Pasta Carbonara

Most recipes call for spaghetti, but Perilli in Rome uses rigatoni. Whichever you use, here is the recipe.

For 500 grams of pasta:

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a deep frying pan and sauté 120 grams of guanciale, chopped, until brown but NOT burnt. If you cannot find guanciale then use pancetta, but the taste will not be the same.
In a bowl beat well 3 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs with 2 tablespoons of grated pecorino romano cheese and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Cook the pasta in lots of salted, boiling water until it is cooked al dente. Just before draining it - be sure to keep some of the cooking water in case you want to thin the sauce - stir the egg and cheese mixture into the warm - NOT hot - pan with the guanciale. Drain the pasta and put it into the frying pan and toss well. If the sauce is too thick add a little of the hot cooking water.
Serve with freshly ground parmesan (if you are feeling poor use freshly grated grana padano).

Promenade in Rome and Lunch in Naples

My favorite restaurant in Rome is Le Berninetta, newly discovered.  Perilli, La Campana, and Armando al Pantheon are old favorites

Perilli on the via Marmorata is located in Testaccio, a hill built of ancient Roman pottery shards. Perilli serves what has to be the best pasta carbonara in town. It is rich and full of flavor. Testaccio was, in the not so distant past, the site of Roman slaughter houses, and animal offal - the quinto quarto, or fifth quarter (the carcases of animals were cut up into quarters and the less desirable fifth quarter went to the workers - the prime pieces went to the aristocrats) are typically served in the local restaurants; try Perilli's pasta alla pajata, still-milk filled calf intestines.  Perilli waiters are courteous, competent and friendly, and seem to be of another time, as does the restaurant. And there are very few tourists.
Next door to Perilli is Volpetti, an exceptional delicatessen with delicious hams, salami, cheese and prepared foods. Comfortably seated, you can eat the prepared dishes around the corner at Volpetti's tavola calda on the via Alessandro Volta. And before lunch, and after Volpetti, you can visit the Testaccio covered market, almost free of tourists.

La Campana, on the vicolo de la Campana, is said to be Rome's oldest restaurant, once frequented by Michelangelo. It is always full of both Italians and tourists. Try the artichoke cooked in the Jewish fashion, deliciously crisp for it is fried twice. Also have the delicious ravioli stuffed with artichokes and served in a tomato sauce.

Armando al Pantheon, right by the Pantheon, has become too well known. It was written up as one of the best "bistros" in Rome in the Nespresso magazine, and so has become too famous, but the food is very good. I love the tagliatelle with chicken livers.
All three restaurants serve puntarelle, a seasonal salad, with anchovies and olive oil. Puntarelle is quite chewy and most unusual. When I ate at Armando yesterday there were more tourists than locals.

I went to Naples for the day and ate lunch in what has to be one of the most delightful restaurants in Italy. Full of locals, I was the only tourist. I found the restaurant a few years ago by asking a local artisan where he ate. The Cantina degli Antichi Sapori, via Santa Lucia (remember the song?), is located near the sea in sight of Vesuvius. I started with a freshly-made-that-day mozzarella, creamy and full of milk, with sliced fresh tomatoes, basil, and a few leaves of arugula. I asked for salt and the waiter forbade me to use salt on mozzarella - only pepper and olive oil.  Then spaghetti alla vongole, little clams, little tomatoes, garlic, and hot red pepper flakes. And a bottle of Lacryma di Christi, a fruity, flavorful white wine from the region of Vesuvius.  Everyone is very friendly. On the other side of the room is the salumeria, where you can buy all kinds of hams, sausages, and cheese, as well as wine and the world's best dried pasta, Setaro, made just outside of Naples, and rolled between bronze plates, which makes any sauce  adhere better to the pasta than it would to pasta rolled in stainless steel.   Here a kilo of the pasta costs less than 4€; in Avignon it costs more than 16€.  If you have a craving while you are in Rome for the vanilla cream filled, slightly chewy, multi layered Neopolitan pastry called sfogliatelle, go to Il Fornaio on the via dei Baullari, near the Campo di Fiori.

Where do I stay in Rome? Always at the Hotel Due Torri, a small three star hotel of charm, on the vicolo del Leonetto, named after the well-worn stone lion on the facade. The building dates from the 17th century. In the 18th century it became home to various cardinals, one of whom went on to become Pope Leo no-one-knows-what number. When the cardinals left for the Vatican, the hotel became a bordello and remained one until 1953, when the bordellos were closed by law. The hotel, in a very chic, quiet and calm part of Rome, is a ten minute walk from the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and the Piazza de Espagna. The staff are especially friendly and helpful and all of them speak English. And the rooms are lovely, even if some of them are small.  Those on the top floor have terraces. You can see a photo of Mme. Giordani, the owner of the hotel, with Chouchou, her chihuahua, who goes everywhere with her. The hotel welcomes dogs.

And November is a fine time to visit Rome, for it is porcini mushroom season - they are enormous - and the restaurants grill them and even add them to pizza.

Now I have a new favorite restaurant, La Berninetta, recommended to me by Mme. Giordani, who told me the best pizza, with a paper thin crust, was at Berninetta. I wouldn't know, for I had salt cod fried in a light and crispy batter, a dish whose origins are in the Roman Jewish tradition.  There is a splendid spread of antipasti and desserts. The owner and his son are eager to see that you are happy in their restaurant. La Berninetta is just across the Tiber from the hotel, on the via Pietro Cavallini, named aftter a 13th century fresco painter whose work you can see in Santa Cecilia in Trastavere. The son told me that it was a "simple kitchen"; it is certainly a delicious one.  Last night in Rome and I returned to La Berninetta where I began with antipasti - white beans, porcini in olive oil, anchovies, various cooked greens, fried eggplant, roasted red and yellow peppers, an artichoke alla Romana this time, cooked onions - at this point I had to stop - and an exceptionally good pizza margherita made with bufala.

A note on coffee in Rome: Both the Caffé Greco, near the Spanish steps, and the Caffé Sant'Eustachio near the Pantheon, have excellent coffee, but do as the Romans do and drink your coffee standing up at the bar.  You will pay far less than if you sit at a table and you will avoid the tourists.

Notes on the photographs. The top photo - look at those arichokes - is of the antipasti - before they are all out on the table - at La Berninetta. The third photo is of the Hotel Due Torri; you can see the well worn little lion. And the bottom photo is of a window at Volpetti.

Marseille Fish Soup

The Marseille version of fish soup is made all along the southeastern coast of France. It is simple to make and delicious. You should have a sturdy food mill, like the one made by LeTellier mentioned below.

Mince 2 leeks and 2 onions and sauté them for a few minutes in several soup spoons of olive oil. Then add 2 chopped tomatoes and continue cooking for a minute, stirring with a wooden spoon. Then add 2 cloves of garlic, mashed, a branch of fennel, a bay leaf and some orange peel, fresh or dried. Pour over 2 litres of water. Now add a kilo of rock fish, that is fish found around rocks, such as small crabs, rascasse or scorpion fish, of which there are many varieties in the United States, rouget or mullet, a slice of congre or conger eel, girelle or rainbow wrasse, and roucaous, or, as a substitute in North America, damsel fish or parrot fish, and in Great Britain corkwing or rock cook. If some of these fish are not available you can use fish like sea bass or lotte (monkfish) , but the whole point is to use lots of small, inexpensive fish (if any fish is inexpensive nowadays). Do NOT use oily fish like sardines or mackerel. Now bring the soup to a rapid boil and cook on a high fire for about 15 minutes. Then strain the broth into another pan, and pass the fish and vegetables through the food mill over the broth. Bring the soup to the boil then add a generous pinch of saffron. If you wish you can add a handful of vermicelli and continue cooking gently until the pasta is done. Et voila.

In France you put rouille on a crouton, put it upside down into the soup and, if you wish, add some grated parmesan.

Here is the recipe for rouille. Mash together (or purée in a robot) 2 cloves of garlic and 2 hot red peppers, and a handful of white bread, previously soaked in water and squeezed dry. Then add 2 soup spoons of olive oil and 2 dl of fish soup broth. And there is your rouille. You can also add hot red peppers to a garlic mayonnaise and then add some fish soup broth and use as you would the rouille.

Where to buy your fish in Avignon? At La Marée Provençale in Les Halles. The pile of fish in the photo shows the rock fishes.

The Thirteen Desserts of Noël

The "gros super," or big supper, usually served on Christmas Eve, ends with the ritual thirteen desserts, which represent Christ and the twelve apostles. The first four desserts are known as the four  beggars, representing the four mendicant monastic orders:
     Raisins for the Dominicans
     Walnuts or Hazelnuts for the Augustinians
     Dried Figs for the Franciscans
     Almonds for the Carmelites
Then there are:
     Dates, which represent the region where Christ lived and died
     Apples
     Pears
     Oranges
     Tangerines
     Calissons d'Aix, a marzipan pastry with sugar icing
     Two kinds of nougat, symbolizing good and evil, white and black
     Fougasse or "pompe à l'huile," a brioche made with orange flower water and olive oil
     Candied fruit.
There are variations on the thirteen desserts, according to each family's individual traditions.

For nougat go to Sault to Boyer.  And for candied fruit go to Clavel in Carpentras.

Christmas Comes to Provence

Christmas sees the arrival of the Crèche de Provence, a nativity scene full of not only religious characters, but also assorted animals - I have an elephant and a camel for my crib - but also all sorts of local figures, such as the seller of aioli, the fisherman, the happy man with his arms raised, gypsies, and many others who make up Provençal life. My figurines are made in the atelier of Marcel Carbonel in Marseille. Every year there is a handsome Carbonel crèche on display in the Avignon Town Hall. And usually at Christmas time, in the Palais du Roure in Avignon, built in the 15th century for the Florentine Pierre Baroncelli, there is a table set up with the thirteen desserts of Noël.

A perfect Christmas gift, or for any other time, would be a LeTellier "moulin à legumes," or vegetable mill, which makes perfect pureed potatoes and all kinds of pureed vegetables and soups. Soups are far most interesting when passed through a food mill rather than mixed in a robot, for  there is a slight texture to the resulting soup. Culinarion on the rue de la Bonneterie, just across from Les Halles in Avignon, sells the LeTellier mill.

Next to Culinarion is a brand new store just in time for Christmas - Berny, the Home of Salmon and Sturgeon, which sells all sorts of smoked and marinated salmon, sliced to order. And you can also buy undyed smoked haddock, a must for making Scotish cullen skink. I was there on opening day and the sturgeon had not arrived yet.

Cullen skink

Put 750 gr. of peeled, chopped mealy potatoes and 1 minced onion into a pot with a litre of water and cook until the potatoes are almost soft. Put 500 gr. of finnan haddock (smoked haddock) on top, cover the pan and cook gently for about 5 minutes. Remove the fish and skin and bone (if any) and then flake the flesh. Mash the potatoes  and onions into the juice in the pan. Return the fish to the pan and add milk (with cream, if you wish) and butter to obtain the desired consistency. Season to taste. Add chopped parsley if you wish. If you cannot find undyed smoked haddock you can use other smoked white fish.

Christmas time is Chocolate time in France. Most chocolate makers make 40% of their profit at the holiday season. The best known artisanal chocolate store in Avignon is Puyricard of Aix en Provence, on the rue Joseph Vernet. Puyricard was started in the 1960's by a young Belgian couple who had just returned from the Belgian Congo. On the rue des Trois Faucons is the atelier of Aline Géhant who makes delicious beautiful little bites of chocolate. And now soon to open just up the rue de la Bonneterie from Culinarion is the shop of another chocolate artisan, Angéla de Beaupréau.

Le Petit Epeautre of Haute Provence

Le Petit Epeautre (triticum monococcum) of Haute Provence, protected by an IGP,  is a plant of the poacées family, which was the first cereal domesticated by man, around 7500 B.C.  The grain has a nutty flavor and is delicious served plain with whipped cream and butter stirred into it after it has been cooked. It can be used in either sweet or salty dishes. Grains of le petit épautre were discovered on a farm above Monieux in the Vaucluse at the end of the 20th century and the cereal was resurrected. Much of it comes from Sault, also home to fields of France's lavender, real lavender, NOT lavadin, which is sterile and most of which now comes from China.

Basic recipe. Use 50 grams per person. Wash the grain two or three times. Put the washed grain into a casserole with  three times the volume of water. Add salt, pepper, a sliced carrot, a sliced stalk of celery and a bouquet garni and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes. Then let rest covered for 10 minutes. The petit épeautre is ready to use.

Tabouleh made with petit épeautre. Prepare with 200 grams of uncooked grain. After making the basic recipe, add the juice of four lemons, and the following, all diced; 4 tomatoes, 1 peeled and seeded cucumber, 1 yellow, 1 red and 1 green sweet pepper. Add chopped fresh mint to taste and 4 table/soup spoons of best olive oil. Stir well and refrigerate for at least four hours.

You can make a complete meal of this tabouleh by adding chopped hard boiled eggs, tuna fish, or mussels or shrimp, and sweet corn,