Get in my belly

I’ll admit, when Fred told me to meet him at the Greater Boston Buddhist Cultural Center in Cambridge, I was skeptical. I don’t try to force my pighead-eating ways on vegetarians, as much as it saddens me to know that they’re missing out on the sweet pleasures of dining on the animal kingdom, and I tend not to cook much flesh at home these days, but I’d be hard-pressed to tell you about any vegetarian restaurants I particularly like. But the little homespun canteen inside the Buddhist Center was a total surprise.

It’s the only place I’ve ever eaten food that tastes like my mom’s cooking. Not remotely like it — JUST like it. With a forkful of those turnip cakes in my mouth, or some of those mustard greens or pressed tofu, and my eyes closed, I can almost hear her asking whether I’ve practiced violin yet or why I didn’t get the highest score on the calculus test.

Which is to say: it’s really, really good. I could eat an entire childhood’s worth of meals here.

(It’s kind of ironic that I would find my mom’s cooking at this vegetarian restaurant. She never shies away from adding bacon to anything. And in fact, her turnip cakes almost always have bacon in them. But there must be some other magic Mom-ingredient that I’ve never found in the cupboard. And that’s probably why I never try to cook any of her food at home; it just never tastes the same.)

For whatever reason, Toscanini’s brunch still flies under the radar in Beantown. I don’t know why, since everyone should be queuing up for the

BTJ: Bacon, tomato jam, and scallion oil sandwich. It’s a genius combination. In fact, I’m kicking myself for not making any tomato jam last summer, because I would otherwise be making myself one of these sammies right now.

And while Tosci’s made the local paper again with its ice cream-for-entomophages, I have to say I’m not going to be lining up for the waterbug ice cream.

Which actually tastes just like strawberry, since that’s the base. I’ll eat it, happily, but strawberry’s never really been a favorite flavor of mine either. The chapulines, however, I can do without completely. Chocolate covered or not, grasshoppers taste weirdly, funkily — I would almost say stomach-turningly — sour.

More than a week straight of being land- and city-locked and stuffing ourselves with all manner of farm animal, and we were hankering for a view of the ocean.

As well as all of the tasty things to be found within it. Gallipoli sits on the inside of the heel in Puglia. It’s got to be a total mess in summer months, as the city was already packed around New Year’s — not considered optimal beach time there, which is why most Italians and Germans go. Nevertheless, we stayed the night, saw the views, and had a wonderful dinner at Le Puritate. All of the antipasti on this plate were delicious, even the gloppy, mayonnaise-covered stuff in the middle, but we were most excited about the crudi, like the shrimp and palamita (a kind of bonito that they’ve got all over the menu).

But the best dish by far — maybe better than Pompiere’s bucatini, maybe the best of the entire trip — were these shrimp cooked in salt, which I was instructed to clean off with olive oil. I don’t know how they did it, but these were all tender, sweet meatiness, the flesh barely set, not firm (as in overcooked), but on this side of toothsome. Plus, best shrimp heads EVER. We considered returning the next day just for those shrimp, but they were unfortunately closed for New Year’s Eve. So we drove instead down around the heel, stopping at Santa Maria di Leuca, the southeasternmost tip of the Boot, and then headed up through Lecce, back to Ostuni. Which is really beautiful, by the way:

But we actually spent most of our time in Ostuni at Il Frantoio. Besides the acres of gnarled olive trees, there’s a citrus grove, tastefully appointed rooms (difficult to find in a country that inexplicably veers between trashy and chintzily cheap), gardens everywhere, and, most importantly, aperitivo service. A few times a week, they make these seven-course dinners from all the stuff they produce themselves, including their olive oils, or get from neighboring farmers and cheesemakers. And true to la cucina pugliese, the food is heavy on vegetables, like orzotto con zucchine, cabbage involtini, served with a tangle of wild greens (borage, cicoria, etc.), and pasta with beans and mushrooms.

It was the perfect place to spend New Year’s Eve, but I’d go back any time.

And now, back to more domestic matters.

Our arrival was inauspicious: the city was dead (it was late on Christmas Eve, after all, in the city surrounding the Holiest of Holies and with a people that, though they may drive like the spawn of Satan and have little use for marital fidelity, they will spend all Natale shut up in their homes with nonno, nonna, parents, cousins, neighbors, whoever); I had somehow booked us into a “bed and breakfast” (there were literally both available to us, but whether the place actually qualifies as a B&B proper is debatable) waaaaay outside the center, in the unfortunate district of Garbatella; and we woke up the next morning to rain. And pretty much everything was closed.

Our initial plan on Christmas morning was to hunt down the good pizza place in the Ghetto (we were smart enough to realize that not ALL Romans were observing the holiday), but when the locals and the local police failed to help us find the street it was on (we later found out we had actually walked through it at least three times), we gave up, made a reservation for dinner at Giggetto and then almost headed to another part of the city in my desperation and hunger to find a quick bite to eat. We wandered past and then into Dal Pompiere as the anxiety was growing in my head. I was put off by the English-translated menu posted outside (but then realized later that there’s probably no restaurant left in Rome that doesn’t do that) and the waiter that had wandered downstairs in a starchy uniform. And there wasn’t a Slow Food snail sticker on the door. But Steven, equally desperate and hungry, persuaded me to give it a shot.

And boy, am I glad he did. My anxiety ebbed away once I reached the top of the stairs and noticed all the families (Italian families!) that crowded — happily and noisily, as they do — around the tables in the spacious dining rooms (for there were a few). And Dal Pompiere turned out to make the best bucatini all’amatriciana and puntarelle we had during our entire stay in Rome. We sampled at least three other specimens of the pasta, and none were nearly as perfectly, toothsomely cooked, with just the right sweetness and acidity to the sauce. All the others (at Ne Arte Ne Parte, Da Bucatino, and somewhere else) either had that weird mustiness that tomato sauces can sometimes get and the guanciale or whatever they were using was cooked to mushy, flavorless stringiness. The puntarelle: young and tender, crisp and succulent, with an anchovy sauce that was roughed up just enough to retain a pleasing chunky consistency — unlike the sludge we received elsewhere — and funky enough to point up the citrus quality of the vegetable. We ate it all up.

And from there, Rome turned out to be okay. The sun came out. I started beating Steven at Boggle. We discovered that Garbatella had an excellent pub filled with students from whatever university is nearby and offered a surprisingly wide selection of whiskeys. Great wallpaper, too (it was like someone had lucked into an interior decorator’s fire sale and decided what the hell, let’s throw all these colorways together). The line for Da Baffetto pizza wasn’t that long (though the wait once we put the order in sure was). Da Baffetto pizza was GOOD. The Vino e Olio bar that Malcolm recommended was pretty near perfect. We only regretted not making it to dinner at Il Pagliaccio across the street. We ate coda alla vaccinara, coratella, and many, many fried artichokes (Pompiere’s were also the best in this category). Da Bucatino had an amazing antipasto spread for lunch. Giggetto wasn’t all that or a bag of chips. (I maybe would have preferred chips.) We got a little too excited at Volpetti and couldn’t stop from buying a few too many things to eat in the car on our way through Basilicata.

I don’t know if Steven likes Rome any more now than he did before (which wasn’t very much). Hell, I don’t know if I do either. But we sure left a few pounds heavier.

Twelve days, sixteen hours of sleep and five games of Boggle daily, three books, three orders of escargots, four of bucatini all’amatriciana, four Michelin stars, fifteen bottles of wine, and many hundreds of miles in the heel of the Boot: some highlights and observations.

First up, the City of Light (though believe me, after four straight days of pork, pork, duck fat, and a little more pork, we were feeling anything but):

Le Comptoir was the perfect consolation after a somewhat disappointing and shockingly expensive meal at three-star L’Arpège. Sure, Passard’s vegetables vs. Camdeborde’s jarret du porc ain’t apples with apples, but that was soul and honesty I tasted in Comptoir’s chestnut-celery root soup, not just foie gras (though that was admittedly the best part, along with the tapioca pearls). Both soul and honesty were lacking — though I tried my damnedest to find them — in the twelve dishes of the set menu at L’Arpège. They were well executed, to be sure, but there was nothing revelatory, nothing transcendant, nothing really even that interesting about the food. And I tell you, I feel funny about eating €50 carrots. I fail to understand what’s so destination-place about this place. (We did, however, have a knock-your-socks-off bottle of Vernay Condrieu — Coteau de Vernon, I think — that had such a long, beautiful finish that I think I can still taste it.) Comptoir is always my best meal in Paris.

My second favorite meal on the Paris leg was a two-parter in the Marais, late on Saturday night: a mountain of steak tartare at a hip (but not too) wine bar surrounded by locals that reminded us of our drinking partners back at home, and an icy cold plate of oysters, served up by a shucker in an orange jumpsuit, and eaten while standing at the bar of a tiny little virtually huitres-only joint full of old men and working stiffs (romanticizing it, I may be, but this is Paris, after all).

My third favorite meal was acquired at Le Grand Epicerie (in between snacking on samples and admiring the fromage and charcuterie displays) and consumed on a park bench nearby. (The blood sausage and trois saveurs pâté had an airy plushness, with all the melting sweetness of pork and duck fat. Now THAT is some good forcemeat.)

One of our favorite sights in Paris.

I was surprised by the informality of high-end dining in Paris. So we weren’t at George V or Les Ambassadeurs, but still, jeans at L’Arpège? Not sure how I feel about the casualness of service both there and at Table du Lancaster. Isn’t part of the meal the careful choreography of the waitstaff? Attention to detail, anticipating needs — you know, service?

Next stop: Roma, la città eterna.

Connie and I headed up to the farthest reaches of New Hampshire (also known as Vermont) for Turkey Day this year, and it was good because

1. Lauren’s mom is an awesome cook.

2. We got to play Nintendo for two days straight. Man, the Legend of Zelda is definitely one of the best games ever made. I spent eight hours playing it with Lauren and Connie (and occasionally Michael and Jeff, since somehow they were less obsessed than we were) — not even playing 80% of the time but pointing out bushes to burn and rocks to push — and it never got old. I couldn’t ever play, much less watch, any of those newfangled games (and Wii boxing would just wear me out after an hour). I don’t know if it’s because I was trained at a young age to appreciate the lo-tech magic of the NES or if it’s just an excellent gaming system in and of itself, but man, that thing is FUN. My dreams will be populated by bleeps and bloops for the next week.

David captures the whole Pied de Cochon head-eating experience better than I ever could. Makes me wish I were back there, right now.

This is what Vermont looks like:

This is what LA looks like:

Raw peanuts at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. God, California produce makes me weep.

Dim sum at New Capital in Monterey Park. This was my favorite (along with dou hua, or “flower tofu,” which is warm, creamy soft tofu that’s drizzled with a sugar syrup and SO FRICKIN’ GOOD): battered and deep-fried smelt, each stuffed with roe.

And what’s a post of mine without a picture of pork? From Pork Night #4 (I believe) at Kate and Ian’s:

We pigged out at Au Pied de Cochon. Twice.

Pig-out #1: tête de cochon special. With clams and beans (that’s the pile around the head) and sea urchin (that’s what’s crowning the little guy). Any place that serves up pig’s head like this is my kinda place. Perhaps the best part of ordering this was when we asked how big it would be and our server replied, “Well, usually everything we say is for two people is actually for three or four, but this is really only enough for two.” And he was right. We went to town and dug up every tasty morsel we could find. And at the end, there was only a little mound — maybe a couple ounces’ worth — left for Steven’s breakfast. And yes, I ate an eyeball. And made David eat the other one. It was much meatier than the goat eyeballs I’ve had. We were disappointed when we were going in for the brain and our server informed us that they weren’t equipped to help us break it open out there at our table. His explanation made sense though: the roasting they do for the outside of the head probably doesn’t do a whole lot for the inside (overcooked brain = gross). He packed it all up for us to take home and crack open ourselves, and we nearly did, but after several more days of gluttony, we really hadn’t the stomach for it any more. So sorry, no brain dissection shots.

Pig-out #1.5: Le Club Chasse et Pêche. This is the braised suckling pig risotto with shavings of foie gras. Only Budapest could compete with Montreal in scale when it comes to foie, but Montrealers have got it down in terms of preparation and imagination. And there’s a really wonderful sense of humor that prevails here that you can read in menus and see in platings (see above pig’s head, for example). I like your style, Montreal. And I like your tasty beasts. Chasse et Pêche has great service. Perhaps some of the best service I’ve had in an upper-mid-range restaurant.

We took a break from pork for breakfast on Day 3

with smoked meat from the fabled Schwartz’s. Which was great, but Steven prefers the pastrami/liver at Katz’s.

Pig-out #2, PDC: There was less pig at this dinner, and it was found mostly in the potée de PDC (boudin, pork chunks, some kielbasa-type thing, etc.). Instead, we thought we might support the local foie industry and follow everyone’s advice to order the foie gras poutine. Which is AWESOME. The poutine at Duckfat in Portland was very good, but we probably could have downed another plate of PDC’s. Not only does the gravy have this additional dimension of richness and depth to it, but they also add a little (though not enough, it’s so damn good) jus alongside. Oh god, I want another one, right now. Also great: bison tartare. They give you a giant brick of the stuff, perfectly ground to an unctuous near-paste consistency. Well seasoned. And the eponymous pig’s foot. Delicious. Although it came with a weird sort of square croquette that was filled with meat-flavored grey goo that we weren’t so into. Not so great: the plogue à champlain (foie on buckwheat pancake with bacon, potato, cheddar, and maple syrup) was way too heavy on the maple syrup; and the tarte de foie gras cru au sel was only okay (too much mashed potato).

The only place I spent more time in than PDC was Jean-Talon. And is it any wonder why?

I spent the weekend submerged in, surrounded and inundated by inspiration. I don’t know if it’s the independent-minded spirit of that big nation to the north or a certain DIY aesthetic, but this stuff is amazing:

- Haida art. Check this, this, and this out. First saw it in Vancouver a few weeks ago and then again this weekend, and the images have been floating in my head ever since.
- Slightly related to the previous: Emily Carr.
- Worn journal.
- preloved. Specifically, my newly acquired fashioned-old-sweaters preloved fall wardrobe.
- the new Manu Chao album (which isn’t really Canadian in any sense, except that I heard a sick track off it blasting from the speakers of a record shop while I was walking down Mont Royal in Montreal this afternoon.)
- Première Moisson, quite possibly the best bakery chain ever.

But more on Canadian gustatory delights tomorrow.