Musings

Is there a clamoring out there for FOOD shots/info/stories?

Okay…a tidbit, an appetizer, you might say. Here on the Liguria coast, one specialty is Tegame, which is a stew/roasted dish of potatoes and anchovies (fresh, mind you), along with tomatoes.

The fish is nothing like anchovies from a can, and quite tasty. (The appetizer version of anchovies with lemon, whew!, very fine!)

I’ve had Tegame from three different restaurants here in Vernazza, and the version pictured is from Trattoria da Sandro (the name varies), up the street from the harbor-square. It is the most carefully formed and stacked of the trio. Potato slices are on the bottom, several layers deep, then the anchovy layer, then tomato slices. Every version is yummy, and I couldn’t pick one as better than the other two; they are just a spectrum.

Today we were bold. We hiked from here to Corneglia (not to be confused with Cornelia, Gee-Ay, although the pronunciation is very, very similar). The route was very up, from sea level here at Vernazza to a high point of 207m, if the sign was right. Since the up and down are not singular, there’s a bit of excess and repeated up/down, so the gained elevation far exceeded 207m…at least that’s the way it felt.

This was the first true trail-day for my Cascadias, which I purchased on the repeated recommendations of my social media friends who’ve recently hiked the AT, PCT, and other fine trails in the USofA.

The CinqueTerre trail materials we saw said to expect to take 1.25 hrs to do the 3.5 km from here to Corneglia. We took breaks, and it took us 3 hrs, maybe a bit more. We may have been slow, but the printed recommendation is shorter than I bet the young hoofers that passed us traversed it. Few of the people we saw made it in that span, I am certain. And, we don’t even know if the 3.5 km distance is close to correct…. Not whining, we had a fine time, and were in the cool morning shadow for much of the trail coming out of Vernazza, which was very very pleasant, despite the elevation gain (pant pant).

Posted at 3:43 PM | Comments Off on (Cupping palm to ear)

We’re in a phase of ordering frizzante, bottled mineral water with bubbles, with our meals. It’s not always Pellegrino, but I have noticed that two times the bottle held 92, and today’s restaurant served us a 75. (I think the units are decilitres/deciliters.)

Haha, we probably even paid more for the 75.

And umph years ago, all the restaurants would have been serving full liter bottles!

Posted at 2:43 PM | Comments Off on Details, details

As we devastated this pie, I thought about the term Florentine appended to a dish usually means that it contains spinach and cream (in a sauce), or appears to—at least that’s the convention on this side of the Big Pond. Without a doubt the cooking style of Florence is far more complex and interesting, however….

Posted at 10:30 PM | 2 Comments »

King Arthur Flour calls these 50 lb bags (the two outside ones) “professional flours.” They have cutesy names like Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere. What I’m not sure about is the Gold Medal bag in the middle from General Mills, which says: DO NOT EAT RAW DOUGH OR BATTER. Why is this on the flour bag? Not that the advice is flawed, but why the concern by General Mills (not to be confused with another General, General Motors)?

Posted at 7:27 PM | Comments Off on Flour power

So, Labor Day in the US of A dates back to the 1880s. Today, the gains in labor conditions and workers’ rights during the interim seem…like a given; they actually represent a huge shift in top-down attitudes and governmental policy. Still, I’ve worked several Labor Days, but not this one—not punched-in work, anyway.

We got wild and opened the PAMA this evening to celebrate…. It’s too yummy to just keep around, though….

Posted at 10:48 PM | Comments Off on Festival for workers

If today had been sunnier…(this was yesterday).

Sunshine eluded us today, and after midday we enjoyed (??) precip.

Most of the time, I’m a fan of precip. In moderation…. Today I could groove on it…listening to the pitter-patter on the roof, and watching out the window….

This evening, we wrangled the kitchen’s leftovers…not the usual leftovers, but merely those foodstuffs already purchased but not yet consumed…into a dinner to share with friends…. I called it pot-roast-noodle casserole, and in Peg Bracken style, I gussied it up with bacon and mushrooms (but not, shiver, any creamed canned soup), served it with stellar (yet simple) apps and dessert, accompanied by some fine red wines…and, pfft, fine fine fine!

* Not the usual social-science core-periphery, but the gustatory version, with a core of roast beef, and a periphery of…whatever else I thought could fit into an orchestral accompaniment, gastronomically.

Posted at 9:12 PM | Comments Off on Ah, core/periphery*

[Raided (with permission), the gardener-gatherer-hunter’s garden for peas, picking about a quart of pods…which produced a bit more than a half-cup of peas.]

I noticed that pods in this sample tended to contain nine peas, sometimes ten, once eleven, and sometimes eight…and, if they didn’t all make, fewer. Since they’re attached to the sides of the pod alternately, there tended to be four on one side, and five on the other. I did not examine further to see if it tended to be the same side.

Note that fresh peas, as opposed to machine processed, have that extra bit of tissue attached, the bit that joins them to the pod.

Posted at 7:44 PM | 1 Comment »

Dill pickle day over at the neighbors. We just watched. Well, I did. The Guru did trouble-shooting on their…connectivity*. [Note the REAL Mason jar!]

* The fine connectivity we had with our me-fi system this spring has given way to less robust service, which the Guru attributes mostly to the leaves on the trees and the increased humidity (if I followed the discussion accurately). Likewise, their satellite dish system is…slowed, I think due to the same variables.

Posted at 6:09 PM | Comments Off on Cuke spears, upgraded

The other day, courtesy of our fine fisher-neighbor, we had fishes. Today was loaves. Made with hard white whole wheat, if I’m remembering correctly. By the lovely K. Sad that our visitors are to leave tomorrow. Cold and rainy, like today, is not conducive to beach-time, which was a big part of what they were looking for….

Posted at 7:46 PM | Comments Off on F&L

A long time ago, we used to brunch here regularly. Tonight we tried the half-off-Tuesday burgers. Yum. And I like the beet-and-greens salad, too!

Food three posts in a row…what does it mean? Yes, I spend too many brain-cycles considering whether patterns are emerging, and what they might mean…. Training, you know….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Red ambiance