Brief Return

I had a business trip back to Torino this past week.  It was great to see everyone again.  I got lots of friendly greetings.

I stayed in the Holiday Inn at the Massaua Metro stop.  It was pretty good as business hotels go.  But the best part is its convenience to the Metro to get around.  I arrived on the June 24 local holiday (St John's day I believe) so I had the afternoon free to do a bit of a Torino tour.  I stopped at the book store at Porta Nouva to pick up some books in Italian for Queen Bee.  I also grabbed a Piemontese  cook book to replace the one that seems to have been lost in the move.  From there up Via Roma with the rest of the residents strolling up the main shopping street.  From there to Grom for a lemon and strawberry gelato (yum!).   Then to the old Roman district for a beer before I returned to my room to get ready for dinner.  It was nice to see the city again.  It was perfect weather for a holiday stroll and the streets were full of people with the same idea.

The first morning I was back to my "normal" routine.  Proceed to work and stopped along the way for a proper breakfast of cappuccino and a brioche.  

The week ended with dinner at friends.  Two couples I know well from my days in Italy.  There was a long opportunity for apperitivo and chat on the balcony facing the Alps.  Followed by a wonderful  French meal and more good conversation.  A perfect ending to a week in Torino.

Pomodori Ripieni con Aglio

Queen Bee and I were driving around southern Michigan most of the day today on various errands (all very cool actually but that is another story...).  We got home late with little in the house for dinner.  I thought about the stuffed tomatoes Johhny had the last time were were at the Spaghetti House in Aviliangna and I decided to do something similar. The result was pretty good (sorry no photo's)...

One half small onion
One clove of garlic
Course sea salt
Dried parsley.
Olive oil
Mayonnaise
One tin of white albacore tuna in water (Costco tuna is pretty good)
Two medium tomatoes

Dice the half onion very small.

Dice the garlic clove very fine as well and combine with the diced onion.

Add some olive oil (maybe one table spoon or a little more).   Add salt and parsley as desired.  Add two table spoons mayonnaise and stir the mixture very well.

Drain the tin of tuna very well and add to the mixture.  Mash and mix it all together very well.

Slice the two tomatoes in half.  Cut and scoop out the entire inner portion of each tomato half, making them int "bowls".  Fill each tomato with the tuna mixture.  Sprinkle a little parsley on top of each for a little color.  Serve.

Comments:

Typical American tuna, packed in water, has amazingly little flavor.  This is probably why we alway mix it with mayonnaise.   The tuna packed in oil we got in Italy was very flavorful and didn't need anything added to be useful.  Unfortunately, with few exceptions, American tuna in oil is pretty nasty.

The raw garlic will give a relatively strong garlic flavor even if it is only one clove.  Keep this in mind regarding you taste for garlic.  But it is there to give some flavor the the water packed tuna.

Alternative Cranberry Sauce

For a Thanksgiving holiday some time ago, we had wanted the typical cranberry sauce used to go with poultry.  The commercial canned stuff was not available in Italy, nor were there any fresh cranberries to be found.  But... we did have some packages of dried cranberries we had brought over for Queen Bee to use in salads.  So I made an attempt to change dried cranberries into sauce.  It turned out surprisingly good.  In fact we now prefer it to the normal versions.

As usual, I did not write it down at the time (actually I did "tweet" the list of ingredients but not the amounts).  So for this Christmas I experimented a little to replicate it.

Required time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Dried cranberries - 10 ounces 

Port - 1 and 1/4 cups

Allspice - 1/2 teaspoon

Brown sugar - 1 and 1/2 tablespoons

Place cranberries in a small sauce pan.

- Add 3/4 cup Port and simmer on low

- Add Allspice and brown sugar and stir well

- Monitor and stir occasionally, adding more port as needed to keep the mixture moist.

- When the remaining port has been absorbed by the cranberries, the cranberry sauce is ready to serve.

Serve warm or chilled.  It is good either way.

Return from Italy

It has come time for Queen Bee and I to return home from Italy.  Sad to say.  Our six year experience has been a wonderful opportunity.  But all good things come to and end, and so it is with our Italian adventure.

I will continue to issue posts on this blog in any case.  There are a lot of places we have seen that have not been documented here yet.  I want to use the blog as a why of capturing the things we have done.

I will also continue to use this blog to document some of the food oriented experiences we had and continue to have.  Travel and food certainly go together, with each inspiring the other.

I received a great cook book from my group before I left.  I plan to explore it and note the more interesting results.  We also accumulated a good number of Italian cook books that I will also explore as time allows.

Pollo Porchetta (aka Chicken in a Pot)

I saw a reference to an interesting version of Chicken Cacciatore in our Italian Food Encyclopedia but it just gave a general idea of the dish rather that the actual recipe.  So I just winged as I often do.  The good news is, it was great the first time with no need for adjustments.  The bad news is , I made it months ago and I never wrote down what I did (also often the case).

So I'll put down what I think I did, and I'll try to use this instruction next time and see if it works!

Feel free to try it yourself.  I think it will work out reasonably well.  (my biggest worry is how much salt) (Jan 13, 2013...  I did some edits today)

Ingredients...

-One small chicken (needs to fit in your Dutch oven with some room to spare).  A selection of wings, thighs, legs can work as well.

-Two large bulbs of finocchi (sorry... at the moment I can't remember the English name!)
Post script...  Finocchi is Fennel 

- Fennel leaves (the part that looks like fern.  I don't use the stem.  Not sure why)
-Provence herb mix

-White wine ( Marsala can be used in place of white wine but dilute by half.  Marsala is convenient for cooking because it keeps.)

-Sea salt or other course salt

-One medium onion

-Two large cloves of garlic

-Two sprigs of rosemary

- Olive oil

Step 1: After cleaning the chicken.  Place the chicken in a Ziplok bag with about a half cup of white wine, Provence herbs and sea salt.  Let sit in the fridge for several hours.  I suggest about a tablespoon of salt (just guessing on this point)

Step 2: Cut up the finocchi and onion into 1 to 2 inch chunks.  Dice the garlic.

Step 3: Heat 2 tablespoons oil in the dutch oven.  When hot, add chicken and allow to brown, turning periodically.   Don't be afraid to add more oil if needed.  This is supposed to be Italian...

Step 4:  Add garlic and allow it to begin to turn color.  Add the finnocchi pieces, and onion.  Let some of those pieces begin to turn color as well.

Step 5: Add about one cup of white wine and cover the Dutch oven.  Put some of the finocchi leaves in the bird and the remainder in the pot along with the other vegetibales.  Add the sprigs of Rosemary.  Simmer on medium low for about 2 hours.  If the liquid begins to dry out, add more wine and a little oil as needed.  About a half inch of liquid should remain at the end of cooking.

Serve with mashed potatoes using the liquid as gravy.

Version 2: Per Ape Regina

Same as above except: rather than simmering on the stove top, place the pot (covered) in the oven at 325F for about 3 1/2 hours.

Fall Stroll in Torino Postscript...

Going to the park yesterday was a very good call!  The evening brought the Susa Valley winds that signal the change of seasons.  By the time we left the Croce Bianco after dinner, the rain was beginning to turn to sleet.  Cold rain and sleet greeted me on my walk to breakfast this morning as well.  Actually the weather is identical to that in the opening pages  of the detective book I started yesterday (The Laughing Policeman).  But that takes place in Stockholm in mid November.

So we have November 4 days early.  Sounds like stew tonight.

The mountain just north of us.  Snow covered by late afternoon!

Seoul, Korea

I returned from Korea on Friday.  It was a very brief business trip.  I wasn't really looking forward to it with everything we have going on now.  It seemed a little intense to think about beforehand, but it all went pretty well and was a nice adventure in the end.

Left Torino in the early afternoon on Monday and arrived in Seoul nearly the same time I had left Torino.  The flight from Frankfort was about 10 hours.  I was actually able to get about five hours sleep on the plane.  Unusual for me, but it helped the trip get a good start.  

There is a few ways to get from the airport to the hotel: taxi, hotel shuttle bus, or the train.  I went for the train because I thought it would get me in the real Korea sooner.  I.e. traveling with the local population rather than a bunch of foreigners.  It was a good choice.  Clean, efficient and economical (about five dollars for a one hour ride into the city).

Train station to the Hilton was a bit of a challenge.  I was told it was a ten minute walk, but no one had mentioned that the station was at the base of a hill and the hotel near the top.  It wouldn't have been too bad without the roller bag, but I did have a roller bag.  I made it to the lobby ok, even if I was a little ripe by the time I got there.  

My coworkers were arriving a little later, so I took the opportunity for a short walk to get familiar with the neighborhood and to take some photos.  Later, when the first person arrived, we grabbed a coffee at a Starbucks clone coffee shop.  Very nice actually and the coffee was better than Starbucks (not "burnt").  Seoul is full of American stile coffee shops.  Really surprising in that sense.  Lot of people walking around with big paper cups.  Definitely not Italy. (You never see anyone out walking with a coffee in hand in Italy!) 

Simple Japanese diner with the guys the first night.  The second night we were entertained to a grand Korean dinner by our hosts.  Really wonderful!

After the second day of business on Thursday my colleagues wanted western food so after an unsuccessful walk to look for something, we went back to the hotel and grabbed a taxi to a place the hotel had recommended.  Italian in this case.  It was fine even if a little pricey. 

During the walk we had found one really wonderful street with several blocks of very dense market stalls.   Food , clothing etc...  There was stall after stall selling fresh sea food to your order, prepared by smiling women on little cook stoves behind the display.  Each of the stalls had two or three small tables (think of our "Little Tykes" table and chair set)  The sea food on display looked very well organized and fresh.  Tempting to me but not to the others.  

So after dinner I went out for another walk to see if I could get a picture of the market scene and maybe a beer and a snack to make up for missing a local experience the last evening.  Unfortunately, the market was packed up by the time I got back to the correct street.  So I wandered around to take some photos of Seoul at night.  And get a beer and a snack! 

Namsan Mountain and Seoul Tower in the day.

The hotel lobby is both grand and stylish.

I liked the large format art in the lobby

Typical city street.

The old Seoul Station

Seoul Station and the point of my arrival

One of the many Christian churches in Seoul backed up by the Hilton up the hill

Namsan Mountain and the Seoul Tower at night

Evening street scene

Typical "carry out" with the display and serving area on the walkway, 

and a very small kitchen in a nook in the wall.

People out for the evening.  Not as crowded as I recall Yokohama 

but still a lot of people out and about quite late.

The diner for my last outing.  Beer was good and the fish dumpling 

soup was ok.  But the fried chicken looked wonderful.  

Next time!!