Pasta

Eastside Road, November 29, 2017—

IT DOESN'T TAKE LONG to get back in the routine. Pasta tonight — not penne, it's true, but a close cousin, rigatoni, with delicious home-made tomato sauce. Cook chopped up a bit of Franco's fine guanciale and sweated some chopped onion with it, then added a jar of the sauce she made last year — just perfectly ripe tomatoes and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Green salad afterward.

     🍷Rosé, Guilhem

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

A baked potato.

Eastside Road, November 28, 2017—

NORMALLY WE FAST on Tuesdays, you may remember. But it's over a month since we've eaten normally, and I thought it best not to rush back into the routine. So today we half-fasted, as the funnymen have it. In fact we reverted to our earliest concept of the "fast," when, not trusting the concept, Cook often baked a potato for dinner.

She did again tonight: a Russet for me, a sweet potato for herself. We drizzle a little olive oil on the split potato, and salt and pepper it. No other garnish, but the usual green salad afterward, tonight with Alta's quince vinegar in the dressing. Tasty.

     🍷Rosé, Guilhem

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

Home again

Eastside Road, November 27, 2017—

HOME AGAIN, after twenty-four hours' travel, the dining during which needs no attention. Home, and in no mood to cook. And not particularly hungry, for that matter.

A shopping trip to our supermarket in Healdsburg suggested the solutions: let's finally try a pizza from their oven. I asked for a Margherita, of course, and in ten minutes it was out of the oven in its cardboard box — never a good idea, but what else can they do? — and quickly home.

There we slipped it onto a proper pan and reheated it in the oven. (The house, vacant these last four weeks, was a little cold, and profited from the heating.) You know: I have to say: it wasn't bad. Thin, crisp crust, decent mozzarella, good tomatoes, no overload of basil. I'll do it again.

I'd also bought eggs and butter at Big John's, and picked up a loaf of Como bread at our favorite bakery, so dinner was a cinch: omelet and toast. As I've mentioned here before, I cook omelets in olive oil, in an iron pan used for nothing else (and kept in a paper bag when not in use). I break two eggs (three for me!) into a bowl, rinse my hands, and let a few drops of water fall into the eggs, which I then whisk with a fork. Into the hot oil, lift the edges to let egg run under, shake to loosen from pan.

Grated parmesan carefully strewn down the middle of the unturned omelet; then fold over twice and flip to brown a bit more. Salt and pepper. Serve — with buttered toast. Very pleasing.

     🍷No wine goes well with eggs, but we'd had a bottle of Petite Syrah, Preston of Dry Creek, as an aperitif, with the neighbors down the hill…

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

Piperno

Via Damaso Cerquetti, Rome, November 25, 2017—

WHY HAVE WE NEVER been to this wonderful restaurant before? It's not as if we've spent few evenings in Rome… and it's certainly not unknown. A friend recommended it years ago, but we never seemed to get around to it — perhaps because of its location, a little off the usual track.

But only a very little. It's in a secluded corner adjacent to the Ghetto, a very quiet location, but easily walked to — which is what we like to do.

I started with this delicious Tortino di baccalà, carciofi e patate — a compound of salt cod, artichoke and potatoes, beautifully balanced, the flavors perfectly merged. For a secondo, Saltimbocca alla romana: we can't leave Rome without one of its most characteristic dishes.

The Contessa had the carciofe alla giudia she'd been hungering fdor — the best we've had, I think, the leaves perfectly crisped.

And the dining room is stunningly beautiful, and the service as good as any I've seen. We will certainly be back — alas, not soon.

     🍷Frascati Superiore Heredio DOCG, Vallechiesa (Malvasia/Greco/Bombino), a little dusty on the tongue but fine with the baccalà)
     Merlot/Sangiovese, "Rosso della casa" (Tuscany): fruity, balanced, light

•Piperno, Monte de' Cenci 9, Rome; 📞+39 06 68806 629

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

Back to Litro; Grappolo d'Oro

Via Damaso Cerquetti, Roma, November 24, 2017—

WE TOOK A LONG walkabout today, starting with the stroll uphill to the Janiculum and Litro, where we'd dined earlier this week. We wanted to show it to a new guest who hadn't arrived in time for that occasion.

Here I began with the same bruschetti as night before last: anchovies and butter, with lemon juice and a very thin slice of lemon; tomato — simply tomatoes picked dead ripe and canned in water with a tiny bit of salt. Deep, deep color and flavor.

I went on to "Pollo Litro": a boned chicken thigh and drumstick, cooked very slow and long, then quickly to color its skin. It was served with two kinds of mushrooms, also slow-cooked: I'm sorry I can't supply the kind of mushroom; I know they weren't porcini.

     🍷Vino Rosso (Grignolino), "Ottavio", Cascina 'tavijn di Nadia Verrua, Scurzolengo (Asti), ?2016: Characteristic varietal, fruity and edgy, best I've had of this favorite grape of mine
•Litro, Via Fratelli Bonnet 5, Rome; 📞+39 06 45447 639

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WE WALKED ON to Trastevere, because I wanted a gelato — two flavors: Black rice and rose; chestnut and myrtle. These were remarkable gelati, complex and deep in the flavor, just what I expect from this place:

•Fatamorgana, Via Roma Libera 11, Rome; 📞+39 06 58036 15

And then on across the river to make our way to our favorite café, not for its comfort — one downs one's caffè standing at the bar — but for the quality of the beans and roast: with Caffè Doge (Veneto), this is one of my two favorite coffees in the world.

•La Casa del Caffè Tazza d'Oro, Via degli Orfani 84, Rome; 📞+39 06 67897 92

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IN THE EVENING we dined late, our last celebratory dinner with granddaughter and fiancé and Dutch friend visiting. The restaurant was jumping: the table next to us seated twenty-two locals also celebrating a birthday, more noisily than we.

We began with two platters of assorted antipasti: panzanella, polpetti, burratina con alici, baccalà mantecato. (In the photo, the polpetti are at 10 and 4 o'clock: the first made of eggplant and ricotta, the other di bollito, minced meat and vegetables.)

The contessa went on to her favorite baccalà mantecato, the individual serving crowned with a flattened fried artichoke. I moved to agnello alla romana,lamb chine roasted with garlic and rosemary, served with oven-roasted potatoes. Difficult to eat, but delicious, in its forthright, meaty way.

     🍷Prosecco, Ca' dei Zago, Valdobbiadene, 2016: very dry yet fruity, the most Champagne-like prosecco I've ever tasted
Syrah, "Prodigo," Donata Giangirolami (Lazio), 2015: serious, deep, dry, full

•Grappolo d'Oro, Piazza della Cancelleria 80, Rome; 📞+39 06 68970 80

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

Cesare; Emma

Via Damaso Cerquetti, Rome, November 23, 2017—

MIDDAY DINNER at a favorite trattoria today, famous in our family at least for its pasta caccio e pepe. You take the number 8 tram up to the end of the line at Casaletto and walk a few feet to Cesare. In good weather you'll be outside in front, but it's a little chilly these late November days, so let's sit inside.

I stuck to the popular basics: alice in olio and the aforesaid caccio e pepe.The anchovies are served as plain as you please: delicious and strongly flavored fillets in a pool of fine olive oil. You have to be careful with this dish; the oil can catch at your throat. Fluids stand by to ease the occasinal problem.

You have your choice of short pasta or long: if the latter, spaghetti or tonarelli. I chose the latter: egg pasta, made in house of course, cooked perfectly. The pasta is drained, then tossed with plenty of highly flavored grated pecorino cheese, a little of the cooking water added I'd guess, a liberally dusted with very finely ground black pepper. It's a magnificent product of cucina povera, poor man's cuisine.

     🍷Trebbiano in carafe
•Da Cesare al Casaletto, Via del Casaletto, 45, Roma; 📞+39 06 536015a

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THIS WAS NOT the end of the day's dining: we spent the evening at rather a trendy spot in centro, dining rather late. We began with some appetizers, including a splendid Burrata di Andria e alici del Cantabrico, a big mound (300 grams) of milky burrata criss-crossed with anchovies and marvelous confited tomatoes.

I went on to fettucine with white truffles, because after all it's November and here they are. This is one of the great dishes and I'll say no more about it.

     🍷Frascati, Principe Pallavicini, Poggio Verde, 2016: typical but absolutely first-rate; Nebbiolo, Cavallotto (Langhe), 2015, ditto
•Emma, Via Monte della Farina, Roma; 📞+39 06 64760475

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☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017

Festeggiare!

Via Damaso Cerquetti, Rome, November 22, 2017—

WE CAME TO ROME to celebrate the impending marriage of our Roman granddaughter and her Algerian-born fiancé, who had just been granted a visa to travel next spring to Oregon for the wedding. A special event, suggesting a special dinner, at a favorite spot: and we were joined by our French daughter and a couple of old friends from Verona.

Litro is biodynamic. It's a wine bar. The menu is limited (also the kitchen facilities) but enthusiastic. The flavors are BIG. The service is both professional and hilarious.

We started with marvelous bruschetti: anchovies and butter; deeply flavored tomato. I think of them, in this photo, as Hamza and Francesca, respectively.

I'm on an anchovy kick, so I took also a Spiedino di alici alle nocciole e miyo wasaabi, anchovies rolled around a ground hazelnut paste bound with wasabi. Sharp, salty, delicious. This must be what umamami is all about.

I went on to my perennial favorite, tartare: in this case a Battuta di Fassona, chopped Piemontese beef, with wasabi and good mustard, and garnished liberally with endive and lettuce — from the restaurant's own garden, as I believe. Sweet, rich, delicate beef!

     🍷Querciole, Ca' de Noci (Reggio Emilia), 2016: refreshing, unusual; Beaujolais Villages "La Bonne Pioched," 2016: fruity Gamay flavor, skins-and-stalks flavor, soklid
•Litro, Via Fratelli Bonnet 5, Rome; 📞+39 06 45447 639

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016      2015     2017