Fresh Porcini in Italy and Seattle!

Porcini at Cafe Flora in Seattle

Depending on where you are in the world, it is fresh Porcini (aka Cepes) mushroom season. The picture above is of 21 pounds of these beauties that were delivered to Cafe Flora the other day. I couldn't stop looking at them. They were so freshly picked that the gills were practically glowing olive green. The cell phone picture doesn't really capture it, but those puppies were around 10" tall!

Below you see the same mushrooms at the market in Florence, Italy from the end of September. It was just the early part of the season there and every good restaurant was featuring them in specials. I had them on pasta, pizza, risotto, and broiled in a tin foil packet with butter and white beans at Cibreo, a spectacular Florentine establishment. The flavor surprised me, it is mild compared to the intense musky flavor of the dried ones I use to make broth the rest of the year.

Have you seen these in your area? What do you like to do with them? What is the best way to really feature their unique qualities?

Porcini at the market in Florence, Italy

Strudel from Forno Marco Roscioli in Rome, Italy

Strudel from Antico Forno Marco Roscioli

I have been to the mountaintop, and there I found strudel. Antico Forno Marco Roscioli has been making beautiful breads, pizza and pastries for only 35 years. Which I guess makes them a bit of an upstart on the Roman scene. I found them after a morning of strolling around Campo dei Fiori and my only regret was I only had room for the stellar pine-nut and raisin strudel with deliciously moist breadcrumb filling. Dang!

Details:
Via dei Chiavari, 34
Rome, Italy
39 06 6875287

See sign, prepare to salivate

Campo dei Fiori Market, Rome, Italy

Arugula

For today's post I'm just going to let the pictures do most of the talking. Sorry for those of you on slow connections. These are all images from a morning stroll through the Campo dei Fiori market in Rome. Unfortunately we didn't have a kitchen at this point in our trip, so other than fruit, I had to eat this bounty with my Nikon!

The arugula above is used in many ways including as an uncooked pizza topping, and is much better than we normally get in the US. It is crisp and just slightly bitter. It adds a nice strong flavor component to many vegetarian dishes.

Blueberries, blackberries, white currants, and strawberries

Those strawberries were so delicate and flavorful. You could tell they weren't bred just to travel 2000 miles.

The white currants come in for their close-up

I came home with these peal-like, slightly tart white currants, and Mini-Me scarfed them all up.

Zucchini Blossoms

Man was I jealous of the zucchini blossoms that Italian cooks get. Even at farmer's markets in the US they usually seem like an afterthought of whoever is growing the squash, and are always terribly expensive and usually about to wither. In Rome there were huge baskets of them that looked like they were picked an hour earlier. Even average places would have whole pizzas covered with them. You could taste them more that way than you can with the typical treatment of stuffing the with cheese, battering, and deep frying.

Trimming vegetables for sale

The market itself had a nice vibe, and isn't that huge. Above you can see some of the folks that work there getting watercress and green beans ready to display.

Hot Peppers, Eggplant and Borlotti Beans

The best advice for choosing many types of vegetables is to find ones that feel heavy for their size. These eggplant were like little cannonballs.

I love that we have so many great farmer's markets in Seattle (and many places in America) now. I only hope that they get more frequent and closer to home. It would be awesome to be able to cook with ingredients this fresh every day. On the plus side, most of our farmer's market produce is certified organic or at least unsprayed, while in Israel and Italy I didn't see a whole lot of labeling.

You might also want to check out Heidi's post about her favorite Roman market - turns out she was there at the same time as us!

Review: Obika Mozzarella Bar, Rome, Italy

So the review in our travel guide (and most of the online listings) gushed about Obika Mozzarella Bar in Rome, and it wasn't hard to seduce me. A restaurant entirely devoted to artisinal Mozzarella Di Bufala, each with the DOP seal of approval? Are you kidding me? I practically had to be restrained from clawing my way down there the minute we arrived in the city.

I need not have rushed.

And really, part of me knew. I liked the schtick of using great ingredients from all over Italy, but fresh mozzarella simply doesn't travel like that. All three varieties that we tasted were ok but not earth-shatteringly good, without that amazing sweet milk flavor I was expecting. Actually the smoked one was most interesting. I'm sure they were terrific when they left the caseificio, but nothing special when they landed on our plates. And they were served on beds of the saddest, oldest, most pock-marked, thick ribbed spinach I've ever seen served in a restaurant. Popeye wouldn't have touched it if Olive Oyl was tied to the railroad tracks.

Then came our entrees. The only two that were both vegetarian and could be done without nuts (because Snacky Pants is severely allergic) were eggplant based. She ordered an eggplant parmigiana and I got a mozarella bomba di risa with grilled eggplant. The bomba was excellent, but served with pesto containing nuts so SP couldn't even try it.

The parmigiana was inedible because the eggplant was barely cooked, not even penetrable with a fork. Mind you, this isn't some special Italian style. Eggplant isn't served al dente. When SP informed the waitress, she said "oh, yes, that is because our eggplants are maybe a little hard", and walked away!

The Obika website claims they are a "a research project based on Italian high-quality products". My suggestion: don't volunteer as a lab rat.