Italy Day 11, Dorf Tirolo: A Hateful Travel Day

Friday, October 4

Tirolo, Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige / Dorf Tirol, Bozen, Südtirol

Highlight: Fresh paccheri with ‘nduja

Lowlight: Market day traffic in Bozen and Meran

As I came to consciousness on Friday morning in our suite overlooking Lake Garda, I recalled hearing rain most of the night. When I looked out the window in the daylight, it was relatively clear with some sprinkles now and again. I was happy to have finally got a long night's sleep, 10 hours on top of 12 the night before. I had been running a pretty high sleep deficit this whole trip. 

Meran and Val d’Adige/Etschstal from our Deck in Dorf Tirol

At 10:00, Ann and I walked down the street to get our car from where I stashed it in a narrow space between the trunks of two olive trees. Ann was along to help me back the car in the narrow space without hitting either tree or the fence just behind the car, the fence below which the hillside tumbles steeply down towards the lake.

I parked for a second in a no parking area to load our bags and wouldn't you know that in that instant we were blocking in and pissing off a neighbor. In a hurry, we set off down the hill with the GPS set for Bolzano, our aim to have lunch and buy groceries there. In looking at the map the night before, I saw an overlook on our way up off the lake that would give us good views of Lake Garda, something that we had not had in the prior two days because of constant rain. I thought we might stop for a moment and maybe look at the lake from that high vantage just inside Trentino.

As we made our way north along the lake, in and out of tunnels and in a significant amount of traffic, I saw blue lights coming our direction. As the carabinieri cars neared, I could see they were escorting a long line of two-toned red and white vintage Ferraris, about two dozen in total. Each time I would see a high end Italian sportscar (very often; they were everywhere) I asked myself what is the point of having such a fast car in a country with very few roads where you can take it for a romp.

After leaving Lake Garda at Torbole, we started climbing the mountain to the east so that we could pick up the A22 heading north in Alto Adige. Quickly, we came to the hairpin turn where the overlook is situated. We were mired in heavy traffic in both directions; it was raining lightly and cloudy; and I did not fancy our chances of getting in and out of the tiny parking lot for the overlook. I passed on it and kept on heading towards the A22, our stay at Lake Garda pretty much a waste of time, money, and effort.

By the time we got to the A22, we noted that the architecture had changed as well as the directional signs and the voices on the radio. With every kilometer north, we got further and further into the historical area of Tirol that has been part of Italy since only very recent times. At the end of WWI, Italy annexed what is now the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. The road signs are posted in both Italian and German and every other radio station is broadcasting in German. There is some Italian spoken in Bolzano, but by the time we got to Meran, it was all German, with a notable Austrian twang.

Exiting the autostrada in the direction of Bolzano where we were going to eat lunch, I picked the wrong line—cash only. Heretofore, I had not seen a single exit booth that accepted only cash. Good thing I had cash. The machines are a little confusing with slots for toll tickets, for bills, for coins, for bill returns, and coin returns. I got through it without issue, but fortunately, I watched the truck driver in front of me and took my notes from that.

It was easy enough to get to Bolzano following the A22 along the rain-swollen and ripping Adige River, but traffic in town was an utter nightmare. We did not know that Friday is market day and everybody and his brother comes to town for market day. Holy hell, what a fustercluck! Still, I pushed on slowly, into first gear to creep a bit forward, back to neutral, shifting hundreds and hundreds of times going in the direction of the restaurant we had selected.

Our host in Dorf Tirol had sent us a list of suggestions and we picked a traditional Alpine-style restaurant from her list. We were looking forward to a plate of Speck, a nice Schnitzel, and some Knödel perhaps with a bottle of local Pinot Grigio or a cold beer.

After 30 minutes of stop and go, we arrived in the vicinity of our restaurant to find that the local polizei had closed the street and were directing people away. A cop was gesturing at me violently to keep moving along through the roundabout. We tried heading another direction and letting the GPS find another route, but it took us down a tiny cobblestone street that 100 meters on was closed off with bollards. It was all I could do to get the Jeep turned around in that narrow space.

After all this nonsense, I made an executive decision and asked Mr. Sulu to plot a course for Meran, a much smaller town closer to our final destination where perhaps we could find calm, parking, and lunch. We aimed for the train station because in most towns there is a lot of parking at the station. Infuriatingly, we found that as we got closer to the station we were in the same sea of cars that we had experienced in Bolzano. And this traffic mix included dozens of buses, because the station in Meran does double duty as both the train and bus station.

Unfortunately, Friday is market day in Meran as well and the market stalls took over all the parking lots by the Stazione. Given the hellish traffic and pedestrian congestion, we gave up on the idea of finding a restaurant in favor of hitting the local Aldi for groceries and a quick bite to eat for lunch (also breakfast). Aldi was a mere two blocks away, a matter of 2-300 meters.

Unfortunately, this store is situated on a one-way street and we would have to backtrack to get there. The GPS tried to take us through the closed off market streets on two different occasions. Finally, I got us beyond the market, but just barely, and we arrived at Aldi 40 minutes later, sometimes moving ten feet, sometimes waiting for minutes as hundreds of pedestrians flooded the street in front of us.

After so much struggle to get there, we found a great parking spot at Aldi in their tiny parking lot. As grocery stores in America go, this Aldi was tiny, but it had plenty of selections. We stocked up on food and wine for some of our stay in Dorf Tirol, high up on a mountain above Merano. Again, I was shocked at how little food and drink cost in Italy. In this German-speaking part of Italy, I was surprised that all the store employees were speaking Italian. 

After snacking a quick lunch/breakfast in the car in the parking lot, we headed in the direction of Dorf Tirol. The trip out of town was bumper-to-bumper and stop-and-go, but ultimately we got moving faster. The GPS estimated 31 minutes but it was actually about 40 for the drive. The main street through Dorf Tirol is narrow, one lane in places, first gear steep, and on a Friday market day, teeming with pedestrians. On a good weather day, a lot of these pedestrians would be hiking in the provincial park above town rather than flooding the streets of town. A cursory glance about showed that it might be a really cute village, but I really had my eye on the gazillions of pedestrians trying to cross the street.

We followed the directions from Franziska, our host, which asked us to climb above the village center and then follow the farnhaus (“fern house”) signs, farnhaus being the name of their home. Although the GPS had us continuing straight for another 400 meters, the signs clearly guided us into a driveway ending at a modern house in an alpine style.

Not having any idea what our end goal looked like (Ann booked all our stays and I never thought to look at the house on their web site), the GPS left us uncertain if we were in the correct place. A quick text to Franziska cleared that up and she met us, smiling, at the door. Our hateful travel ordeal had come to a close with a warm welcome.

Perched on a mountainside at 2700 feet, the farnhaus sits about 1700 feet above the town of Meran and offers expansive views of the Val d’Adige/Etschstal below and on a sunny day, 180 degrees of snow-capped Ötztal Alps behind us and the Dolomites further to the east.

Franziska, who speaks amazing English, showed us our suite on the first floor of their house in which her husband's parents live on the second floor while she, her husband, and their two boys occupy above that. We could not have asked for a nicer or better appointed suite. The house is interestingly modern in an ancient part of the world while being extremely comfortable.

Private Deck Overlooking Meran

Glass of Travel Stress Relief in Hand

Happy to No Longer Be in the Car

The rain had largely stopped, letting us go out on the balcony and look around us. The first thing I noticed after the town of Meran in the distance below us were the large chestnut trees and apple orchard surrounding the property. The orchard directly below us was in the process of being picked, but it seems the harvesters had knocked off for the weekend already, leaving stacks of bins staged in the rows.

Chestnuts Everywhere on the Mountainside

Apples Everywhere; In the Middle of Harvest

As the afternoon wore on, I unpacked my second camera with the 525mm lens on it to take some shots of things farther away. 

Schloss Tirol in Dorf Tirol Below Us

The Seilbahn from Dorf Tirol up into the Provincial Park

Snow on the Ötztal Alps; Tiny Farm Villages Below
These Alps Run the Border Between Italy and Austria (10km distant)

At one point, I looked out on the deck to see a tiny European Robin who couldn't seem to figure out that it needed to get up above the glass railing to make its escape. I went out and helped the frightened little bird over the railing. This is the bird after which the American Robin was named. As you can see, this tiny little bird and our big thrush have almost nothing in common aside from similar breast coloration. This was the first little Robin that I saw in Italy; I have seen scads of them in the British Isles and also a few in France and Germany. I love the Italian name for the bird: Pettirosso ("little red").

A Wayward Pettirosso or European Robin

After the sun set, I set about making dinner from the supplies that we picked up in Meran. It amazes me the amount and kind of fresh pasta available in Italian grocery stores, which are tiny by US standards. I will admit that I found it odd in northernmost German-speaking Italy minutes from Austria where knödel are king to find southern foods paccheri (Napoli/Campania) and ‘nduja (Calabria).

On approaching the stovetop in our room, I had flashbacks to a family reunion in Maine where we rented a house with a similar glass cooktop. It took every bit of an hour to get that stove in Maine to boil a pot of pasta water. In this case, it took an entire episode of a Netflix show, 45 minutes, to come to a boil. The following morning, as I was trying to make coffee, I would find that the burner I was using has a not-so-secret switch to activate both its heating elements, an inner and an outer. Pressing this switch would greatly speed up the process versus using the smaller inner element. Live and learn!

Highlight of the Day: Paccheri with 'Nduja

This meal may not look like much, but it was really tasty and fulfilled our need for comfort food after a long and trying day. Also, paccheri and 'nduja are two of our favorite foods. We went to bed looking forward to possibly better weather in the morning and exploring Dorf Tirol.

Fourth of July 2024

Our annual Fourth of July to-do was really just an excuse this year to fire up the pizza oven and continue to perfect my recipe and techniques. I think we're getting close. Ann had invited Rob and Dyce to come over for pizza and as luck would have it, Dyce's parents are back stateside from their home in Tuscany. We are going to visit with them in September and haven't seen them since they came to a Christmas dinner at our house couple years back, a dinner of gnocchi and pork ragù.

Pesto Pizza Topped with Arugula and Mortadella

Despite the high temperature for the day in the low 90s, it was pleasant enough for us to sit out in the courtyard of our house, situated on the cooler east side. I didn't think it was going to happen, but we were cool enough until I fired up the pizza oven, that fire-breathing dragon pointed right in my direction.

Rob, Dyce, and Queen Ann

Neil and Lynne

The Queen and Her Rosé

Patty Green Helen Duschee Tempranillo Rosé
Our Go-To Patio Wine for 2024

To go with our rosé, red wine never being a thought this time of year, I put together a small antipasto board of tomatoes, pesto-marinated bocconcini, giardiniera, olives, Calabrese salame, finocchiona, rosemary crackers, and two spectacular washed rind cheeses, one from Vermont, the other from Switzerland. From Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, we got a whole Willoughby, a small washed rind cow's milk cheese that has a soft buttery paste. From Switzerland, we got a piece of Aarewasser (literally Aare water) raw milk washed rind cheese that was phenomenal.

Antipasto Board

For pizzas, I set up to do a couple of different base pies and then provided extra toppings for people to add to their slices after the pies came out of the oven. For the pie bases, I had some fresh mozzarella, 'nduja, olive oil, pesto, and a can of San Marzano tomatoes. For additional toppings, we had arugula which Ann and I dearly love on pizza, fresh basil, extra pepperoncini, a block of pecorino romano, several slices of really fine mortadella, and a batch of honey with crushed Calabrian chili for those of us who like a bit of spice with our pizza.

My favorite pie was probably 'nduja and mozzarella topped with arugula and drizzled with Calabrian chili-honey.

Toppings: Arugula, Basil, Pepperoncini, Pecorino,
Mortadella, and Calabrian Chili Honey

First Pie: Margherita, the Classic
Hand-Crushed San Marzanos and Fresh Mozz
Torn Basil and a Drizzle of Olive Oil After Cooking

Pesto with Black Olives and Pepperoncini

After pizzas, we finished with an espresso sorbet that I made from espresso, sugar, salt, and a touch of vodka to help minimize crystallization. It was far too dark when I served it to take photos.

As I mentioned earlier, I think we are narrowing in on the ideal pizza recipe. This batch of dough, I made with King Arthur all-purpose flour, the retail equivalent of the Sir Gallahad flour we used to use at the restaurant, instead of Caputo 00. I like the flavor of this dough better than the more traditional Neapolitan dough made with the stronger Caputo 00. King Arthur AP has 11.7% protein versus 13.5% in Caputo's 00. Given that at retail here in the middle of nowhere Oregon I can only find King Arthur, I'm going to stick with it.

This batch was 65% hydration, 3% salt, and 2% yeast. Pizza recipes, like many doughs, are expressed as baker's formulas. So when I say 65% hydration, the water would weigh 65% of the amount that the flour weighs. So if I were starting with 1000 grams of flour, I would add 650 grams of water (and 30 grams of salt and 20 grams of yeast).

Given that I wanted to make a batch of eight 250-gram dough balls (a total of two  kilograms), using my baker's formula, simple algebra told me how much flour, water, salt, and yeast would yield two kilos of dough. And by the way, bakers and pastry chefs use metric amounts almost exclusively and they weigh everything. The math is way simpler when compared to using arbitrary English amounts and there is no mixing of volumetric amounts such as cups of flour and weights such as a half an ounce of salt.

Over the last series of experiments, we determined that we like 65% hydration versus the easier-to-handle 60%. 65% water to 100% flour is about as wet a dough as I feel comfortable handling right now, but I also think that the results are fantastic, so I am not sure that I will try to push the hydration further.

Another factor is the length of proofing, that is, the time that the yeast takes to cause the dough to rise. To a point, the longer the yeast works, the more flavor it gives the dough. We know empirically from previous tests that we like a dough that has taken 24-48 hours to sit and come together. I started this dough at 3pm on July 3, let it have its first rise on the counter over about three hours, and then balled it and refrigerated it overnight. I removed it from the refrigerator at 3pm the next day, and let it rise unrefrigerated until I fired the first pie at about 7:30pm.

Also critical is managing the heat of the pizza oven. Heretofore, I had cooked pies on max blast and at 7/8 max blast. Neither was really optimal, cooking the top way faster than the bottom and leaving the interior of the crust just slightly undercooked. I'm picking nits here, trying to make professional quality pizzas, not merely good enough pizzas.

This time, I tried a different technique. While I heated the stone in the oven on max blast, when I went to fire a pie, I turned the flame all the way down. This increased the cook time by at least half, from 60 seconds to about 90 seconds. This yielded a much more cooked bottom crust and a fully cooked interior.

I thought the next to last pie had too cooked a bottom (I was the only one who thought this) so the final pie, I turned the flame back to a quarter rather than all the way down. Consensus was that this pie was undercooked. So all the way down in the future it is.

Pork and Potatoes

So Ann has this habit of picking up people wherever we happen to be, and if she likes them well enough, inviting them to dinner. Such was the case recently when we met Evan and Justin around the fire pit at our local pub while we were getting a couple beers after a movie two Fridays ago. Ann decided that they were coming to dinner along with Justin's fiancée and soon-to-be wife Maria, who was not in attendance around the fire.

Ann also decided that I was making pulled pork. To be fair, she did ask me to make pulled pork, but she knows that I will never refuse her requests if I can fulfill them. Besides, I am too happy to cook for anyone who is a good human and a good eater. I'm no longer in the restaurant business, so my tolerance for picky and high-maintenance eaters is nil, having had to cater to such people all my life. But for good people, I will gladly cook any time and any place.

Ann, Maria, Justin, and Evan
We Had a Great Night with Great People, Food, and Wine

I still approach dinners at home the way that I would at the restaurant. Even though we changed the menu every day at the restaurant, we would start the week off by sketching out where we wanted the menu to be by the weekend, and trying to pull as much of that prep forward into the earlier part of the week when we were not as insanely busy as on the weekend.

Ditto for dinner at home. On the day of the dinner, I don't want to have spent the entire day prepping such that I am too tired to spend quality time with my guests. So when I sketch out a menu for a dinner, I try to spread the work out over multiple days. In this case, the menu was not very complicated so for the Saturday night dinner, I started with some small tasks on Friday.

The menu was straightforward:

Whipped Goat Cheese with Puttanesca Topping

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder

Scalloped Potatoes with 'Nduja

Green Salad with Pickled Shallots, Spiced Pecans, Pomegranate Seeds, and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

Pulled Pork, 'Nduja Scalloped Potatoes, Green Salad

The tasks that I could do ahead on Friday I did on Friday: making the dry rub for the pork, spicing the pecans, and making the puttanesca topping for the whipped goat cheese. I've covered my spice rub for pork ("Butt Rub") in detail before and you can find a recipe here. I pretty much followed the recipe except for when I tasted this batch of rub, I wanted both a bit more sugar and salt which I added.

"Butt Rub" for the Pork Shoulders

Spicing pecans is a useful technique and we used to make many pounds at a time at the restaurant as they were a key component in certain dishes, such as our Fall Salad, a mix of cubed roasted winter squash, cubed Asian pear, and Cajun-spiced pecans, all dressed in a vinaigrette made from local apple cider reduced 8-fold, and served molded in a ring mold with a flourish of just-cut micro-arugula on top. [I sure miss the days when our growers would deliver living flats of microgreens to the restaurant, micros that we would clip seconds before they hit the plate.]

I used to toss the pecans in melted butter and then add some spice rub and mix them well to coat them with the spices. And that was good, but I noticed that when one of my line cooks prepped the pecans, they always tasted way better than mine. I watched her when she made the next batch and saw that she heated the pecans and butter together in a pan until the pecans were well-roasted before coating them in the spice mix and a generous pinch of additional salt. Even an old chef can learn new tricks.

While at the restaurant we used our Cajun spice mix (aka "Magic Dust") to spice pecans, I wanted for this dinner to echo the same flavors in the pork, so I used the pork rub to spice the pecans. I have found that menus hang together better if you can echo some flavors throughout, but not so much as to be tiresome.

Spicing Pecans: Cook Until the Pecans are Roasted

Spicing Pecans: Tossing with Spice Mix and Salt

The next Friday task was to start in on the goat cheese that we would have for our pre-dinner appetizer course with sparkling wine. The idea for this appetizer was to whip some fresh goat cheese to a light, airy, and spreadable consistency and then to top it with a highly-flavored olive oil.

But what to top the goat cheese mousse with? I wanted to be a bit creative. When I start thinking about creating dishes, I am often influenced by ingredients on hand, dishes that have appealed to me recently, or some other external input. In the restaurant, I would often, when in need of inspiration, walk into our well-stocked pantry (We stocked 15 different types of rice, for goodness sake!) where I would surf the shelves, seeking ideas.

In the case of this appetizer, I have been thinking a lot recently about making a chili-garlic crunch as that has been all the rage in the last year or two, and for good reason. Moreover, I have been thinking about spaghetti alla puttanesca as those bold flavors really appeal to me.

And there you have it, this topping is the answer to the question everyone has been asking: What if chili-garlic crunch and pasta puttanesca had a baby?

Chili-Garlic Crunch
Boiling Olive Oil Poured over Chile Flakes and Fresh Garlic

I started by making a simple chile-garlic crunch. While heating a cup of olive oil on the stove, I put 7-8 cloves of minced garlic, a couple tablespoons of chile flakes, and a tablespoon of dried basil in a heat-proof bowl. When the oil got very hot, I poured it over the mixture, instantly frying it, and let it cool on the stovetop.

Whipped Goat Cheese with Puttanesca Topping

Once the oil cooled, in went the remaining ingredients: minced anchovy fillets, brined capers, oil-cured sun-dried tomatoes, and chopped green olives. Then Ann and I tasted the mix and adjusted it. The oil seemed too prominent, so I added some acidity in the form of first a touch of balsamic vinegar for sweetness and acidity, then a touch of red wine vinegar for straight-up acidity. A bit of salt helped round out the flavors (surprising to me that it needed salt because of the anchovies, capers, and olives).

I left the mix on the counter overnight to macerate and for all the flavors to come together: it takes time for flavors to infuse into oil. The flavors were definitely better on Saturday morning than Friday afternoon. We left the whipping of the goat cheese to minutes before our guests arrived and one the mousse was spread on a plate and topped with the oil, I scattered on a large handful of chiffonaded fresh basil to lighten and freshen the appetizer.

Slow-roasting 15 pounds of pork shoulder is an all-day affair. A prior post outlines my method in which I bring the roasts up to 165F, wrap them, and return them to a very slow oven to bring them up to a final temperature of 195-200F. Despite it being an all-day affair, I couldn't bring myself to get in the kitchen until after my morning coffee, so I did not get the two shoulders into the oven until just after 9am. Accordingly, they were not ready until roughly 7:00pm.

Spice-Rubbed Pork Shoulders Ready for Oven (or Smoker)

Pork Shoulders at 165F, Ready to be Wrapped and Put Back in Oven

Fall-Apart Tender Pork Pulled Using Tongs

To go with the pulled pork, I had the idea to do scalloped potatoes with thyme and 'nduja, the Calabrese spreadable salame. I was hoping that the 'nduja would melt into the cream and I was not at all disappointed. I built the casserole by putting a layer of sliced raw yellow potatoes in an oiled gratin, then topping the layer with a sprinkle of salt, fresh thyme, little dots of 'nduja, and a drizzle of heavy cream, continuing in this fashion until the gratin was full. It baked for an hour, covered, in a moderate oven, and then uncovered for another half an hour or so until it browned on top.

Building the Potato Layers

The Finished Potato-'Nduja Gratin

To act as a foil for the rich pork and potatoes, I wanted a green salad with a relatively acidic dressing. I decided to put spiced pecans, pomegranate seeds, and pickled shallots in the salad and because the pomegranate was really ripe, I got a good bit of juice in the process of knocking the seeds out. That pomegranate juice would form the basis of the dressing when combined with whole-grain mustard, Sherry vinegar, agave nectar, and extra virgin olive oil, all buzzed together with the immersion blender.

Greens with Spiced Pecans, Pomegranate Seeds, Pickled Shallots,
and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

Pickled Shallots Put up in December

By the time the potatoes and pork came out of the oven, we had been talking and drinking wine for a good hour and perhaps 90 minutes. Everyone was ready to eat and it all turned out wonderfully. We continued the merriment well into the evening when someone, Ann I think, suggested opening a bottle of Port.

1992 Quinta do Bomfin Port

By the time the Port was opened and decanted, a lot of wine had been consumed and we had all got a hankering for something a little sweet to go with the Port, despite having gorged ourselves on pork and potatoes. I stood at the counter and assembled crackers topped with Cambazola cheese and fig compote, the remainder of the compote that we made at Christmas to give to our friends.

This 375ml 1992 Quinta do Bomfim is fully ready to drink; the tannins have mellowed and the fruit on the wine is no longer improving. This is unlike the 750s of 1977 Warre's whose tannins are still rough and youthful. I can hardly believe the $16.95 price sticker on the bottle!

It was a great night chez nous and I thank our lovely dinner guests for sharing in the merriment with us!

Squid Ink Linguine with Nduja and Shrimp

Squid Ink Linguine with Nduja and Shrimp

This month's bon appétit has on the cover a gorgeous Marcus Nilsson photo of a gorgeous plate of squid ink spaghetti with nduja and shrimp. I am so not one to steal a recipe out of a magazine: magazine recipes seldom intrigue me enough to want to cook them. Borrow, sure, I borrow ideas from all kinds of sources, but cook a recipe basically as-is? Never happens. But I was really struck by the cover photo and so I decided to make it more or less as-is.

You know nduja don't you? It's a Calabrese soft salame that seems like a mash-up of rillettes and pepperoni, seasoned with fiery Calabrese chile peppers. What's not to love? After many years in obscurity, it is slowly moving into the hipster spotlight and I hate that one of my favorite foods is headed for trendiness. And I'm also kicking myself: "Why didn't I think of using it in pasta sauce?"

Now my photo doesn't look at all good compared to the cover photo, but then I didn't have a food stylist artfully arranging six strands of pasta on a plate, a $4000 camera, and all kinds of nice light boxes and reflectors. Can you imagine if I had artfully arranged six strands of pasta on a plate? My Italian wife would have been screaming, "Where's the pasta?"

I did add a tablespoon of sambal oelek to the dish because there wasn't enough spice in the nduja for my liking. And next time, well, there's no next time. The shrimp for me didn't add much of anything, nor did the squid ink pasta. Blindfolded, it's just pasta. But, I will rip off the nduja in tomato sauce trick again and again.

I can see it now: nduja tomato sauce, grilled eggplant, fresh basil, and ricotta salata on pasta. That's where I am heading next time. Borrowing, but not stealing.

A Favorite Dinner

Looking back through the years of posts here, I see lots of pictures of salame, charcuterie, cheese, and bread. And no wonder: that might just constitute one of our favorite meals. For my part, these are simply foods that I love and now that I cook for a living, the appeal of a no-cook, ready-to-eat dinner is extraordinary.

Saturday while I was at work, Ann told me she had a surprise for me and in the midst of Saturday dinner rush, I promptly forgot about it. It was only after we returned from Fireworks Pizza in Leesburg on Sunday that she reminded me she had a surprise: a batch of bread dough rising, hidden in the oven so I wouldn't see it.



Ann's Pecorino Romano Bread

Ann wasn't too pleased with the loaf of bread, but it had an extraordinary crumb and great flavor. We demolished it over the next couple of days.

Delights, Largely Thanks to Friends

Although we keep a drawer full of cheese and salame at home (doesn't everyone?), it had been getting a little low until just this week when Bill, Tom, and Steven came over to attend Carter's winter concert. Bill came bearing the Robiola a Tre Latti the you see in the center and the jar of chicken liver spread next to it. I made the galantine behind the chicken livers. I don't know where the big chorizo came from, but I know I contributed the 5-year old Gouda. Tom brought the big chunk of farmhouse Cheddar, the green peppercorn-studded goat cheese, and the nduja in the foreground. A wonderful meal and thank you friends!

Tapenade

Ann asked me to make tapenade for the bread, so I spent a while pitting and chopping olives. And then she ended up not liking it ("too fishy"). Bummer. More for me.

And so we spent the evening noshing with a bottle of Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon while watching back episodes of Game of Thrones. A great evening!

Christmas Feast

Ann decided that we should do a low-key Christmas Day, so she invited Tom and Ann over for movies and we munched on a lot of salame and cheese. Although Ann says I grumbled about watching Love Actually for the umpteenth time, I think I was a good sport about watching it yet again. I fall neither into the lover nor the hater category. I think there are parts of the screenplay that are very good and there are parts that are equally ridiculous. And so it is not on my list of must-see-again flicks.

I made a pork and bacon terrine which you see in the top middle of this photo. Also we had venison summer sausage, chorizo picante, two quasi-local cheeses: a Valençay clone (the white goat cheese) and Grayson (the washed rind cheese with the golden paste). Also, a 5-year old Gouda that is fantastic.

We love Olympic Provisions salame (to my knowledge, they make the best salame in the US) and we got three of our favorites: Loukanika, Nola, and Salchichón. Everyone loves Salchichón; it is the best salame that OP makes: the spicing is incredible. And naturally, it was the first to go.

My Ann baked two loaves of her fabulous bread on which we spread this little crock of nduja, that I got from La Quercia in Iowa, a leader of the American cured meat renaissance. I'm tasting as much nduja as possible, gearing up to cure my own. This, I am sad to say, is not a great effort, being made from prosciutto scraps and not raw meat. It takes like slightly stale spicy ham salad. Not what I hoped for.



Olives, Peppers, and Lupini

I have found a marinated olive mix that contains lupini, often called lupini/lupine beans in English. I really enjoy them and tried making them once. They are the seed of the beautiful lupines that you see growing roadside all over Europe. The raw seeds contain toxic alkaloids that are leeched out of the beans via continual soaking in many changes of salted water over an extended time, just like curing olives. And then they have to be peeled like favas. Can you say giant pain in the ass? I knew you could. Buy them already prepared; too labor-intensive to do yourself.

Honeymoon: Olympic Provisions, Portland OR

Friday May 3, SE Portland OR


How to Tell You are in the Correct Location

After begrudgingly leaving Lardo and its wonderful pork sandwiches, Ann had the idea of finding a place to hole up and have a bottle of wine while waiting to check in to our B&B. We started driving around Southeast looking for a place to sit and have some wine, but nothing doing. Very few places are open before 5pm.

I admit that I was getting a bit frustrated (read "bitchy") when Ann hit on the brilliant idea of going to Olympic Provisions' original store in SE. We had already visited the "new" store in NW, where the charcuterie fabrication has now moved, the preceding Sunday on our way from the airport to the beach. Are you sensing a theme here? What could be better on top of meat than more meat? It's really kind of funny, but in our regular diets, we don't eat much meat. But we do have a crazy fondness for the pig!

I Want One!

When we arrived at the beautifully restored industrial building right on the river, the telltale hambulance was parked beside the building. We meant to get a picture of it when we visited the Thurman St NW store, but we forgot.

We perched ourselves at the bar just opposite the range at the tail end of lunch service and right at the beginning of happy hour and happily chatted away with each other and the staff as they were changing shifts. One thing is very apparent when talking with the people at Olympic Provisions and that is that they are all very proud of the product that they serve and are happy to be working there. As well they should be: their charcuterie is the best I have yet tasted anywhere. I've got a couple of other places I want to check out, but they have it down.


Yeah! Go Meat!

While sitting there, we ordered another bottle of Scott Paul "La Paulée" (the first bottle of which we purchased at OPNW and consumed the previous Sunday). We found this wine a bit disappointing the second time around after we had calibrated our palates to really good Oregon Pinot earlier in the week.

Once Again, Not Quite as Good

After a glass of wine and a few minutes to digest lunch, we ordered a chef's choice charcuterie plate. From the upper left corner clockwise, there was lomo, nduja, pork and pistachio terrine, loukanika, and chorizo andalucia, along with fabulous pickles: celery, bread and butter, and rhubarb.


Chef's Choice Charcuterie

For those of you without a working vocabulary of Italian charcuterie, nduja ("en-doo-ya"; recognize the similarity in pronunciation to andouille?) is a spicy and spreadable Calabrese salame. Nduja is cured in a casing like a hard salame, but it has a soft, spreadable texture because it is made from about three parts of fat to one part of lean, just the opposite of a hard salame.