A Poem for Laura

Often we receive praise in our guestbook, or compliments in person. Every so often Gianluca even gets a marriage proposal. This morning I read this e-mail that was sent by a current guest to Laura after eating the previous night in the cafe. It’s a sort of poem, an ode to a great food experience:

It being a great Italian habit, and love,
Eating is to be appreciated, Savored, Dramatized,
with love, with fondness, with warmth, with friends.

I am on my own,
boohoohoo.
I am alone, with myself, and my book, and my ability to chat.

Laura is the chef de cochine, and I am the excited novice,
coming to taste of her expertise, her company, and her love of cooking.
She spent time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
and I am understanding, there is therefore a certain seriousness,
in the style and the way of cooking.
But also a simplicity, that I always respond well to.
A country, no-nonsense attitude, that augers well for me.

The restaurant tonight is quiet, which I am told happens occasionally.
Lunch though was busy.
This Hotel, The Beehive, Via Marghera 8,
has 6 rooms only, with a dormitorio for the less well heeled.
Opens its doors to the public, and has a steady Clientele, apart from the guests/residents.

So first, I tell you now,
This place uses organic and naturally grown products,
No supermarket grown produce here.
I can attest to the quality of produce and the inspiring tastefulness
of all the food, I partook in eating.
Delicious, and I know, Nero Cesare Himself would be envying Laura’s cooking.
if He were about.

Second, I tell you,
the bill presented, is a suggestion.
If you wish to add to it, you can,
and if you wish to detract, well,
I for one,
would not want to be a friend of yours.
Meanness has its place in HELL,
not in this kitchen.

I started,with a glass of not so full bodied
red wine, vin de table, very drinkable.
And presented with a plate of delicious toasted walnut bread,
and plenty of it,
a red bean collation,
an avocado with lemon pulp,
and a baba ganouche with mint.

Followed by more of this home-made scrumptious bread,
liberally sprinkled with olive oil that awakes the dead,
and some Rustici, which are puff-pastry rounds,
small enough to consume in two Burnett-bites,
which had sage and cheese stuffing,

Enough in itself, I can assure you,for a small meal.
With another drink of your choice,
this in itself constitutes the Happy Hour !!

The chat with Laura, being 90, we decided to ask Her, to decide on my first course.
I feel that she could respond to my desire,
because She listens and,,,,,,,,understands.
The palate must be stimulated, if it is to appreciate. The joy there-of.

I was well rewarded for my confidence.
A plate arrived with a Savory pie……egg and spinach, that would make you fly,
a side salad garnish, of fresh spinach leaves with shavings of Reggiano cheese,
red cabbage, sliced thinly carrots, pine nuts aplenty, diced fried potatoes, nice and crisp.
and sliced mushrooms in a vinaigrette, that would excite a most weary palate

I was spoiled in this kitchen.
I was.

And to be sure, to be sure,
I decided on the next course, to be Laura’s decision, yet again.
Something to compliment, and to complement, the first two dishes.

The freshly made Ravioli, with with spinach and ricotta, served with butter and sage,and some grated Parmesan.

Oh the joy of it, oh the smell of it, fills my heart to tears !!
Was there ever a more al dente dish, ?
was there ever a more firm ravioli ?
was there ever a more proud dish served before the greatest ?

Desire of good food can lead to gluttony, I am told.
But I think I prefer the ideas of The Epicureans.
This restaurant does not aspire to over indulge the appetites,
It is here to satisfy them with simplicity, goodness and most of all QUALITY.

Too many “good” restaurants serve ravioli with a cream ?? sauce, that runs out on cutting open.
Too many serve standard “ITALIAN ” fare, most of it out of a package, or tin.

Let me tell you now, this was stupendous.
Mouth-watering.
Plenty for a hungry Burnett.

To finish, I had another glass of red wine,
and I knew that all was well with our world.

Let me say, Laura, and the people here, at the BEEHIVE, have a very simple attitude, that belies so many.
Service, quality, natural products, home-cooking, service, and quality, and Quality, again and again.
Long may they continue.

And for many, those who would ask,
the bill presented, was ………………………….20 Irish Euro
remember hell, dear friends, remember Hell !!

Le Mise

Burnett

Inspector P’s Peach Crumble

Just before Passo Corese, heading south on via Salaria from Rieti there’s an enlarged shoulder on the left hand side with 3 or 4 local fruit/vegetable vendors. On the way home we bought a 10 euro crate of some of the best white-flesh peaches I’ve ever tasted. Even after eating a handful of peaches every day, we still had a bowl full in the fridge that was starting to get too soft. So Paloma and I set out to make something sweet with them.

First we cut all the peaches and Paloma tossed them in a pie dish. I splashed some white wine and lemon juice on it to bring out the flavor and then we mixed a crumble topping made of flour, raw sugar, brown sugar, some mashed almonds, cinnamon and butter. We smushed the topping on and tossed it in the oven and then went to play with a new “Crime Scene Inspector Kit” that she received as a belated birthday present. As the crumble baked we put fingerprints on glasses and then dusted and removed them, placing the new fingerprints in special baggies marked “evidence” that could be compared with a magnifying glass. We taped off the dining room table as a crime scene while Paloma continued to play Inspector and gather enough evidence to prove that her sister Giulia had drank her juice even though she claimed not to.

I could smell the pie. It looked particularly good and so I asked Paloma to help me remember what we’d put in and write it out as a recipe so we could reproduce it. The following is the recipe in Inspector P’s secret code:

Fresh figs

One of the first cookbooks I ever bought was Patricia Wells’ “Bistro Cooking”. I still have all the tags I put in it to mark the pages of the recipes that interested me. For one reason or another I only ever made about 10% of the things I marked and don’t have any recollection of how they turned out. Mostly I just liked to read her meal suggestions and imagine that I could throw together something similar for a spontaneous picnic. Despite having not adopted many of her recipes to my repertoire, I still use an adapted version of her pâté brisée for quiches and crostate, and I have very strong memories of being deeply effected by her recipe for a fig clafoutis.

Now, I grew up mostly in Colorado. We don’t have figs in Colorado. And we surely don’t eat clafoutis. So I had no clue what a clafoutis would look or taste like and although I knew what a fig was, they were pretty foreign and exotic to me too. Nevertheless I was convinced that I’d love them. They were basic and ancient; pure and sexy. The thought of a fig clafoutis evoked images of an accomplished and sophisticated chef.

I made the clafoutis a few times. It wasn’t bad. I’d buy incredibly expensive mission figs from the Chalet Gourmet in West Hollywood and as per the recipe, the figs were cut in half and sautéed lightly in butter after being dipped in honey and cinnamon, then a pancake like batter was poured over the top and it was baked in the oven until it all puffed up. I liked the dish but never new whether my results were accurate since I’d never had one before. Perhaps I liked the idea of the fig clafoutis more than I liked the actual dish.

Flash forward about 13 years. We have a huge fig tree at home in our garden (that unfortunately doesn’t bear fruit) and a small tree at the Beehive that lately has been working overtime. Perhaps it was the rainy Spring - whatever the case, I pick a bowl’s worth every few days and often find a way to put them in our dishes.

In Puglia, there are so many fig trees just bursting with fruit that there’s no point in selling them at the market. If you want figs, just stick your hand out the window while driving down the street and pick one off. At the house we were recently at for a week’s holiday in July, I’d go and pluck some in the morning for breakfast and eat them on the spot - about 6 or 7 until I’d had my fill. One night we made crostoni (thick, crusty, baked bread) with figs, gorgonzola and walnuts. It was an incredible mix of intense flavors. Another favorite of mine, an idea ripped off from a small vineria near Pienza, Tuscany, is baking the bread on one side, then flipping it over and putting a piece of pecorino fresco (fresh sheep’s milk cheese) and either fresh figs or dried figs, then baking again until the cheese is melted. Fresh out of the oven I drizzle some good honey over the top. With a little salad, this is a meal that I would have drooled over in Bistro Cooking a decade ago.

This weekend we were in the countryside at Monteleone Sabina, hanging out with friends and playing in the pool with all our kids. We came back to Rome for the day, ran some errands, and will go back up tomorrow. On our way home we passed by the Beehive to collect some mail and on my way back outside I noticed a few figs were bursting on the tree, so I plucked about 8 of them and threw them in a plastic bag. The following is a quick dessert I made this afternoon to bring back to Monteleone tomorrow to share with friends. I have no idea what it’ll taste like, but I can tell my love affair with the fig is still strong, even if the mystery is gone.

For the crust:

- about 1/3 cup whole wheat flour and 2/3 cups regular flour in a bowl
- pinch of salt
- couple tablespoons of sugar
- bit of lemon zest
- about 100 grams of butter cut into cubes and worked into the flour mixture until it’s like grated parmigiano
- 1 egg and enough cold water to bring it together to form a dough

For the filling:

- place about 8 sliced figs over the crust, sprinkle on some cinnamon and drizze some honey
- bake in the over at a high temperature until the crust is golden

Bagels

I was born in Connecticut and spent my early childhood in a typical, east-coast, Jewish family where bagels were eaten pretty much all day long. Breakfast with butter, lunch with a tomato as a sandwich, and as a snack in between. I was surprised when I found out that other families didn’t totally sustain themselves on bagels like we did, and I was shocked when we later moved to Colorado and I met people who had never even had one before (my Puerto Rican wife included).

My taste and appreciation of food have expanded well beyond the bagel over the years, but you know, some habits die hard. The Jewish ghetto here in Rome is all Sephardic Jews who find the idea of a bagel just as foreign as my family would have found a fried artichoke. So although we are rich in almost all other foodstuff here in Italy, when it comes to bagels, we are poor as paupers.

We once found a company that shipped fresh bagels all over the world. Excited, we went to order, and found that Italy was one of a handful of countries that they wouldn’t ship to (due to Italy’s infamous incapacity for all things timely). So had we decided on a Beehive Rangoon or Mali, we would be in bagel heaven, but in Italy, no, there’s only been two solutions: go to the US or make them ourselves.

I guess I was intimidated for a long time about making them. Seemed like a long process and those who I’d known with some experience hadn’t had much luck. But I found a simple recipe some months ago, and the results were great. A few tries later I’ve become more efficient at it. Strangely, in the cafe, guests aren’t that enthusiastic about it. I guess they haven’t been away long enough to really miss them. But all my expatriate friends would pay any sum asked for a dozen bagels. For any of you out there living in Rome who also yearn for a fresh bagel, tomorrow there will be a fresh batch with Philadelphia cream cheese.

Giulia the baker

I make bread every few days at home - usually a loaf of mixed flours and oats and seeds that I have for breakfast and Linda has with jam and a cappuccino freddo around 3-4pm. Yesterday, in addition to this, I decided to make some focaccia with herbs from our garden as I’d made some earlier in the day at the Beehive that turned out rather well and wanted some more for home. Giulia, who had made pizza once on a school trip to Umbria, asked, after watching me a while, “Daddy, when can I make my own bread?”

We decided for her first attempt she should make some small panini al latte like they sell at the Gentilini bakery nearby that are rich and kind of sweet and nice for little sandwiches. Without a recipe I told her approximately how much white flour, yeast, salt and milk to mix together and without touching it all I guided her through it. Since she’s seen me make bread many times, she didn’t seem to have much trouble following the process. She mixed in enough liquid until it pulled away from the bowl, kneaded it smooth and covered it with a dish towel and let it rise. A few hours later we all rolled them into little balls and put them in the oven.

All in all they turned out pretty close to what we were looking for. They’re soft and rich inside but perhaps too dry of a crust. I figure some oil should prevent a thick crust from forming. For a first try it was pretty impressive though. I hope when she’s older she’ll remember making bread with her dad and will do it confidently for herself on a regular basis.

What is Cucina Karmica?

Starting today there will be an invisible new column to our account journals - Karma received and Karma given. As of today there will be no more prices and no fixed portion sizes. Will we get ripped off right and left or will we be pleasantly surprised by people’s generosity and fairness?

When we told people a few months ago, including our staff, that we were planning to do away with prices, a few thought it was a great idea, but the majority worried about how much people would take advantage. But the idea, originally planted in my head by Francesca about an Australian, Hari Krishna place with a similar approach, would not go away.

Then, after a few slow months when we were counting our losses, we did some serious thinking about the future of the cafe. One option was to close it - but what would we do with the space? No cafe nor kitchen didn’t seem like a great addition to our hotel. We thought about how to make it work better - to be more profitable, but realized immediately that it would require a sacrifice in quality and/or an increase in prices, which we weren’t willing to make. The businessman side of me thought, “well if it isn’t profitable, why are we doing it?” And yet clearly this, and most issues with us, wasn’t about business, because the idea of closing it saddened me, and we were driven by something else to do it anyway. So it was clear - we weren’t, and probably would never would, run the cafe with money being the objective. So what was our objective then?

Once we thought of it in these terms it was pretty clear. We wanted to make good, healthy food and we wanted people to eat it and like it. We wanted people to have a slow-food, organic and local culinary experience and we wanted it to be affordable and accessible. We wanted people to enjoy coming there, eating there, being a small community. I suppose another factor is that we’re both rebels at heart and the idea of not following the rules moved me. I also thought it would be a great experiment to see how people would respond when given total trust not to rip you off. Surely some will take advantage, but I imagine the majority will overcompensate.

Stay tuned for an update…

Soup

It is raining and you are on your way home from a) school, b) work, c) shopping or d) other stuff. Getting home was like a kind of torture, the bus was cold and smelt of wet dog , your feet are wet, the legs of your jeans are soaked and the chill seems so intense that nothing will ever make you warm again.  Finally the front door to your shelter is within sight, but you imagine the greyness within, no heating, no lights in the gloaming, no welcome just the dirty dishes stacked or the remnants of a hurried breakfast scattered across the kitchen table.  Sigh.

But wait, as you open the door to your sheltering cave a faint warming breeze brushes past you, it is filled with a million memories of comfort, safety, light and warmth.  A cascade of images flicker through your mind’s eye, the pot on the table (your first independent home and you and your lover have made your first meal together), the ladle flashing in the light, expectation in front of slowly filling bowls, giving and receiving (one moment you are the ladle bearer the next you are bowl holder), spoons poised (you are 4 and the spoon is an upside down mirror) impatiently waiting for the the transition from scalding point (your are 10 and reached so fast to dip into the bowl the burning brought tears to your eyes and you could taste nothing for 2 days after) to warm enough to course through your body and drive the winter away. Then a blast of rainy, snowy, wind and you are back on your own doorstep and it is almost dark.  Sigh. You open the door and again there is a scent, and your chilled belly rumbles.  A steam wafting towards you, drawing you towards the kitchen, drawing you towards the light. You dump your bags and move into your home-coming routine. Lights on (was that the sound of a table being set?), heat on (did you hear laughter?). You enter the kitchen, and there it all is, a wish come true. The steaming pot of soup , the basket of bread, the ladle, the table set and the faces of those most important to you sitting, beaming, waiting as you take your place at table. The ladle pours and there is the floating coloured kaliedescope of vegetables in your bowl, a smile all round as everyone blesses this moment of comfort, safety, light and warmth. You reach to take your spoon for the first dip, and bring the tasty brew to your lips and the alarm begins to ring…. (Why is my alarm clock going in the evening?) you turn to see if your loved ones have heard it also, but no, they are passing bread and making jokes and slurping soup.  Again the alarm sounds and you sense that there is something wrong here… i’m sitting at the table and the alarm is ringing to to wake me… The alarm is ringing to wake me …. Nooooooooo.

You lie in bed wrestling with the truth. Switch off the alarm and resign yourself to reality.  Sigh.   At least the horrible parts of the day have not happened either, and now you know what to make for dinner.

Defining Minestrone Soup

Minestrone Soup Recipe

Foreign and Familiar Food

My taste buds underwent a revolution when I moved to Serbia to be with my husband. The food there was interesting but completely alien, miles away from the Neapolitan style cooking of my parents and the multicultural fusion which is ordinary Australian cookery. Serbian cuisine was influenced by the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. I spent the early months learning how to cook again with different ingredients, different cheeses and vegetables and a system of flavours which I had never explored before. During the end of summer and early autumn I got to pick tomatoes and broccoli, cauliflower and sweet peppers (such an amazing variety) from the garden and my mother in law showed me how to prepare pickled vegetables and jam from the abundant harvests of our garden and those of generous neighbours. Eggs were an ever available option until it became too cold and our hens stopped laying. During the winter I learnt how to cook on the slow combustion stove in the winter kitchen and we would switch off the refrigerator because it was enough to store food close to a window or in the summer kitchen, where it would often freeze. I spent the winter wishing, hoping, and dreaming of fresh tomatoes and lettuce to replace the cabbage, potato and pickle life I was living, only to be told that I would have to wait until late spring, when tomatoes would be imported from Sicily. In Serbia pasta was something sweet you ate with jam and bread crumbs or a mixture of poppy seeds and honey, sour cream was eaten with almost everything and pizza … my husband is still offended that I anxiously told my Neapolitan parents “Mum, Dad, they put ketchup on the pizzas”.

When I then moved to Italy I had available to me, once more, everything I was used to from my Italian background but in a greater variety.http://www.prodottitipici.com/ The cheeses. http://www.virtualitalia.com/recipes/cheesegloss.shtml What a nightmare of ignorance I existed in, and still do. I mean there are four different types of ricotta to start with. Almost any cheese can come in a different style according to which milk (goat, sheep, cow or buffalo) and in which region it was made and of course there are some types of cheese which are at their best during different seasons depending on what the milked beast was eating. Then there was the anxiety of going to a bakery (panificio) where there were so many different breads and I didn’t know how half of them were named or what they were made from. Not to mention the stress of going to my local fresh food market and having to cope with vegetables I had never seen before let alone cooked with, and then mushroom season began …. It occurs to me that the more knowledge I gain when it comes to food and cooking, the more it seems to show how ignorant I am …

This takes me to something very beautiful about living in Rome, in Italy, in Europe. Fresh produce here is seasonal. This is something unusual for many Australians and many of the guests I cook dinner for. Some of us are used to being able to buy anything anytime, tomatoes in the dead of winter, oranges and apples all year round. Availability alters once again when you begin to use only organic produce, this is when you really truly see the seasons at work. It is also possible to choose to buy fresh produce which is produced in your own region, in my case, Lazio. When you go to buy your fruit and vegetables, cheeses and other fresh food items in Italy most supermarkets and fresh food markets will label whether the food is local or imported. You can choose not to buy oranges from South Africa and buy those from Sicily or Sorrento instead. Rather than buying broccoli from north I can buy (at the right time of year) broccoli laziale. This means that we here in Italy can be clever consumers and create less impact on our environment by choosing foods which are local and therefore more energy efficient because they have not been transported from over the oceans or by truck from another region. Locally grown food is also often less expensive and fresher because it has not been packed under ice, or treated in some way which prevents spoilage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles http://www.biodiversita.info/modules/cibolocale1/index.php?id=3

In rural Serbia it was a matter of simple economics and common sense to use those foods which were available and often at the local green market there was little option but to buy foods which were in season. In Italy we have the choice of buying mangoes imported from India (for example) or apples and pears which are just in season and super tasty. As much as I miss mangoes, I know that they will disappoint me here and just bring on a bout of homesickness, whereas, if I buy a kilo of apples I am getting the best and letting go of what I once had in favour of living in the present.

Baking bread

I remember one winter when I lived in a cold but very pretty appartment. I’d just moved back to the Blue Mountains and was re-discovering my home town. There was a co-op there from which I could buy five kilo bags of oganic, stone milled, pure and hearty flour from which I baked bread in the hope of keeping my appartment warm and making something tasty. I’m sure many of you have done this, explored messing around with flour and yeast and sometimes potentially dangerous home made sour dough starters. Is there anything as good as the smell of bread baking just before dinner time? Inside my little kitchen a pot of soup bubbles away on the stove and my newly arrived dinner companions have just removed their wet coats and shoes, a bottle of something warming has just been opened and poured. We catch up on each other’s lives while setting the table, and we talk about the memories the smell of baking bread creates. Of all the types of food which brings people together bread has got to be the number one item, definitely if you are from a European or western culture.
Today during lunch my colleagues, Amy and Yuli were talking about bread. Bread for Italians seems to be essential. To not have bread at the table is like not having plates, or cutlery, even if the only piece you eat for the entire meal is a little scarpetta to clean the few last traces of pasta sauce from your plate. I know that if I have lunch with my aunt the entire meal grinds to a halt if the bread is missing and then resumes once the place of honour has been filled. It is similar in Serbia, the country where my husband is from. Generally some of the first words we would say to each other in the morning incuded the phrase ‘do we need bread?’ This can be a crucial question when it is snowing and minus something degrees outside, cosy warm inside and bread runs out at 9am, and of course we could never share the same piece of bread because it would lead to an argument.
So today we celebrate the arrival of the bread machine to the Beehive Cafe. Already there are quite a few sparks of inspiration going off in my mind and I imagine when Laura sees it she will go crazily into tangential possibilities with super rare ingredients only available on blue moons from her beloved Bracciano. Steve keeps peeking in the little window to see if anything (the magical bread moment of creation?) is happening and I am nervous because I half made the recipe up and maybe it will not work… And Gianluca? What will his reaction be to our new piece of equipment?
Anyway, you are welcome to come and break bread with us and taste our creations and experiments and share some of your stories and theories on bread, food, life, Rome etc
Ciao for now

http://www.bluemtnsfood.asn.au/home.htm http://www.breadinfo.com/index.shtml