Having been thoroughly trampled upon by the Italian education system, I have naturally turned to eating and watching films to boost my morale for the past few days. My films of choice were ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ and ‘Eat Pray Love’, both of which are rather delicious. Ranging from the quintessentially English scenes in which Colin Firth and Rupert Everett argue over cucumber sandwiches and crumpets to the Italian ‘Eat’ section of Julia Robert’s journey where she is told on arrival by a wise old nonna that “all you American girls want is pasta and sausage!”, my appetite was whetted. So, to Conad I marched. I soothed my soul and bought beef steaks, pine nuts, chicken breasts, dark chocolate, amaretto, prosecco, almonds and vanilla pods.
The beef is a challenge of mine; I have yet to produce a simple but faultless steak, and despite my praise of fusion food I believe that the inability to perfect such a classic is quite a flaw in an aspiring cook. This universally loved dish is to be treated with respect yet also relied on as a failsafe option for dinner parties (unless you are entertaining vegetarians). It is the ‘little black dress’ of gastronomy. Thus my expectations are high, particularly having experienced nothing less than the tenderest of steaks from both my mother and father during my childhood and having sampled the king of all steaks here on my arrival in Italy, the Fiorentina. In search of soft ‘shouldn’t need a steak knife’ results; I employed the use of a marinade in my first attempt. The beef swam in a somewhat poorly conceived and unconventional concoction of yogurt, white wine vinegar and Vernaccia di san Gimignano all day, was stuffed with spinach and pine nuts, shown the frying pan briefly and then finished in a warm oven. The result was satisfactory but not thrilling so no doubt there will be more entries to come on that subject.
The chicken was for a foreseen post-steak attempt -confidence-boosting dinner. And that it was for whilst the steak might be the LBD, a good chicken breast is like a well-fitting pair of jeans. I livened it up with a coating of orange zest and ginger, well salted and kept juicy in the oven with a slop of that never ending Vernaccia. Even better however were the next few meals, made together at our house with recipes from everyone, for example, Caterina’s pineapple chicken with pilaf rice followed by a sumptuous Portuguese chocolate cake. We tend to stay up late talking after these dinners drinking Senem’s Turkish coffee and she has since also introduced us to another wonderful Turkish hot drink, the milky and sweet orchid root infusion called Salep.
Having then felt rather guilty about my lack of contribution to these dinners, I embarked on a baking spree which I intend to continue further. I made one batch of vanilla biscuits, one of orange. They weren’t the most successful ever as I burnt many of the first lot but they disappeared quickly enough nevertheless. This was also the first time that I had used vanilla seeds from the pod rather than essence and experienced the heightened intensity that this brings. It also gets all over your hands using this method, which I don’t mind at all. To dislike such a thing would be akin to disliking licking the leftover melted chocolate from the mixing bowl. Such is the joy of baking.
Next I baked an Italian pudding called ‘torta dello Nonno’ which means ‘grandfather’s tart’. Now Grandfathers know quite a bit about puddings (such as just how much brandy should go into the Christmas pudding) so I trusted that this would be the right recipe to use for an erasmus farewell dinner I was going to that night. Pastry infused with vanilla and orange zest, two hundred grams of dark chocolate for the ‘crema’ and a topping of toasted almonds dusted with icing sugar. It was easy and it was guilt-inducingly rich and therefore I can safely say that I will be making it again but perhaps not immediately. As shown in ‘Eat Pray Love’ too much of a good thing can make your jeans shrink and whilst I am with the likes of Julia Roberts’ character Liz and Nigella Lawson in thinking that enjoying good food is healthy, and enjoying making good food for myself and others makes me happy... the fact remains, new jeans are just too expensive in Italy.
*As for the amaretto and prosecco, I need not explain.
#'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert, directed by Ryan Murphy, starring Julia Roberts
#'The Importance of being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde, directed by Oliver Parker, starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon
#'The Italian Cookery Course' by Katie Caldesi
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