Meet Viola Buitoni

When I lived in Italy I was both very lucky to know a few Italians who treated me like family, and very naive. I think back now on my 6 months living in Italy and I can’t help but realize how much I missed. What I really needed was a friend like Viola to help me navigate and find the good stuff.

Viola Buitoni is a San Francisco cooking instructor and kind of impresario organizing Italian themed events locally. She’s also tremendously down-to-earth, relaxed and charming. I took a cooking class with her a few years ago and loved every minute of it. Her classes sell out so quickly I rarely have time to write about them in advance. To travel with her to Italy? That sounds like heaven to me.

Where did you grow up and can you tell me about your family’s food connections?

VB: I grew up in Perugia, the main city of Umbria and was born into one of Italy's first pasta families. I am the 6th generation of the Buitoni family. Our pasta fortune originates in Sansepolcro, a province of Arezzo. Shortly after moving to Perugia to mind one of the pastifici, my great grandfather Francesco founded Perugina with Luisa Spagnoli. Though my family no longer has a stake, Buitoni and Perugina are both worldwide food brands to this day.

What made you decide to run tours to Italy?

VB:I've been in the Italian food business for more than 25 years, I've run kitchens and dining rooms catered to the NY elite and even owned a store. After a short maternity break, I started teaching and found enormous joy in sharing the knowledge I had accumulated. My deep love and understanding of Italian food was clearly infectious. I've grown a following of students who often told me I've changed the way they think about food. Guiding a cooking experience in Italy seemed a natural extension of the "Viola experience", so to say, a way to continue to inspire passionate home cooks even further in embracing not only the technique but the deeper meaning of food and kitchen culture in Italy.

What kinds of recipes do you to teach?

VB: I teach recipes that can live and change in home kitchens and that are suited for school nights; the kind that that can work for generations and create lasting memories while changing with time. My food is very market driven, it is a celebration of where and when I am in different places in the world. Always, of course, with an Italian sensibility.

Why are your trips to Lucca and Maremma instead of to the more well-known cities like Florence or Perugia?

VB:The simple answer is I have access to unique and well suited facilities, but there is more. My maternal family has summered in Maremma for 6 decades, so I know and love it intimately. Lucca came on the coat tails of Maremma when a local foundation noticed the work I was doing and proposed that I do something similar in the lucchesia.

There is also the desire to share Italy as I know it and love it, with all its fables, and all its foibles. An Italy that is for locals, that runs on the timetable of nature and its seasons. Teaching about food is also generating emotions, opening a door into an upbringing and adulthood that have always been deeply connected to the pathways of producing, purveying, cooking and enjoying good food. I can think of no better place to do this than the less known territories of Italy.

What are some of the highlights of your tours to Italy?

VB:In Maremma a private dinner on top of a mountain from which you can see forever, a visit to the winery of a family. A friend who watched me grow up. In Lucca cooking classes straight from markets, a private tour of a villa guided by the princess who owns it, followed by a reception in her private loggia.

To learn more about Viola's tours to Italy visit: Viola's Italy

Highlights from J-Pop Summit 2016

Not unlike traveling to Japan itself, this past weekend's J-Pop Summit,which combines food, culture, technology and popular music from Japan. delivered a complete sensory overload that made for one of the most immersive experiences this side of virtual reality. It's hard to know where to begin to describe it as words and pictures only scratch the surface. But, for me, the Ramen Summit with 8 booths serving their own take on this foodie favorite was a major draw.

The ramen on offer here came in so many different styles that it was tough deciding but I went with a bowl of ramen from a very sucessful ramen shop with 3 locations in Tokyo that will soon be is opening up in Japantown. Hinodeya is the winner of the Japan Ramen Awards for 2016 and after tasting their ramen, I can see why. The dashi broth was much lighter but at the same time very rich. The egg noodles were wider and wavier than other ramen but still al dente. The slice of pork and cooked egg were tender and delicious. I'm looking forward to the opening of their shop!

In addition to the ramen there was a booth offering takayaki, a kind of savory octopus donut and sushiwich, a kind of sushi in the form of sandwich. Off the beaten path but well worth seeking it out, were delicious cups of udon noodles with spicy codfish roe.

There was sake, beer, award-winning shochu and low alcohol peach and grapefruit flavored cocktails to try.

I’m not going to tell you all about the technology (this is a food blog after all)—but it was great to have so much that was interactive and not just on display. It seemed in keeping with the playful and hands-on nature of the festival. Likewise the virtual tour of Japan in the tourism area had to be experienced, but I did walk away with packets of bath salts made to resemble ramen soup(!) and plenty of brochures about less known regions of Japan. I'm sorry to say I missed some of the music and the drag queen contest, though I did see some of the contestants.

Perhaps best of all was the music and kookiness that is Japanese culture. If you don’t know what I mean you’ll just have to check out this video. Domo, Domo, Domo!

Until next year!

Foodie Memoirs

In the Summer you need a book or two that you can take on a plane or to the beach. These are the my picks for Summer reads:

My Fat Dad: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Family with Recipes
I think I was afraid this book by a nutritionist would be about dieting. It turns out it is and it really isn’t. It’s all about family and author Dawn Lerman paints such vivid pictures of hers that the recipes are just an added bonus. From the very beginning her feelings are tied up with those who feed her and those who don’t. You can feel the plastic covers on her Bubbe Mary’s couch and smell her dad’s “closet” brownies. And even if you didn’t grow up in Chicago in the 70’s, or move to NYC and go to school on the Upper East Side, you can’t help but relate to her memories of her dieting dad, frustated mom, beloved younger sister and especially her doting grandmother Beauty. The book is all about her love for and evolving relationships with her family, her heritage and yes, food adventures of her own. It’s got lots of humor and is a fun read. It's out in paperback.

My Organic Life: How a Pioneering Chef Helped Shape the Way we Eat Today. I really didn’t know much about Nora Pouillon before reading this book, but I felt like I got to know her as I read it. Her memories of growing up in Austria post World War II (and a few memories that go back even further) took me to another time and place not just physically but emotionally. You really understand her passion for all things organic and wholesome through this book. The recipes are all at the end of the book and mirror her own journey from old world to new. From the alps in Austria to Vienna to traveling around Europe and finally to Washington DC, her life takes many unexpected twists leading to a strong sense of purpose. Her revelations in the book are both honest and brave. It's available in paperback.

Life Without a Recipe: A Memoir of Food and Family
While their are many memoirs with recipes, Life Without Recipes as the title might indicate, is not one of them. The book delves deeper into the relationship author Diana Abu-Jaber has with the two sides of her family—one German and the other Jordanian. It’s hard not to be seduced by Abu-Jaber’s beautiful writing and easy to appreciate how like cooking without a recipe, she finds her own path through trial and error, with plenty of sucesses and failures along the way. But like a great meal, it is satisfying and has a sweet ending. Hardcover.

All or Nothing: One Chef’s Appetite for the Extreme.
I read this book which came out in paperback, last year. I took it on a trip last Summer and could not put it down. It’s about a young man, a budding chef, and his descent into drug addiction and finally his redemption. You can tell from reading the book that author Jesse Schenker has great potential and passion but also a self-destructive tendency that feels at times like it will never quit. The book takes you into some deep dark place—from kitchens to jails and detox centers— but it’s a compelling, some might say “addictive” read. No recipes but plenty of cooking. Paperback.

Disclaimer: This post includes Amazon affiliate links and these books were provided to me as review copies.

Squash Blossom Pasta Recipe

Summer is in full swing and so are the farmers markets. It’s a joy to walk around and see all the juicy peaches, luscious strawberries, plump eggplants, and many colors, shapes and sizes of peppers and squash. Much as I like Summer squash, I’m even more crazy about their younger selves—squash blossoms. They are wonderful stuffed and fried, in frittata, risotto, in quesadillas and of course, with pasta.

I am a pasta maniac and swear I could eat a pound of it in one sitting. But I’ve been experimenting lately and I’ve found I can be satisfied with a whole lot less pasta if I add a lot of other ingredients. This recipe is a perfect example. It has plenty of vegetables and just a little pasta. It uses very few ingredients so use the absolute best you can get from either your garden or a farmers market.

Squash blossoms are very delicate and I like this technique of just blanching them in the pasta water rather than sauteeing them. Many recipes use to many other strong flavored ingredients such as herbs, spices or other vegetables which I think is a mistake. Simpler is better to let the squash blossoms shine. This dish is my version of a recipe I found from Rocco DiSpirito. Mine is lighter and healthier and weighted more towards the vegetables than the pasta. I use whole grain pasta, but you certainly don’t have to if you prefer another kind. Note: Only use sweet and “squishy ripe” tomatoes. Yellow ones would be nice too instead of red.

Squash Blossom Pasta

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 cups whole grain pasta such as rotini

1/4 cup extra-virgin or olio nuovo olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely minced or smashed

2 cups squished fresh juicy tomatoes

4 cups squash blossoms, stamens removed, and torn

1⁄4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Salt

Instructions

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water.

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the garlic, and sauté over low heat until the garlic is soft and golden but not brown. Add the tomatoes, raise the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, until very thick and saucy.

When the pasta is just barely al dente, add the squash blossoms to the pot, and stir. Scoop out the pasta and squash blossoms with a strainer and add to the pan with the tomatoes, adding a little of the cooking liquid. Continue cooking until the liquid has been absorbed and squash blossoms wilted. Off the heat season with Parmigiano-Reggiano and salt to taste.

Enjoy!

Can-It-Forward Day & Giveaway!

Slow Cooker Smoked Chicken Recipe

Recently I was working on some recipes for a client and was tasked with making “faux barbecue.” By faux, I mean no smoker, no grill. In fact, all the recipes were to be made in a slow cooker. I don’t use a slow cooker very often so I wasn’t sure the recipes would even work. Boy was I wrong!

If you are looking for an easy way to cook chicken, this is it. It stays tremendously moist and flavorful and the meat is particularly good for using in sandwiches, salads or even tacos or enchiladas. One of the secrets to this recipe is dry brining the bird. That just means sprinkling it with salt before cooking. Salting it 24 hours ahead is fine, but 48 hours is even better.

Don’t freak out over the use of 1/4 cup of liquid smoke. It does not actually touch the bird so you’re not ingesting it at all. In any case, liquid smoke is a natural and safe ingredient. Experts agree you'd have to ingest 3 whole bottles to cause any harm.

This recipe in particular didn't go to print because it uses a whole chicken. My client wanted a recipe using just breasts. I rarely buy anything but whole chickens because they are so much more economical and you should too. If you’re afraid of ending up with too much chicken, by all means store some of it in the freezer. But I urge you to get in the habit of buying whole chickens. Invest in good kitchen shears and you’ll find it’s easy to break it down into pieces before or after cooking. Even if you only want to eat chicken breasts, you can use the rest of the bird to make homemade chicken broth or stock and still save money.

Slow Cooker Smoked Chicken

Ingredients

One young chicken, about 5-6 pounds

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt per pound of chicken

1/4 cup liquid smoke

2 Tablespoons paprika, preferably smoked but sweet or hot is fine

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

Pat dry the chicken with paper towels and sprinkle the bird all over with salt. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator at least overnight and up to 2 days before cooking.

When ready to cook, in a small bowl make the seasoning mix by combining the paprika, onion powder, garlic powder and pepper. Pour liquid smoke into the slow cooker, place a rack inside and set to high. If you don’t have a rack that fits, fashion one out of a coil of crumpled aluminum foil.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and coat evenly on all sides with the seasoning mix. Add more paprika if necessary.

Place the chicken breast down in the slow cooker on top of the rack. Cover and cook on high until it reaches an internal temperature of 165° F in the thickest part of the thigh, about 2 1/2 hours. Carefully remove the chicken from the slow cooker. If you want the chicken to have crispy skin, broil it for about 10 minutes. Let the bird rest 10 minutes before carving to let the juices reabsorb. Note: Remove the rack and discard the liquid in the bottom of the pot.

Enjoy!

Food & Drink Non Fiction & Fun

I meant to post about these books in the Fall but somehow the post got lost. These books are each a lot of fun and good no matter what the season.

Drinking the Devil’s Acre A Love Letter form San Francisco and Her Cocktails.

If you love San Francisco you will be absolutely charmed by this book. Author Duggan McDonnell is something of a renaissance man—a barkeep, author, historian, a teacher and has been involved in the introduction of a pisco and Jardesca. He’s also a wonderful writer. The book details secret bartender formulas, stories behind classic and contemporary cocktails as well as recipes, stories from many eras in our city by the bay, and so much more. Learn why so many cocktails in San Francisco use citrus, why San Franiscans love the negroni and all things bitter, how tequila made its way to California etc. It’s a pure pleasure.

The Mad Feast An Ecstatic Tour Through America's Food

This book is an “anti-cookbook.” It is a series of surprising essays about iconic but sometimes notorious foods associated with different states. These are not just happy-go-lucky tales but often decidedly wacky untold stories about the pecularities of our culture and its intersection with food. Read about how the lack of traditional ingredients led to the California roll, the link between the Marionberry and slavery and cannabalism, and personal stories from the author about love, life and his experiences here there and everywhere. For a culinary book, it’s truly a wild ride.

Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese

I thoroughly enjoyed Gordon Edgar’s first book, Life on the Wedge. His humor and his worker perspective make his writing about cheese unlike any other. Cheddar is a bit more academic and esoteric, there are whole sections on arcane agricultural history and cheesemaking that dig deep, but all in all, it did make me see cheddar in a new light. The book helps to set the context for a cheese that’s become so commonplace that we barely give it a second thought. My favorite bits were about different cheddar cheeses, cheesemakers, and anecdotes about his road trips and judging competions. Interestingly enough a book about cheddar ends up telling us something about ourselves and our own relationship to culture, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Eatymology: The Dictionary of Modern Gastrononmy

As a wordy girl, this book makes me happy, it defines 100 new words that relate to food. Will you take a janopause next year? Visit a cat cafe? Sure you know what umami is, but kokumi? If not, you need this book. It’s a really fun read and definitely something you will want to work your way through before the aporkalypse. Written by the creator of the Twitter sensation "Ruth Bourdain."

Disclaimer: I received these books as review copies and this post includes affiliate links.

Cherry Barbecue Sauce Recipe & Giveaway!

I’m happy to once again be participating as a Canbassador. I I received some sweet dark red cherries that are as delicious as the season is fleeting. Preserving them is the best way to savor them a little bit longer. Last year I canned some cherries with bourbon. I can’t find the recipe I used and frankly I put the jars so far back in my pantry that I forgot about them until a couple of weeks ago. I just opened the first jar and they turned out to be delicious.

This year I used my cherries to make one batch of cherry pie filling and jars of cherry barbecue sauce. I looked at a couple of recipes, but mostly my recipe is adapted from a recipe from Taste of Home magazine. While the technique is the same, I switched up the seasonings, decreased the sugar and blended it smooth.

The sauce is really good on pulled pork. You can try it with this super easy recipe I developed for preparing it in the slow cooker. But it would also be great on ribs or brisket. It's rich and has just the right balance of tangy and spicy notes--so much better than anything you can buy in the store!

Cherry BBQ Sauce
Makes about 5 pints

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon mild flavored oil such as canola or rice bran
1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups fresh or frozen dark sweet cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped
2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon paprika, preferably smoked
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1-2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Instructions

In a large saucepan heat the oil. Add the onion and garlic and cook for five minutes until soft but not brown. Add the remaining ingredients with the exception of the black pepper. Simmer the ingredients for 20 minutes then blend in a blender or using a stick blender, until smooth. Add a teaspoon of pepper and then taste. Add more pepper if desired.

Pour sauce into sterilized pint jars, seal and refrigerate or process in a hot water bath for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Giveaway!

As a canbassador I am happy to offer 3 swag bags including a fun cherry branded water bottle, a red Oxo cherry pitter and of course, a big shipment of fresh Northwest cherries! You must have a US mailing address to win. Please leave a comment telling me what you'd like to make with cherries. Please enter your email address in the requested field and NOT in the body of the comment. Winners will be chosen on Friday July 15th.

Disclaimer: I received a shipment of cherries and Northwest Cherries is providing the giveaway. I was not monetarily compensated for this or any other post.