Italians Do It Better,* 4th rev. ed.

fig. a: Italians doing it better

There were all kinds of surprises waiting for me when I got home from work the other day.

fig. b: Atwater flowers

First off, no one could accuse Michelle of not bringing me flowers anymore because she'd visited the Atwater Market early that afternoon and picked up these beauts. Okay, they weren't exactly for me, but still...

Her real adventure, though, began not long after her trip to the market. That was when she made arrangements to visit Antonio Pettinicchi all the way out on Sauvé East. That was when she got the real treats.

fig. c: olive tree

Now if you're not familiar with Antonio Pettinicchi (we sure weren't until about a week ago), all you need to know is that on his farm in Molise he produces exceptional olive oil strictly according to traditional methods (hand-picked olives, cold pressed, stone millstones, etc.), all of it is absolutely organic, his only North American outlet is in Montreal, and the quality/price ratio is such that many of the city's finest kitchens have taken note. Every year he comes to town for about a month so that he can do a little wheeling and dealing, and every year he sells out swiftly.

Antonio was there to greet Michelle and he immediately took a shine to her--the fact that she'd arrived by bike didn't hurt. He let her sample both his extra-virgin olive oil and his extra-virgin wild olive oil and Michelle was suitably impressed. Both were outstanding--light, yet intricate--but the extra-virgin wild olive oil was the one that really blew her away--it had a wonderful pepperiness to it the likes of which she'd never encountered before.


fig. d: olive oil bottle composite

Then Michelle got introduced to the rest of the Pettinicchi line, including...

fig. e: green olives

...beautiful, plump green olives...

fig. f: canned pomodorini

...lovely canned pomodorini, artisanal cavatelli, heaven-sent balsamic vinegar and vin cotto, and a gorgeous array of confettura, including quince-apple, Barbary fig, and...

fig. g: confettura di melone

...this exotic white watermelon number. In other words: abbondanza!

It didn't take us long to begin enjoying our spoils. We uncorked a bottle of wine and opened up the green olives, and a little later we transformed one jar of pomodorini into a simple, delicious sauce for the cavatelli that highlighted the natural sweetness of the tomatoes. We were going to just wing it, but then we decided to see what Marcella Hazan had to say, and we found this comment introducing her Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter: "This is the simplest of all sauces to make, and none has a purer, more irresistibly sweet tomato taste." She adds that this sauce is "unsurpassed" for potato gnocchi, but that it's also excellent with certain factory-made pastas, such as spaghetti, penne, or rigatoni. We took liberties and had it with the cavatelli.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

1 cup canned imported Italian pomodorini, with their juice
2 1/2 tbsp butter
1/2 medium onion
salt to taste
1/2 - 3/4 lb pasta
freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Put the canned tomatoes in a saucepan, add the butter, the onion (don't chop it), and the salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow but steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free from the tomato. Stir from time to time. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with the pasta. Serve immediately, sprinkling liberal amounts of parmigiano-reggiano overtop. (You'll find that the cheese marries particularly well with this sauce because it's one of Hazan's specialty butter-based pasta sauce recipes.)

Serves 2.

[based on a recipe from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking]

Marcella was right about that sauce, but then she's never led us wrong. And its butter base allowed us to keep Antonio's olive oil strictly for bread-dipping.

The next morning we trotted out the white watermelon preserve and discovered that it has these incredible caramel notes to it and that it's equally good on toast or on yogurt.

Antonio is only in town for a couple of months, he's rapidly running out of some of his products already, and once he's gone he won't be back again until next year, but if you'd like to get in on the action you can contact him and arrange your own personal rendez-vous. Of course, certain specialty food stores in Montreal and environs carry Pettinicchi products, but wouldn't you rather buy your olive oil from the man himself?

Les Importations Antonio Pettinicchi
1579 Sauvé East
Montreal
Ph: (514) 996-1900
email: info@pettinicchi.com
www.pettinicchi.com

Personally, I was so impressed and so eager to meet Antonio that I convinced Michelle to take me to Sauvé East just two days later.

fig. h: Pettinicchi's Montreal offices

Once again we took our bikes (that's Michelle's there on the right).

fig. i: Pettinicchi's wild olive oil

And when we got back home we sampled some more Pettinicchi wild olive oil.

Need one last final push? Check out what Nancy Hinton of La Table des Jardins Sauvages & SoupNancy has to say about Antonio and his olive oil.

aj

* Of course, there are exceptions to this rule:

Those of you with an interest in Patience Gray, edible weeds, Tuscany, Italian cuisine, and Italian culture more generally might want to check out Adam Federman's "Paradise Lost" at The Whetting Stone, which chronicles the melancholy story of Carrara, its fabled marble, and those who sought it (including Gray and her partner, the sculptor Norman Mommens) through the ages.

File under: "It's a strange and beautiful world"

Highlights: Nice

The pan bagnat at Lou Pilha Leva
Originally uploaded by ajkinik.

As mentioned in an earlier post (“Pizza in Marseille”), my sister and I spent a couple of glorious days in Nice in September. All right, it wasn’t all sunshine and soccas—the afternoon we arrived we were greeted with several hours of torrential rain. I’ve got a couple of friends who came to Nice in the fall a few years ago and endured about 9 days of continuous downpour, so I had a few moments of panic, but by 6:00 that evening the skies had cleared up, and an hour later we were on the beach for the first of several dips in the Mediterranean during the short time we were there. (After what was largely a cold, rainy, dreary non-summer in Köln/Bonn, swimming in the sea was much-needed therapy.) Anyway, Nice is no slouch when it comes to food, as is well known, and we tried to make the most of it.

One lunch was spent at Lou Pilha Leva (10 Rue du Collet) in the heart of le Vieux Nice. There, the seating is open-air and informal and the restaurant is actually spread across two sides of the street. One side is the food side, the other side specializes in drinks. You queue up on the food side to place your order and collect your dishes, but then waiters/busboys circulate to take your drink orders and clear the tables. We had our second pissaladière—the classic Niçoise tarte topped with caramelized onions, a few olives, a few anchovies, and some herbes de Provence—in two days, but Lou Pilha Leva’s was by far and away the superior one. The crust was crispier than the one we’d had the day before, the topping was tastier, with the onions expertly prepared. It was also warmer this time around, more satisfying. We accompanied our pissaladière with our very first socca—yet another staple in this region. Socca is a crêpe made with a chickpea flour and olive oil batter that’s then poured into these huge, round pans and baked in the oven. At Lou Pilha Leva the soccas come out of the oven fresh every couple of minutes and they’re swiftly scooped onto plates for the eager crowds. There’s not much to socca and it’s typically served unadorned, but it has a lovely flavor and it makes for great finger food. We completed our trio of Niçois classics by having a pan bagnat. We’d had a couple since we’d been on the Mediterranean, but, again, Lou Pilha Leva’s was the best of the lot. It came overstuffed with tomatoes, peppers, tuna, and olives, and literally bursting with an olive oil-heavy vinaigrette. Outstanding. The meal was capped by an impromptu performance by a roaming band of buff, tan, shirtless, drawstring-pants-wearing capoeira enthusiasts. I’m a bit of a sucker for that kick-the-cigarette-out-of-the-nervous-tourist’s-mouth trick.

Later that same day (remember, we had to work quickly), my sister and I took a tip from some friends and made our way to l’Escalinida (Rue Pairolière). The skies were misting slightly—even though we couldn’t see any clouds—but we chose to eat al fresco anyway. The dining room was nice and cozy, but the courtyard outside--again, in the heart of le Vieux Nice--was so much more picturesque (so we thought). We ordered wine and a salade Niçoise to begin with. The salad was the definitive Niçoise, made with an artisanal flair. Everything was top-notch, from the greens, to the olives, to the tuna, and the vinaigrette and herbs were perfectly balanced. We followed this up with two brilliant mains. I had the gnocchi with pistou on a tip from one of my friends, while my sister had the veal piccata. The gnocchi were made on premises and were touted as being a specialty of the house. They were, without question, the most tender gnocchi I’ve ever had, and the pistou that adorned them was outstanding. The veal piccata came served with homemade tagliatelle, and the entire combination was fantastic. The veal was beautifully prepared and it came with a delicate marsala sauce. The noodles were simply dreamy. Then the fireworks really started. Literally. Towards the end of our meal some invisible, rooftop punks started firing fireworks directly into l’Escalinida’s open-air seating area. Éclater la bourgeoisie! When the third missile ricocheted off our table and the wait staff still hadn’t done anything more than stare impotently towards the rooftops and scratch their heads, we left, deciding to take dessert at Fenocchio, the master gelato makers, instead of in the line of fire.

The next day, before our late-morning, train, I made the mandatory visit to Alziari (14 Rue St. François de Paule) to pick up one of the world’s finest olive oils. Our friends had brought us back a 1/2-liter can a few years earlier. We’d been dreaming about it ever since that can ran dry. You can get Alziari olive oil in Paris (hell, apparently you can get it at Williams-Sonoma), but it’s much cheaper if you get in Nice and the store is well worth a visit. I picked up a 1-liter can for our household and a few 1/2-liter cans for family and friends. I also picked up some tapenade and some herbes de Provence. I desperately wanted to get some of their cailletier olives, too, but I was already overloaded. I tried a couple though, and, God, they were good (even at 8:30 A.M.).

aj