Slow Food, Lavazza Coffee, and Shroud Proximity in Torino – Oct 27, 08

Today is the final day of the “Slow Food” convention in Torino, about an hour’s drive from Alba. Dawn and Breanna and I went to a slow food festival in San Francisco over Labor Day, and this would be a great opportunity to see many of the small regional vendors all under one roof, so we decided to venture out to Torino and have a look. Alberto Bettini also had a booth there, selling Amerigo’s bottled products, so that would make it a bit more fun…

I didn’t run this morning as the winery was discouragingly foggy. This is the patio outside our room. Brrrrrr!

The trip to Turin was a bit confusing, but we made it there, and found the parking garage, which was a right turn halfway down a dark tunnel. Alberto had explained how to get there, but it once we parked, we also had to navigate a large shopping mall to eventually find the convention hall. There were lots of locked doors leading nowhere, all a bit confusing.

After a bit of wait to purchase tickets, we arrived in the very large hall. We were able to find Alberto’s booth fairly quickly, and he directed us to the part of the fair where the small regional producers were gathered. We were able to find the place where we’d seen Diego make parmegano, and some of the legumes from the Sillibini mountains around Norcia! There were many many types of preserved meats, and we lamented that it’s impossible to bring such things back home.

One of funniest things was a producer of prosciutto hams, which had created a “wall of ham” in their booth.

There were food purveyors from all over the world, and I could not resist trying to Polish cheese that was encased in fried bread. Yum!

There was also jam made out of white plums. They dry the plums in white paper, and the purveyor let us taste one of the plums before it was made into jam. Heavenly!

This man very enthusiastically sold pistachio creme.

They also had gorgeous candy tins with pinup girls on them.

We found the larger part of the convention to be somewhat tiring, as there were throngs of people (albeit quite polite), and we were at this point lugging a few bags of jam around with us. We decided to say goodbye to the Slow Food fair (which closed tonight at 6pm anyway), and see a little bit of Torino.

One of the things we saw at Slow Food was a *gorgeous* display put on by Lavazza coffee, which is the premier large coffee manufacturer in Italy.

At the fair, we saw that they had a flagship coffee shop in the middle of Torino. Having no other itinerary for the evening, we made it our goal to find this cafe. After about 30 minutes of navigation (during which we went less than 5 miles, but twisted around a lot), we were able to find it. They make all the normal coffee drinks, but also some wacky things with flavored whipped cream, and some espresso desserts. I had an “espresso tiramisu”, which was (from bottom to top): a thin layer of gelatinous panna cotta, a shot of espresso, crumbled cookies, and caramel sauce. Kind of overly sweet, but good.

Dawn had an espresso side-by-side with two shots of flavored whipped cream. They sell the flavored whipped cream in the markets here, apparently.

We walked around Torino, and decided that it reminded both of us of Manhattan. It had a kind of gritty, urban feel, but also was quite old, lots of twisty streets, and surprises around every corner. This is one of the very cute side streets.

And the main street, with lots of pedestrians.

The main shopped streets were very cosmopolitan, and the smaller streets had all sorts of great-smelling restaurants. We also had a slice of pizza, and I tried the gelato from Grom, which someone suggested in Florence, but we didn’t get around to. Dawn was able to remember the name, which I find amazing. Things fall out of my short-term memory all the time, but once she hears a word or the name of a restaurant, she remembers it almost indefinitely. Here is to awesome memory superpowers! I had the caramel with himalayan sea salt, and coffee, which is always my favorite flavor. Their coffee is dense and dark and a little bitter, which is hot I like it.

Yes, that makes two desserts in one evening, although spaced about 2 hours apart. What can I say, except, that’s the kind of thing you do on vacation?

Walking back to the car, we found ourselves near what looked to be an ancient crumbling wall. We joked that as we would not be able to see the shroud of Turin (aka Torino), the next best thing might be to take our photos next to a section of Turin’s ancient Roman city wall. Photos were taken, amidst much merriment. The ones of the wall turned out fine. The ones with us in them turned out fuzzy.

The next morning, upon reading a travel guide to Italy, I found that we in fact had been in the piazza containing the Duomo that holds the infamous shroud of Turin, one of the more famous medieval relics. The shroud lies in a silver casket inside an iron box within a marble coffer inside the urn on the chapel altar inside the Duomo, and is not on display. The actual shroud was found to be a fake in 1988 – rather than being the shroud of Christ, it dates back to only to the 12th century. I think it is hysterically funny that we were joking about not seeing the shroud of Torino, yet in fact we were as close as we could get without actually being in the Duomo! And to boot, I think the Roman wall was actually older than the shroud.

The drive back to Alba was uneventful. We fell immediately to bed.

Journey from Savigno to Alba – Oct 26, 08

Today was a travel day… We are driving from northeastern Italy (near Bologna) to northwestern Italy (near Torino, or Turin).

I had a really nice run this morning – it was the sunniest day in Savigno so far. I ran along the (dry) river, and an older man along the road asked me if I was running around the whole park. I asked how far it was, and said 4 km, so I decided to go for it. It took about 40 minutes for the whole run. Here is some of the scenery I found along the way. This is just at the outskirts of Savigno, where Amerigo restaurant is located.

They have roadsigns all along the highways here, and as I ran by, I noticed that some of the signs had little plastic covers, so I peeked underneath. Apparently they hide the signs about snow when the weather is good, and then someone comes along and peels off all the covers once it snows for the first time in winter?

We spent the morning packing, and made a visit to the Dispensa to settle our bill, and bought a few products to take home with us. Alberto makes quite a few of the recipes for his restaurant as sauces, dips, and bottled liquors. I am particularly fond of the Ragu, and he was willing to send us his recipe to try at home, so I bought a few bottles so that I could compare mine to the “real thing”.

We also spent a last morning at the coffee shop where we have been getting coffee each morning before our adventures. It appears that this is essentially the local retired mens’ club, and Dawn took some really cute pictures of them. Today they made some kind of meringue cookies, and gave us a bonus one for breakfast. Dawn was concerned about the semi-raw egg whites in them, but I figured since they were made today, I’d give it a try. I don’t like crumbly meringue, but apparently I do like chewy meringue.

We got on the road, and although the weather in Savigno finally warmed up, once we got on the road, it was low fog, and rather dark the entire way on the highway. It made for an eerie drive… You couldn’t see too far ahead, and we couldn’t really tell what the landscape was like beyond what was right on the sides of the freeway. The GPS was really helpful – there were all sorts of turns and roundabouts and we navigated straight through.

When we finally got to Alba, about 3 hours later, the GPS took us through the center of town, where the truffle fair was in full swing. There were people walking *everywhere*, and street vendors selling everything from kitchen gadgets to boots to track suits. We wound through town and on to the other side, and within 5 minutes we were in countryside with vineyards. For the first time, the GPS couldn’t find the vineyard B&B we were staying in. We stopped to get some lunch, and Dawn called and got directions (completely in Italian!). It turns out we were only about a mile away, so we made our way to the Paitin vineyard. When we got there, only their son was home, and he showed us to our room – a small but nicely appointed apartment with two beds, a sitting room, and a tiny kitchen.

I collapsed on the bed, exhausted from driving, and read Wired magazine for about an hour. After that Dawn, suggested we go and explore the town. We drove down close to the outskirts of Alba, and walked the rest of the way into town. Dawn used the GPS to find the restaurant where we would work on Tuesday (which is really difficult – it DOES NOT LIKE when you walk instead of drive). Then we just enjoyed the city streets, looking in the shops (where were all open late due to the festival). The streets smelled of truffles on almost every block downtown, because there were street vendors selling truffles. There were also quite a few people in medieval costume – there had clearly been some sort of performance earlier in the day.

This is a photo of the busy street full of people.

They also had huge mobile trucks selling nougat candy in the main square, open quite late (10pm!). We chatted with one of the women working in the truck, who was quite friendly.

Walking through Alba, we also visited the Chapel of the Blessed Margarita. The ceiling there was quite spectacular, painted with Margarita, Jesus, and lots and lots of angels.

For only 1/2 a euro, you could light an electric candle in the Chapel of the Blessed Margarita. So far this is the only electronic “light a church candle” deal that I’ve seen here. All the rest have been real fire. I guess a benefit of this one is that you don’t need anyone in the church to keep an eye on the flames.

Alberto Bettini had given us some restaurant recommendations, and we successfully found the only one that was in the town of Alba, and it turned out to be pretty close to where we were. Oddly, they had mostly German food, but looked out on a really nice square. We had some supper, and called it a night.

Pig Farm in Casa Miro and Rocca Malatina – Oct 25, 08

This morning we visited the pig farm that supplies Amerigo restaurant with their fresh pork (maiale). It’s one of the only farms that both grows the pigs, and does the slaughtering and butchering (although they do have to separate the three processes so that they occur in different locations to prevent contamination). Today there were no knives involved – just live pigs. We met Beppe the farmer at the farm, and he took us to look at the pigs. He raises both regular pink pigs, and special black pigs, which taste better, and get much bigger. Amerigo *only* buys black pig meat from him – the pink pigs are not as tasty, apparently. I think the black pigs are also native to this region.

Here are some of the pink pigs. They were rather cute, in a Charlotte’s web kind of a way. I do think the head-on view is more attractive than the side view, though.

First we walked around to an enclosed pig pen, where there were about 15 pink pigs, and maybe 5 black ones. They were all quite fat – maybe these were going to be the next ones to be turned into pork products. But there were a lot more black ones up the hill, so we took a walk up the muddy street to the hillside pig pen. There we saw about 60 black pigs, of all different sizes.

He allows the pigs to graze on his land, and they eat any sort of vegetation they can get ahold of. He has an electric fence that he moves around so that they can forage in different places. Today it looked like they were pretty much lying the mud, and very happy about it. The largest one was upwards of 300 kg (661 pounds). These were so heavy that they were incredibly clumsy – the ratio of legs to pig body didn’t seem right.

One of them was lying directly in the food trough, continuously eating. This is the one thing I’ve seen so far that I would not really aspire to. It didn’t look particularly fun to be a pig farmer, although I’m sure it has it’s benefits. Beppe was definitely a character, and urged us to return if we visited Italy again. He seemed to really enjoy giving a tour of his farm. It helps that we were interested and asked a lot of questions. I’m not sure we actually understood all of his answers, but we did tape the interview, so we can decipher it later if we want to learn more about black pigs.

The black pigs were pretty friendly, and would snuffle your palm hopefully. Once they figured out we didn’t have any snacks, they went back to pigging around. Occasionally one would get stepped on, and make a high-pitched squealing that would upset the whole pack. We asked the pig farmer Beppe, and he said they were as smart as dog. It was really hard to tell, except that their eyes looked more alert than other animals, like cows or sheep. I kept thinking of the pigs we saw being butchered. Dawn and I agreed that once you named a pig, the gig would be up — we couldn’t really kill it. So if I ever do raise pigs, they will have to remain nameless. My grandma did have a cow in her yard, and every few years, they would butcher the cow, and she’d get a new one. As little kids, we were really upset by this idea, but she said the cow lived a good life (there was an apple tree in it’s pen), and that was just how things go. I think I understand that better now…

On the way out of town, we drove though the town of “Lame” (pronounced lam-eh). We could not resist the obvious photo opportunity. Here Dawn does a Vanna White move with the sign. She said something so funny while I was walking over to the sign that I could barely stand up, as you may be able to see in the photo.

After the pig farm, we drove to a nearby national park called Rocca Malatina. There having been people living in that area since the middle ages. We drove down a windy road to a small parking area. There was a big tower there that Alberto told us was built to house swallows, which are considered to make a household lucky. Our two destinations were to climb to the top of the rocks, and to eat lunch at the Osteria, which was recommended by the chef.

First we found the path to the top of the rocks. We started off, and were stopped by a gentleman in an Italian National Park outfit, who told us we must buy “bigletti”, or tickets. That done, we started off again. The path wound around the tall rocks, and in many places, we were walking in stairs cut into the rock. There were some natural caves as well — here is Dawn clowning around in one.

Once we even climbed up metal ladder steps that were pounded into the rocks!

They believe the first people lived here during the Byzantine era. Along the way were handpainted signs (in Italian) that described the local flora and fauna, and the people who used to live there in medieval times. I really appreciate the time that went into making such beautiful custom signs.

When we reached the top, we took in the surrounding countryside, celebrated our climb, and started back down. These are not the rocks we climbed, but other rocks you can see from the top, and the view back down to the Osteria and surrounding buildings. There were a few people who seemed to live there, and someone had planted a vegetable garden as well.

At the bottom of the hill was a small, very cute Osteria that smelled of chocolate (perhaps something baking inside?). We asked if they were open for lunch, which they were. We shared some tagliatelle stuffed with ricotta with balsamic vinegar, and some game which we originally thought was deer, but upon examination of the tiny bones, decided was wild hare (very little ribs). They flavor was intense but wonderful, and perhaps will convince me to try cooking more than just chicken and fish. This was our table at the little restaurant. Pretty cute for a place to eat next to some huge rocks in a National Park. It really had a nice “been here forever” kind of rural charm.

We’ve eaten more different types of meat here than I think I’ve had in my life up to this point. Between Dawn and I, we have been game to try pretty much anything that’s put in front of us. Here are all of the things we’ve tried. Some of them have just been a single slide of something, or a little tiny bit. Here’s the list: wild boar (cingiale), rabbit (coniglio), rabbit liver, black pig, regular (pink) pig, raw pork shoulder, mature bacon (stagionatta), pork liver sausage (fegato), prosciutto, pancetta, venison sausage, wild hare, wood pigeon, cock (older male chicken), thrush (a tiny bird cooked whole that you eat with your fingers), goat (capra), Irish lamb, beef (bisteca), veal (vitello), mule salami, horse salami, and probably a few others things that we didn’t understand correctly, or have forgotten. All of it has been *most* excellent.

On the way home, we had one of our first partially clear days in Savigno – most of the time has been pretty foggy. The landscape we were driving past was stunning, and also peculiar – notice that the soil is dark red in parts, and then grey in other parts. We don’t really know what makes the colors change…

This afternoon we watched Sara make lasagna in the kitchen at Amerigo. Following the Slow Food tradition, she first made spinach pasta and rolled it out very thin. Then she made a white bechamel sauce, and heated some ragu that was made earlier from pork, pancetta, beef, carrots, onions, and garlic. She cut the handmade lasagna pasta into pieces just a little bigger than the pan, and then made 4 tiers of pasta, bechamel, ragu, and parmegano. It was simple, but a long process. After she finished the pasta for the restaurant, all of the kitchen staff were making miniature versions out of the leftovers. The ragu was *heavenly*, and clearly was what makes the dish special.

Tonight we are having a quick meal at a pizzeria, and going home to pack up. Tomorrow we head to Alba, home of the white truffle, for the last leg of our journey.

Today I laughed a lot, as you can see in this photo Dawn took of me in one of the caves.

Making Goat Cheese, Lunch, Some Grappa, and a Long Nap in Savigno – Oct 24, 08

This morning we set out to a local goat cheese maker. Alberto Bettini asked if we were good workers, and we said we were, so we were expecting to actually help, rather than just watch, which we think is actually way more fun. Even though the goat cheese maker was only 5 minutes from Savigno, we ended up on a GPS wild goose chase that lasted about 40 minutes.

Once we reached our destination, we parked near a large bale of hay, and we had a 20 minute walk up a steep hill to reach the goat farm, which was the first house on the left on a dirt road.

On the way, we saw enormous kale and cabbage plants. The climate is similar to San Francisco right now, although their plants are larger than any I’ve ever seen at home. These stand about 2.5′ high.

We reached the goat farm by 10am, and we were greeted by Hilary (from Petaluma!), and Julia. We were worried we were going to miss part of the process, but they were just heating goat milk to make goat cheese in a large vat… Seems like we got there just in time.

We took a tour of the building, and the cheese refrigerator, where there were made blocks of goat cheese in various stages of aging. The square blocks are goat cheeses, and the round cylinders are similar to gorgonzola, with blue streaks inside.

These squares are goat cheeses.

Julia shows us the round ones, which are like gorgonzola, but not exactly the same.

Once the milk was warm, Dawn added rennet (a product made from calf’s stomach) to the warm milk. They keep a log of everything they’ve made, what quantities were used, and when different steps took place by date & time. Sometimes when things don’t go right, they need to use the log to debug the cheesemaking process.

Then it was time for a coffee break. Hilary and Julia had been there since 8am. Hilary is a worker through the “WWOOF” program (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), and has been here on and off since last September. She is quite knowledgeable about the cheesemaking processes, and hopes to have her own goat farm and cheese dairy someday. Hilary is from Petaluma, CA, and we appreciated both her great sense of humor, and her excellent English. We did joke that speaking both Italian and English has made us all stumble over normally obvious English words, and we find it silly that we often use gestures instead of speaking correctly. Apparently it’s a common downside (or at least, oddity) of learning a new language.

When we returned, the goat cheese curds had set. Because goat cheese is very soft, they separate the curds very carefully. First they use a long paddle with wires strung on it. The first motion they make in the cheese is a cut in the shape of a cross. It’s traditional to do it that way (the church influences a lot of things over here), and then to go around in a circle. The point is to turn it from a semi-solid disk into lots of little pieces.

After the cheese curds are cut with the tool, the rest of the large pieces of curd are broken up by hand. We all helped with this, leaning over the vat of cheese. The warm cheese is soft and pliable, like the softest grade of tofu.

Once the curds are small enough, the goat cheese is scooped into baskets. Each basket is filled to the brim, and then set on a table to drain. The extra whey drains off of the curd and into a bucket at the edge of the table.

Here are all of the baskets that we scooped today. The amount of milk that they have to make into cheese depends completely on the goats, and *that* depends on what time of year, whether the goats are pregnant or have recently given birth, the weather, and whether they are in the pasture, or in the barn (winter). This dairy closes for a few months every year because their goats are all on the same breeding cycle, and they need to rest while they’re pregnant and have just given birth. Other dairies have the goats give birth on two cycles, so some have kids in the spring, and some in the fall.

The baskets are all filled to overflowing.

After about an hour, some of the whey has drained out, and cheese is ready to be turned.

It will be turned at least 3 times today, and maybe 4. To turn goat cheese, you pour the soft block out of an upturned basket into your hand, turn it over, and put it back in the basket. It’s a little bit messy, but not hard to do.

The process of turning the cheese produces lots of scraps, which Hilary had me throw out the back door for the dog and the cats. Here is Tommy the dog, working on the cheese scraps on the back porch. I have a feeling he eats *really* well. By the time we left the building a 1/2 hour later, the entire porch was spotless.

There are also a number of cats – one friendly, and the rest feral. They were happy to clean up the spots that Tommy missed. The cats here are all fairly small compared to California cats. They are about the size of Pixel (~8 pounds).

While we were waiting for the cheese to drain, we went out and visited the goat farm. There was a large pen of adult goats (almost all female), and some kids outside. During the summer months, the goats live and eat outside during the day, but now that it’s fall, they are inside, and they eat a combination of hay, grain, and food pellets.

The grown up milking goats were all in the barn.

The kids were in a separate enclosure.

I think their eyes look really strange – the pupils are black slits, almost like a snake.

Most goats are able to produce milk for cheese, but live for several years more than that. At this dairy, they keep some of the older goats. This was the oldest (maybe 10 years old), and her horns wrapped around in a really strange pattern!

They also had some goats with beards. Billy goat’s gruff, anyone?

We also saw the place where the goats are milked. They walk up a ramp, each has a stall to stand in, and their teats are attached to the milking equipment in the lower right corner of the photo. Dawn asked the owner if they milked the goats by hand (before we saw the equipment), and he laughed hysterically. I guess Slow Food isn’t *that* slow!

We turned the goat cheese again (same process exactly), and they tended some of the cheeses in the fridge. There was both goat cheese and gorgonzola aging. I made holes on the bottom of the all of the gorgonzola and turned them over, and Dawn turned all of the goat cheeses.

You don’t want to cross-contaminate the different types and ages of cheese, so we had to wash our hands between batches.

While we were turning cheeses, Julia has making the whey into ricotta (just like the parmegano factory). She added some additional fresh goat milk, and then heated the milk & whey to 90 degrees. Within about half an hour, the ricotta curds floated to the top, and she scooped them off very carefully. Apparently if you handle the ricotta too roughly, the curds sink to the bottom of the barrel. You can see the area in the lower left where the cheese has been scooped out already.

Our final task was to wash off some of the cheeses to prepare them for market. Because the hard cheeses become slightly moldy in storage, they are washed with a vegetable scrub brush, then rinsed with salt water, and then thoroughly dried. These are the cheeses in the fridge, aging, and me washing one.

When we finished turning and washing cheeses, and Julia was done with the ricotta, we were invited to the house for lunch. I think that was a very generous offer, as we only worked for about two hours today, and I expected to have to find lunch on our own once we walked back down the hill.

Every time we entered or left the building, we changed from our regular shoes into rubber boots and aprons.

When I walked out of the cheese building, there was a cat waiting to see if there were any scraps to be thrown out – he was very friendly. His purrs were extra loud!

This is the house where we ate lunch, and the old crumbling barn that is next door.

It turned out that our lunch was mussels & bread (1st course), and linguini with cuttlefish (2nd course), with wine, and coffee. If there is one thing I get out of this trip, it is that even the simplest meals are created with care in an Italian household. This was a typical Friday afternoon meal, and everyone who worked there ate together. The owner was the one who cooked us lunch!

One of the workers who tends the goats had his birthday today, so we all sang happy birthday in Italian (same tune, different words), and had some amazing chocolate cake together. the bakery made a nice pattern in the top of the cake with chocolate and coffee, so you could see what size to cut the pieces.

The cheesemaker had chickens in his yard, which the dog continuously teased throughout lunch. Apparently the dog, Tommy, is amazingly fond of biscuits (which we would call cookies), and will either steal them out of your hand, or lick them, rendering them inedible, and thus allowing them to be awarded to him. Throughout the end of the meal, he was clearly eyeing the cake, but never got any.

Today was one of the best day I’ve had here — all of them have been amazing, but there is something just unbelievably satisfying about working side by side to learn a useful trade, learning something new, and then sharing a delicious meal with people who clearly have a good time together. I always say I would have a hard time leaving the city of San Francisco. Today showed me that the country has a different pace and way of living that I might really love someday.

The owner of the goat farm sat down to lunch with us, and was not only very charismatic, but also served us to have a shot of grappa after lunch. It came from a bottle that formerly housed white wine, and we think he’d made it himself.

The best part of having grappa after lunch is the nap you get to have after you get home. We arrived home satisfied, and slept for 3 hours in the afternoon. Then we woke up and worked on our blog in the Dispensa, greeting customers as they came in the door. We were able to make some restaurant recommendations for a gentleman who was visiting San Francisco (I should say: Dawn made recommendations – I don’t usually eat in *that* caliber of restaurant in SF).

I was exporting pictures for use in my blog, and happened to be looking at a screen full of goats when a little girl of 7 came out of the restaurant. While her parents chatted with Alberto Bettini, she and I looked at all of my pictures, and she was able to name about 90% of the things in English. We did all of the pictures of cheesemaking, and then went through my journey last year to the countryside in England, where there were all sorts of barnyard animals, flowers, and a country fair. Her parents were cheering her on, and her dad was helping with the words she didn’t know. We were completely charmed by her, and her parents had to tear her away to go to bed. She was the first child we got to speak to at length, and we decided that it was terrific practice. Her Italian was more simple and easy to follow, and of course, she was darling.

While we were working on our computers, Alberto brought us some dessert and wine at the table. I think we might have the best office setup in Italy!

We laid out all our plans for tomorrow, and Alberto drew us a map. So now, to bed!

Truffle Hunting and Dinner in Savigno – Oct 23, 08

At 3pm, we drove about 5 minutes out of Savigno to meet a truffle hunter. We went with another American couple who was staying with Amerigo 2- Jason & Samantha. This was a very different truffle hunting experience. The hunter had two female dogs, and they were two years old – much younger, and still being trained.

Their owner, Salve, met us at the beginning of the woods.

The landscape here is much wetter, more mountainous, and had a lot more trees. Salve said that the weather has changed a lot since he was a boy – he said he remembered it used to rain much more, and there were so many truffles, that his pockets would be bulging with them when we has a teenager. He said now it rains a lot less, and the truffles are smaller. Savigno boasts both white and black truffles. Here is a white one that the dogs found on our trip.

Before the dogs had the slightest interest in truffle hunting, then jumped all over everyone with their fairly muddy paws. We all took that in stride, expecting perhaps to get a bit muddy on the walk.

Salve had trouble getting them to focus on hunting rather than on visiting with everyone, whereas the dog in Nocia, Dick, really wasn’t very interested in being petted, and only wanted to hunt for truffles.

The dogs did find about 4 truffles in an hour, working as a team – two white, and two black. Salve had to give them constant voice commands to keep them on task. When they did locate something, the brown dog would snuffle around, dig a tiny bit, and then sit and look up at Salve. The white dog would dig tenaciously until she reached a truffle, or Salve told her to stop. They didn’t always find a truffle, and in one case, spent quite a bit of time excavating around a root.

This season has been unusually dry, so the truffles are much harder to find. The dog alternated between looking for truffles, and jumping on everyone, including Salve. It was interesting to see the difference between the champion dog, and dogs that are still being trained!

Also, because white truffles are more delicate, the dogs are not supposed to “mouth” them, but instead just find them and let Salve dig them out with a small shovel. These dogs were still learning, and Salve had to run over every time they found one to keep them from eating it. They did manage to get a big bite of a black truffle, even though he was rewarding them with pieces of salami and cheese.

We really enjoyed the walk through the woods – the misty day warmed up a bit, and it was nice to get out in nature. We also saw some wild mushrooms. They are prevalent in Italy, and in all of the food markets, instead of the little tiny white mushrooms that we get in the markets.

Tonight we went to Amerigo again for dinner, with the intention of trying some different dishes than last time (and less of them). My very very favorite dish here is their rabbit with parmegano, followed closely by the gelato drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar. I hope to bring home recipes for both! This is the gelato with aged balsamico. The acidity of the balsamic cuts the sugar in the gelato, so you have to be careful, because your normal sense of sweetness is fooled, so you can keep eating it. It’s sort of like the “long island iced tea” of gelati.

Parmegano Factory in Rosola – Oct 23, 08

This morning arrived a bit too soon! We had an appointment at a Parmegano Reggiano Factory “Caseificio Rosola” at 8:30am, and it was a foggy, cold morning. It had rained last night, so everything was extra damp & wet. I rousted Dawn out of bed at 7:45, and she was so sleepy, she thought it was 5am. We both dressed quickly and had a coffee, and off we went!

Our car wound through the mountains in the mist, and fog made the GPS track us more slowly than usual. In about 25 minutes, we reached the cheese factory – a nondescript building on the highway, with a sign outside. We opened the screen door, and inside was a big room full of stainless steel trays and copper vats. There was a man scooping curds off of a vat of foaming milk, who we later learned was the cheesemaster. He came over to find out what we wanted, and we said we were there for a tour.

Just then people came from downstairs – a nice couple wearing plastic bags (to keep the milk & cheese splatter off of street clothes), and a young man. They were just finishing their tour, and so we inherited both their plastic bags & their guide, Diego (who actually grew up in Greece, but is of Italian descent).

First he showed us the big silver trays. He picks up a shipment of milk in the afternoon, pours it into the trays, and lets it sit out all night.

Then, early in the morning (~5am), it is moved to copper vats that warm the milk to about 90 degrees. The vats are beautiful – about the size for a crowded (yet very beautiful) two-person bathtub.

Within several hours of being heated, a curd forms in the heated milk and separates from the whey, and then the curd is picked up by two men with a strong piece of cloth. Each one holds two corners, and they lift the cheese out of the milk, and rock it back and forth to make it a very beautiful, uniform shape. It’s clear from watching the men do it that the cheeses are HEAVY. Dry, each whole cheese weighs about 30 pounds (14kg), so I would imagine wet that it’s more than 45 pounds.

A few of the vats held twice as much liquid, and thus had huge cheeses that had to be lifted, cut in half, and then re-shaped by rocking again. (There really should be a ‘cutting the cheese’ joke here, but I don’t have the heart to do it, surrounding by such amazing food products.)

Once all of the cheeses were lifted out of the milk and tied to steel rods, they lifted the rods with a special forklift, and set each cheese down into a plastic mold, still in it’s cloth.

They put a wooden block on top of each cheese to help it settle into the mold.

Once the curds are removed from the copper vats, they siphon off the whey into another container to make ricotta. They use this hose with a cloth over the end to siphon out the whey.

The early-stage cheeses we saw would dry out overnight on the wooden table, and then tomorrow morning, they will be pushed down a cheese slide (a long sloping wooden board) to the basement of the building.

The men working there are wearing plastic aprons and rubber boots (in a snappy white!), and they are constantly hosing down their work area, and the tools they work with. The upstairs of the cheese factory was toasty warm, because that probably works in favor of the cheese clotting more quickly, while the downstairs was more like the temperature of a wine cave.

Once they reach the basement, the cheese will alternate between sitting in salt water, and sitting out to dry, back and forth. The salt water is the *same* water they have been using for years, so it is both very salty, and also has the strong flavor and bacteria of parmegano.

The cheeses float in the salt water like little buoys. When they are taken out, they sit in a special mold that is the classic “huge fat disk” shape of parmegano.

In one of the last drying steps, then insert a plastic piece that presses the name of the cheese on the sides.

They also have a blue ink stamp that marks the date the cheese begins aging, and what kind of milk is used to make it. This cheesemaker uses milk from white cows, so some of their cheese are stamped with a big “B” for “bianco” (white).

One the cheese is dry, it begins aging in another rooms. When Diego first opened the door, it really reminded me of the last seen in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where the all of the antiquities are stored in a huge warehouse. The cheese are stacked in special “cheese bookcases”, and each one is 15 cheeses high, and 12 across (180 cheeses). There were 10 racks in the room we were in, which means I was standing in a room with about 1800 wheels of parmegano reggiano today. Each wheel weight 14kg, so that’s over 54,000 pounds of cheese. The smell was AWESOME.

They also had a machine that automatically takes each cheese off the shelf, turns it, and returns it to the shelf. This would be a huge time and effort savings, as turning 1500 wheels of cheese would be a substantial undertaking. Turning the cheeses is important because otherwise, the top will get too dry, and the bottom will get too wet.

They also need to clean the cheeses periodically, and for this there is a special cheese scrubber – like a car wash for cheeses.

When the cheeses are turned, they also need to be checked by knocking on them. If there is a soft spot, they need to cut it off immediately so that it doesn’t spread throughout the cheese. Here is a cheese that was cut to remove a soft spot.

Parmegano is aged either 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months. The young cheeses are less punchy, whereas the 36 month cheese is fierce and twangy. I bought some of the 24 month cheese to use at home.

They were also making ricotta cheese – they had a small vat of milk that was foamy, and someone was continuously spooning off the cheese and putting it in baskets with holes, so the excess water could drain out. The ricotta was much more flavorful that what I’ve had at home – it would make a terrific lasagna! It was interesting that the ricotta is made out of the whey that is leftover from making parmegano – essentially, ricotta is a “second pressing” cheese, although some dairies add more fresh milk to make the ricotta set better.

We tried in vain to drive to a pig farm – the one that supplies Amerigo in Savigno, but absolutely could not find it. Chef Alberto says it is wonderful, and that you can pick up the piglets. As it was a very muddy day, we may have been better off not. After winding up and down mountain roads for about an hour, we headed home. We hope to try again another day.

Parmegano Factory in Rosola – Oct 23, 08

This morning arrived a bit too soon! We had an appointment at a Parmegano Reggiano Factory “Caseificio Rosola” at 8:30am, and it was a foggy, cold morning. It had rained last night, so everything was extra damp & wet. I rousted Dawn out of bed at 7:45, and she was so sleepy, she thought it was 5am. We both dressed quickly and had a coffee, and off we went!

Our car wound through the mountains in the mist, and fog made the GPS track us more slowly than usual. In about 25 minutes, we reached the cheese factory – a nondescript building on the highway, with a sign outside. We opened the screen door, and inside was a big room full of stainless steel trays and copper vats. There was a man scooping curds off of a vat of foaming milk, who we later learned was the cheesemaster. He came over to find out what we wanted, and we said we were there for a tour.

Just then people came from downstairs – a nice couple wearing plastic bags (to keep the milk & cheese splatter off of street clothes), and a young man. They were just finishing their tour, and so we inherited both their plastic bags & their guide, Diego (who actually grew up in Greece, but is of Italian descent).

First he showed us the big silver trays. He picks up a shipment of milk in the afternoon, pours it into the trays, and lets it sit out all night.

Then, early in the morning (~5am), it is moved to copper vats that warm the milk to about 90 degrees. The vats are beautiful – about the size for a crowded (yet very beautiful) two-person bathtub.

Within several hours of being heated, a curd forms in the heated milk and separates from the whey, and then the curd is picked up by two men with a strong piece of cloth. Each one holds two corners, and they lift the cheese out of the milk, and rock it back and forth to make it a very beautiful, uniform shape. It’s clear from watching the men do it that the cheeses are HEAVY. Dry, each whole cheese weighs about 30 pounds (14kg), so I would imagine wet that it’s more than 45 pounds.

A few of the vats held twice as much liquid, and thus had huge cheeses that had to be lifted, cut in half, and then re-shaped by rocking again. (There really should be a ‘cutting the cheese’ joke here, but I don’t have the heart to do it, surrounding by such amazing food products.)

Once all of the cheeses were lifted out of the milk and tied to steel rods, they lifted the rods with a special forklift, and set each cheese down into a plastic mold, still in it’s cloth.

They put a wooden block on top of each cheese to help it settle into the mold.

Once the curds are removed from the copper vats, they siphon off the whey into another container to make ricotta. They use this hose with a cloth over the end to siphon out the whey.

The early-stage cheeses we saw would dry out overnight on the wooden table, and then tomorrow morning, they will be pushed down a cheese slide (a long sloping wooden board) to the basement of the building.

The men working there are wearing plastic aprons and rubber boots (in a snappy white!), and they are constantly hosing down their work area, and the tools they work with. The upstairs of the cheese factory was toasty warm, because that probably works in favor of the cheese clotting more quickly, while the downstairs was more like the temperature of a wine cave.

Once they reach the basement, the cheese will alternate between sitting in salt water, and sitting out to dry, back and forth. The salt water is the *same* water they have been using for years, so it is both very salty, and also has the strong flavor and bacteria of parmegano.

The cheeses float in the salt water like little buoys. When they are taken out, they sit in a special mold that is the classic “huge fat disk” shape of parmegano.

In one of the last drying steps, then insert a plastic piece that presses the name of the cheese on the sides.

They also have a blue ink stamp that marks the date the cheese begins aging, and what kind of milk is used to make it. This cheesemaker uses milk from white cows, so some of their cheese are stamped with a big “B” for “bianco” (white).

One the cheese is dry, it begins aging in another rooms. When Diego first opened the door, it really reminded me of the last seen in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where the all of the antiquities are stored in a huge warehouse. The cheese are stacked in special “cheese bookcases”, and each one is 15 cheeses high, and 12 across (180 cheeses). There were 10 racks in the room we were in, which means I was standing in a room with about 1800 wheels of parmegano reggiano today. Each wheel weight 14kg, so that’s over 54,000 pounds of cheese. The smell was AWESOME.

They also had a machine that automatically takes each cheese off the shelf, turns it, and returns it to the shelf. This would be a huge time and effort savings, as turning 1500 wheels of cheese would be a substantial undertaking. Turning the cheeses is important because otherwise, the top will get too dry, and the bottom will get too wet.

They also need to clean the cheeses periodically, and for this there is a special cheese scrubber – like a car wash for cheeses.

When the cheeses are turned, they also need to be checked by knocking on them. If there is a soft spot, they need to cut it off immediately so that it doesn’t spread throughout the cheese. Here is a cheese that was cut to remove a soft spot.

Parmegano is aged either 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months. The young cheeses are less punchy, whereas the 36 month cheese is fierce and twangy. I bought some of the 24 month cheese to use at home.

They were also making ricotta cheese – they had a small vat of milk that was foamy, and someone was continuously spooning off the cheese and putting it in baskets with holes, so the excess water could drain out. The ricotta was much more flavorful that what I’ve had at home – it would make a terrific lasagna! It was interesting that the ricotta is made out of the whey that is leftover from making parmegano – essentially, ricotta is a “second pressing” cheese, although some dairies add more fresh milk to make the ricotta set better.

We tried in vain to drive to a pig farm – the one that supplies Amerigo in Savigno, but absolutely could not find it. Chef Alberto says it is wonderful, and that you can pick up the piglets. As it was a very muddy day, we may have been better off not. After winding up and down mountain roads for about an hour, we headed home. We hope to try again another day.

Bread, Gelati and Breaking Down Chickens in Savigno – Oct 22, 08

This afternoon the breadmaker from Amerigo, Drago, showed us how to make 3 different kinds of bread, and 3 different frozen desserts. We also saw whole chicken being broken down, and pork being cooked for dinner tonight. I came a few minutes late, so I’d missed the beginning of the breads. There was quite a bit of confusion, as Drago apparently made them all simultaneously, and explained everything in Italian. Dawn did her best to take great notes, but it all got a bit muddled.

Many breads in Italy are made with a “mother” – a mixture of water, yeast, and flour that is allowed to rise, refrigerated, and then used to make multiple batches of bread. We believe that all of the breads that were made today included some of the “mother” (also called poulish or biga), however, at least one of the recipes that Drago gave us did *not* include the mother. We’re going to ask for more info, as it will make a big difference. Breads made with a mother are generally more flavorful, as the mother is carried from batch to batch, so includes elements that could be years old!

The first bread we made was squash bread, and it included both squash puree, and 1/4″ squash cubes. We had some of the bread at staff dinner the other night, so that made us extra curious about this one.

As with many italian breads, lard was one of the ingredients. We tasted the lard at Vespacia, and it was *nothing* like Crisco. Comparatively, Crisco tastes like chemicals, where as this tasted like a softer butter with a slightly animal taste.

The dough for this bread was beautiful.

Because it contained both yeast AND mother, it rose quite high. The chef made deep cuts in the bread, so that it would rise evenly.

When we asked what temp to cook it at, they showed us that the oven was pre-programmed for a “panne zucca” options. We don’t know quite what to make of that!

And the finished result – gorgeous!

We also watched him make panne contadino (rustic country bread), and pane olio (olive oil bread). Although we did help to shape and roll out the pasta, with the breads here, we are pretty much just watching and taking notes. There is a lot going on in the kitchen to learn about, although we do miss helping out, and it’s really nice to work with the dough to get the feel of them.

Drago also made rustic bread, and olive oil rolls. These are the olive oil rolls about to go into the oven, and a rustic bread loaf.

The kitchen was also preparing several different kinds of meat today. There were several whole chickens, including legs, feet, and heads. The chicken feet were surprisingly large.

And here one of the birds just looks like he’s resting for a moment, kind of like a bugs bunny cartoon.

One of the first things they did with the chickens was burn off the excess feather nubs with a kitchen torch. This looks snazzy, but it really just keeps people from eating feather bits.

After that he cut up the entire chicken, and saved most of the entrails. The chicken was so fresh that he had to clean corn bits out of its gullet.

Here Drago is grating truffles with a rotary grater (which we really liked as a cooking gadget). He then combined the truffle shavings with parmegano, and put the whole thing in the fridge for two days. Then it is used to make, among other things, gnocchi.

We did eventually have this very gnocchi at the restaurant, and it was so deadly heavy that we vowed *not* to learn how to make it. I think that gnocchi is the Italians secret trick to kill everyone else off. You eat it, and it blows up to 4x it’s original size in your stomach, nearly killing you, and rendering all other foods impossible to eat for the rest of the day. We’ve coined a new word: “gnocchi bomb”. It was, however, quite delicious. But also dangerous.

They had a whole tray of different cuts of pork, and first they sauteed them to carmelize the outside, and give it lots of flavor, then they popped it into the oven for a few hours, checking occasionally. “Low and Slow” is what Dawn would say about this cooking method.

The first frozen dessert Drago made was a Gelatti with 22 egg yolks, sugar, milk, and cream. If you’ve ever wondered how they get it to be that yellow, well, that’s how.

Then he made another Gelato out of cream, milk, and sugar. It was very plain, but beautiful, especially when he dotted a spoonful with aged balsamic vinegar for me to try. YUM.

Finally, he made a simple Sorbetto out of Lambrusco (a fizzy red wine), and sugar. He had to call the chef to find out how much sugar to use, since the alcohol content on each type of Lambrusco is different. Dawn says there is something called a “baum” meter that one can use to figure this out. Now I’m curious!

The kitchen at Amerigo is about 1/6 the size of the kitchen at Vespacia, and it’s quite rustic. Most of the processes are done by hand, or with very simple tools. The most complex machines I can think of are the bread oven and the gelatto freezer! When we made pasta, we did it in the dining room, which was set for staff meal after we were done, and then for dinner after that. It’s interesting to see how space is used for so many different purposes, and so efficiently.

Amerigo Factory & the Abbey in Monteveglio – Oct 22, 08

This morning we went on a tour of the Amerigo Factory. In the Dispensa (the store reconnected to the restaurant), they sell several different sauces and bottled vegetables made with the original recipes from Chef Alberto’s grandparents. We were very curious to see where and how they were made. After a quick run and a coffee, we were off in the car.

The factory was about 20 minutes away, but somehow today the Navi GPS had us making several u-turns. Perhaps it was because Dawn & I changed places, with her driving and me reading the navigation steps off of the GPS? In any case, we eventually made it, with some swearing at the GPS along way…

We arrived at the factory, and were greeted by two young women who spoke impeccable English. The factory is shared by two businesses – one that makes Amerigo’s products, and another that bottles different types of truffle products, and ships fresh truffles.

One room had a machine clanking busily, and was full of steam. The product being made was a white cheese sauce for pasta, from one of Alberto Bettini’s recipes. This is the cheese sauce being poured into a bucket.

They made the mixture in a huge vat in one room, poured it off bucket by bucket, and carried them one by one to the bottling room, pouring each bucket into the top of the bottler. The bottler heats the mixture & the bottles, and fills each bottle exactly to the top, and puts the lid on. It was really hard to get photos, as it fogged the camera lense.

Then trays of bottles are put in a steam machine to seal them closed. They are steamed sealed, and sometimes pasteurized, depending on which product is being made.

At the end of the process, the machine has to be cleaned. The man cleaning it was very amused that we wanted to take his photo!

We also got to see the truffle bottling and shipping side of the business. Today they got in a new shipment of white truffles, which was worth 3000 euros (about $4k). Here I am sitting in front of all of them. They smell wonderful!

They showed us the bottled whole black truffles, surrounded in olive oil. Apparently the whole truffles in oil are more for presentation, whereas the shaved ones are better for taste. To make a case of bottles of whole truffles, they spend all day searching for truffles with the right weight to combine to make the bottle turn out right.

This machine washes the black truffles – kind of like a black truffle laundromat. They put the truffles in the big drum, and it turns, and water washes through. The white truffles have to be washed by hand, they are so delicate.

The owner of the factory hand-packs truffles to be shipped all over the world. This particular package was going to Don Giovanni in Madrid. First he shaves off any dirt, and washes them with a vegetable brush.

He was quite delighted that he managed to guess the weight correctly on the first try.

When truffles are sent, they are put in a cloth bag, packed with shredded paper, and then, right before shipping, blue ice is added to the box so they’re stay fresh on their overnight trip. White truffles must be used within a few days, or they’ll go bad, and black truffles, within about a week. If you pay for truffles, you really don’t want them to go to waste…

On the way home from the factory, we stopped at an Abbey in Monteviglio at the top of a hill. The gate at the entrance had curved parts that looked like they could be used to steady arrows if one wanted to fire on unfriendly folk.

It was fascinating to walk the cobblestone streets of the abbey, and wonder about all of the different people who had lived there over the centuries. Today there were nuns in their habits walking, and they had a B&B there too.

Tortellini & Linguine in Savigno – Oct 21, 08

This morning was nice and foggy, so I went for a long run. These are the signs that litter all of the nearby highways, indicating that we are in Bologna, and that we should watch out for deer in the road. On the first evening, we saw a doe and her fawn, but none since then. We have kept a sharp eye out, not wanting to hit any on the way home.

I also saw a woman delivering the mail, and her car. I was disappointed, because I really like cute postal trucks. It seems ItaliaPoste hasn’t laid out the Euros for fancy trucks, and these probably do the trick just fine and get better mileage. I’m starting to feel like Mr. Rogers, reporting on the postman. I guess I’m interested in kind of wacky stuff! “Now who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhood… In your neigh-bor-hood… They’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street… They’re the people that you meet… each… day!”

It was also market day, and the main streets of the town were filled with vendors selling fruit, veggies, meats, clothing, toys, socks (lots of socks!), and even small pets. It looked like absolutely everyone in the small town was out walking around, purchasing food for the week, and just chatting on street corners.

There was a vendor who sold only pets and pet food, and of course I had to stop and say hi to the bunnies. They were next to gerbils, so I’m pretty sure they are for snuggling, and not for eating. But I can’t guarantee it.

The bunnies were 15 euros, while gerbils were 7 euros & two for 12.

The goldfish were 3.20 Euros, which seemed kind of overpriced, since two goldfish equal one gerbil. The bunnies and gerbils also rated a much cleaner bin than the fish.

After my run, we puttered around and I studied some vocabulary words. Verbs in Italian have 6 different conjugations, just like Latin. I wrote out a whole page of conjugations of “are” verbs. Mr Mertens (my Jr. High Latin teacher) would have been proud.

At 3pm, we met at Amerigo in our chef clothes, wondering what the day would bring. This is the entrance to the Dispensa (where they sell Amerigo products), and also the front door of the restaurant.

There was a whole posse of women, working in the dining room, with big cloths over the dining tables, crafting pasta. The dough was already made, and started in balls that looked like this.

Sara was rolling out large sheets, each one taking her about 30 minutes. By the time she was finished, the dough was paper thin, and almost translucent. She used a cylindrical rolling pin about 3 feet long, and made HUGE sheets of pasta.

She cut them into approx. 1″ squares, and placed a dollop of filling atop each one. Then the handiwork began…

For each tiny tortellini, we would match two opposite corners of the pasta, and squish the edges closed to form a triangle. Then, we would wrap the fat part of the triangle around one finger, and twist the ends around the front to form a small hat – the classic shape of tortellini. At first we were worried we would forget how to do it. After about 4 hours of making tortellini, I’m pretty sure we’ll both remember!

The restaurant we are working at this week is part of the “slow food” movement – the return to traditional labor & time intensive ways of making food, that often improve flavor, and keep traditions alive. We later learned that Alberto’s mother was one of the women making pasta with us – so this is definitely an example of traditions of food making being passed down through generations. Incidentally, she was also the fastest – she could make one tortellini in about 3 seconds.

Sara next showed us how to make Linguine in the traditional way – she again rolled out a paper-thin sheet of pasta, and set it on a cloth to dry for about 20 minutes.

She then rolled the entire sheet into a tube, and then cut off 1/4″ slices of pasta.

When you pick up the ends of the pasta and lift, they unfurl into Linguine – no pasta maker required! As you can see, I really enjoyed the unfurling part.

Dawn tried her hand at rolling out the pasta, and did really well. Hers was the last batch of pasta we made before we sat down to staff meal.

There were 10 chairs at the table, and we all had penne with very tender pork and onions – I think it was leftover filling from the tortellini. After dinner, the chef asked us if we wanted anything sweet, and brought us some heavenly gelato. It was made with simply egg (lots of egg), cream, and milk, and it had a silky consistency. We ate it too quickly to take a picture. Dawn can’t eat very much dairy without feeling sick, so I was “forced” to eat 1.5 portions of said gelato.

I think tomorrow is a running day again.

If you’re still reading, this is me blowing you a kiss from Italy.

Thanks for reading, and good night!