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January 8, 2023 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

An adventure in Normandy

The older I get, and with a birthday coming up on Monday that is top of mind, the more I realize that one of the most necessary elements in my life is adventure. And one of my top adventure partners is Meg Ray, the unstoppable founder and cake boss at Miette. She’s in the planning stages of her third book which is on several chefs and bakers in France who are breaking all the rules and French traditions. When she suggested that we take an overnight trip to Normandy to visit the new restaurant of one of her favorite rebels, John, another friend, and I were in.

The Presbytere is in, as the name promises, an old church and parsonage on an estuary of the river Sienne, by the hamlet of Heugueville-sur-Sienne. The restaurant was started by British chef Edward Delling-Williams, who originally trained at St. John in London, then moved to Paris and opened a successful restaurant Le Grand Bain and bakery Le Petit Grain. He describes his new restaurant as part English pub, part Norman bistro, and he features the best of hyper-local ingredients prepared in sophisticated, yet earthy and simple ways.

Ed sat with us before dinner and revealed his reason for choosing this new location for his work. With three young children he wants to be as close to self-sufficiency as possible, growing much of his own food and being well away from urban centers. Thought-provoking actions from a self-declared collapsist.

We changed the subject to a lighter topic, namely where we should have lunch the next day, and he suggested one of his favorite places, a shack on the beach that serves only mussels, oysters, lamb, fries, and wine, called La Cale (I am afraid there’s no website to link you to). I didn’t need more persuading. We walked along the beach at high tide before the restaurant opened—it doesn’t take reservations and we were warned to get there early. It’s located next to a concrete boat ramp that leads into the sea and the “shack” description was not stretching reality. One whole wall is constructed of glass panels and swings out on hinges to embrace the wooden outside deck and protect it from wind, leaving the restaurant completely open on one side. There is a small stage and a big open fire that was crowded with pieces of meat on a grill. A hutch contains serve-yourself plates and utensils. All the walls are covered with paintings—badly-painted nudes, mostly female. I didn’t notice when we sat down that my seat placed my head right next to a penis in the painting behind me. For some reason the other side of the table found this amusing.

The place filled up almost immediately and we got bread, oysters, a steaming, enormous pot of mussels, lamb, and local rose wine, just as promised.

The band was a duo in their late sixties which upon closer inspection revealed that the lead singer was a transvestite. The meat-cooker was a person with a beard wearing hiking boots and a pink gingham dress. I was in heaven.

Midway though the meal, when I turned to the right to converse, I realized that I had unconsciously noted a series of large tractors going by, all loaded with standing men. It was like I was watching a parade going by through the small plastic window I was facing. The mysterious thing was that they were all headed towards the concrete ramp which ended in the sea a few yards beyond the restaurant. I was mystified about why I didn’t see any tractors coming back and where they all ended up.

We left the restaurant and when we looked towards the sea we were shocked. The tide had gone so far out that the water was now nearly invisible on the horizon, leaving a huge patch of revealed sand. And oyster traps. And men in waders who were loading the oysters into the tractors, which were now dispersed all over the still wet and boggy sand. In addition to the more organized oyster farmers were locals, mostly French grandmothers, armed with hoes, shovels, buckets, and wearing rubber boots headed out to harvest their own oysters in unfarmed areas.

In the afternoon we took the train back to Paris completing a perfect adventure which will stay with me for a long time.

July 4, 2021 In Best Of, Chow, Roam By Nancy

The Venice I love

When we first moved to Italy several years ago we lived in Venice for six weeks in August and ended up loving it more than ever. Several of you have asked for Venice advice so I thought it warranted a story. We love Venice, and feel protective of it, and want friends to experience the things that make it so special for us.

John rigged up a camera obscura in our rental apartment in Venice which projected our small view of the Grand Canal on our wall.

No umbrellas:

Groups of tourists following umbrella-equipped guides has to be a feature of the inner circle of Hell. One of the keys to enjoying Venice is never to be where these groups are. That means sticking to neighborhoods during the day and exploring anywhere near the Piazza San Marco only at night. Once you leave the Stazione-Rialto Bridge-Piazza San Marco superstrada of humanity you can get into neighborhoods and experience a whole different Venice. Piazza San Marco is ravishing at night, and it’s even worth it to splurge on the most expensive coffee you will ever have and sit at Caffè Florian at least once. The only time I’d recommend breaking the Piazza San Marco only-at-night rule is for the Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge’s Palace, where you go into some special places in the Palace—including where Casanova was held prisoner, and inside the Bridge of Sighs. (If you book through the museum it’s half the price of doing it through a private tour, but places fill up fast.)

Our hood:

We love the Dorsoduro area near the Accademia museum. With quiet streets, interesting stores, and cafes and restaurants that have more locals it was an easy place for us to feel at home and we’ve returned many times. We lived near Campo San Barnabas and Campo Santa Margherita, both of which are lovely places to linger. There’s a university right by Campo Santa Margherita so it has a nice student vibe in addition to the local families with kids playing soccer.

Campo Santa Margherita:

—Caffè Rosso (photo above) on Campo Santa Margherita—no formal name, just a red painted facade with white “Caffe” painted over the door. It’s my favorite place to have a Spritz (the classic Venetian cocktail with Aperol, soda water, and prosecco) in the afternoon.

—As you face Caffe Rosso, several doors to the left, there is a place with a floor lamp placed outside, and a little white dog, called Osteria alla Bifora. The space is beautiful with ancient beams and it has a nice selection of simple things to eat. The tagliere (literally “cutting board”) of prosciutto, salumi, and cheese was our dinner many a night.

—Pizza Volo is great, and take out only, if you are in the mood to get a slice and sit in the piazza.

Campo San Barnaba:

— In Campo San Barnaba, there’s a little street that leads off the square called Calle Lunga San Barnaba which has several of our favorite restaurants. A famous one, 4 Feri just went out of business due to Covid and a rent dispute, but fortunately the next door restaurant, La Bitta, another of our favorites, is still going strong. A dessert that we make often—an amazing spice cake with hints of pepper, red wine, paprika, and cumin—is from this restaurant and the owner gave us the recipe.

— Ai Casin dei Nobili is good for pizza. They have a retractable roof over one of their dining rooms that is lovely on a hot evening. There’s also a branch on the Zattere.

— GROM ice cream on Campo Santa Barnaba is a chain, but really, really good.

—Between Campo Santa Margherita and Campo San Barnaba you pass over a canal on the Ponte dei Pugni, or ”Bridge of Fists.” They used to have fist fights between the youths of the two islands, outlawed in 1705, because of the injuries and fatalities.

—Here’s an extra credit, super great spot, if you can find it. If you cross the bridge slightly down from the entrance to Ai Casin dei Nobili, find the Calle dei Cherieri, and take it all the way to the end you’ll be on a dock on the Grand Canal, right at water level. I think it’s the most intimate view of the Grand Canal in Venice and a great place for a picnic.

Accademia:

—As you head back toward Accademia you need to find Ponte San Trovaso and Cantinone Gia Schiavi. It is one of the most famous places for bacari, also known as cicchetti, which are small, seasonal, freshly-made bar snacks and a large selection of wines by the glass, and grappa. Go around dusk when everybody gets a drink and cicchetti and hangs around outside. Alessandra, the mom, runs the place with her four sons. (This place just headlined a recent New York Times article. The other suggestions for cicchetti in the article look promising to investigate on my next trip.) There’s a boat yard opposite which is one of the last remaining gondola repair yards in Venice, which will be the topic of a future Itch.

Markets:

—I hate the crowds right by the Rialto bridge, but the outdoor market is invaluable for cooking in an apartment kitchen or provisioning a picnic. There are some high-end food stores in the area. Also, the produce boat parked at Ponte dei Pugni has a great selection.

I loved this lunch straight from the Rialto market.

Other parts of Venice, and islands:

—To go far off the tourist path take a vaporetto (line 12) to Torcello, the first of the inhabited islands of the Venetian lagoon. (Founded in 452—after Attila the Hun razed mainland villages. Most people left for other islands in the 1300s after malaria got too bad on Torcello.) There’s an inn and restaurant called Locanda Cipriani that is a fabulous destination for lunch. It was started by the founder of Harry’s Bar in 1935 and has been run by the family ever since. Ernest Hemingway lived there for a season while he wrote Across the River and Into the Trees. It’s a haunting, gorgeous, nearly deserted island with a beautiful “cathedral” from 639 with some lovely mosaics.

—The Jewish ghetto is interesting and there’s a famous Jewish restaurant Gam Gam. You can even get a table outside and eat right on the Canal Cannaregio. The streets in back of it are a quiet and haunting place to get lost.

— The Lido. Late one summer afternoon we decided to go for a swim and headed to the Lido. Very Italian scene—the beach is totally occupied by beach clubs with small bathing huts and chairs. Groups of families rent the same cabanas year after year, share the cost, and invite dozens of relatives and friends, so the beach was so crowded with towels, chairs, and people that we could hardly make our way to the water. We started swimming and by the time we turned around an hour later we were shocked to discover that the beach was empty. It was after 6pm and there is obviously an unspoken rule not to be on the beach after 6. That’s where we also started to notice that Italians love to do things in packs. Why go anywhere alone when you can go with a crowd?

—The Libreria Acqua Alta bookstore has ended up on a lot of “most beautiful bookstores in the world” lists on social media, but it is worth seeing in person if you love books. Plus, when we were there one of its fabulous cats was standing guard over an honest-to-GodREAD MORE

December 5, 2020 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

In cheese we trust

Living in a country that is all about eating local sometimes we want to run wild and eat things that aren’t produced within 50 miles of where we live. I’m sure this is not a problem in faraway, exotic places like Rome or Milan, where I bet they can buy whatever they want, but in our rural village, to pick an example, our cheese choices are restricted to fifty shades of pecorino. A nice French-style goat cheese? No way.

My summer adventure introduced me to how great a real fontina cheese can be—produced by a certain breed of cows eating native grasses in the Val D’Aosta in only select pastures, with the cheese created in the hallowed, ancient tradition—and we decided to try ordering some from the tiny cheese shop we’d found in Aosta, Erbavoglio, that said on their website that they do mail order.

John jumped into action and was emailing back and forth with the cheesemonger. He was in the middle of telling me that he needed to write to the store again as he hadn’t heard back about the order when the doorbell rang.

At the front gate was a large package. From Erbavoglio. The puzzling thing is that we hadn’t given them any payment information at all. But here was our cheese.

John emailed them yesterday to ask how to pay. They haven’t gotten back to us yet.

We did a documentary for HP interviewing a bunch of people who had worked directly with Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, who created one of the greatest company cultures of all time. One story that has always stuck with me was that Bill insisted that the tools were left unlocked and available 24-hours a day. People thought he was nuts—employees will steal stuff. His response was that of course a few would, but the pleasure and creativity that the rest would have from being able to test out ideas (and the resulting products which made them hugely successful and profitable) would more than outweigh a few bad eggs. My favorite local linen maker ships all over the world and is giving Itch readers a 20% discount. And a great moment with cheese.

Our experience in Italy, which granted is a rural one, is that payment almost always works on trust, and more often than not we have to ask the dentist, or the carpenter, or in this case the cheese store, for the amount and how they want to be paid. These moments fill me with delight. The extraordinary sense of trust that people will do the right thing, and by god I am sure they usually do.

Tomatoes, harvest, vegetable garden, orto

July 27, 2020 In Best Of, Chow, Live, Recipes By Nancy

Orto adventures

This summer we have become more deeply Italian by creating the thing that makes every house complete — an orto — or vegetable garden. Most houses around here feature one prominently in the front yard. We didn’t put in any wimpy things like zucchini that grow all over the place and I don’t quite know what to do with beyond one or two things, but we did plant loads and loads of tomatoes.

Here are two tomato ideas from this week.

Slow roasted tomatoes

This recipe is from one of my favorite chefs, Skye Gyngell, and is unfussy but yields a tasty result. Skye suggests plum tomatoes but we used a mix of what we had in the photo above, halved or quartered them depending on size, and placed them on baking sheets with parchment paper underneath (we had four going). Sprinkle liberally with a mix of equal parts salt, pepper, and sugar. Then place in an oven on the lowest temperature you can get for about four hours until the edges start curling up. You aren’t going all the way to sun dried, just mid-way there. We’ve found that they store well submerged completely under olive oil and in the fridge.

We will use them often from making paninis to salads, but first out the gate was a pasta with eggplant and sundried tomatoes from chef Francis Lam. Here is her recipe for what she calls Pasta With Let-My-Eggplant-Go-Free! Puree. When she calls for tomatoes we added the slow roasted ones above.

Heirloom tomato tart

A friend in my WhatsApp “Cooking in Quarantine” food group made this today and it is on the list for this week. She said it was absolutely delicious. Recipe from the New York Times. Extra bonus points if you make your own pesto, which I think we will try, as we also have basil taking over the orto.

May 10, 2020 In Best Of, Recipes By Nancy

Fava bean leaves. Who knew?

I recently talked about the WhatsApp cooking in quarantine group I’m part of and how inspirational it is. One member recently got a farm box from Chez Panisse in Berkeley which included fava bean leaves, which I didn’t know were edible.

This week at the farm stand (haul above) I asked them for some fava bean leaves, which they didn’t know were edible either. They sent their son into the field behind the shed to cut them, having to clarify three times that the American was after the leaves, not the beans.

I brought them home and blanched some fresh asparagus, sauteed some baby garlic sprouts, shallots, and onion sprouts, added a dash of chicken broth and white wine, sauteed a few mushrooms, added the blanched asparagus for a few moments, and then at the very last minute a bunch of fava bean leaves and some toasted sesame seed, along with sea salt, pepper, and a few flaky red pepper flakes.

April 18, 2020 In Best Of, Chow, Recipes By Nancy

WhatsApp, cooking, and happiness

Food and community are core to being Italian. About three weeks ago I had an inspiration to bring the two together in a quarantine-friendly way and it’s one of the main things that brings me joy these days. The idea started when I hit the wall about what to make for dinner. The first couple of weeks of lockdown I felt pretty creative in the kitchen but suddenly couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to make and needed ideas. I reached out to a few close friends who love to cook, all over the world, and started a WhatsApp group that has blossomed into a lifeline for me. I want to share the idea as I haven’t run across descriptions of anything quite like it, although I am sure others are doing this. There’s something about the informality and camaraderie that makes this group very different from an article in the media about cooking in quarantine, a recipe chain email, or even a large Facebook group dedicated to the topic.

The group includes friends living in Beirut, London, Paris, Dublin, our village in Italy, Boston, and Berkeley, California. What has made it work so well? It’s small — a dozen people — so it is intimate and everyone either knows each other or is one step removed. More than about a dozen people might make it unwieldy and overwhelming. These people are fierce and well-matched in skills, creativity, and taste. Most have ties to the village so there’s a common frame of reference. Tastes are multicultural so ideas range from middle Eastern to Vietnamese to Mexican to regional cooking in America and beyond. We try to share recipes along with photos and descriptions. Ideas bounce back and forth with people adapting other’s ideas. Our family has been inspired to up our game in the kitchen which has been fun, not from competition but a sense of play and not wanting to let the group down. And we are very honest with each other — bad days happen when you don’t want to cook at all, recipes turn out badly, worries abound — so it is piercingly authentic.

This group has become my tribe that is feeding me on all levels through this crisis and what surprises me the most is that I am getting to know even close friends better as some days I know what they are having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’ve been moved by how they are taking care of themselves by being creative and nurturing in the kitchen. It has been lovely to see people with completely different lives, who haven’t met yet, supporting one another and cheering each other on. It’s a silver lining that the extra time that so many of us have is being used to nurture, create, and invest in other’s lives.

If you are inspired I’d highly recommend starting your own, on any topic really.

Here a tiny sample of ideas, from the hundreds that have been shared. If you enjoy these let me know and I can share more. The cake in the title image above was made by Donella for Easter. It was an almost 13 pound, six-layer gluten and dairy-free coconut and vanilla monster. No we did not eat it in one sitting.

Stinging Nettle Pesto (from Dublin)

A lot of our recipes tend to be pretty free form like this one: “Collect the newer leaves of the nettles, leaving the quarter or so near the bottom on the plant (wearing gloves, of course), blanch them one minute in rapidly boiling water. Then squeeze out the moisture. Use your favorite pesto recipe from here on out, substituting the nettles for basil, then pulverizing with olive oil, pine nuts, garlic, and usually parmesan.” Our friend in Dublin adds “I make this pesto with a combination of toasted walnuts and pine nuts and prefer grana pandano in this one but Parmesan is great too. Then just use as any other pesto. Also – make tons while the nettles are young — it freezes beautifully.”

A friend quarantined about a mile from us was inspired by the nettle pesto to hand make orecchiette pasta to serve it on.

On the other side of our village another friend made Crostata di Visciole from Pasticceria Boccione in the Ghetto in Rome.

INGREDIENTS:
For the pasta frolla (sweet pastry):
-150g (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
-300g (2 cups flour)
-150g (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
-1 egg + 3 yolks, beaten
-pinch of salt

For the filling:
-500g (two cups) ricotta cheese (I use goat)
-150g (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
-1 egg, beaten
-200g (9 oz.) sour cherries

To finish:
-1 egg, beaten
-Icing sugar for dusting

Make the Pasta Frolla (sweet pastry):
-Cut butter in small cubes, add to flour in a food processor
-Add the sugar and mix thoroughly
-Add the eggs a bit at a time to bring the mixture together (you may not need to use all the egg)
-wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Make the filling:
-Mix the ricotta cheese with the sugar
-Add the egg and mix until combined

To assemble:
-Heat the oven from 180C (350F)
-Line and grease a 20cm (8 inch) cake tin with butter
-Divide the pastry in two pieces, one half the size of the other
-Roll the larger piece out to line the tin with about 1cm (1/2 inch) hanging over the edge
-Put the cherries in the tin and distribute evenly
-Cover the cherries with ricotta mixture
-Fold the overhanging pastry over the mixture and paint with egg wash
-Roll out smaller piece of dough into a 20cm (8 inch) disc
-Cover the top of the pie with the pastry disk
-Paint top of the pie with egg wash
-Bake for 50 minutes. If the crust looks too dark, place aluminum foil on top.
-Cool, and dust with icing sugar

And from Beirut, Lebanon we were teased by this:

Our friend described it as “the real traditional Lebanese bread device called saj. Since it cannot be industrialized pitta bread was created. Saj bread is very thin. The one we are preparing here is “manakish” with zaatar and keshek (orange one). Best eaten straight away while hot.”

We didn’t bother getting the recipe for this one yet, but I will as soon as we figure out how to rig up a device like this in the backyard.

Our Lebanese friend also created about six different kinds of unbelievable looking cookies for Easter. Here’s one. Next week the recipe…

February 23, 2020 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

Things locals want you to know about eating in Tuscany

Here’s a sneak peek of an article I am writing for SmarterTravel. The article will cover ten tips but I wanted to share an excerpt before it is published.

After living in Tuscany for eight years I still treasure eating the food every day, but the bigger discovery for me was realizing what a key part food plays in making the Italian lifestyle so special. I’ve noticed things that visitors often misunderstand when they travel to Tuscany that make eating less fun and delicious. So—here’s an insider’s list of Tuscan food tips.

Coffee rules

In all senses of that word.

First of all, what you drink is a caffè and where you do it is called a bar. Italians tend to have several cups of coffee a day and usually stand at the bar and drink them quickly. (At some bars there is a higher price if you sit at a table.) A caffè is single shot of espresso. Coffee is served a bit cooler than many people expect because the Italians believe that things that are too hot, or too cold, like iced drinks, are bad for the digestion. And locals would never drink a cappuccino after noon (because too much milk after lunch is … bad for the digestion.)

I learned early on that a way around the cappuccino rule, keeping your street credibility, but not having to go all the way to drinking an espresso after lunch is to order a caffè macchiato which is an espresso with a small dab of milk either caldo (hot and steamed) or freddo (cold).

For a more adventurous coffee experience try a caffè corretto, literally a corrected coffee, which is an espresso with a shot of alcohol, most commonly grappa, sambuca, or brandy. In our town this is a frequent early-morning treat before the wild boar hunters go out to the fields with their loaded guns.

Marie Kondo your pizza

Less is more when it comes to pizza. I asked a friend who is a waiter the biggest thing he wishes he could say to non-Italian customers. He said people miss the point when they try to pile on too many toppings on a pizza. The best pizza is the simplest and allows wonderful ingredients to shine through. A pizza margherita shows off what happens when the right flour, water, and yeast are married to a wonderful tomato sauce and mozzarella (buffalo mozzarella is great). Pizzas are ordered one per person. Oh, and the worst sin for my waiter friend is when someone orders a pizza with a cappuccino.

Take your time

In most of Tuscany, outside of tourist centers, restaurants aren’t trying to squeeze more than one seating into a lunch or dinner window. This means that meals are leisurely breaks and usually multi-course. Trying to rush through this type of meal is not only largely impossible, but also likely to earn a puzzled and concerned look from the server, and probably the chef as well.

Lunch is traditionally the biggest meal and on weekends, or in more traditional restaurants, will include an antipasti course of bruschetta or sliced meats like prosciutto, fennel salami, and local cheeses, followed by pasta (the primi course) followed by meats (the secondi). Meats usually come solo and vegetables and potatoes are ordered separately as contorni but meant to be shared by the table. Dessert, coffee, and perhaps a digestive, like a grappa, follow.

Sunday lunch is the highlight of the week for many Italians and well worth indulging in. Seeing large families gathering for a lunch that lingers far into the afternoon is a special treat to enjoy.

September 9, 2019 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

Aglione: my garlic is bigger than yours

It’s the time of year when I start to see giant garlic in the stores and pici all’aglione (which means pici and “big garlic”) on the local menus. As you can see in the picture above it towers over lesser garlic. Aglione is a special type of garlic that is only grown between Siena, Arezzo, and Perugia in the Val di Chiana. It’s a relative of the garlic everyone is familiar with, without some of the drawbacks, and has a much milder flavor. The plant was nearly extinct but has been brought back in recent years by around twenty devoted farmers who have been growing it.

According to the Aglione Association it comes in the following sizes:

Super-Giant (bigger than 90 mm.)
Giant (80 – 90 mm.)
Extra (70 – 80 mm.)
Big (60 – 70 mm.)
Small (smaller than 60 mm.)

They also state on their beautiful website that it can cure abscesses, is used to help diseases of the circulatory system, malaria, infestations of worms and parasites, pulmonary disorders, as a disinfectant or purgative, for animal bites and for convulsions, for exhaustion, migraine, insomnia. It protects against toxins and infections, has a diuretic effect, reduces blood pressure … and more.

So eat up.

Over the past few years I’ve tried it several times and was a bit underwhelmed, but this year I have seen the light and can’t get enough. It is incredibly easy to make if you can get your hands on the goods. If not I thing you could give it a go with elephant garlic.

INGREDIENTS

400 grams pici (best if made by hand with only flour and water, or purchased fresh)

4-6 cloves aglione (You won’t believe how much garlic it feels like you are cutting up, but just trust. It should feel a bit like you have cut up an apple in size and texture.)

1 kg small, sweet fresh tomatoes or I’ve also used a jar or two of chopped tomatoes

Olive oil for cooking

Vegetable broth

Pinch of sugar

Chili pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese, for serving

METHOD

Peel the cloves and chop roughly. It doesn’t have to be nearly as small as one would chop up regular garlic. If using fresh tomatoes down the middle lengthwise. Remove the seeds and chop into cubes.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil, a bit of the broth, the cloves of garlic, and the fresh, chopped, seeded tomatoes, or the chopped tomatoes from the jar. Let the mixture simmer for 30–45 minutes, adding more broth if necessary for consistency.

At the end of cooking, you can mash the garlic and tomatoes together with a fork for a smooth sauce, or leave it a rougher texture if you prefer. Add a pinch of sugar and season with chili pepper to taste.

Cook the pici in boiling, salted water. Drain well. Pour the pici into the sauce — this dish is much less sauced than what one might be used to — the pasta should just be barely covered. Heat through over the fire before serving with Parmesan on the side.

June 29, 2019 In Best Of, Recipes By Nancy

Apricot Cherry Galette

Our young cherry tree just finished it’s work (above) so we had to make one of our favorite summer recipes—an apricot and cherry galette. The rough, non-fussy shape of the dough is somehow perfect. We’ve tried a lot of recipes, but our favorite is from Bon Appetit. The original recipe is in the link, but John made some changes in the instructions below that he found helpful to get the dough right.

This pretty tart is great with vanilla ice cream.

CRUST
1 cup all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick, 85g) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons (about) ice water
FILLING
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons plus 4 1/2 tablespoons sugar
8 large apricots, halved, pitted
1 cup pitted cherries (about 6 ounces) or frozen, thawed
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled
Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt

FOR CRUST: Stir flour, 1/8 teaspoon sugar and salt in bowl to blend. Add butter; cut the butter up with a pastry cutter/blender tool (or with a couple of knives) until coarse meal forms. Mix in enough water by tablespoons, while stirring until a few loose clumps form. At this point it’s just flour and loose clumps of butter and water. It looks like it would never form into dough. Ignore that. Gather into ball with your hands; flatten into 3/4-1” thick disk. That simple pressing together transforms it into a pie or tart dough—and, as a disk, it’s actually partially rolled out. Wrap in plastic; chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment. Roll out dough on floured surface to a rough 11-inch round. Transfer to prepared baking sheet.

FOR FILLING: Mix flour and 2 teaspoons sugar in bowl. Sprinkle over crust, leaving 1 1/2-inch border. Place apricots cut side down on crust, placing close together and leaving 1-1/2 inch border at outer edge. Scatter cherries over apricots. Top with 4 tablespoons sugar. Fold pastry edges up around apricots, pressing against apricots to form scalloped border. Brush crust with butter; sprinkle with 1/2 tablespoon sugar.
Bake until crust is golden and fruit is tender (some juices from fruit will leak onto parchment), about 1 hour. Remove from oven. Using pastry brush, brush tart with juices on parchment. Gently slide parchment with tart onto rack. Carefully run long knife under tart to loosen (crust is fragile). Cool on parchment until lukewarm. Slide 9-inch-diameter tart pan bottom under tart, then place tart on platter. A pizza peel (very large spatula) is also a handy way to move the tart to a serving platter. Serve slightly warm or room temperature with ice cream.

Serves 6.

Bon Appétit
June 1995

May 21, 2019 In Best Of, Chow, Recipes, Roam By Nancy

Suddenly a kitchen in Beirut felt a lot like Italy

To add another layer of adventure to our trip to Beirut we cooked with a family in their home, found through a service called Traveling Spoon. It turned out to be one of the best things we did on the trip.

In the outskirts of Beirut we arrived at an unassuming apartment building. Tania, our hostess, welcomed us and showed us into the living room where we met her mom, Joelle, and her brother. We all chatted for about an hour—I was starting to wonder whether I had forgotten to check the “cooking class” box on the form—when Tania asked us what we wanted to make and presented us with an array of choices. We decided on a range of things and then set to work in the small kitchen.

Learning to make a bunch of Lebanese classics was a blast, but what really make the evening for us was the warmth and wit of the family, with Tania and her mom ruthlessly teasing each other, her father, Boutros, arriving from working in his very large garden further outside of town and pouring rounds of homemade arak (an anise-based liquor), and various family members and friends coming and going.

In the middle of cooking the phone rings and Tania’s two-year-old niece had managed to video call her grandmother without her family’s knowledge. All cooking stopped while everyone chatted with the two year old. When Tania’s brother realized what had happened and came on the screen, looking slightly disheveled, Tania tells him he looks like a terrorist. At this point Sebastian delivers his highest compliment—that the whole thing—the frenzied, attentive cooking, the warm and funny family, even the apartment and kitchen, are exactly like what he loves about Italy.

We learned to make the Lebanese salads tabbouleh and fattoush, stuffed grape leaves (warak enab), hummus, baba ganoush, stuffed zucchini, and two potato dishes, among other things, but my favorite was chicken served over rice. It was different than anything else I’ve had and incorporated some new-to-me ways of using spices and techniques, all very easy. We made it last night, with Tania’s help answering last minute questions over WhatsApp while on the exercise bike at the gym, and I think I have the recipe nailed.

Tania’s Lebanese Chicken—Rez 3a djej—and the “3” is not a typo:

In a large pan heat some olive oil and saute an onion, three cloves of chopped garlic, a large bay leaf, two cinnamon sticks, and about 5 each of whole peppercorns, allspice pods, and cardamom seeds. Brown slowly, until the onions are really soft. Put in a whole cut up chicken and brown well. Add water until the chicken is just covered, put a lid on the pot, and cook over low heat until the chicken is completely done. (Tania used a pressure cooker to speed this up.) We had largely dark meat and this took about 30-45 minutes on the stove. Remove the chicken to cool and retain the liquid the chicken was cooked in.

For the rice saute a mix of nuts (we used cashews, peeled almonds, and pistachios) with a good amount of oil and butter. After the nuts are toasted drain them in a sieve and retain the cooking oil and butter in a large saucepan. Use the nut infused oil as the base to brown two onions, and ground beef (about 1/2 pound). Measure the amount of long-grained rice you want to use—you will later add twice the amount of liquid—and rinse the rice well to get it to absorb some water. Add the uncooked rice to the mixture which is browning along with salt and ground pepper to toast the rice slightly. Add cooking liquid from the chicken twice the quantity of uncooked rice, cover and cook on low heat until rice is soft.

Remove the chicken from the bones and shred.

To serve place the rice in a large bowl and layer over the chicken pieces. Add the nuts on top to garnish.

Other Lebanese cooking hints from our evening:

— Tania’s mom makes a pepper spice mix that is used frequently. It’s a ratio of 2:1 allspice pods to peppercorns, plus a cinnamon stick, ground fine in a spice grinder.

— The secret to making great tabbouleh is getting the size of all the vegetables (parsley, onion, tomato, mint) very, very small. It’s particularly hard with the parsley, so Tania rolled it into very tight bunches and julienned with a knife into the thinnest possible strips. Don’t cut the parsley more than once as you don’t want to mush it. When everything is cut add a good splash of lemon juice, olive oil, the pepper mix, and salt. (Watching I was amazed at how generous the amounts were of these last three things.) Add some uncooked bulgur wheat for texture.

— Fattoush includes cucumber, lettuce, tomato, onion, green pepper, and radish, and is dressed with sumac, pomegranate molasses, mint, salt, and pepper. Make sure that all the vegetables are cut distinctively larger than for tabbouleh so that there is a real differentiation. Add bitesize torn pieces of thin toasted pita at the end to blend with everything else and soak up the juices.

— Hummus is simple. Soak the chickpeas overnight, then boil them until soft. Leave in a little cooking liquid when they are pureed in a food processor. Add tahini, a big splash of lemon juice, and salt. To serve place in a shallow bowl and make a channel to pour over olive oil. For a nice decoration take a fork and dip into powdered hot pepper to leave an imprint on the edges.

— The trick for baba ganoush is in how the eggplants are cooked. Tania’s family roasts them directly over the gas flame on the stovetop, turning frequently, until charred on the outside and totally soft inside. It takes about 15 minutes, and they pierce the skin of the eggplant in several places before cooking so that it doesn’t explode. When mushy let cool, then peel under cold water. Puree the insides with tahini, lemon juice, and salt. This method of cooking the eggplants gives the whole dish a really nice smoky flavor.

— The Lebanese use sugar water frequently, particularly poured over desserts. Tania makes her own with 2:1 ratio of sugar to water heated to melt the sugar, then adding a good splash of lemon juice, orange blossom water, and some rose water.