I miss Europe!
…is such a great name. And it’s a really fantastic place, too. I checked it out quite a while ago, met the shop’s lovely owner Lynn Shuter, and marvelled at how she could fit so many products into such a small store!
See how high those shelves are?
I found out about the store from the New York Times about a month ago. It’s a great concept– they have dry goods, cookies, breads, frozen items, and on the table you see with the flowers in the above photo, they even have freshly-baked muffins and pastries! What more could you ask for?
I ❤ UWS!
They’re on W 85th– 77A between Central Park West and Columbus.
Last weekend, I met up with my fabulous mom for a QUILTING RETREAT in Connecticut! Since I came back from Italy, my mom and I had been working really hard on a queen-size quilt (the third quilt we’ve done together). We used mostly Jennifer Paganelli fabric scraps to create a riot of colors that truly exemplify the pattern’s name “Gemstones.” Despite all of our labors, the day of my departure for New York City arrived and we had not yet assembled the quilt top. After my mom carried me kicking and screaming away from the sewing machine and into the minivan for the long drive across New York State, I reluctantly left the quilt’s scattered pieces behind me. (Yes, the first part of that sentence is an exaggeration, but in the days before I left home, I devoted an unhealthy part of my “packing time” to “quilting time.” And on the day of my move-out, I was drinking my coffee, as had become my routine, at the sewing machine…when my mom came in and kicked me out!)
I was sooo curious to see what the quilt would look like once it had been assembled, since the pattern is actually quite clever and creates an optical illusion. Thankfully, my mom drove down with all of the materials for the retreat, and I took the train out to Wilton so that we could finish it together. We worked tirelessly along with the other quilters at the retreat, inspired by their creativity and creative humor. So we finished the front and started piecing the back.
Thanks soooo much to Melinda of Quiltn in Wilton for hosting us!! Look what she made…
It doesn’t get any better than this: trying two delicious new places (okay, one of them is just new to me), during a BEAUTIFUL sunny day that was as cool and breezy as any September Friday in my rosy Vermont memories. And I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my wonderful AUNTIE JOYCE at two of these establishments.
Number one: RISOTTERIA.
It’s an ALL GLUTEN FREE restaurant. Seriously! And not only that–it’s actually cute inside. And the food is good. And the menu is HUGE. So huge that I had no idea what to order and had to ask the waitress what she recommended–and then she recited so many customer favorites that I lost track after truffle oil. So truffle oil it was– porcini mushroom, sweet corn, and truffle oil risotto, that is. The risotto list was super long and included ingredients like zucchini, shrimp, mozzarella, fontina, and portabella mushrooms, all in different mouth-watering combinations. We also selected a panini from a similarly long list including various combinations of arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, prosicutto, prosciutto cotto, soppressata, coppa, mozzarella, and fontina. We chose the prosciutto and fontina panini on gluten-free bread.
Both options were outstanding. I’ve sampled other gluten-free products around the city, and this was by far the best. (Specifically, the pizza crust at L’asso left a LOT to be desired. Honestly, you almost can’t tell it’s not gluten-free.
Stop Number Two: AMORINO.
This gelato chain (location in Italy: Milan) is famous for shaping its many flavors of gelato into flowers with different-flavored petals. I’m all for it. Today was their first day in America (welcome to America!! Yay!) and they treated New Yorkers to free cones and cups from 4-7pm. Joyce and I debated waiting in line (well, I knew we were going to do it, but I pretended to debate), which looked intimidatingly long, but a friendly pregnant woman emerged with her friends, happily licking a cone, and assured us that the wait was only 20 minutes and so worth it. Another friendly onlooker urged us to wait in line while we considered it, especially since it was the best spring day New York’s had so far.
Yes, it WAS worth it. And the line moved really fast (probably because no one had to pay.) I had caramello con burro salato, cioccolato amorino, frutta della passione, and vaniglia bourbon. All of the flavors were excellent, except for the chocolate, which was not good. I thought it would be special because it had their name on it, but no. Anyway they have a bunch of other flavors I wanted to try like the Cioccolato di Ecuador, Amarena, Pistacchio, and Crema.
What a yummy day!
This is my first time posting from my phone so I’m not sure how it will turn out…but I am excited to report that I am having a blast during my first few days living in New York.
On Saturday my dad and I explored all over downtown, including some memorable sights in Chinatown.
And City Hall park:
We then enjoyed a very late brunch at Frankies Spuntino 17 (17 Clinton st). The restaurant is narrow, with small tables, but manages somehow to still feel spacious and airy, with one white wall and one brick one. The restaurant is so named because it happens to be run by two guys named Frankie, and they liked the idea of the spuntino (snack.) I’m pretty sure that both Frankies were at the restaurant when we were there, at least from what I could remember after checking out their photo on their website. We actually found out about them from the Rochester Italian-American society newspaper. I had the gruyere and caramelized onion omelette, and their thick-cut bacon was phenomenal. Probably worth a non-brunch visit too.
Then yesterday, Dallas and I went to the village to visit Caffe Reggio, reportedly the oldest Italian Caffe in New York. It’s very dark inside, with cozy nooks suitable for chatting with old friends and savoring cappuccino topped with house-whipped cream and a banana split. They also have a pretty wide selection of italian pastries, like Napoleons, sfogliatelle, and ricotta cheesecake.
In Capri...
You know it’s been too long that you haven’t been blogging when you log into wordpress and don’t recognize the interface anymore. That is really sad.
As Steven Shaw said last fall, when he was helping me shape my blog during his Food Blogging class I took at the ICI, “What’s going to happen when you get back from Italy? If you only stay for three months, you are giving your blog an expiration date.”
I really didn’t have an answer. And I came back from Italy last month…and I still didn’t have an answer. Except that Italy will always live on in my heart. And that the only reason I wasn’t AS sad coming back home this time, compared to coming back home in 2009 from study abroad, was that I KNOW I’m going back. For a longer period. And I’m going to plan it very well.
But I’m not sure that I’m going to rush back RIGHT away. Because one thing I learned from my three months there was that it’s difficult to stay for a place for just three months. You make friends, you meet people…and then you have to leave them behind. One of the saddest things during my last week in Italy was saying goodbye to everyone: friends, locals, acquaintances. You can meet a lot of people in a small town in three months. And when I said goodbye, they were surprised that I was going away so soon, and my heart broke a little when they said, “Buon viaggio, ma non arrivederci.” Safe travels…not arrivederci, which means literally “see you again.” It’s just too sad to stay in a place–any place–for just three months.
And so, getting back to the title of this post–what will the blog be about when I’m not in Italy? It will be about Italian life in NYC, Italian products, Italian restaurants, Italian people. Because I am moving to New York for the summer at least and I am looking for a conversation partner and I will plan to eat as authentically Italian as possible.
I also have a bunch of photos and travel advice to put out from some of my memorable trips in the last couple of months in Italy, especially Verona and Naples & The Amalfi Coast.
Now that I have the wordpress app on my iphone, I should have no problem updating the blog…
Tomorrow is my move-in day to the apartment I am subletting in NYC. I think I first wanted to move to New York back in high school when I first read this:
Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets… I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
Here’s to great literature (especially great 20th-century American literature), following your dreams, taking risks, European expats, long languid summers, genius, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I’m home! It’s nice to be back in America…but sad to no longer be in Italy…ah, the trials of a heart divided.
I wish everyone a joyful, peaceful Easter. We don’t know what the future holds for us, and I think it will be even better than we can imagine.
Last weekend, I was lucky enough to get a cooking lesson from Dea, my friend Elisa’s mom, who is a wonderful cook. She taught me how to make a colombo cake. The colombo is a typical Italian Easter bread, light, fluffy, and studded with candied fruit and almonds. We whipped egg yolks with mascarpone and sugar to make a custardy filling for a store-bought colombo, which we sliced in half. Then we combined egg whites, colored sugar, and a bit of the mascarpone mixture to make a colorful glaze for the bread, which was delicious!
Elisa and I by the castle in Ferrara
rottame: wasted or very tired
imbucarsi: to mail a letter, or to squeeze your way out into traffic
tirare il pacco: to stand someone up
bidonare: to stand someone up
pieno bussato: really full (like a restaurant)
pubettino: a small-ish pub.
In a sentence: Guarda che oggi io sono un rottame. Ieri sera una mia amica mi ha bidonato, poi un’altra mi ha tirato il pacco. Alla fine io e un paio di altri amici siamo andati a un pubettino abbastanza fighetto che conosciamo ma era pieno bussato e non ci siamo riusciti a imbucarci! Poi dopo siamo andati a un’altro posticino lì vicino dove abbiamo cominciato a bere. note–text approved by elisa!
Translation: I’m exhausted today. Yesterday evening one of my friends didn’t show up, and then another friend also stood me up. Finally a few other friends and I went to a cool little pub that we know but it was really full and we couldn’t get in! Then we went to another little place nearby where we began to drink.
This is my last big trip in Italy for now, but it’s also a lot of firsts: My first trip alone. My first time eating in a restaurant alone. My first time staying in a hotel (okay, it’s a bed & breakfast) alone.
And I have realized: travelling alone is not scary. It’s not depressing. It’s not even boring!
It takes a little bit of courage and forethought and ingenuity, and it’s actually really fun. I love travelling with other people, and I always will. But travelling alone highlights other elements of travelling that I enjoy, namely, meeting new people and exploring in a truly BETH way.
More details (and lots more photos) to come!
Commonly called the lobster-tail in America because of its shape, also referred to as “sfogliatell,” this pastry intrigued me before my trip to the south of Italy. I have to admit that part of my interest resulted from the sfogliatella’s spotlight in Cake Boss Season 1, Episode 7 (“Doves, Ducks, and Delicacies”), in which Buddy makes an ENORMOUS sfogliatella as a gift from a father-to-be to his expecting wife.
During my recent trip to Naples and Amalfi, I took advantage of its prevalence in every bar and pasticceria to explore its many varieties.
Here’s a catalogue of the sfogliatelle I sampled (in just five short days):
When Nutmeg Met Basil 