In the very infancy of this blog, back when we had no appreciation for plating, lighting or anything else remotely aesthetic, my wife wrote about the first course of a truly memorable dinner we shared in the famous Florentine trattoria, Coco Lezzone. What she didn’t mention was that even though we were getting towards the end of our nearly month long sojourn in Italy that encompassed our wedding and honeymoon, by the time we wound up in that jewel of the Renaissance, we were feeling rather sorry for ourselves.

Two days earlier, we had arrived in Genoa after a magnificent and occasionally hair-raising drive through the rugged terrain of the lower reaches of Piemonte and Liguria, to find that the guest-house we had booked was expecting us the day before. Twenty-four hours off schedule, and with a large shipping conference dominating Genoa’s hotels for the rest of the week to complicate matters, we were unceremoniously turfed out of said accommodation the following morning. While I, who have been invited to leave much less salubrious establishments than this, met the news with a certain equanimity, without a roof under which to shelter, and quite literally no room at the inn, the combined strain of having single-handedly planned a wedding and honeymoon from New York suddenly hit my poor wife like a tidal wave, and gushing tears of frustration and exhaustion ensued. Where comforting nuzzles from Tim the hotel dog weren’t enough, a liter carafe of white wine and two dozen fried anchovies seemed to have a medicinal effect, but, as calming as that lunch was, in a fit of pique we still decided to put Genoa in our rearview mirror and hit the E80 autostrada down the coast into Tuscany.

After a magnificent drive, framed on our right by the sparkling Mediterranean and on our left by the often white, marble-rich mountains of the Ligurian Apennines, we rolled in to Florence just as the westering sun was painting the city’s monuments the luminous color of dried apricots. Spirits partially restored, and safe in the knowledge that our reservation for the night was kosher, we immediately set out to find something delicious as a salve for our emotional wounds.

Among the several traditional Tuscan comestibles we over-indulged in that evening was a rabbit roll, or involtino di coniglio, stuffed with prosciutto, boiled egg and sage. Dressed very simply with Luccan olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, it screamed the Spartan simplicity for which Tuscan fare is best-known. In some ways, it also exemplified the ethos of our trip. I suspect some of the wedding guests may quibble, but in our opinion, both wedding and honeymoon, had a pared-down, no frills sense about them. Only a hard core of essential people attended the wedding, and there was little time for luxuriating on a honeymoon in which we banjoed our way around 10 northern Italian cities in a tiny, canary yellow motor.

On our gentle post-prandial stroll, feeling all rosy and content from food, wine and warm night air, we encountered a pair of English honeymooners who asked us in charming pidgin Italian, “por favore, it’s nostra luni da miel…!” to photograph them in front of Santa Maria del Fiore. We were then playfully accosted by a group of tipsy Sicilian students from Catania who made us sing football songs with them and insisted we all shake hands in the traditional, forearm-grasping Roman-style before they would let us depart. This memorable meal and displays of unprovoked goodwill sent us to bed marveling at how such basic pleasures can make ones mind transcend apparent troubles. An important lesson.

In truth, we are fully aware that this was just another sybaritic moment in a month of indulgence, and not worthy of anyone’s sympathy, but I was reminded of this experience and its underlying moral recently when the trepidation induced by the impending arrival of our first-born began to get the better of me. I suspect we shall be leaning heavily on these twin crutches of simple dishes and human kindness very soon.

With the summer over (sad face) but the warm days of Indian Summer lingering on (happy face), this dish will be relavant for a few more weeks (for those who are super traditional about eating warm weather dishes only in warm weather). For me, this will be an excellent dish to eat after months of freezing winter weather and extra fat stored from weeks of heavy stews. It’s a mix of light and heavy, but, for some reason, it feels lighter than heavier. Maybe that’s just what I’m telling myself?

Roughly translating to tuna’d tuna, tonno tonnato is grilled tuna with a cold tuna sauce, and probably doesn’t sound all that appealing. Even the photographs can not capture how delicious this dish really is (beige on beige – gorgeous!). That could be because it’s fish, but, if you think about the concept behind it, i.e. making a sauce out of the same thing as the principal element of the dish, you are reminded just how many times you’ve had a meat sauce. Taking it to it’s logical conclusion, how many times have you had leftover bolognese sauce cold the day after? It’s pretty good, right? In fact, most long-cooked sauces taste even better the day after.

Tonno Tonnato is take on the traditional Piedmontese dish, Vitello Tonnato, a cold, sliced veal dish topped with the cold tuna sauce (one we will make someday for this here blog). Vitello Tonnato is sure to make many American’s scratch their head in wonderment (or maybe even make their stomach churn at the mere idea of the dish). We are one food culture that doesn’t often mix fish with meat like many other countries do (with the exception of some Creole/Cajun and Lowcountry dishes). But, if you’ve ever given it a try, you’d realize just how well they can go together.

I think the tonnato sauce alone could be used in a variety of ways if you don’t feel like topping some tuna with it. It would make a great spread on some grilled bread with a bit of white beans and herbs mixed together as a bruchetta topping. Throw it in a bowl with some veggies as a dip? Toss it with some cold macaroni for a twist on tuna pasta salad? How about as a nice little condiment for your pannini (depending on the stuffing, of course) or maybe as a dipping sauce for some crispy fried shrimp, fried zucchini or fried oysters (or anything fried for that matter)?

It is important you try to have an open mind about tonnato. So, if you think of the tonnato (the sauce portion of the dish) as a fish version of a cold meat sauce, it might sound more appetizing. On the other hand, it might not. So feel free to skip this one if it grosses you out, but do us a favor and first ask yourself if you would turn your nose up at a nice medium-rare steak topped with bolognese sauce.

**A little on a personal note:  You may notice we’ve been kind of MIA for the past 4 or 5 months – we really haven’t been posting as much. Well, we have a little bambino coming our way within the month and, although we love this blog, we also love life and, as you know, sometimes blogging can feel like it’s getting in the way of living life.  Although we have still been cooking, we’ve also been trying to prepare for the kid, moved, Jonny started a new, more stressful job, we set up a nursery, learned about breast pumps, binky’s, boppy’s, barfy’s and any other stupid thing babies r us tries to make you think you need (I swear all I had growing up was a cardboard box for a toy and an umbrella stroller!).  Jonny and I have also been enjoying our time together before this child arrives and turns our relaxing twosome into, well, who knows, probably a crazy, loud, but fun 3-some (ok that sounds weird).  So you can see why blogging took a back seat to more important things.  We are excited but, naturally, nervous.  We swear we will still be cooking up a storm as soon as we learn how to parent a newborn so, please stick with us. We may be silent for a few months, but we won’t be gone.  And I promise I will not turn this blog into a way to showcase my kid and his latest round of “perfect poos or perfect coos” and I promise we will not feature recipes for homemade baby food!  This blog will remain Jonny and my baby – our thing.  We’ve still gotta have our little things that are just for us, right? That’s not being too selfish? So, again, we don’t often get too personal around We Are Never Full, but we felt like all 4 of you who actually read our blog deserved to know why we haven’t really been keeping up the way we used to recently.  Hopefully this new little life will inspire amazing dishes in the near future!  Stay tuned!

It might be generational, or, perhaps, philosophical, but there are, on the one hand, those who enjoy and appreciate handmade things, and the art and craft they require to make, and, on the other, those who prefer their things machine-made, reliable, and standard. The ‘things’ here could be quite literally anything. My father, who, to me, is the quintessential scientist and pragmatist, believes that most, if not all, advances for the betterment of mankind have come as a result of the increased use and application of machines, technology and science. In fact, he would argue, I’m sure, that this blog is evidence of the fact that even something as Luddite as cooking can be improved through the application of technology, though regular readers – with good reason – may not agree.

My mother was cut from very different cloth however, and, though a nurse who believed sincerely in the power of modern medicine, sanitation and inoculation, she was a true amateuse of a hand-turned chair-leg, a cut-glass goblet, and, much to the detriment of my appearance during my tender years, a hand-knitted sweater.  She was also a great lover of gardening, baking bread and, despite the fact that it rarely worked, yogurt-making. I think it’s from her that I get most of my culinary instincts, as the very notion of spending three or four hours in the kitchen doing anything would horrify my dad.

Pasta-rollers, like all machines, were invented for three main reasons: (1) to produce more quickly what used to take a long time (2) as a uniform-quality product, and (3) so that the resulting free time could be spent either more enjoyably or industriously. The assumption behind it seems to be that it makes it easier to make something that is typically quite tricky, and that the making of it by hand was a laborious pain in the ass. Those who have used a pasta roller, whether the hand-crank variety or the KitchenAid attachment, know, as we do, that it is a fabulous invention and enables even the busiest gastronome to home-make great fresh pasta in a relatively short time. They might also have found that it is actually fun to use because it combines the joy of mixing a dough by hand with the ease and convenience of not having to roll it out and cut it yourself.

Taking this notion of fun to its logical extreme this past weekend, I decided to devote my entire Sunday to doing the whole thing – the mixing, the rolling and the cutting – by hand. In spite of the recipe book’s warning that it was a painstaking exercise, I had little idea of what I was getting into. I now have a profound appreciation both for labor-saving machines, and the unique taste, texture and satisfaction derived from hand-rolled pasta.

But it is more than that. I learned something about myself on Sunday. In some ways, it was a revelation. I had always thought that I appreciated handmade things, particularly food and wine, with the all patience, care and skills that their creation implies, but I had never actually tested myself to see if I could enjoy hand-making something that required real patience and physical effort.  And, while there certainly were moments in which I did not enjoy being patient or the physical effort, on the whole, I really did find the process to be incredibly rewarding – relaxing almost. Not only did I (eventually, and with several abortive attempts) make some absolutely first-class pasta, but I learned a new technique and was, in the end, able to enjoy the fruits of my labor in a way I never have before.

Pici Keen

Famous for the lavish displays of wealth and the beautiful arts of the Renaissance found in Florence, Siena, Lucca and Pisa, Tuscans are, by contrast, rather austere in their culinary inclinations with their love of simple grilled meats, stewed beans and saltless bread. Such austerity requires the freshest and best ingredients in order to be delicious, and, fortuitously, Tuscany offers these up in great bounty. Similarly, it often requires great effort and technique.

So it is with Pici (also known as pinci — hand-rolled, eggless Tuscan thick spaghetti — perhaps the best example of this cucina povera (poor man’s cuisine) — utilizing only 00 flour, water, green Tuscan olive oil and a lot of time and effort. Indeed, it is my belief that what the poor, historically, lacked in wealth they more than make up for in patience, and disposable time. Originating from the Val d’Orcia region (the area between Montalcino and Montepulciano), pici are usually eaten with a rich meat sauce, often containing porcini mushrooms, but any hearty meat or game ragu would be a good choice.

The duck ragu recipe below is typical of the region of Arezzo which is the area where we got married in June 2007, and making it engendered all those kinds of warm feelings one gets from a house filled with delicious smells and the wonderful memories of the time of our lives.

Learning a new skill, and in this case, a new recipe, is a matter of managing to overcome self-doubt. Before you attempt making pici, I would highly recommend you try making a regular long pasta with an egg dough, so that you understand how it should feel and look. It will also allow you to develop a sense about the right elasticity of a good dough which will be useful even though Pici dough is a very different creature altogether.

If you follow the exact instructions below, you’ll probably find that your dough feels too dry and too heavy. Do not be afraid to add more water and more oil as you see fit because eggless doughs can easily become brittle when allowed to be too dry. However, do not abandon hope. I urge you to stick with the basis of the recipe (allowing for various seasonal, regional, altitudinal and indoor-outdoor climactic conditions) and overcome your fears of impending culinary disaster, as they will not materialize. If it feels too dry, add more water. Too wet, add flour until it feels right. One word of caution, though: be sparing in any additions of liquid or lipids because at the hand-rolling stage you will be adding extra olive oil to reduce friction and facilitate the rolling process, and you don’t want to find at that stage that you have to start all over again.

Also, do give yourself plenty of time. An otherwise lazy Sunday afternoon is perfect for this, as not only does the pasta make a perfect Sunday night dinner, but, more importantly, it gives you time to rest as you go along. Making enough pici for four people can be a tiring business, even if there are two of you on the job. One final proviso, do not treat pici like regular fresh pasta — i.e. sprinkle it liberally with flour and allow to set-up and dry for a while prior to cooking. I refer to my earlier comments when I say that pici can dry out and become brittle very quickly, so when you make them, plan to eat them within, at most, a couple of hours. This might appear like a disadvantage but it’s not because once cooked they are probably more robust than regular pastas and even reheat remarkably well.

So, please try making this dish. The sauce is easy and indescribably good (I know everyone says that about their food, but, really, this is very special), and the pasta is a great reward for some hard graft both corporeally and in that it offers a real sense of achievement. By the time you’re done, you’ll have sore shoulders but will have mastered the rolling technique perfectly. As a result, pasta-making will have transcended the bland uniformity of the machine-age and become what all good food should be: absolutely unique and deeply personal.

At Via Clavature 18, hidden in the back streets of Bologna, is the comparatively charmless little Ristorante da Gianni. It’s dimly lit, almost to the point of stumbling darkness — especially if you enter, as we did, from the sharp rays of a late midsummers’ afternoon nursing a fierce hangover brought on by a handful of Negronis the night before — and is made even darker by heavy wood paneling on all sides and rather gruff service. However, it is famous among local gastronomes for its strictly traditional Bolognese fare, and as most food-obsessed people know intuitively, what they serve in such seemingly unlikely-looking places often more than makes up for what is lacking in atmosphere. So it was here.

I’ve rhapsodized previously about the wonder that was the deep-fried lamb chops I first ate there, and my wife has written extensively about both the outstanding ragu alla Bolognese and the equally scrumptious sausage ragu we tore through as our respective primi piatti that day, but (as part of a gargantuan meal that also included a giant-felling plate of bollito misto) these courses were preceded by a dish of such cunning, such laughter-inducing simplicity, that I have been wanting to make it ever since — just to see if it would tickle me in the same way again. Not only that, but it may also have been among the most effective hangover cures I have ever tried, for following it, I was able to play a more than active role in emptying three bottles of Barolo. So just what was this jovial and miraculous dish, you ask? Spuma di Mortadella sauced sparingly with the sweetest, honeyed, aged-balsamic vinegar I’ve ever had the privilege to taste.

“Ugh! Baloney foam! Why would you begin such a meal with that crap?”, I hear you cry. Well, you’re half-right. Spuma di mortadella is, in fact, nothing more than whipped “Bologna ham”, but it is also, simultaneously, so, so, so much more. Unfortunately, many Americans only know baloney/Bologna as the ubiquitous bright pink sandwich meat that has cursed many a child’s school lunch with its weird, cloying, yet plasticky, texture, and flavor somewhere between hairspray and old socks. But, as with many mass-produced things — from shoes to IKEA furniture — the handmade versions are not only completely different, they’re way better.

Mortadella, known as Bologna in the US because it was originally made only in the immediate vicinity of the city, is an ancient kind of emulsified (forcemeat) sausage that gets its name from the mortar (mortaio) and pestle that was used once-upon-a-time to grind up the pork and spices during preparation. Incorporating at least 15% pork fat — specifically the firm, white neck fat of the pig, and often as large cubes rather than ground up with the pork — mortadella can be flavored with a variety of things including, myrtle berries, black or white peppercorns, nutmeg, coriander, olives and pistachios. It is then cooked gently for as long as 24 hours, depending on the size of the mortadella (some weigh up to 100kilos/220lbs), in air-drying ovens, before being sprayed with cold water and allowed to stabilize in a cooling room.

In Emilia-Romagna, mortadella is often served as part of a salumi, or charcuterie, plate with a selection of the region’s staggeringly delicious cured pork products like, culatello di Zibello, coppa Piacentino, prosciutto di Parma, spalla cotta, zampone (at Christmas), or cappello di prete (a pinky-white forcemeat “sausage” that looks like a priest’s tri-cornered hat), but it can be used to make a wide variety of delectable treats, including spuma di mortadella.

The translation of spuma di mortadella to “mortadella foam” is unfortunate, and somewhat hyperbolic, because while the sausage is whipped and feels light on the tongue, it neither resembles foam in texture, nor sits like air on the stomach. Nonetheless, its simplicity is its brilliance: we simply combined first-rate mortadella (with the lumps of hard fat) with nutmeg and cream and whipped it into a light pink emulsion garnishing with pistachios and a drizzle of excellent balsamic vinegar (in our case, a 30 year old we had bought from a man with a very dubious hair-piece).

However, spuma di mortadella isn’t a one trick pony, quite the opposite. It also makes a fabulously rich filling for a stuffed pasta – which we sauced with garlic-infused butter. And, in a glorious return, tearing up its debased American bag-lunch roots, it is a kick-ass sandwich filling that would be the envy of any child in the playground. It’s even better when used as a topping for a montadito (small, open-faced sandwich, like a crostini or bruschetta) and mounted a cheval, with a poached egg.

We encourage you to give this one a try, even if you have remedial issues from being teased about your baloney-breath by the cool kids, because spuma di mortadella can make even the biggest nerd cool.

Ristorante da Gianni (A La Vecia Bulagna)
Via Clavature 18, Bologna, 40124 IT
T: 051-229434
Dinner €20-30 per person

One of the most familiar (and enjoyable) flavor combinations to many cultures – sour and sweet or, as the Italians call it, agrodolce.  There is something about tartness and sweetness that just makes you want more.  Think Sour Patch Kids, Pisco or Whiskey Sours or your favorite Chinese take-out order.  Yes, sweet and sour is everywhere.

A traditional agrodolce is very basic and usually only includes vinegar, sugar and maybe wine.  Similar to the French gastrique, agrodolce was thought to have been brought to Sicily from the Arabs.  We took a few other sour/sweet combos and added them to our basic sauce, just to up the flavor a few notches.  Let me tell you folks, this is a winner.  Thanks to the amazing vinegar sauce we ate at Prune a while back, we figured the addition of raisins and cornichons wouldn’t hurt. In fact, we wished we had made more of the sauce just to eat it by itself.

This agrodolce would work well with many other things besides cornish game hen such as pork, chicken or fish.  Get a nice crust or crispy skin on any of those and the sauce will meld perfectly with it.  We hope you give this a try.

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!