La colazione
Forget about your hangover busting fry-up. Italians are too beautiful to get hangovers. Delicate educated pastries singed with frothy but prickly cappuccino are what I indulged in for the first meal of the day. Let's start with the cuppas of cappuccinos. There is something different about them in Italy. Just like Guinness in Dublin??? The foam is so light. If there is such a thing as wet snow and dry snow with dry snow being the zenith of snow, then this froth is definitely dry. Cast you mind back to when you were a little kid and you took your first mouthful of bubbles whilst having a bubble bath thinking they will be the beverage of life. So light and airy, but substitute the bitter taste of Thomas The Tank Engine soap with milk. Milk so milky the Milky Bar Kid would be a hippy instead of a cowboy. The coffee had that bitter taste that makes you wonder how you just want more.
The pastries were incredible. They were so light and amicable, they somehow floated onto your plate and translocated to your table. The fillings ranged from chocolate to all sorts of fruity fruitiness. Forget about il pranzo, let's break our fast all day long.
Il pranzo
So many choices to whet your appetite... I think I will blog-a-don you with my pannini.
How many restaurants can you go into and ask the owner to make you a sarnie? Lo Spuntino in Montegallo is one of them. We were in Montegallo for 2 days I think but I am sure I had more than two pannini. I was given a big brick wrapped in kitchen foil. 'What was this?' I asked myself. I thought Antonella (the hostess) mistakenly gave us her bricks of coke that was intended for La Camorra. What awaited me when I unwrapped the incredibly thick kitchen foil was a monstrosity of a sandwich reminiscent of la Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle. The two pieces were not even cut straight. WTF? It must be the Italian way. Nevermind. Sure enough the bread was thick and a bit dry for my liking but inside there was an amazing party of ciauscolo and pecorino. In fact the bread grew on me. My luddite palette was being educated. Ciauscolo is succulent pink salami with little stowaway pieces of truffle. The truffle perpendicularly punctuated the pure cured taste of salami with puffs of brashness. I thought this was good until I munched my way through the pecorino. By Jove! I think Hestia, the agricultural goddess of food, was playing keepy-uppy with Paolo Rossi on my taste buds. Being made from sheep's milk, this cheese had a strong but intoxicating taste to it. I cannot describe it and do it justice. Mainly because I am a pleb but also because I will leave it to you to sample yourself. "Antenella, pannino con pecorino per favore. Grazie mille. Ciao!"
La cena
Antonella and Stefano entertained us at their restaurant, Lo Spuntino. Stefano, the chef, was a Roman. He spoke with his hands, I found him fascinating to watch especially as he seemed to spend most of his time chatting and threatening to create a mini supernova with his hand gestures, yet he still managed to bang out some amazing food. He never smiled or threatened to break a smile until I cracked off some pigeon Italian that went something like this: "Abito la dolce vita in Montegallo." His grin might have been translated as: "Who is this putz?" or it might have been translated as: "This putz is joker". Or even, "Merda, il cinese". I will never know....
The NYE dinner was intense and immense. If I had known that it was going to be a five course meal, I would have taken it easy on the antipasti. What stood out for me like Libyan aircraft in a no-fly zone were the lentils and pasta.
The lentils were from Castoluccio in adjacent Umbria. I always thought lentils were a poor man's musical dish (musical because beans and lentils fire up the intestinal orchestra). Slices of zampone (pork's leg) were lurking like Super Pippo on the shoulder of each lentil waiting to confound belief with important gustatory contributions. I felt as if each individual lentil had its own character and personality and the sauce was the type of comfort sauce only your mother can make. The other dish that caught my taste buds offside was the pasta. Simple (thin) pasta with simple tomato sauce, except that the simpleness of the tomato sauce was so virgin-like that the tomatoes must have germinated through immaculate germination. I thought Michaelangelo was painting a pomodoro al fresco inside my mouth with every mouthful. How could this get even better? Well, shoot me down with a Roman archer and sprinkle some pecorino on the pasta! Bellissima!
Dolce
I am sure I had horse chestnut jam of some sort. That chestnut jam thing was pure theatre. It was the gastronomic version of SuBo. It didn't look appealing; the thought of it was quite repulsive but when it got down to business it was angelic. The jam was bonkers, nutty but delightfully sweet.
The Ho Down says: Italy 1, France 1; Italy win on penalties. Grazie mille, ragazzi!
I would like to thank Marta and Marco for making me feel welcome during my stay. I will always remember 'kazzo di ca!'
I would also like to thank Xu for being my piccolina broncina. Sei una su un millione!
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| Il pizzaiol-Ho |
what about "trippa"!?!??
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