I Left My Heart in A Putia Ro Vinu

I have never eaten as well as I did when I traveled to Brazil. The highlight of that trip was goat cheese lasagna, consumed on the veranda of a cliffside restaurant, Aprazivel, that jutted over the trees and boasted a stunning view of Rio de Janeiro. That meal ranked as one of the best of my life. This meal is another.

One evening in Sicily, our hired driver escorted us to Modica, home of the amazing chocolate shop I also raided during my stay. It's a small, beautiful town, and our driver parked on Corso Umberto I. He led us down a dark alley (which frankly freaked me out a bit) and turned the corner. Beautiful, narrow, dimly-lit cobblestone streets rose up before us. We followed our driver past dark buildings accented with beautiful architecture, countless staircases and shuttered doors and windows. Eventually, we arrived at our destination: A Putia Ro Vinu, a bright trattoria that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

The entrance to the trattoria, "a putia ro vinu," on Via Carlo Pisacane in Modica. After climbing through those streets, it was like finding a treasure.

My sister somehow requested some sort of tasting menu without my knowledge, but it was the best thing she's ever done. The food would NOT stop coming. First up: bread with olive oil and hard-boiled eggs.

Next, we're served what appears to be a platter of appetizers that include roasted eggplant, deep-fried dough, arancini (deep-fried rice balls), sausage, quiche with peas and carrots, and some sort of stromboli-esque deal with lasagna inside.

This course included beef with hard-boiled egg somehow encircled by the meat. T said her grandmother used to make these, but I have no idea how one would go about doing such a thing.

Beef and sausage in pasta sauce.

A side of seasoned potatoes.

Spinach and ricotta pasta. This pasta was honestly the doughiest, most delicious pasta OF ALL TIME. It was so good, it was practically bread.

A combination platter: spinach and ricotta pasta, ravioli, and past with beans.

Sadly, I've forgotten the name and description of our dessert. It was cinnamon-flavored with a gelatin consistency, and it was, of course, delicious.

Reasons Why I'm Moving to Sicily

As we all know, my posts have been pretty sparse lately as a result of my week-long family trip to Italy. If my internet access hadn't been limited there, I would have been posting (and probably abusing Twitter) CONSTANTLY about my food experiences. I could bore you with details about each dish, but since I have a tendency to get verbose I'll try to keep things concise here.

I traveled to Sicily and Rome, and in a tiny town in Sicily called Modica I ate one of the best meals of my life. The Italian comfort food I consumed there deserves, and consequently will get, its own post. I'll post my Rome food photographs in their own entry as well. Everything in this post is listed chronologically, in the order I consumed it in Sicily. I took pictures of everything I ate, but I only included the highlights here for the sake of brevity. Enjoy!

SICILY

Technically, this was my first meal over international waters. Airplane food may not be the best thing in the world, but complimentary wine in cute mini-bottles DEFINITELY is. Especially for nervous flyers!

My first meal in Sicily was, naturally, a pizza. We flew into a city called Catania in southern Sicily, then took a two-hour bus ride to a tiny town called Ragusa, then took a cab to a microscopic place called Marina di Ragusa. Thsi place is right on the Mediterranean, so I imagine it's a big hit in the summer. However, there was hardly anything open during our short stint there in March. One of the hotel staffers drove us to a nearby restaurant called Acquamarina, where I immediately ordered Vino Rosso (red wine, obviously) and this delicious, amazing pizza with spinach, ricotta cheese and sausage.

According to my guidebooks, lunch is the big deal meal in Sicily. It's customary for Sicilians to eat a pastry for breakfast rather than a sit-down meal, and they do so standing up in a coffee bar. I even saw one surprisingly fit girl (and apparently this is also common) eating a brioche STUFFED with gelato at 8 a.m. This is one of the many reasons why I'm moving to Sicily. I picked up this pastry at a breakfast place in Marina di Ragusa called Boccadifuoco Mizzica Pasticceria.

A note about coffee: unless one specifies "Caffe Americano" or "Caffe Latte," you will be served espresso. Also, do not order coffee with milk at any time other than breakfast, advised my Lonely Planet guidebook, or you will be instantly pegged a tourist.

Dinner on my second night in Sicily commenced at Baciamolemani, a restaurant across the street from our hotel in Marina di Ragusa. The staff was so accomodating, even writing up an English menu for us because we had difficulty communicating what we wanted. This was my green gnocchi with clams and tomatoes. Not pictured here are my sister's dish of cuttlefish cooked in their own ink and my mother's swordfish. MMM.

Dessert at Baciamolemani was, of course, cannoli. We also ordered a tiramisu, but this was the best cannoli I've ever consumed so it takes center stage.

Caffe' delle Rose, which appeared to be the most hoppin' (and, you know...only) breakfast joint in Marina di Ragusa also (of course) served gelato. This variety is nutella-flavored!

On our last day in Sicily we visited a city called Noto, which was apparently devastated by a 1693 earthquake and rebuilt in Baroque style. It was architecturally stunning, of course, but my main motivation for visiting was the fact that Noto allegedly contains the two best ice cream shops in the WORLD (so says Lonely Planet). Alas, Corrado Costanzo was closed for the season, but Caffe Sicilia was wide open. Here's a look at their bakery display.

My gelato pick from Caffe Sicilia, the Montezuma. Chocolate gelato with orange and cinnamon. It actually was the best ice cream or gelato or frozen treat I've ever had, and words cannot express the taste explosion any better than this photo.

Dessert on our last night in Sicily, at a little restaurant in Marina di Ragusa called Anno Zerro. Phenomenal pizza preceded this, but the dessert was definitely the highlight.

"The Dude" loves Puttanesca

The reasons why I love hanging out with my friend T are endless, but some of my favorites include the following:

1) She's a lovely, genuine, funny person.

2) She understands that pop tarts are a legitimate dessert.

3) She cooks things like this:

Penne Puttanesca with Tuna Meatballs: The sauce included anchovies, olive oil, garlic, capers, crushed and diced tomatoes, pecorino cheese, kalamata olives, oil-cured olives and fresh parsley. According to T, the deliciousness we consumed was a modified version of this: Puttanesca with Tuna Polpette and Penne.

Yep, she effortlessly cooks things like this...and then we eat it sitting on her fire escape, drinking limeade and chatting and taking in what is a surprisingly pretty view of Queens. I'm sure we're all aware of this by now, but food and friendship are unequivocally some of life's greatest things. Oh, and S'More pop tarts. Obviously.

Williamsburg Cheese

Apparently, the Spring of the Cheese Plate has arrived. For the second stop on our tour, k and I hit up d.o.c. wine bar, on the cozy corner of n. 7th and wythe. The wine menu here is impressive, it being a wine bar and all, and the food is pretty authentically italian. You are able to customize your cheese plate (which you will obviously be getting) with their fancy array of special cheeses, but out of a mutual aversion to decision-making, we went straight for the house cheese selection.

Tagliuere di Formaggi della Casa

Sandwiches are beautiful

It's no scanwich, but I thought my ham & brie sammy from medina deserved some cross-sectional love.

And by the way, new york, it's a downright gorgeous day, so go eat a sandwich in the park!

An Alarming Discovery

Last night I made beets with my gnocchi (and a thyme butter sauce). I should disambiguate the 'with': at Z's insistence I dumped the chopped beets into the pot of hot water with the cute lil potato dumplings. Now, the water promptly turned that wonderful beety hue that you green-pointers should probably remember from all of the ukranian borscht you've had (without sour-cream which gives is a opacity not present in my potted water). I decided to look into how awesome beets were since I was under the impression that anything deep purple had polyphenols which are super awesome only to find out :

"Although spinach and other green, leafy vegetables contain significant amounts of Vitamin K, the high oxalic acid content in spinach or other sources such as rhubarb, Swiss chard, beets / beet greens, and parsley, etc., promotes vascular degeneration and increases the risk for bleeding in prone individuals". (from here)

That's right, beets'll make you bleed to death!!!!! (Spinach too, I guess. I wonder why the cartoon never showed Popeye all bruised up because his vascular system was so weak. Probably some communist plot.) Happily all the Eastern Europeans around the area that eat a lot of beets also drink a LOT, thinning out their blood and hopefully putting less stress on their already weakened vascular walls.

I might have found a way out of the problem that doesn't involve my not giving up my favorite 'root that ruins whatever you're wearing if you try to prepare it on account of its propensity to dye everything deep purple.' these folk seem to be telling me that if I just blanch my beets long enough they will destroy neither my clothing nor my vascular system (If I understand the abstract). I just hope blanching doesn't destroy the wonderful taste, because anyone who has had house salad 1 from the lunch menu at Roebling Tea Room (RIP?) knows, a tasteless beet is not a nice thing to have on a plate.

Mrs. Holland's Spiced Mocha Mix

K's momz sent me the recipe for this charming concoction:

1 C dry non-dairy creamer
1 C hot cocoa mix
2/3 C instant coffee powder
1/4 C sugar
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. ground nutmeg

Mix together. Add hot water to 3-4 teaspoons of mix per cup.

I haven't tried it yet because I don't have 2/3 of the ingredients, but I plan on remedying that before iced coffee takes back the city.