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I Came, I Sausaged, I Conquored

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Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made.
— Otto von Bismarck

With all due respect to the Iron Chancellor we couldn’t disagree more.  Maybe he’s correct with respect to law making, but certainly not with respect to sausage making.  It is better to make them yourself.

It is January, the beginning of the New Year, when thoughts turn to resolutions, diets and exercise.  It is also the time of year, for the past five years, that we welcome back chef Simone Proietti-Pesci for his annual US visit.  Yesterday marked the beginning of his return, a three week tour and tour de force that begins in the Napa Valley of California and will take him (and us) to Washington, DC, New York, South Florida, Boston and the Cayman Islands.  We’ll chronicle Chef Simone’s daily activities here on Dolce Vita for those of you who cannot get together with him in person.

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Our first activity, just hours after connecting with Simone at SFO (he having flown from Rome, we having taking the shorter trip from Washington) was to set up camp at our friend Pete’s in Napa Valley where Simone (and his able assistant Austin) will prepare an Umbrian dinner party this evening.  With nothing formal on the day’s schedule (other than dinner at Bouchon) Pete suggested that we organize a sausage fest, relying on our expert Umbrian sausage maker to help make Umbrian sausage and Pete’s family recipe from his Sicilian aunt.

 

Pete had prepared in advance, laying on provisions, including ground pork (for the Umbrian variety) and ground pork and veal (for the Sicilian).  He also trotted out his new toy, a LEM sausage packer that looks like a cross between Pinocchio and the Tin Woodsman.  This gadget would make Chancellor Bismarck particularly happy, packing the sausage filling seamlessly and without mess into the casings that are loaded onto the spindle.  Having watched Julietta, our local butcher in Cannara hand pack sausages at a cooking class earlier in the year, we even more appreciated the crank it and forget approach afforded by the LEM.

Much weighing of ingredients and calculations of salt percentages were made by Pete and Simone and the ingredients mixed and massaged by hand.  Help was enlisted from Pete’s parents and the rest of our assembled group and then magically, from a mass of ground meat and simple spices emerged from the LEM not Neil Armstrong, but an unending array of dirigible shaped delicousness.

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Houston, we’ve got a sausage.
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
While many of the links will be consumed at Simone’s Saturday Umbrian open house in San Francisco, we did sample enough, including a generous portion added to a pizza Pete threw together, to attest that home made sausage beats store-bought any day of the week.

Including (if not especially) Wednesday, the day we started Simone’s three week US adventure.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

Behind the Scenes of Sausage-Making Read more

Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made. -- Otto von Bismarck With all due respect to the Iron ...

Dinner, Dinner Parties, Entertain, Food & Drink, Recipes
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Ravishing Ravioli

There is something about ravioli that is so appealing right now: simple enough to be a weeknight meal, with endless customizations ranging from pumpkin for the holidays to truffle for those days when you need a little richness. And ravioli freeze very, very well, making them the perfect holiday meal to serve with the appearance of slaving all day in the kitchen but the delight of a 10 minute prep time.  Just dab some flour on your head to add to the “I’ve been ravioli-ing all day!” effect.

Yesterday we had the delight of making ravioli pasta in-store with Dorrie Gleason of The Silver Fig Cuisine. You can find our previous tutorial on Tagliatelle here, where we explore the basics of pasta making.

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To begin, we make our basic pasta:

Homemade Ravioli

INGREDIENTS

• 1 egg per person • Extravirgin olive oil
• 100g 00 flour
INSTRUCTIONS
• Weigh the flour and place on a wooden board in a pile
making a well in the middle.
• Break the egg into the well and stir into the flour slowly
using a fork.
• Add a drizzle of extravirgin olive oil.
• Mix the dough into a ball.
• Knead the dough using the ball of your hand until it is
smooth, soft (not sticky) and springy.
• Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 15-30 minutes
before rolling.
Buon appetito!
(Recipe courtesy of Dorrie Gleason – The Silver Fig Cuisine )
And now, the filling!  Dorrie used a recipe adapted from Ernesto’s restaurant in Umbria, home to many an adventurous cooking class.
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Homemade Ravioli Filling, for 12 ravioli or two people
INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup fresh ricotta • 1/2 cup grated parmigiano
• 1 apple peeled/diced • 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• Crushed walnuts
INSTRUCTIONS
• Saute apple in 1T butter with cinnamon and clove
until tender.
• In a separate bowl combine ricotta and parmigiano.
When apples are cooled, add to cheese mixture and
gently stir until blended.
• Roll out pasta dough until paper thin, add cheese
mixture and cover.
• Cook in boiling water 2-3 minutes until ravioli rises
to the top of the pot.  Serve immediately with melted
butter and crushed walnuts.
By the time we were done creating the unconventional filling the creative wheels were turning with ideas for fabulous future stuffings. Plans for a ravioli dinner party where everyone brings a different filling were formed.
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The stars were very fun to punch out, and we have snowflakes and hearts here at Via Umbria as well. How thoughtful would it be to make ravioli in the shape of hearts for someone you love?
Thank you Dorrie for teaching us the ways of the expert pasta maker, we will be coming back for seconds!
—Via Umbria

There is something about ravioli that is so appealing right now: simple enough to be a weeknight meal, with endless customizations ranging ...

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My Dinner with Giampaolo

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Friday evening marked the inaugural event in our upstairs event space at Via Umbria, a special winemaker dinner with Giampaolo Tabarrini, owner of the Tabarrini winery in Montefalco. Perhaps it was just a case of beginner’s luck, but the evening was magical.

Twenty something wine enthusiasts gathered in our ground floor retail space at 1525 Wisconsin Avenue at 7:30pm for cocktails and an opportunity to mingle and chat with the evening’s special guest. Prosecco (not Giampaolo’s) flowed and hors d’oeuvres were passed as the upstairs room was finalized and readied for the dinner by Corcoran Caterers, who would be providing the meal.

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When the hour arrived the group headed upstairs to find the dining area dazzlingly set out with a long banquet table and lots of wine glasses. As the guests were seated Giampaolo was formally introduced to the group. A fourth generation winemaker, Giampaolo Tabarrini has brought the family’s estate international acclaim (Giampaolo was featured in this month’s Wine Spectator), as well as helping to put Montefalco and its most important wine – Sagrantino – on the map.

 

 

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Giampaolo making friends.

The evening’s featured wine, Giampaolo’s DOCG Sagrantino Colle Grimaldesco is part iron fist, part velvet glove. Garnering 95 points from Robert Parker it has won Gambero Rosso’s coveted Tre Bicchiere award for more than one vintage. Giampaolo led the group through a tasting of the Sagrantino as well as his unusual 100% sagrantino rose’ – Bocca di Rosa – and his justly popular Montefalco Rosso which is a blend of sangiovese, sagrantino and barbera grapes, the latter of which he argues is indigenous to Umbria, rather than it’s adopted home of the Piemonte. Each wine was matched with delectable course.

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Winner!

The treat of the evening was the raffle. For every case of Colle Grimaldesco purchased the buyer received an entry in the evening’s raffle to win an all expense paid Via Umbria wine tour in Umbria from March 26 to April 1 next year. Calling our tour Vinopalooza, the seven day, six night itinerary includes visits to 9 wineries, dinners and lunches with Montefalco winemakers (including a visit to Tabarrini winery and dinner with Giampaolo) and local sommeliers, visits to Montefalco and Bevagna and a special cooking class with a local chef. Needless to say there was a great deal of activity and at the end of the night our new friend Sue was chosen the lucky winner, to join at least three other winners at future Tabarrini wine dinners this December.

This amazing evening, which ended with a number of guests enjoying a cigar and a nightcap of Colle Grimaldesco in the second floor courtyard was anything but the result of beginner’s luck. With a great deal of planning and hard work we established proof of concept that Via Umbria’s second floor, which will be renovated and built out after the new year to include a demo kitchen, is a great space to hold special events.

And for those who were unable to join us last Friday, mark your calendars for December 4, 5 and 6 when we will be hosting three more Tabarrini wine dinners with special guest Daniele Sassi, Tabarrini’s head of sales and marketing. Or better yet, why not head to EventBright and get your ticket for one of the dinners while there are still spaces available. And in the meantime, visit our sister site – Experience Umbria Wines and buy a bottle of the Colle Grimaldesco today!

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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Meet the owner of Tabarrini winery! Read more

      The treat of the evening was the raffle. For every case of Colle Grimaldesco purchased the buyer received an entry in the ...

Dinner, Dinner Parties, Entertain, Food & Drink, Recipes

Auguri!

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Today we have a guest post from back in Georgetown, as Bill and Suzy continue on their Italian journey. The following comes from Elsa, the Social Media and Marketing assistant at Via Umbria. 

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Two years ago I ushered myself into my 20’s in Florence, with a profiterole at Gilli’s, a gratitude session on the Ponte Vecchio, and a late night stroll past the silent Duomo.

Last Friday I entered my 22nd year, still celebrating Italian-style.

Continue reading Auguri! →