2006

Confessing My Love for Cooked Prunes: Part II

It was during breakfast at our hotel on Lago di Como (Lake Como) last weekend when I was reminded once again how much I love cooked prunes. The breakfast buffet had a lovely platter of stewed prunes, which in my opinion are even better than raw prunes because they’re more succulent and easier to digest. (As we were travelling I felt especially appreciative because the prunes do a nice job of keeping everything regular–a nice security when you’re on the road eating new & strange things…)

Anyways! Luca reminded me that I hadn’t yet posted his infamous recipe for Roasted Pig with Prunes. I highly reccomend you make this at home, because it’s so freaking good.

Luca’s Splendiforous Pork Roast With Prunes
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 Piece of Pork that’s good for roasting 700g
Onions 2 1/2 ea.
Carrot 1 ea.
Celery 1 stalk
Salt & Pepper
Rosemary 2 3″ long branches
Bay Leaf 2 ea.
Large Marine Salt
Juniper 6 berries
Whole Cloves 2 ea.
Cognac 1 cup
Red Wine 4 cups
Prunes in Syrup 1 jar/can (it’s important that they’re in syrup because the liquid is a big part of what makes this dish soo good. Check the canned fruit department in your grocery store)
Prunes, not in syrup (the regular dried fruit) 10 or so

Method
Note: For this dish we’re using the same type of pot that we used for the previous Sausage in Red Wine dish–in Italy it’s called a casserole dish–in the USA it looks like a wide, deep frying pan with medium-high sides. Make sure that the sides are nice and tall (about 4 inches).

1. Finely chop half of the carrot, half of the celery and two whole onions (The rest of the veg we’ll chop differently later on). Place olive oil, chopped onion, carrot, celery, and a pinch of large sea salt into the pan over medium-high heat. Cook the finely chopped vegetables, stirring often. Don’t be afraid to let them color. Color=Flavor. (Stirring will help the veggies color evenly instead of burning).

2. When the veggies are nice and brown, and the flame is lively (these are Luca’s words! AKA You want the pan to be nice and hot), sprinkle the pork roast with fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and place it in the hot pan. Add the rosemary and bay leaf. Cook, turning occasionaly for about 15 minutes. **Helpful Hint** You want to let the meat brown before turning it. That is, in order to have good flavor, the meat needs to caramelize on the outside, fond (the crusty stuff on the bottom of the pan) needs to form before you turn the meat. So let the pork cook for a few minutes before turning and allowing it to cook on the other sides.

3. After about 15 minutes, add the cognac and lower the flame; let simmer for 2 minutes. While the cognac is simmering, chop the rest of the celery, carrot and onion into roughly 1 inch pieces. Add the big vegetables, juniper, cloves, and 1 glass of red wine. Let the wine reduce.

4. When the wine has reduced by about half, add half the jar of prunes (reserve the liquid for later) and 1 glass of red wine. Let reduce for about 10 minutes (still over a low flame). When the wine has reduced to very little, add the dry prunes and another glass of red wine. Cover and let cook over a low flame for at least 20 minutes.

5. Finally, add the remaining prunes and their syrup and the last glass of red wine. Cook just until the meat is cooked to the doneness you like and serve hot! Bon Appetito!

OH WOE IS ME!

You will not believe what Luca did the other night. He ran into my mini-garden and knocked it over!!! aghiahgaihgai!!!! My poor little plants! *SOB* Instead of a vegetable garden I now have a vegetable burial ground. *SNIFF* The parsley plants were completely wiped out–they were too delicate to withstand the fall and then Luca’s brutal sweeping back into the pot. And at least 15 of my zucchini plants are no longer with us. The zucchini were a little more robust and so I managed to save 4 seedlings, but we’ll see if they actually survive more than a week…

And to top it all off Luca didn’t even tell me the extent of the damage when it happened (granted I was half asleep). So when I awoke yester morning to discover my little babies crashed to the ground and smashed into pieces you can imagine what a shock it was. And to top it all off, when I called Luca to yell at him he said “They were all going to die anyway.” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!?!

He did finally offer to buy me fully grown plants when it came time to plant the garden, but it’s not the same thing!

I got an answering machine yesterday! I know that international calling can be scary — there are so many numbers to dial and what if you dial the wrong number and some strange person answers in a language you don’t understand?! AGHIAGHAI! Anyways, there’s no need to be scared anymore as my trusty automatic secretary will respond in Italian and English.

We went to IKEA yesteray (in Italian pronounced EEE-KAY-AHH). We had to take back a piece of furniture that had a broken part. It’s a good thing we did too because they told us that that piece of furniture consisted of two boxes of parts and we had only picked up one! We had lunch at the Ikea restaurant (I got the manager’s special as usual) and picked out a bed and two nightstands.

It’s rainy and gray today. My chives finally sprouted last night. *What a relief* I was getting nervous because they’ve been underground there for at least a week.

Luca bought me a combination microwave/toaster oven last Sunday! Woohoo!!! The real oven in my apartment doesn’t work and is a pain to get fixed, so we’ve been eating non-baked meals for the last six months. I’m soo happy to be able to bake again! Even if it doesn’t work quite like a real oven, it comes pretty close and is SO handy for warming things up quick. I didn’t realize how much I missed having a microwave.

Looking like it’s going to be a quiet weekend here in Verduno. We don’t have any guests at the inn, so I’ve been working on the website and cleaning lots.

Progress is coming along nicely in our new apartment (the apartment we’ll be moving into in June hopefully). Now that all the pavement is in and the dry-walling is done, work should move more quickly. I’ve been scrubbing the wooden ceilings with SOS pads in preparation for varnish. Next week I’m painting the doors and windows which should be fun! Luca sanded and varnished the loft a couple of days ago. Inside there’s basically just a lot of cleaning to do–Luca wired the whole house and installed the outlets and light switches a few weeks ago. Outside the big guys still need to run electricity to the building and put in the water and sewer systems.

We (ahem…Luca…but I helped choose!) bought a hot black leather couch last week. I think we’re going to put it in the kitchen (it will go nicely with the stainless steel appliances and wooden ceiling). When everything is done all of you who are reading this realize that you’ll need to come and visit me, don’t you?

I bought a milk frother a couple of weeks ago. Froth is one of the best inventions ever, don’t you think? I don’t drink coffee very often because it stains my teeth and upsets my stomache. But if I have to drink it, it might as well be a svizziossissima something! (i.e. something really good and special). So I make cappucino instead of regular coffee now. The frother works really well for hot chocolate too! Just froth part of your hot milk. Ding!

I went to the public market this morning and to run some errands for Rosana (Luca’s mom who is still unable to leave the house –three months after the fact–due to her broken foot!) The market was a little skimpy because the carnival is in town until Easter and they’re taking up all the parking space. But I still managed to get my artisan veggies fresh from the countryside! Dandelion greens have just started to sprout and are really good right now. That’s right, you know those yellow flowers that we all consider weeds in the US? We eat them here. Just the leafy part, not the flower or stem. I zii (uncles) (my neighbors; everyone calls them aunt and uncle–really the uncle of Rosana) went dandelion green harvesting two days ago and finally got around to eating the greens today. They’re a little bit of a pain to clean, but worth it in the end. (Hellow, free salad!) Try to find the small baby ones as they’ll be the most tender. The bigger ones are also good to eat, but you’ll want to boil/steam or cook them because the more mature they are, the tougher they get. I was reading an old Martha Stewart the other day and she had an article about unique lettuces–one of which was dandelion greens. It kills me that Martha’s latest fad has been the Italian people’s way of survival for hundreds of years. At least she caught on!

At the macelleria (butcher shop) I go to sometimes there is a guy my age that works the counter. We’ve talked a couple of times about the weather, etc. Today he noticed that I got my haircut (it’s short like my mom’s now). He also found my pronunciation of “perfetto” and “quattro” absolutely hilarious. I’m talking pee-your-pants, laugh so hard you cry and your stomache hurts funny here folks.

I was offended because my accent isn’t even that pronounced anymore! (Or at least I didn’t think it was…) Butcher dude obviously thought otherwise because he kept repeating the words under his breath in an exaggerated American accent and laughing out loud!!! I didn’t find the situation all that amusing. And from a guy who thinks that Canada is a part of the United States and didn’t realize that New York is a state and not just a city, I didn’t feel that he had the right to be laughing in my face. Maybe he was just nervous because of his obvious crush on me and didn’t realize he was making a major faux pas.

I had just gotten into my car after the encounter with the butcher when I heard a tapping on the window. I looked over to see a seventy-something year old lady staring me in the face. She asked me for a ride to Pollenzo. She seemed a little confused and very agitated, practically in tears for not knowing what to do. Apparently she had recently gotten over a traumatic four month stay in the hospital and had taken the bus into town that morning for a check-up. But her kids and relatives were all too busy to pick her up and so she was stranded in Bra until the next bus came late that afternoon. (More than a five hour wait…)

And that’s how I ended up picking up an old lady hitch hiker this morning. It turns out that she lives in Rivalta, the little township closest to Verduno. I dropped her off at her front door and she made me promise that I would come to visit her in June so that she could give me ripe apricots to make marmalade with. She told me that she used to sell her fruit at the public market, along with eggs freshly produced by her hens. But she doesn’t go anymore because of all the new sanitation laws and because her children sold all of her chickens. (These kids sound like real winners…)

Can I just say that I never want to be that kind of daughter. Who doesn’t have time to take their mother to the hospital?? I also hope that I never am that mother: old and alone, confused and without even one of my children to look after me. I am definitely going to go back and visit her this summer, not just to get free ripe apricots, but because I sort of understand how she feels. When you’re living far away from home there are times when you feel alone, confused and a bit desperate. (Luckily I have all my online MoltenChocolate fans to keep me company!)