses only items from sustainable producers.
        Now for the wines. Overall, the quality was excellent for the price paid and, if anything, the wines were improved in the way of complexity from our visit five years ago. For example, when we visited, we sampled the 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon and found it to have a bouquet and taste of ripe blackberries, chocolate and notes of cedar with a bit of tannin in its finish. More recently we tasted the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon ($32)—aged 18 months in French oak barrels—with again a bouquet and taste of ripe blackberries but a more complex flavor, with pronounced notes of cherry and herbs in its finish that showed a touch of tannin. The wine married perfectly with roast duck breast as well as veal chops and grilled steak.
        And, while five years ago the 1996 Estate wine, a blend of hand-harvested Cabernet Sauvignon (60%), Syrah (30%) and Merlot (10%),  showed a very fruity bouquet and rather one-dimensional taste of cassis and cherries, the recently sampled 2015 ($45) exhibited a more restrained bouquet and taste of raspberries, cranberries and cassis with flavors that became more complex the longer the wine sat in the glass. It mated well with roasted chicken, pasta with red sauce and aged cheeses.
        We did not taste the Syrah on our visit to the winery, but we recently enjoyed a bottle of the 2014 ($28) that had a bouquet and taste of ripe plums, cranberries and strawberries with a hint of chocolate and just a bit of tannin in its finish. It matches a range of appetizers from smoked salmon to barbecued chicken wings as well as main courses of swordfish or Arctic char, even branzino.

 





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THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF
POLITICALLY CORRECT B.S

The University of Michigan's IT department suggests terms like ‘picnic’ and ‘brown bag’ are offensive. Alternatives include 'lunch and learn' for 'brown bag' and 'gathering' for 'picnic.' Although no explanation was given as to why they might be offensive.

 










                                                  FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT STANLEY KUBRICK IS STILL ALIVE
                                                A 7-foot gingerbread monolith was mysteriously erected in San                                                                           Francisco Park.























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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.


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"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.


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"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."  THIS WEEK:






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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