Most Brits associate mincemeat with Christmas – its intoxicating mix of fruit, spices, booze, nuts and mixed peel provide Pavlovian stimuli, stirring memories of cherubic choirs a-caroling, roasted poultry, and the Queen’s speech – whereas I associate it with Easter, because it was always around then that we finally ran out of mince pies. I use the term “ran out” quite deliberately, as mince pies were the kind of thing that, growing up, were considered within the realm of “supplies”, so numerous were they. Every year in early December, my industrious mother would make at least six, but often as many as ten, dozen individual mince pies, fashioned lovingly from homemade mincemeat she had prepared several months in advance.

These seasonal confections then proceeded to appear on the table each and every mealtime, during tea breaks, whenever we had company over and any other time people were sat sitting and might be persuaded to have a smackerel of something, until everyone was thoroughly sick of the sight of them. Towards the end of March, the sight of the poor, battered-looking stragglers, that had been taken in and out their box so many times that their pastry shells were all dented and crumbly, was particularly sad.

The derivation of the word mincemeat, which today contains no minced meat, is Medieval, from a time shortly after Marco Polo had returned from the East, and every cook worth his salt was finding new ways to disguise and preserve rotten provisions with the spices he popularized. Adding cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to ground meat, dried fruits, candied peel and chopped nuts before soaking the whole lot in high octane liquor must have been a hit at the time, which probably speaks more to the concurrent lack of fresh meat than to whether this was, in fact, a delicious preparation. Either way, it caught the imagination of a nation, and though the ground meat has largely been dropped, the tradition of using these spices to perfume pie filling continues strongly.

Another reason mincemeat was such a hit way back when is because once made, it can be expected to keep, unrefrigerated for as long as 2 years – something my mother bore in mind, as she often made hers over the first weekend of the New Year giving it ample time to “improve” over the next 12 months. Throughout the year, she would occasionally rouse it from its slumbers, turning it over and adding a touch more brown sugar or booze as she deemed necessary. Suffice it to say that by the time Easter came around, and the last mince pies were served, their mincemeat contents was nearing its second birthday, and was so highly perfumed that to inhale deeply close to a warmed mincer was to risk singed nose hairs.

Following my mother’s established tradition, I was well prepared, having put together my mincemeat last January, and fed it occasionally throughout 2011, so that it was rich and boozy by the time the Holidays arrived. Unfortunately, the energetic screams of our firstborn put paid to any intentions I may have had of making batches of personal mince pies before Christmas, so I had plenty of mincemeat leftover to ring in the New Year with. Inspired by a desire to produce something that people would actually eat before the next Christian festival hove into view, I quickly prepared this mincemeat stuffed quince. You could quite equally pair it with a vanilla custard/creme anglaise or, as I prefer, a whisky-laced whipped cream, but I lost my dander somewhere along the way and just shook some powdered sugar over it to evoke the wintry season instead.

I could have used apples in this recipe, but opted for quince largely because it’s one of those fruits that was, coincidentally, first popularized in the UK during Elizabethan times and has, rather sadly, since fallen out of favor. Brought originally from Asia and sometimes known by the moniker “love apple”, quince isn’t dissimilar in taste and texture to the apple — to which it is botanically related and which would make a fine substitute here — but when you’ve got the strains of “Good King Wencelas” with its frosty and feudal lyrics echoing in your mind, quince just feels right. [For more on quince, check out our friend Rachel Eats.]

Oven-baked quince are really, really good: rich, almost custardy in flavor and not overly sweet. A perfect dessert for the Holiday period, providing enough time is taken between courses. It’s probably not worth making a batch of mincemeat just for this purpose, but they are they dead easy and quick to pull together, and will be eaten in no time, allowing you and your family to leave Yuletide flavors safely behind you before the end of January.

The largely unknown city of Compiegne, France, has the distinction of being the site of one of Louis XV’s most extravagant homes away from home. Under him, the Chateau de Compiegne became one of three distinctly opulent seats of government alongside Versailles and Fontainbleau. The latter French monarchs were hardly known for their desire to live simply as visitors to either of those other palaces can attest, and Compiegne is no exception, taking more than 35 years to complete with Louis constantly tinkering at the design to aggrandize it to his tastes. When finished it made the perfect departure point for forays into the nearby Forest of Compiegne, ancestral hunting grounds of French royalty, for some bracing sport. However, Louis was not into taking chances on returning with his game bag empty, and it is said that the forest was so well-stocked that a blind marksman could still expect to feast on wild meats.

Of course, it’s well-known that the rest of the French population were not eating in quite such grand style at that time, and it wasn’t until after the revolution and the rise of the bourgeois class that the French institution with which many of us are most familiar came into being, namely, the restaurant. Happily for us, upon visiting Compiegne in early 2010, we found that these days the city is much more egalitarian in its approach and makes abundant gastronomic accommodation for a range of economic classes. Indeed, the night we arrived, we dined somewhat opulently on escargot ravioli and kir royal before joining the sans culottes at the other end of the social spectrum the following evening with a carafe of vin ordinaire to wash down a marvelously flavorful jarret de porc, poached pig’s hock, a humble dish that was almost certainly never prepared for residents of the Chateau. Served with some whipped potatoes together with its poaching broth that would have been almost as good without the hock itself, le jarret was juicy, incredibly rich and porky, and meltingly tender.

The porcine counterpart to the famed veal osso buco of Milan, the hock is the lower portion of the animal’s shin bone ending just above the trotter, and is consequently tough and full of connective tissues. As with all such parts of the beast, slow cooking is necessary to get the best out of it, and in the case of the hock, poaching tenderizes it perfectly, but ignores the magic of the skin and underlying fat, comparable with the cheeks in terms of porky flavor. To solve this problem, and improve upon the jarret of Compiegne, we roasted it in a hot oven that performed three special functions: 1) it rendered out some of the fat, 2) crisped the skin into some amazing crackling, and 3) transformed the connective tissue into sticky, almost sweet, gelatin. We then deglazed the roasting pan with some of the strained poaching liquid and reduced the mixture into an almost clear gravy, that combined with a squeeze or two of lemon juice to cut the richness, came together on its own with the pig gelatin.

Unfortunately, and this is why we took until the start of fall 2011 to make this dish, unsmoked pork hocks are rather difficult hard to obtain in America even from reputable butchers where their smoked counterparts are ever present, and it was only last week that we managed to get our hands on some, in, of all places, a regular suburban supermarket. Our freezer is now half-filled with pork hocks which will be dropped into Sunday gravy in the near future, and may well also feature in a special attempt at home-making aspic jelly should we run out of inspiration or suffer from pork overload in the interim. We would encourage you to seek out this humble cut of meat too, you won’t be dining royally but it might help you feel wealthy when you check your bank balance.

There’s a show on public television here in America called “Moment of Luxury” in which the host very generously enjoys all manner of fine things on our behalf and then shares his collected pensees about the experience. Traveling around the food blogosphere lately has felt like a surprisingly similar experience for us since our three month old prevents us from experiencing any luxury ourselves.

Tough titty, I hear you cry. Fair enough, we have lived rather high on the hog these last several years and have been blessed with several unforgettable moments of luxury along the way, but like the princess and the pea, we are finding our current rather straightened circumstances somewhat uncomfortable.

Turning over a new (year’s) leaf, determined to gripe no longer and return to being active participants in our (gastronomic) lives, we had a deuce of a time this past weekend putting together some foie gras and wild mushroom ravioli, in the hope we would be able to enjoy at least one or two moments of luxury. Inspired by ZenChef’s oxtail and foie gras ravioli and our experience eating escargot-stuffed ravioli in France (both) around this time last year (when we bought the can of foie gras we used), we took a brief flight of fancy in the accompanying sauce, combining porcini stock, balsamic vinegar and red currants into a sort of impromptu agrodolce. Some dry roasted wild mushrooms completed this, quite frankly, sublime dish.

Savoring these rich and blissful parcels certainly felt like a moment of luxury. Indeed, when we were roused moments later from this temporary reverie by infantile caterwails echoing from the nursery, these few seconds of pleasure were all the more significant providing much-needed encouragement for us to gird our loins once more for our nightly skirmishes with our darling offspring.

There’s an awful conceit abroad the interwebs these days that seems to be encouraging more people than it should to title themselves “freelance food writers”. Perhaps you’ve seen it in the “About” section of a variety of the blogs you frequent? Coincidentally, there is an expression, “facebook hot”, in use among the youth (I know this because I snuck a peak into my sister-in-law’s Cosmopolitan the other day) to describe someone whose picture they have seen on said social networking site but found to be disappointing in the flesh. I flag both these things in order to highlight the little-known fact that the internet is full of charlatans, liars, and duplicity.

However, while it might be pretty straightforward to make oneself look good in a photo, masquerading as an accomplished writer is rather more of a feat. It strikes me that in order to be a food writer, the first pre-requisite is an ability to write well, not, as is apparently the common misapprehension, an interest or knowledge of food. Secondly, in order to be a freelance writer one must earn at least some portion of one’s living from writing, and, therefore, have a track record of getting published by others, instead of just self-publishing. Without both of these (and the former must come ahead of the latter), one is simply a blogger or hobbyist. [It's important to note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a hobbyist blogger. We are definitely and contentedly hobbyists, deriving a good deal more expendable income from fluff-encrusted nickels and dimes found down the back of our couch than from our blog.] The point is that, even though most of us would love to get paid for doing stuff we do during our spare time, just because I might know how to use a lawn-mower and an edge-trimmer, exercising this knowledge in my back yard does not make me a “freelance landscaper”.

Those of you familiar with our body of work on this blog may recall previous references to Jim Harrison. Author of such novellas and books as Legends of the Fall, Sun Dog, and Dalva, Harrison has been compared in style and sensibility to such greats as Hemingway and Faulkner. In spite of these comparisons and the adaption of his work into high profile movies, like most successful writers he is modest about his work, and declares, in his often-hilarious collection of essays about food, The Raw & The Cooked, that, apart from his daughter, the only thing he has created that he is truly proud of is an annual spring-time dish of roasted quails stuffed with foie gras and leeks. Immediately, he avers that this does not make him a recipe writer, let alone a cookbook author.

If such an abundantly talented man can be so modest, might not we all be able to learn something from him about humility? We are all prone to attacks of hubris (take this early example of such from yours truly), and there are no real consequences other than self-delusion, but there is something rather saddening about declaring yourself a “food writer” on your blog and then immediately failing to demonstrate any of the requisite literary abilities in inept ramblings. Just because he was told he could be whatever he wanted, Jim Harrison didn’t automatically become 135lbs – except in his mind, and there are many things in our all minds best kept to ourselves.

For a while last year and earlier this year, bottarga, it seemed, was the new black. Like truffles, it had become, if perhaps more temporarily, the new foodie trend obsession and blogs everywhere were doing all kinds of inventive things with it, like this, this, even this. Never wanting to feel left out of something, we fell into contact with a very nice gentleman, Robert, from Florida, via our friend Claudia at Cook, Eat, Fret who generously supplied us with a sizable shipment for free!

Robert, on top of being such a kind-hearted soul, is a craftsman of some note who actually hand-makes his own bottarga (smoked, dried roe/fish egg sacs) from Gulf of Mexico mullet, and after hearing our plaintive cries took pity and sent us some in the mail. I am absolutely positive that he thinks us the most ungrateful and churlish tykes in this hemisphere as this was no less than six months ago and we have nary said a word to publicly acknowledge him, his delicious product (which you can learn more about here), or our indebtedness, since.

Excuses are of little use here, and Robert, if you’re reading, we are not only sorry for not getting around to this sooner, but ashamed because we’ve actually been enjoying your bottarga at regular intervals in the meantime as we figure out how to use it in a new and interesting way. As you’ll see from the links to other friend bloggers above, the most common way of serving it is in the traditional Sicilian dish of spaghetti alla bottarga, a delicious pasta dish created with lemon juice, parsley, and olive oil, but since we were way behind the curve on this, we thought it better to let sleeping dogs lie rather than reprise dishes others had made and pretend we weren’t copying them.

So, after six months of thought, testing and increasing panic, we made a fantastically simple, yet elegant, and unbelievably good appetizer with firm, unfrozen diver scallops quickly pan-fried in butter served over a platform of wilted spinach and topped with excitingly colored blue-black lumpfish roe caviar and decorated gaily with the gratable sunshine that is bottarga. A little brown butter (beurre noisette) sauce contrasted with the marine flavors of the double fish egg effect nicely offering a touch of fattiness.

Of course, this wasn’t the only way we’ve enjoyed Robert’s bottarga, we’ve also enjoyed it sliced very thinly on blinis with sour cream and chives, and most recently, as a fabulous brunch dish (or appetizer) topping loose scrambled eggs. Bottarga’s strong flavor may not be loved by all, but when worked into dishes that balance it with fat or starch or when used sparingly over lean proteins, it makes a meal that truly warrants all the foodie hysteria, not unlike truffles, in fact.

As with a few other fellow bloggers, we were lucky to receive one of my favorite “blog freebies” to try recently – truffle products by La Boutique de la Truffe.  Cha-ching!  As some know, for most of us, blogging will barely help us buy a cup of coffee at a year’s end – that is if you have an ad up.  When we get offered to test out powdered sauces (gag) we usually pass, but when truffles were offered I jumped up and down like a little schoolgirl.  I know truffles seem to be that annoying foodie buzz word that gets all us food-lovers screaming like Beatles fans in the 60′s, but I still say they are worth the hype.  It is obvious we like them – a lot.  You’ll find truffle recipes all over We Are Never Full: like here and here and here. And if you indulge and buy something from La Boutique, it is an investment and one that will pay off in big flavor that really can not be duplicated any other way.

La Boutique de Truffe started in 2003 by a French immigrant, Cèline Labaune, who had a “passion for truffles” (straight from the media kit).  Why am I telling you this? Because if I am going to spend $35 for a 3-ounce pot of truffles, it helps to buy them from 1) someone who is passionate about them and 2) someone who is French and knows her stuff.  It used to be very difficult to get good quality truffle products here in the US and I can say, without hesitation, that the truffle products we received from La Boutique were very good.  Yes, it is still expensive but a little does go a long way.

For this quick dish (bite me Rachel Ray – this is a real 30 minute meal), we paired the nice truffles with an easy cream sauce with walnuts and bought fresh ravioli from our local Italian shop. If you don’t have a local Italian shop, it’s ok, you can use your favorite store-bought variety or even make your own. To top the ravioli, we only used a small amount of the Truffle Carpaccio we were lucky to try out.  While we were in Italy a while ago, we purchased a few white and black truffle products at an amazing store (where we dropped quite a few euro at, but it was worth it) -  Tartufi Morra in Alba.  For much more than La Boutique charges, we purchased an excellent tube of white truffle paste which lasted us more than a year – and which we sadly finished up with this dish.  I recommend buying this one from the La Boutique website – it is super strong and really, really lasts.

You could wow a few guests with this super simple dish – they’ll feel special because they’ll think you spent a lot of money on them but, in reality, per person it’s not a real bank-breaker.  But they don’t have to know… right?

We’re going to make this one short and sweet — the Phillies, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies, just couldn’t do it this year.  What was even worse was that they played the Yankees and I live in New York City in a new apartment building surrounded by Yankees fans.   I just couldn’t face to finish watching the final game as the Phillies handed their World Championship title to the team with not only the richest ball players (who have won the World Series 26 times before) but also to a team filled with wanna-be celebrities (ahem, A-Rod – here doing what he does best, looking in a mirror and kissing himself and, ahem, Jeter) and actual celebrity “fans” and girlfriends (if I had to see stupid Kate Hudson, Jay Z or Rudy Giuliani one more freaking time…).

Even though I slept with ear plugs in the night the Yankees won, despite my disappointment, I fell into a deep slumber with a belly full of smoky, spicy Chipotle Wings. A few weeks ago, Challenge Butter convinced us to take on some samples of their unsalted butter and create an appetizer using their product along with some Spice Island and OXO products that they so generously gave us.  It was a way for them to not only get the word out on their amazing product (unfortunately, it’s only available to buy in the Western part of the US) but also on a great sweepstakes they are running until December 31st, 2009 to win a 7-day trip to Montana.

So with sports on the brain and the cooler weather coming in, we dusted the wings with some of the Spice Island spices and baked them Alton Brown-style till they crisped up, then tossed them in a blend of my obsession, La Morena Chipotle Sauce, some Tabasco chipotle-flavored hot sauce and some melted Challenge Butter. Dipped in some fennel-seed spiked Ranch dressing and the worries of my team losing the big game began to fade away – even if it was only temporary.

New Jersey, it’s like a cross-section of the entire United States stuffed into a very small area — fenced-in by heavy industry, ugly sub-divisions, peaceful tidal bays and relaxing shore towns — but with its own very distinct character. And, if you drive around it long enough, you’re bound to see some pretty interesting stuff. This goes for the social and the edible, as well as the geographic and architectural.

For example, every spring, you’ll find aged Italian-Americans risking the wrath of New Jersey State Troopers as they harvest dandelions from the banks and verges of Jersey’s myriad highways and parkways. The first time I saw this I thought it must be part of a program to get the elderly outside and active by having them weed public areas. Then, when I’d learned what they were really doing, I marveled at the genetic lottery these robust octogenarians were winning in spite of eating greens picked from the sides of some of the most heavily trafficked roads in the country. So, even though I was apprehensive — for that reason, as well as only having ingested dandelions previously in the form of the disgusting traditional British beverage Dandelion & Burdock (something my grandparents used to trick me into drinking by telling me it was Coke. Its taste is somewhere between sarsaparilla and rust.)— I figured I should give it a go myself.

Now, I haven’t yet had the privelige of picking my own weeds for dinner as cars and trucks whizz by on the NJ Turnpike, and when I do, you can sure you’ll hear about it right here, but I have experimented with eating dandelions a couple of times. The first was an unmitigated disaster, as their unbelievable bitterness ruined an entire meal: leaching acrid chemicals into the sauce and turning my mouth so far inside-out from the first bite that I spent the rest of the evening scrubbing the insides of my cheeks almost raw with a toothbrush.

But recently, I decided that they deserved a second chance. So, arming ourselves with a little research, as well as a precautionary array of tongue scrubbing devices, we set about turning a large bunch of sandy weeds into a delicious side dish. Happily, after a sound preliminary blanching, the outcome was an enormous improvement on our first, rash experiment. And, as part of a scrumptious early fall dinner of veal chop, rich buttery rosemary-brandy cream sauce, and a frankly beautiful (if I do say so myself) roast turnip, I was delighted to concede that eating weeds can, in fact, be very enjoyable.

Of course, the world needs another basic veal chop recipe like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, needs more frickin’ hipsters, but we have been on kind of a veal chop kick since we returned from Argentina in the spring. It’s an expensive habit for sure now we’re back, but in Buenos Aires, as with all kinds of cattle products, veal is very reasonably priced and is treated with a similar degree of skill as the more famous beef.

One particular veal dish stands out. At the rather trendy-looking Grappa restaurant in the Palermo “Hollywood’ district of BA, Amy had a spectacular grilled veal chop slathered with one of the most mushroomy sauces imaginable. It was as if entire sacks of porcini mushrooms had been somehow liquefied on her plate. The menu described it simply as a chuleta de ternera con crema de hongos and our pathetic (certainly for food and menus) dictionary couldn’t tell us what hongos are.

Still, we knew that we liked them and they were delicious, not to mention that hongos is just a fun word to say, so a couple of days after eating said dish, perusing the shelves of a local almacen, we were excited to find large bags of dried Chilean hongos at rock-bottom prices. It was only after we returned to Brooklyn that we learned that hongos translates as “fungus”, but even with a couple of bags of hongos in our pantry, we’re still not exactly sure what kind of fungus we are the owners of. They look and taste very similar to porcini, so we’re assuming that they are a related species, but research into the differences between hongos and setas (wild mushrooms in Spanish) returns no categorical answer except that taxonomically, mushrooms are fungi and fungi are mushrooms. However, one almost helpful Argentine website informed us that, fungus usually refers either to inedible mushrooms, or to the large (usually subterranean) organism of which the mushroom is but the visible, and gatherable, part. To turn the example above ground, the fungus is the apple tree, the mushroom is the apple.

Anyway, though we, like the fungus, might still be in the dark about many micological issues, we can assure you that should you find hongos on the menu anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, you should eat them, especially if paired with veal and a delicious buttery sauce.

Grappa
El Salvador 5802 – Palermo Hollywood, Buenos Aires
T: 4899-2577
E: grappacantina@fibertel.com.ar
Every day 12noon to 1.30 a.m.

Originally, I was going to simply write a one paragraph post helping people understand that they should not be afraid to use butter when necessary. Unfortunately, I realized how much emotional turmoil I have when it comes to this subject and others. A nice recipe for a Buttered Pea and Potato Salad had somehow turned into a major rant against fake butter and “light” olive oil. I apologize to any margarine lover and extra virgin olive oil hater I may offend in the process of reading this post!

I think (and hope) that our countries obsession with being and eating “fat free” is pretty much over. When the Atkins Diet was the biggest thing I started worrying that the earth was coming to a quick end and we’d all die skinny but sad and craving a steaming bowl of pasta. Why are some Americans so obsessed with supposedly eating “healthy” when they are actually eating completely unhealthy?

Substituting crap like margarine for butter is ridiculous. I think that this WikiAnswer explains why. In fact, this Serious Eats post helps put into perspective the vast number of fake butter “spreads” that exist around the world. How sickening that people want to buy a product that actually tells them it is NOT butter? Hello, people! They are telling us loud and clear that this is something created to taste like a real, natural product but isn’t! Then why not eat the real thing? I’m so confused.

And while we’re discussing Americans ability to be a sucker for lower fat items while being willing to compromise it for lower quality, lower flavor and lower nutritional value, it’s no surprise that the US could’ve easily fallen for this trick if it worked (and even though these guys were caught, I’m sure there are many make it here and are being purchased every day). I shudder to think that anyone would actually buy something labeled “light olive oil”. Why? WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYY (screaming)? Why would anyone take something that is pure, natural and good for you and hack away at it until it can be labeled light? Light olive oils are a marketing hook, people! They are not lighter in calories than regular olive oil but, instead, lighter in color, taste and nutritional value (hmmm, no crap – they are heavily modified through heating and filtering and not really olive oil!). Here’s a look at what those light olive oils are really about:

“Light” olive oil is a marketing concept and not a classification of olive oil grades. It is completely unregulated by any certification organizations and therefore has no real precedent to what its content should be. Sometimes, the olive oil is cut with other vegetable oils.

So in order for consumers to feel like they are actually eating “light”, they are willing to compromise flavor, health and deliciousness. According to a 1989 NY Times Article, ‘‘Light olive oil was invented by the Bertolli company in this office in Secaucus, N.J.,” said William C. Monroe, president of Bertolli USA. ”It’s an American invention.” Nothing screams fabulous, healthy product like the words, “created in an office in Secaucus, NJ”. Have you ever been to Secaucus? Enough said. (Why am I laughing at the thought of people taking vacations to trod through the “olive tree fields” in Seacaucus as a cheap alternative to a trip to Italy? Maybe those are the same people willing to buy into the whole light olive oil trick?)

If anyone is going to use this “light” olive oil stuff, please keep it’s use to high heat cooking (olive oil has a low smoke point) or baking. But, if that’s the case, why not just use other natural kind of oils?

I feel confident closing this rant by giving you a natural and delicious side dish recipe. Use real unsalted butter. Do not take shortcuts. Do not be worried about the fat. Did you know that 1 tablespoon of butter has less calories than 1 tablespoon of olive oil? Don’t be afraid! Just embrace it. Even our good friend, Caviar and Codfish used it in their Pea and Potato Salad!

On our honeymoon, almost exactly two years ago today, we arrived in the fair city of Verona thoroughly pissed off. And then things got worse. It wasn’t as if the day had started badly either: waking in Bologna; leisurely sipping a doppio espresso; before strolling along Via Pescherie Vecchie to buy a small, crusty loaf, a giant, but sweet tomato, an immoderately-sized leaf-wrapped burrata, and a serrated knife; then, wandering into the Piazza Cavour to make ourselves nearly sick with buttery cream cheese curds washed down with a half-bottle of bardolino. All in all, a pretty reasonable opening gambit.

I don’t even recall at what point things began to go west, but the supposed simple hour and a half drive between the two cities took us more like four. So, in late afternoon, we lurched into Verona hot, tired, stiff, and needing to pee. And then we couldn’t find our hotel. Another hour of angrily trawling the Veronese streets in our banana-hued rental car, grinding gears, and now with excrutiating pee pains, we finally found it – closed. No amount of banging on the door, honking of the horn or screaming at the windows produced a response. Despairing, I relieved myself copiously in the hotel’s flower bed and, looking up with an air of contentment, spied a large pink elephant beaming at me from across a field. Salvation arrives in many guises, and drawn towards it, things immediately improved.

With a free bottle of valpolicella, a purring welcome from a friendly ginger tom, a pair of iridescent peacocks puttering outside, and a room for the night with breakfast, Hotel Elefante saved us from sleeping in our car and, perhaps, from premature marital counselling. Having regained at least partial equilibrium, we made for the city center dressed for the theatre.

Skirting the wholly-invented balcony of the wholly-invented Capulet family, we ducked down Via Portici and into a restaurant filled with lovers pawing each other under the table and, like cartoon dogs, sucking-up the same strand of spaghetti. Still too flustered to entertain any romantic notions, we ordered what turned out to be a vast portion of fegato di vitello alla Veneziana or Venetian-style calves’ liver, which, with its heady richness of garlic, sage and cream, would have rendered senseless even the most amorous couple. Things continued to improve after dinner as we shuffled onwards to the arena di Verona and, cooling our tails on its ancient bleached limestone blocks, watched an epic performance of Puccini’s La Bôheme that somehow provided much-needed perspective on the day’s minor tragedies.

Periodically, we’ll laugh (or grimace) at our haplessness that day, but as time passes, we’re more apt to remember the liver than the liverishness. During a recent lunch at the very respectable Aperitivo here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, we ate a delicious adaptation of that dish over linguine with a nice dry Valpolicella that was reminiscent of our pre-opera meal in Verona. Here it is, recreated for your visual pleasure. Feel free to eat it on a balcony or at a banquet for quarreling clans, just don’t expect to be feeling frisky afterwards.