Viale Monte Grappa, Reggio Emiglia, June 1, 2010—
OKAY, TONIGHT THE BOOK finally came through, and paid for itself in spades. Osterie d'Italia, I mean; the Slow Food guide to casalinga — that Italian word roughly equivalent to "home cooking," but in a culture where that really means something.Lindsey found a promising listing for a restaurant in this city a little south of Parma, a city we've never visited before. We drove around looking for a hotel, finally found one with a parking space in front, a cheap hotel with a friendly proprietor who hailed from Santo Domingo…
But I digress. The restaurant in question turned out to be exactly next door the restaurant, a study in distinctions not unusual in this country, as Lindsey pointed out.
We began with a glass of methode Champenoise from Ferrara and a cortesia, or amuse-bouche, consisting of a shaving of fine roast beef with an amazing mirepoix of celery, onion, chive, radish, and arugula. Then came giardinera alla nonna, pickled vegetables as your grandmother might have made (and Lindsey's in fact did) and a plate of lardo, deliciously fragrant.
My primo was gnocchi on a bed of puréed peas and potatoes; my secondo ox-tail, long-braised in red wine, under a nest of french-fried potatoes. That sounds like a lot of potatoes, but it wasn't; they were more garnish than contorni. I wish I could have managed a dessert, I really do, but I couldn't.
Polena, Donnafugata, 2008; Teraldigo Rotaliano, Foradori, 2005; grappa di Moscato
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