December Christmas Beer Festival in Lecco!

Krampus 75cl, originally uploaded by Rubber Slippers In Italy

Just a heads-up on an event to put the merry in the christmas while you figure out what to get for the suoceri (in-laws). I found the following info on a beer festival in Imbersago and it looks like a promising event. Beer selection, dates, hours and further details all here: www.birradinatale.it

I put up the xmas tree in less than 5 minutes

And it looks like alpha dog is already sniffing around for presents.

Westie under the xmas tree, originally uploaded by Rubber Slippers In Italy

Happy White Friday (the dog version)

Grrrr! Rowrrr! WOOF! What's that noise?

A big pooper scooper! Never saw one of those before!

Happy White Friday (the day after Tday)

The weatherman was spot on this time, and I practically jumped out of bed when the MotH said snow. This photo has been color corrected in photoshop. The morning is more accurately of a gray-blue tone, like this shot of the persimmon tree under snow.

We had a very laid back Thanksgiving this year in comparison to last's, so I don't have the hangover, the headache, or the bloat from food that is still digesting. A shame that we don't have any leftovers, but then who needs leftovers when there's beef tacos for lunch.

Pickled onions, olives and homemade, handcut sweet potato chips seasoned with sea salt and paprika. I thought these were orange sweets but when cut they were white inside.

Fennel-orange salad, cranberry sauce (4.79€ for a little jar!), turkey-lardo rollups, ready-to-cook american-style ribs. Rice and mashers and that's it!

Serve at 10°-14°C

Our beer and pizza runs cease during cold season but where things don't normally happen there will always be an exception to the rule. And don't we all love exceptions. After hearing about a stellar wine/beer shop in Varese, we had to check it out for ourselves, and what used to be known as La Posteria is now La Vinothèque. Dealing in both international imports and local craft brews, this is just the sort of place for beer geeks yet it was a shocking thrill to see fine wines and precious champagnes too. Dom Perignon? Cristal? Although these two labels make it sound like a store beyond modest means, nothing could be further from the truth. We walked out of La Vinothèque on via Sant'Antonio 65 with a mixed box.

The first to sample was Cat Milk Mild by Revelation Cat Craft Brewing (an italian company). I didn't claw the bottle, the label comes like that! This is what you get when milk stout meets english mild ale, the former of which I have never even heard of before. Lactose in beer? Malty, chocolatey, caramel notes, that, had I stuck my "mug" in deeper, would've left me with a foamy moustache from the thick head sitting on top. I had this with pizza but suspect that a big plate of fish and chips is the better deal. 3.5% alcohol. Read Des de Moor review notes: http://desdemoor.co.uk/molen-revelation-cat-whole-milk-mild/

The second was a russian imperial style stout by norwegian microbrewery Nøgne Ø. This beer was so profound in color that it bordered on inky black. No surprise that this depth revealed itself in a very strong roasted flavor, almost too bitter at times, but crowned with a head of gorgeous cappuccino color, what's to complain about? I think it has a lot to do with stouts that a palate is more accustomed to, and this is definitely in a different league compared to Guiness. I'm going to admit that Nøgne Ø was too much for me, but I'll add that having this with a balote/polenta cheeseball at the same time helped to tame the dark beast. 9% alcohol. Read beeradvocate review notes: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/7730/28248

No panty lagers with this cheese bomb!

November fog and snow

By now I am ready to throw in the towel on this month and eager to welcome December. Two weeks ago to the day I marveled at November hail, gritted my teeth as the rain continued to fall for days afterwards (can you imagine having to crap outside when it's pouring buckets?), and with the exception of a few quasi-sunny mornings, continued to wake to obscure views like the one above. It can drive a dog mad I tell you.

The upside to all this is that my human "mamma" goes above and beyond in trying to keep our spirits up. Extra snacks, extra cuddles and even new jackets for me and my westie sister, but I have to say that the best remedy for the blues is a weekend playing in the snow.

I study it...

...she rolls in it.

...we love running in it.

Weather report for this coming weekend: more snow and lots of it. The difference between where we live (680 meters) and the top of the mountain is by a few hundred meters and a five minute drive. After Thanksgiving it'll be white Friday. Bring it. Woof!

La Balote (it's got nothin' to do with duck eggs)

If you're even vaguely aware of the 101 ways to eat an egg (I'm guessing that I'm very close), the title may have struck a familiar...off note? Yes I'm referring to what's known as balut or balot, the cooked duck or chicken embryo that has fascinated the minds and unsure palates of those who like living on the foodie edge. Never tried it and never will, so to stumble across the Festa della Balote came as a surprise. Boiled chicks in Italy? Not to my knowledge. The balote that I speak of here is along the same lines of being "wrapped" as the asian balut defines itself, but it is actually derived from the word palla which in italian means ball.

It's not so much different than making arancini

Sicily's stuffed and fried rice balls have already made a name for themselves among seekers of italian cuisine, so it's high time that the north gets a chance in the spotlight too. The obvious difference of course is that balote is made with polenta. Not the soft and creamy type that slides down your tongue like a dream, but the thick, stodgy version that sticks to yer ribs. The recipe that I followed called for regular yellow polenta but I used what I had on hand - polenta taragna (polenta with buckwheat flour).

Cook up a batch of polenta until thick, stir in a handful of grated montasio cheese or other relatively firm, flavored cheese, then wait a few minutes until it's cool enough to handle. With slightly damp hands, begin shaping baseball-sized orbs, tucking a chunk of semi-soft cheese in the center. These are then placed and heated in a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet or nonstick pan (a thin film of olive oil helps) until warmed through and lightly browned on the outside. It's the most delicious thing to want to dig into on a cold, foggy day like this.

While this dish may be the main draw at the Festa della Balote in Clauzetto (Pordenone) in August of each year, cheese-filled polenta balls are evidently rolling all over the place in northern Italy. There's gorgonzola or taleggio-stuffed pulenta balota in Laglio, Como (home to Clooney) and el balott of the lombard area known as Brianza. From what I've read, this one is strictly filled with gorgonzola. And then there's la balòta at Lake Garda on the eastern side where Veneto and Trentino meet.

The one that pulls at my heart strings though is that of Friuli tradition. This is so sweet. Custom says that when a young man went to the home of a girl with the intention of asking her hand in marriage, he brought some of these balote as a gift to the family. If the balote were put on the hearth to warm up, it was a sign of approval for the engagement.

Classic Loren: La Ciociara (Two Women)

How I inadverdently stumbled upon a movie that was made before I was born is an example of the way this site continues to open new doors across the internet (and believe you me, I don't knock, I just barge right in - ha!). A kind reader had sent an email in regards to his website All Things Italian, which in turn led me to do the usual sagra search in the village of his family roots. Inevitably this search landed me in the Ciociaria, an area in Lazio's countryside that encompasses Frosinone province and sections outside of Rome. In the previous post I made mention of the traditional peasant footwear - ciocia (choh-chah), plural cioce (choh-cheh) - that the musician was wearing, and it was through this observation that I found this film with Sophia Loren. La Ciociara (choh-chah-rah), that is, a female from Ciociaria (choh-chah-REE-ah) would therefore wear the traditional shoe in that period and here she is in the movie poster with a pair of cioce and socks. Are you with me yet?

Sadly, leather sandals with straps play second fiddle in this movie which revolves around the landscape that became the setting of an ugly wartime affair. The raping of peasants by moroccan goumier allies is not as famous as The Rape of the Sabine Women sculpture, but is nonetheless compelling especially with Loren in the lead role. Sophia began way before my cinema-going years, so to come across this film was more of a history lesson in the times during WWII. The movie is uploaded in its entirety on google and the quality suffers a bit, but if you're a fan of Ms. Everything-you-see-I-owe-to-spaghetti, it is worth taking a look. English title: Two Women

Apennine bagpipers with a cameo from Maddie & Mr B

Appenine Pipers from Amenon on Vimeo.

I realize that the phrase "it's a small world" gets tossed around enough to make you wonder why a person wouldn't just expect to run into someone they know upon walking out the door. This happens frequently enough on Kauai where I come from, but never happens here unless we drive pass our neighbors going up or coming down the 2 miles from the chestnut forest.

It came as a surprise then, when one of my flickr contacts had uploaded photos of an event that I had covered as well. This was back in May of this year with La Pagliara in Fossalto in Molise - quite a distance away from Lecco to make things even more intriguing. La Pagliara is an old tradition that I was very keen on capturing on video, but Amenon, my flickr contact, was finally able to put together his footage on that sunny spring day in May. To think that we may have been standing right next to each other without even knowing it is incredible, but to discover that MotH, myself and the dogs briefly appear in his video makes me glad that I wore dark colors...you know, for the slimming effect and all.

The video focuses on the zampognari, the bagpipe players who performed all throughout the procession of La Pagliara. Amenon has a very informative description on the landing page at vimeo and I urge readers to visit this link for a slice of life in Italy. The dogs appear 41 seconds into the clip and we show up as background extras a minute and 3 seconds later. Note the ciocia (plural cioce) footwear worn by the zampognaro in the beginning. These old leather slippers show up in a classic Sophia Loren movie that took me down a brutal and perhaps not so familiar road in italian history. More on this in tomorrow's post.

Voilà La Chasse!

Do you like the flavor of wild game? Can't say it's something I'll eagerly order off a menu, but a swiss gastronomic tradition that I recently learned about changed my mind enough to give it a try...in my kitchen. La Chasse coincides with the start of hunting season in the fall when mushrooms and chestnuts and a bounty of wonderful foodstuffs are begging to be foraged. The phrase literally means "the hunt", and ungulates caught in the crosshairs wind up as robust main courses along with several side dishes to round out the meal. If you travel through Switzerland during the months of October and November, you're bound to see restaurants announcing La Chasse with signs like these.

I've never felt confident enough in my cooking skills to venture outside the comfort zone of domesticated flesh, but a description of the elaborate La Chasse spread was too tempting to resist. In Italy, wild game (cacciagione or selvaggina ) is served with polenta and that's it. Not bad at all but it's easy to understand why it pales in comparison next to the splendid table of our neutral neighbor. Brussel sprouts, purple cabbage with apples, mushrooms, chestnuts, grapes, pumpkin, spiced poached fruit, cranberry sauce, spaetzli...all of what sounds like a cornucopia at harvest time.

2 lbs venison -15.90€/21.70 USD

Frozen cervo/venison, cinghiale/boar, capriolo/roe deer and lepre/hare are common enough at a small grocery store that we shop at, vacuum-packed in 1 kilo amounts. I have to be blunt about the fact that cervo (venison) is just plain weird-smelling. Nope, that's being too vague. Venison stinks. It smells like dirty socks mixed with weeds and what I'd imagine to be Gollum's acrid burp all rolled into one! I almost wanted to call it one big fail on the first whiff, so it's a good thing that the supplier includes prep instructions for beginners like myself. Soaking the meat in wine for 12 hours lessens some of the gamey-ness. Simple aromatics like carrots, onions, celery, black peppercorns and herbs set a solid base for flavor. And a long, slow simmer will tame that piece of game into a tender bite. Sampling a morsel of venison with a smear of chunky cranberry sauce was a tastebud discovery, the bare hint of wild and the tangy sweet of cran in a perfect compliment of flavors. I tell you it threw cardboard turkey and cranberry jelly out of the ring. This is a winner. Score 1 more for the Swiss. Chocolate, cheese and La Chasse!

Croissants for St. Martin's Day

Continuing on in the spirit of St. Martin's Day, today is also a very special one in the city of Poznan (Poland). Fat croissants known as rogal świętomarciński become the most cherished bakery item for anyone with a soft spot for rich pastries and old world tradition. I am weak for both, therefore this is just good practice for next year.

The dough is like a rich and buttery sweet dough, and the filling should include white poppy seeds, almond paste, dates or dried figs and orange zest. I had none of those ingredients, and got by with sweetened chestnut paste and black poppy seeds. The polish croissants also get a confectioner's sugar glaze, then topped with chopped peanuts. Here I've used slivered almonds and powdered sugar. Chestnut paste and poppy seeds might look and sound odd, but if you are familiar with jewish hamantash then I bet you be licking your lips. These were so very, very good. I'm glad that I was able to get these done in time, along with my little goose lantern for St. Martin's Day. Until next year...

St. Martin's Day

I don't usually make a lot of fuss over the various saints that come celebrated on the italian calender, but I was really surprised to learn that St. Martin's Day is not as widely observed in Italy as it is elsewhere in Europe. In honor of St. Martin of Tours, November 11th sees festivities all the way from Portugal to Poland, yet this country is nowhere to be seen among the list at wikipedia. There are a few scheduled events for this weekend but nothing comes close to cute colorful lanterns and some tasty traditions found outside of Italy's borders. I feel like I need to hop on a plane outta here. Has anyone experienced a St. Martin's Day?

St. Martin's Day in Germany. Credit: Markus Spring / CC-BY-NC-SA

St. Martin's Day in the Netherlands. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Dual Ducks for Mortensaften in Denmark. Credit: hc.saustrup / CC-BY-NC-ND

Kalua goose, originally uploaded by me. I may have missed out on all the fun this year, but I'll have a whole 365 days to plan my own St. Martin's Feast for 11/11/2011!

November hail

Italy has been receiving a lot of rainfall and it is distressing, to say the least, to hear reports of the many homes and businesses that have been rendered uninhabitable or inoperable due to heavy flooding. This afternoon was a little different when it hailed for a good 10 minutes up in the chestnut forest. I've never seen it hail so late in the season.

The icy orbs were really small and posed no threat.

As they say in Italy...tempo da lupi...literally, "weather for wolves" but means really bad weather. From what I've read, the expression stems from the fact that when it's cold and raining, the wolves not having anything to eat in the mountains go down to the villages to get food. A good thing we don't have wolves in the chestnut forest.

The dogs found it all very interesting and had to investigate.

This has happened before. Hailstones collecting at the low end of the netting protection accumulated into a bulky mass that nearly touched the ground. We will have to get that netting down soon!

Tunnbrödsrulle

Hungry swedish appetites dictate this - how should I describe it - hot dog and mashers in a cone as the perfect munchie after a night of partying on the town. You start with tunnbröd, a flatbread that does double carb-whammy with a helping of mashed potatoes. Next you add a hot dog, ketchup, mustard, shrimp salad, lettuce, onions and then this monstrous creation is rolled into a cone where you quite literally, dig in. I never knew such a thing existed until watching a segment of Anthony Bourdain's stint in Sweden, and right away I had to make tunnbrödsrulle at home. I made my own tunnbröd using a recipe found online but tortillas or italian piadina is the easier way to go. How does it taste? Pretty good. Certainly filling. Not that I would serve a turkey hot dog, stuffing and cranberry version for Thanksgiving or anything, but definitely edible. Why can't they serve this stuff at the chow line in Ikea?

Oh no!!! Okonomiyaki!

The post-title could be credited to a number of reasons where triple exclamation marks after a negative raises the alarm, as in oh no!!! - I don't have japanese mountain yam to properly make this dish. Or oh no!!! - is there anyone that posted a recipe for the special sauce? Instead, it was a skosh of a degree too much to the right that enabled an entire okonomiyaki to slip out of a dish, cruise down the length of my cream-colored linen drapes, and land smack in the middle atop a tumble of tv/dvd/whatever wires shoved against the wall. I was mortified. The above was my LUNCH. And it happened in the kind of slow-mo where you know that gravity will not fail, no matter what the speed, so you brace yourself for the impact. Ohhhhhhh nooooooo!!! My OKONOMIYAKI!

Okonomiyaki, if you have never ventured into the exotic world of japanese food, is a savory pancake filled with cabbage and any choice of additional fillers. The overall meaning of the word gives way to the unlimited possibilities for ingredients of every taste and persuasion. This is a pancake (some call it pizza) with personality, and I've seen it written up by fellow bloggers but never thought to give it a try until chestnut flour came to mind. It is quick to put together and satisfying in a way that only the act of dropping one could make you feel. [Huh???] The one that kissed the floor? I ate it. 5-second rule. After all the love that went into making it, there was no way that I was going to toss it in the trash.

Okonomiyaki chestnut flour batter & oh no I don't have mountain yam

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup chestnut flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg, slightly beaten
a good pinch of salt
1/2 cup water
Fillings: shredded cabbage (I used napa), tiny shrimps, shredded roast pork or chicken, thinly sliced beef, bacon, grated carrots, chopped pickled ginger (benishoga), cooked octopus, crab meat, scallions..whatever you like!

Mix the dry ingredients then stir in the egg and water. Whisk together until smooth. Add a generous handful of shredded cabbage and your chosen fillings; stir to combine evenly. Heat a nonstick skillet and drizzle with a small amount of vegetable oil. Scoop half of the batter into the pan, forming a circle. Lay strips of bacon over the top. When the bottom is a golden brown, carefully flip the whole thing over and brown the other side. Flip it over again and turn off the heat. Spread with okonomiyaki sauce (recipes can be found online) and squirt lines of mayo over the top. Garnish with chopped green onions, seaweed flakes, bonito flakes and dig in. Repeat with the remaining batter. Generously serves one or makes two teaser plates. Even more ono (hawaiian for delicious) with beer.

Where to find okonomiyaki in Italy

Italian and Japanese dining - via Domenico Fiasella 70R, Genova
I haven't yet been to this place but I'm putting it up because they've got a small following on Facebook and I like how they describe themselves: Siamo un ristorante di cucina giapponese casalinga gestito da Ryosuke e Claudia. Il nostro obbiettivo e' far conoscere la VERA cucina giapponese, cioe' quella che mangia un giapponese ogni giorno, che non e' solo sushi...
[We're a home-style cooking japanese restaurant run by Ryosuke and Claudia. Our goal is to introduce the TRUE japanese cooking, that is, what a japanese person eats every day which isn't only sushi...]

In the news: from blogosphere to printed publication

It's just a little thing really, but when a staff member from a periodical for Italy's Alpini requested permission to reprint one of my blog entries, I had no idea how surprised, and I have to admit, a little bit sheepish I'd feel after seeing my Tasi e Tira article taking up half the space on page 12. I just received my copy in the mail. The entry was posted over a year ago but through the vast reaches of the internet it goes to show what nice things can happen when you try to immerse yourself in a culture not your own. Perhaps the word "immerse" is rather modest as I like to jump right into the middle of things and get up close and personal. What tickles me the most is that this blog started off as a way of amusing myself (and expanding my knowledge of the country's cuisine), but getting published...whoa! It's like icing on the cake!

Click to view original size. I did not do the italian translation!