Joe Ray

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

The death of Pizza Otto

Ragusa, Sicily

Whenever I’m in the Motherland, Francesco, my good pal and stalwart guide, humors my quest to find the best pizza in Sicily.

There’s some good stuff in the south where he’s from, strong examples in Palermo and more unique, thicker pies in Trapani. We ignore the question of ‘what is real Sicilian pizza?’ and just go with our taste buds.

In the end, we got to the point where, instead of calling places by their names, we’d just call them by their score on a ten-point scale. The place in the hotel down the hill with Speedy Gonzales on the takeout box? Pizza Sette. The seaside place? Sette Punto Cinque. Reigning southern champion? La Contea in Modica, where a pie with rocket, cured wild boar and parmesan (a combination that tends to send me over the moon with glee no mater in which state I find it) which earned it the Pizza Otto title.

Before I came back to the Motherland, Francesco started hinting at a new find: a place he was calling ‘Pizza Nove Plus.’ The ‘plus’ being for the food at Ristorante - Pizzeria Caravanserraglio (which we’ll get to in another post) hidden in the outskirts of Ragusa.

As a group appetizer, we order a tomato, mozzarella and basil pie. The sauce is sweet and acidic, the crust crisp and soft with wood-fired flavor. Plus, there’s milky sensuality from the mozzarella and a crisp, fresh bite from the basil.

Pizza Otto was dethroned in one bite.

Later, after a full non-pizza meal, I get edgy, thinking that I might not be back here for a while.

After the cheese course, I find chef Francesco Cassarino wandering the floor and ask for another pizza.

Full to the gills, everyone at the table stares at me funny until it shows up, but Francesco dutifully has a slice.

The pie has a sort of flight path: “This won’t change my life,” I think over my first bites, but then the Parmesan and cured meat sweeten and begin working together.

I look over and Francesco has broken his fork-and-knife protocol and eats his pie with his hands. He pops the last bite of crust into his mouth with an ‘I-told-you-so’ smile.

Then he asks for another slice.

Ristorante - Pizzeria Caravanserraglio MAP
via P.Nenni 78
Ragusa
http://www.caravanserraglioragusa.com/

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Friday, May 29, 2009

Bianchetti Bingo

PORTOPALO DI CAPO PASSERO, Sicily

“Francesco – let’s grab my folks and get dinner on the ocean. You know that place I went for pizza at this place a couple years ago… in one of those towns at the southern tip of the island…you weren’t there…know the place I’m talking about?”

I fear for my memory when I’m older.

Strangely, he knew. Or thought he did. Maybe we’re both doomed.

In any case, the place we went – La Giara – was much better than the one I could only vaguely remember.

The good stuff comes first – we get fish called neonatu if you’re Sicilian, bianchetti if you’re Italian and gianchetti if you’re Ligurian (it’s big up there, too.)

Three names for a fish that’s as long as my thumb is wide? Turns out there are many species that can fall into the neonatu category – the baby form of anchovies, sardines and many other fish lumped into a group known as pesce azzurro – the veal of anchovies.

Until this night, I couldn’t figure out what the fuss was about. Bianchetti are often breaded individually, fried up and served on a plate – in Barcelona, they pay through the nose for this stuff – but being so tiny, their delicate flavor is overwhelmed by breading and fry oil.

Here, they make fritters out of them. Little balls of little fish where the outside stays nice and crunchy – that good fried-ness – and inside, you get sweet, delicate fish flavor. Realizing there’s only one left, Mom and I briefly glare at each other, but I realize I should be a good Sicilian boy and defer with a grunt.
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We also have an octopus carpaccio – which almost seems like a contract between chef and customer that says, “You trust us and we’ll do it right.”

They do. Serving it on a bed of rocket and spiced up with red pepper flakes, Mom, who prefers everything she eats well done has several bites.
…
Wine worth noting: 2006 Sicilia by MandraRossa using the fiano grape. The father/uncle of the Planeta clan LINK, shows the grace and restraint of a proud patriarch.
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The pasta (a bit more photogenic than fried fritters) is honest and good. At the end of my meal, I make a note – ‘There are thousands of places like this in Italy, and we’re lucky every time we eat in one.”

La Giara MAP
Portopalo di Capo Passero (Along the port.)
Sicily
+39 0931 843217
Closed Monday

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Brother From Another Mother

ISPICA, SICILY

To prepare for the cookout, Dad sits with the English-Italian dictionary to figure out the first thing he’d like to say upon meeting our gregarious host, Guido: ‘Your are my brother from another mother.’

Guido, my pal Francesco’s uncle, was born with the gift of making whoever he’s with feel like they’re two peas in a pod and this day was no different. He lent me his daughter’s scooter the first time I lived here and though I only have what the French would call notions of Italian, language never seems to be a barrier when talking with him.

My parents came to Sicily on vacation to learn about the Motherland and our family history here – Dad’s maternal grandparents emigrated from the tiny town of Altavilla Milicia in the early 1900s – and being together in the place where our ancestors were from is a potent emotional experience connecting us with the past and each other.

Guido’s wife Pina and Francesco’s mother make a feast that includes roasted peppers, sautéed mushrooms and grilled meat a go-go and I’ve smuggled an entire jamón Ibérico – black hoof and all – through customs as a gift from our family to theirs.

Today, however, food (very tasty food at that) was simply a way to bring us together and I’d trade every amazing Sicilian restaurant meal for this one feast.

Being made to feel like family can be as important as finding the real one.

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Sunday, May 17, 2009

Wild Roses

RAGUSA IBLA, SICILY

We took my friend, almond and olive oil producer Francesco Padova, to lunch at Ragusa Ibla’s Il Duomo restaurant – not an easy feat, considering Sicilians’ amazing hosting skills. It was a great way to see what chef Ciccio Sultano’s been up to – more a check on concepts than a critique.

Chef, who I’ve written about previously, came out to say hello and explained a few dishes, but was almost completely knocked out by a cold.

Highlights from the tasting included fusilli lunghi alle rose – long fusilli supporting rockfish fillets, a bed of fennel and a tiny skewer of sautéed fish liver. The fish was firm, the fusilli floppy, the fennel … feral – at least in the ‘wild’ and more alliterate sense of the word. The liver? That just melts on your tongue.

The secret weapon, however, is in the sauce: rose water. Light, like you’re smelling perfume without drinking it, and, as Sultano says, a wink at Sicily’s history, where it showed up as a luxurious ingredient.

Rose water shows up again at dessert, this time in the sorbet accompanying a ‘pistachio couscous’ dessert. The dish is playful in concept – couscous being another wink at Sicilian history – but serious in execution, giving it a divine, cake-like quality.

At 100 euros including wine, the tasting menu is a splurge but still a great value.

Il Duomo MAP
Via Capitano Bocchieri, 31
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
+39-0932-651265
www.ristoranteduomo.it

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Let Mom Eat Cake

NOTO, SICILY

I’m back in The Motherland.

It’s a work/play trip that includes bringing my parents to the land of our Sicilian ancestors for the first time. My sister and I are English, Irish, French, Italian, Dutch and German mutts, but it’s always been the Sicilian side – via our paternal grandmother – that we identify with most as a family.

I’m playing tour guide so the induction is based on food and Day One includes a visit to pastry chef Corrado Assenza’s appropriately named Caffè Sicilia.

While Assenza’s ideas and creations can be otherworldly, he’s a product-sourcing freak. If he can’t do it perfectly, he won’t do it.

His almond gelato not only tastes like an almond in another state, but even has the slight tannic tang from the almond skin along with a mix of minerals and salt in the skin that makes Sicilian almonds unique.

We also try a “Traversata del Deserto” – a cake that includes mint, black tea, lemon rind, sea salt and “lyophilized” (freeze-dried) algae. It’s the kind of thing that Mom would try but stop after one bite.

Instead, she makes a funny grunting noise, almost like she’s disappointed.

“I’m sorry for all the cakes that will come after this in my life.”

Caffè Sicilia MAP
Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 125
Noto, Sicily

Full disclosure: Assenza, who I’ve interviewed and written about in the past, came out to say hello while we were there, but we paid our bill and you can’t bake a cake or make gelato on the fly.

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Carlo Cracco - Playing With Eggs

Carlo Cracco is onstage at Girona’s Forum Gastronomic holding a deep orangish-red egg yolk in his plastic-gloved hand. He squeezes it, pokes it, talks about it and instead of turning into a gooey mess that drizzles unflatteringly down his arm, it holds firm.

The yolk is part of his ‘marinated egg yolk with light Parmesan cream’ – a deconstructed egg yolk that is one of the Italian’s signature dishes at his eponymous restaurant in Milan. It’s a play on textures and preconceptions, a chef having thought-out fun.

Marinated?

Yes. For four or five hours, each yolk in a tin cupcake cup with a mixture of salt, sugar and bean flour that sucks much of the moisture from the yolk, leaving it like putty in his hands.

“Up to now, everyone pushed limits,” he tells me later, referring to the long burst of creativity and science that’s been coming out of high-end kitchens. “Now, we need to slow down and look at what’s worth it and what’s not.”

I can’t help but wonder what the controversial chef does with all of the extra egg yolks at the end of the day and curiously, he devotes much of the rest of the demonstration to just that.

With most of the liquid pulled from the yolk, he mashes a few of them together creating a thick, bright paste that looks like it’s been pimped from his pastry chef. This he spreads between two sheets of oiled wax paper and rolls flat into a translucent pasta that practically glows orange. He runs half the sheet through a pasta machine that turns it into thin noodles which he suggests heating for a minute and serving with a tomato sauce. The other half becomes meat ravioli that look as delicate as a Pierre Herme macaron. This, he serves raw – a mini steak tartare encased in its yolk.

This is worth it.

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Ricotta a la Truck

The concept of “dining a la truck” in Sicily was introduced to me over a loudspeaker. I was still in bed.

Amplified, garbled voices came through the window. I’d only been on the island for about 10 hours and was sure it was local politicians trying to convince the local populace to vote for them. Mercifully, they disappeared and I went back to sleep.

Later, I took a break from work and scanned the rotary from the office window. Below, a woman gave money to a man next to a small white car then walked away, gently cradling a wheel of ricotta.

I ran.

Giuseppe Cappello is a third-generation cheesemaker and seller on wheels.

He opened the back of his tiny white car, then scooped a wheel of ricotta out of a large, white tub containing several other wheels floating in whey.

“When people buy it, the cheese is between half an hour and an hour old,” said Cappello, who sells to an estimated 120 clients and one restaurant from his car. He and his wife Enza also sell to wholesale clients from their farm on the edge of town.

“We’re proud to say that our ricotta is sold hot,” he added, seemingly unaware that he’s got most pizza chains’ claims to fame beat coming and going.

The cheese was still warm.

I paid and ran again, this time toward my kitchen with neighbors shouting quick suggestions on what to do with my prize; one woman ate hers with salad and the quick-e-mart guy said he folded it into his kid’s pasta.

The ricotta had a custard-y texture similar to the white of a soft-boiled egg; a snow-white miracle in a tiny, plastic colander. I cut some bread, added some still-warm ricotta, poured some local olive oil and a sprinkle of salt over it, took a bite and, well, groaned with pleasure.

Tomorrow, I head out in a three-wheeled Vespa truck with the baker…

This is Joe Ray reporting from the Motherland.

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Rock & Avola in The Motherland

We have been threatening to seriously taste some wines together since I got here. Tonight, we made good on the promise and I got a sort of Sicilian wine primer as a bonus.

I grabbed the wine from its display space next to its empty cousins on my kitchen floor and stole some big, beautiful tasting glasses from an undisclosed location. To keep the babes of Ispica at bay, we tasted in the office.

I put on some Green Day and Visqueen and we dove in.

The wine was a 2003 “Pojo di Lupo” – made entirely of one of Sicily’s best known grapes, the Nero d’Avola (Black from Avola), from the COS vineyard in the nearby town of Comiso.

We discuss the color – I say “ruby with a brown edge,” and F. says “pomegranate.”

“Is that ‘grenade?’” (like the French), I ask.

“Do you mean in Italian or Sicilan?” he replies.

“Either.”

“No.”

“Nero d’Avola is a grape that’s historically important to Sicily and in the last few years, has become trendy [in other parts of Sicily],” he explained. This latter part raises the hackles of the people in this neck of the woods, as they’d like to see it come from somewhere closer to Avola. Typically, this means towns within a tight radius – Ispica, at about 15 miles from Avola makes the cut, but Comiso, at 30, starts raising eyebrows.

Then again, Avola is the town with an Eiffel Tower replica next to a lit up jet fighter at a bend in the road.

The grape’s newfound popularity is a double-edged sword: Sicily finally gets some well-deserved recognition for making a great wine, but it also means that the number of morons out there making bad wine with good grapes increases.

The nose is where things got interesting.

In a tasting, I can usually tell when I’ve left France, but here things were very different.

“When you go from France to Sicily, it’s like going to Mars,” said F.

This certainly felt like an alien landscape, but a half hour of swirling and smelling before we took a sip began to bear fruit: for me, this wine had a smell of marinated cherries, then something that seemed to me to be mint or menthol that F. pegged as a woody balsamic smell. The last smell was the hardest to peg – somewhere between tea (it reminded me of mom’s Red Rose) and tobacco, the latter turning out to be one of the typical undertones in a Nero d’Avola. Woohoo! For someone like me who gets excited when I can pick one key element out of a wine when I’m really trying, getting three was exciting in a food geek kind of way.

In the mouth it tasted exactly like it smelled – how’s that for well-balanced?

This isn’t always the case, and it turned out to be one of the peculiarities of this producer’s version of the wine, for better and for worse. Nero d’Avola tends to be huge, and the producers reigned it in so much that the tobacco stood out and the big berry tastes that are its hallmarks didn’t even show up until we had the bottle open for a couple of hours.

That said, we finished the bottle; with wine that tends to be huge and full of alcohol (products of the Sicilian sun), you’re either ready to go to bed or chase Sicilian women after a glass or two.

At the end of the night, we switched music to some of F’s favorites - Gerry Mulligan, Steely Dan, and David Bowie doing a curious Beatles cover. Then Frank Sinatra came on and F. grinned, smiled, whistled and tapped his feet.

Which is exactly what should happen when you’re enjoying what you drink.

This is Joe Ray reporting from the motherland.

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Friday, February 02, 2007

Street Food, Sicilian Style

Walking through the town of Catania, Francesco explained its Festa di Sant’Agata as best he could.

“Agata (like Agatha, with a better sounding name) was the daughter of a noble family, destined to be married to a guy from another family. But she preferred to die because she was devoted to God,” he said, sounding reasonably certain.

“But it’s impossible to starve in this town,” he said.

After working a full day in Ispica yesterday, we hopped in the car and set off on the hour-and-a-half trek to Catania to prepare ourselves for the Feast of Saint Agata.

“Catania is one of the most important places in Italy for street food,” Francesco mentioned a day earlier.

I’m not sure what he was thinking about for the first two days I was here.

We started off with a couple of false trails, which only served to heighten our hunger, before finding a place with a blue neon star with a red letter “A” in the center. Inside, immediately on the left at hip-level, were three vats big enough to fry a horse head or small kid in, with nothing to keep customers from falling in; I’d say “Darwin would love it here,” but my sister would point out that I almost fell into a Frialator once.

A big woman behind the counter introduced us to crispelle, fritter-like things of two different flavors and sizes. We had a ball-shaped one stuffed with ricotta and another, more mangled-stick shaped with anchovies in the middle. I could taste the genius potential, but they were leftovers at the end of the night, and she gave them to us, promising that she’ll set up a full testing plate for us when we go back this weekend. Yeehaw!

Afterward, we wheedled our way through the creepy/beautiful Santo Spirito neighborhood on our way to another street food hotspot. It seemed to be one of those places where you walk in the street because you’re worried you might fall into a hole in the sidewalk.

“I see smoke,” I said.

“That’s our place,” replied Francesco.

Frankly, coming out of Santo Spirito (which Francesco assures me is about to become the town’s next hotspot), the people crowding around the source of the smoke looked like bums around a trash can in the movies. Then we got closer and I could smell how wrong I was.

Via Plebiscito is aptly named, as it’s the where Catania’s street food freaks, err, vote to eat on their feet.

Lining the street, nearly every butcher shop and restaurant has a big, square grill flaming away in front of it and stout men impervious to heat use stubby tongs or their blackened, bare hands flip sausages, large spring onions wrapped in bacon, pork products, breaded quail and, my recent favorite, and the neighborhood specialty, horse steak sandwiches. On the grill, most of the products are regularly brushed with a sort of oregano vinaigrette. The grill tenders, one of whom was carrying an obscene stack of cash in his apron pocket from the night’s haul, flick salt onto the meat in a sort of long-distance sidearm Rollie Fingers style.

Say what you will about eating Trigger, but piled on a big bun and sloshed with the vinaigrette, horse is good stuff. Among other selections, the star of the street was the spring onions wrapped in unsmoked bacon. Sweet, simple, vinegar-y goodness.

Stuffed, we went to Francesco’s favorite places for those tamarind syrup with lemon and sodium bicarbonate drinks to help digest it all – at a little street stand called Giammona. Apparently, Francesco wanted to make sure he trusted me a little more before showing me the best in the city.

He was right and I’m hooked. Fuzzy goodness in a cup.

“It’s a ritual,” said Francesco, “I can’t leave town without stopping there. For me it’s like shutters going down at the end of a meal. After that, I close.”

Technically, we didn’t close – we went and got cannolis at a 24-hour place, and those aren’t technically street food. But they are a story for another day…

This is Joe Ray reporting from the Motherland.

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