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…