Cooking With Michele® » The Awaiting Table

Announcing…Cooking with Michele in Italy 2013!

Michele — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:10:13 +0000

I’m happy to announce that I’ve scheduled the dates for my next cooking trip to Italy. Without a doubt, taking guests to Italy is by far my favorite part of my business. I’ve been to Rome 10 times, and love sharing it with others.
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Brodetto di Pesce

Michele — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 13:33:34 +0000

People often ask me what dish I like best at the coking school in Puglia. Each and every pasta is fantastic. The vegetables are really good. But once again this year, the brodetto di pesce (zuppa di pesce) was my hands down favorite (assuming you don’t count the burrata which is a cheese, not really a recipe). Here’s what’s in it.
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Cooking at the Castle

Michele — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:55:22 +0000

There are certain things that are constant about cooking at The Awaiting Table school here in Puglia. First, we will make lots of pasta – every day and for just about every meal – and with each day you will feel more confident in the technique.
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Eat, Drink, Rest…Repeat – Arriving at Palazzo Bacile di Castiglione in Spongano

Michele — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:00:11 +0000

You never know when you are going to a new place what to expect. No matter how much you scan photos online, no matter how many Trip Advisor reviews you read, no matter what people tell you, until you experience it for yourself, you just don’t know how great it’s going to be.

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Benvenuto a Lecce

Michele — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:48:25 +0000

There isn’t any quick way to arrive in Lecce. Either you fly from Rome, which means a trip to Fiumucino, a wait, a flight, and a train, or you simply settle into the “express” train (6 hours compared to the old nearly 8 hours) and enjoy your captivity. We read, we chatted, we slept, and we tried not to get too antsy, but by the time we arrived at 3pm, we were hungry. There’s not much open in the middle of the afternoon in Lecce, the baroque heart of Puglia, but thankfully we found a spot that serves the traditional frisa,

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April 16, 2010 – Last Day in Lecce

Michele — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 07:46:56 +0000

Friday began in typical fashion, meeting for coffee greeted by Nina, the town dog, outside of Antonio’s bar. She’s the sweetest thing, and Silvestro tells us that she doesn’t really want to be taken in (several have tried). We set off for the market, abandoning the plan for fish stew for lunch, and creating from scratch a plan for cooking for the day. One of my favorite first courses utilizes a classic food from the area, frise di orzo, a completely dried out, firm bread product made from barley. To utilize it, you rehydrate it in water for 5 minutes, and then let it drain before breaking it into pieces. You can imagine this was a brilliant way to always have bread with you when soldiers were on the move. The salad, called capunata, is similar to tabbouleh, but uses the frize di orzo instead of bulgur wheat. We diced up these small Italian cucumbers (called melone, but they don’t taste like melon) and tomatoes…… then tossed it all together with plenty of our favorite olive oil from the week – Conte……and served this as our first course……followed by a platter of various meets from the market. I hadn’t taken a real nap the entire two weeks that I had been in Italy, and it finally hit me, so I napped for an hour or so before reconvening with the group.It seems the final night of the trip, there is this urge to wander through the town a bit more, snapping those final shots of interesting sights, and even though I already have hundreds of photos from Lecce, I couldn’t resist a couple more. We arrived at Silvestro’s a bit after 7 to start cooking dinner. Now if you’ve never had this strange looking cheese, you might just be thinking this looks like a boring white blob. But if you’ve ever had burrata cheese from here, you would probably get weak in the knees at the mere sight of this. I’ve been talking about this for a year leading up to the trip, and I was determined that we would have it before we left.TThe cheese is mozzarella pieces mixed with heavy cream that oozes out when you cut into it. We prepared it Caprese style with tomatoes and basil, then mixed with a good bit of olive oil and salted at the table, this dish just can’t be beat. We began the meal with the leftover meats from lunch and peperonata, thinly sliced and sweated red peppers coated in bread crumbs and olive oil. Then the burrata salad. I was sitting in the center so had the task of serving everyone – they all asked for a “small” portion, which I knew they would regret, and within minutes everyone was asking for seconds and we finished the entire salad. We had also made the chicken vin cotto from the first night dinner – chicken simmered in red wine and olives and finished with some vin cotto at the end……accompanied by the sandy potatoes, which are just potato wedges coated in olive oil and bread crumbs and roasted until browned and gorgeous. The group wanted to learn the fig tart recipe, so made that dish again, but I wasn’t able to eat a bite by this point in the meal, my tummy full from burrata and potatoes. Our dinner guests on the final night were Timothy (our tour guide Simona’s husband) and another ex-pat Brit, Ian, along with Gia, Silvestro’s friend from the US who arrived to join him on his month long cycling trip through southern Italy. Too many hours and too many bottles of wine (negroamaro) later, we made our way home through the quiet streets of Lecce to our rooms at Palazzo Rollo. It’s always sad to say goodbye – to Giuseppe, to Anna, to Silvestro, to Lecce – but the group seems ready to make their way back home.

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April 14, 2010 – Cooking Pugliese Style

Michele — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:25:57 +0000

Wednesday was scheduled to be a busy day, starting with a big trip to the market for produce…… a selection of cheeses, and wine for dinner, followed by two full rounds in the kitchen for both lunch and dinner. No better way to kick that off than with that morning jolt of coffee from Antonio. In the kitchen, we started the day with a lesson in the most difficult pasta to shape by hand, but the most classic from this region, orecchiette. The pasta shapes starts like the cavatelli from the first day, but then is opened up and inverted. Keeping the rough edges on the surface getting a high enough dome in the shape are essential to creating a pasta that will hold the sauce.With those set up to dry for dinner, we began cooking lunch, and let me tell you that everyone was needed to prepare the large selection of vegetables for our special fave e foglie, a massive platter of assorted vegetables served room temperature with a puree made from fava beans and olive oil. This is my very favorite way to prepare eggplant and I had completely forgotten this technique when working on the farm CSA cookbook this summer - sliced very thinly, cooked in a dry nonstick skillet… …until they are fully dehydrated.Then tossed with olive oil, mint and red pepper flakes. We simply cut a whole head of green cabbage into wedges and seared it in a pan with some oil until well caramelized – yet several of us in the group were swooning over it.Fennel was sliced raw and tossed with lemon, olive oil and salt.Long mild green peppers were pan seared until the skin just started to char. Then all of this (including some grilled asapargus and chicory) is served with the fava bean puree as a dipping sauce, paired with hunks of Luca’s wonderful bread.We had purchased melons for dessert but could barely eat a strawberry or two after finishing lunch. Accompanied by free flowing fiano wine, the group was really in need of a rest before meeting for dinner. But believe it or not, we actually wandered through town and had gelato, then “walked it off” with a pass through the park, before succumbing to the tradition of an afternoon siesta. After picking up the wine for the evening, we reconvened to make two of my favorites from the weeklong menu – house made pork sausages. They are served with roasted peppers which are done over the open flames of the kitchen stoves – poor Anna who has to clean that tomorrow! – and orecchiette cime di rape, the pasta we had prepared earlier in the day with a creamy broccoli rabe sauce typical of Puglia. We had a guest for the evening, Alessandro, who is the chapter head for Slow Food in Lecce, a group numbering about 75. It was fun to be seated next to him and share stories about school garden projects and more. Perhaps most shocking is that at 31 he still lives at home with his mother and doesn’t cook (or do anything else for himself by his own admission) – the young and single Italian men are completed spoiled by the mama! We began the meal with the antipasto platter of assorted cheeses……then moved on to the pasta, sausage and peppers……and finally finishing with the melon we had purchased for lunch but never got around to. While I love the cooking lessons, the food, and of course the wine, what I most love about sitting down to meals at The Awaiting Table is the opportunity to chat with the staff and guests (like Giuseppe – isn’t he cute?). Tonight I received help on my Italian from Laura, Silvestro and Manuela, while I gave all of them quite a laugh at my misunderstanding of a sign in town. It’s casual, it’s friendly, and for me, it’s quintessentially Italian.

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April 13, 2010 – Lecce

Michele — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:41:33 +0000

There must be something cursed about “tour day” when I bring folks to Lecce. Last year it poured rain like a monsoon and we could barely eek out an hour’s worth of ducking into cover as Timothy tried to show us the sights. This year his lovely wife Simona took the lead, and although not a monsoon, we still had clouds and drizzle. We powered on, though, because seeing Lecce in all of its baroque glory is one of the highlights of coming to school here. We began at the Roman amphitheater, which they say would have seated 15,000 or so for plays, gladiators, and more. It was uncovered when the main bank of Italy was digging to place the foundation for this building across the street from the square, and the monument to St. Oronzo (he bumped off the previous St. Irene after it was thought he was able to cure the plague and more in this part of the world) was moved back to allow the excavation.From the square we made our way outside what would have originally been the wall of the city to the former Jewish area to see the magnificent Santa Croce church. It’s overwhelming in the intricacy of its baroque façade, but even more fascinating is a quick education about the symbols and allegories it contains. In a nutshell, humans and earth are represented in figures on the bottom, the higher powers of god and the church, and in the middle is a balcony representing the pope’s victory over the Turks, including animal symbols for important aspects of Italian history. Two women, justice and charity, tower over each corner. Inside the baroque style continues, and the church contains some of the famous paper machier statues of the region which would easily be confused with carved stone.From Santa Croce we wandered back through town to the cathedral in the center of town, dipping inside in time to escape some of the rain and to hear the organs tuned up as a woman practiced singing for an upcoming wedding (May is a big wedding season here). We bid arrivederci to Simona, asking her to join us for dinner one evening this week, and made our way to Silvestro’s for lunch, which he and Giuseppe prepared for us since we were out touring.There is something magical about the kitchen of The Awaiting Table school, and it was warm and homey for lunch on a rainy day. We began by tasting a susumanielo wine, an old one of this region that’s been revived and a new one for me. It paired really well with a simple pasta dish with a tomato and sausage sauce topped with some Parmigiano. From there, on to the meatloaf, a favorite of the last group I brought here. While it looks hideous – anyone ever see a really pretty picture of a meatloaf??? – it tasted heavenly. It uses 2 parts bread crumb mixture (essentially the same mix of bread crumbs, cheese, milk, parsley that we stuffed the peppers with last night) for every 1 part beef and 1 part pork.The beef and pork are double ground together and that combined with the milk creates a very velvety texture. Silvestro stuffs it with both smoked and plain scamorza cheeses and some spicy Italian sliced salami. Although I shouldn’t, I ate a huge piece along with a simple tossed salad.Dessert, which I usually am not really into, was a fig tart that tasted like a really upscale kind of hot fig newton. Who can say no to that? I didn’t. I returned to the room intent on taking a nap after so much wine and food at lunch, but thought better of it (afraid I’d sleep right through the evening meal) and instead walked through the small new part of town outside the walls.The park is tranquil to say the least, and filled with the aromatic blossoms of spring, actually quite a treat.I also ventured into the old castle on the egde of town – while not all that architecturally interesting, it was good to find something new I had missed last time.The group reunited to make dinner, beginning with pasta, but this time a simpler rolled and cut pasta to be used in the ceci e foglie, chickpeas and vegetable soup.In this classic dish of Puglia, some of the pasta is fried so that when it’s added to the soup it takes on the texture of meat, something to fill in for meat in leaner times.Honestly, I think the group could have made a full meal out of this hearty first course, but we managed our way through a rabbit fricasse type of dish. The butchers at the local market specialize in certain types of meat, and this dead-ringer for Nicholas Cage (“Get me the big knife!”) had cut the rabbit for us into individual pieces.We seared the rabbit quite brown in olive oil then simmered with olives and thyme and white wine.For dessert, one of the women worked with Gieuseppe to create a very simple almond brittle – caramelized sugar drizzled over whole almonds. Simple, but addictive! The wine tonight was perhaps the most famous of the region, Salice Salentino. It was produced by Cantele, whom you can easily find in the US and elsewhere, and it was really appreciated by all.As the evenings get later, we drift to funny conversations – slang expressions of the region (thank you, Laura, for facilitating the translations!), cultural differences, who we think Silvestro should date, whether it’s time for Giuseppe to get married and more. It’s a special thing to feel our differences fade as we learn just how much we share, and it’s really the best part of coming to cooking school in a “non-touristy” region like Puglia. A domani!

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April 12, 2010 – The Awaiting Table, Lecce

Michele — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:43:36 +0000

Those who haven’t been to The Awaiting Table cookery school are sometimes a bit anxious the first day. Do I have enough skills to keep up? Will I like the food? Will I understand? In reality, the atmosphere couldn’t be more pleasant, the explanations easier to understand, or the food more delicious. The day always begins (after a stop at Bar Martinica for a morning coffee) with a quick stop on the way to the market to explain some of the basics about food of the region: the frise d’orzo (barley biscuits that are preserved and rehydrated in water), pasta d’orzo (pasta made with a combination of semola and barley flour), and local cheeses (very few, primarily an aged ricotta similar to ricotta salata in the US). From the shop we continued to the market just at the edge of the historic old town where we visited Luca for the massive loaf of bread he has prepared for us for the week (his smile tells me he’s glad we’re impressed with his work), Simone for fruit and vegetables, Pina for peppers, and the busy men behind the counter at the salumeria for cured meats and cheeses. I was quite surprised that a number of the purveyors in the local market seemed to remember me from my last trip here, and was touched by their warm smiles and greetings of buon giorno. Loaded with everything we need for cooking today, we headed back to the school and started immediately with the pasta lesson. We learned how to make the barley pasta of the region – 2/3 semola to 1/3 barley flour, mixed only with water (no eggs), adding more semola as needed to get the right texture – and fashioned the dough into a rolled cut pasta of little Mexican hats for our lunch, then used the rest to make cavatelli (looks like tiny hot dog buns, and is a step easier to shape than pasta we will make later in the week) for dinner. For those of you who haven’t made homemade pasta, it’s an art, a craft that takes awhile to perfect, so be patient.It takes some practice to make these pasta shapes by hand, and you can see how intently the ladies focus on the work……while Giuseppe, Silvestro’s assistant at the school, seems to whip out each piece with little to no efforts. After putting the pasta for dinner up to dry on the racks, we were ready to tackle artichokes. Unlike the grocery stores in the US, they are sold here with the full stalk attached at most markets, and after paring the outside of the stem or stalk, it can also be cooked and eaten.The technique for preparing them is to peel off the outer leaves until you reach the softer inner ones…then you “whittle” away the tough outer layer of the stalk and base……before cutting off the top 1/3 of the leaf tips. We then sliced them in half from top to bottom, checked to see if the choke needed to be removed (these were very young and the choke nearly nonexistent, so we left the base intact), before submerging them in vinegar water to keep them from turning brown.Everyone prepared their own fish packet for lunch – a little olive oil, the fish filet (basic flaky white fish), some more oil, a sprinkle of salt and red pepper flakes, a small piece of lemon, and a sliver of garlic, which was then wrapped tightly in parchment paper (or use foil) for baking.After visiting the garden to snip mint for the dishes and with the bulk of the preparation behind us, we sat down to lunch in the dining room while one or two of the women prepared the first course of mussels, cooked simply in a large portion of white wine (the mussels from the Ionian area are very briny and the wine dilutes that saltiness while adding acidity) with mint and red pepper flakes. The mussels were so plump, which we learned was a sign that they grew in very nutrient rich waters, and contained no sandiness at all – paired with hunks of Luca’s bread for soaking up the juices, it was a great first course. The pasta course followed – those Mexican hats we made tossed with cherry tomatoes, arugula and slices of the aged ricotta cheese. This is a really fresh tasting pasta dish, and might be my favorite of the week long program. Although given I have pasta every day here in Italy (something I can’t even imagine attempting in the US without gaining a boatload of weight), it’s really hard to pick one!Next came our fish, delicate and flaky when we opened up our packet, accompanied by the artichokes which were steamed and flavored with olive oil and mint.After lunches at the school, there is time before the evening lesson and meal (Silvestro almost always takes a nap in between) and the group was left to sleep, read, shop, or wander through the lovely city before reuniting to visit the wine shop on the way to the school for dinner. There was only a small amount of preparation as a group in the kitchen – cutting some parsley, mixing stuffing for peppers, wilting the peppers – and we sat down to the table rather quickly to begin an olive oil tasting. We compared the light cellina olive oil with the much spicier ogliarola oil. Proper olive oil tasting doesn’t involved bread dipping, but rather “huffing” the oil into the back of the throat in a quick inhalation to let it hit your throat. This, of course, is only done after you warm it in your glass and take in the aromas much like sniffing a glass of wine.As we drizzled our favorite on bruschetta (simply the toasted bread from Luca – and remember, that “ch” means it’s pronounced like a “k”) and nibbled……some of the group cooked our dinner of the cavatelli pasta we had made tossed with mushrooms (that seemed similar to oyster mushrooms in the US), parsley and Parmigiano (which is really of Emilia Romagna, but now thought of almost like the national cheese of Italy).Our secondo was a mild long green pepper that had been wilted then stuffed with a meatless combination of bread crumbs, Parmigiano, eggs, parsley, salt, pepper and milk, then baked to perfection and served with the leftover artichokes from lunch. The stuffing is just like Silvestro’s meatloaf stuffing, minus the meat, which honestly wasn’t missed in this vegetarian dinner.For dessert we enjoyed the most sweet and perfectly ripe (it’s all about eating in season!) strawberries which we dipped in vin cotto – meaning cooked wine, but actually a cooked and reduced grape juice that has a texture and taste a little bit like aged balsamic mixed with a touch of prune juice. Silvestro paired his house Primitivo with the meal, and we drank a Primitivo dessert wine with the berries that tasted almost like a port. And with those very full bellies, we hit the sack to rest up for a tour of the city tomorrow morning.

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April 11, 2010 – Traveling to Lecce by Train

Michele — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:39:03 +0000

Sunday arrived quickly, the day we were to transfer to Lecce for the actual cooking school. My friend Susan believes on the day you are departing somewhere, you should always plan to leave first thing, as people tend to be ready to go at that point. Unfortunately, the only direct train is in the early afternoon, so we filled the morning hours with packing up, one last caffe macchiato, another trip through the Piazza Navona for those who missed it……and a scattered approach to gathering pizza, panini, and drinks to eat before and take on the train.Getting to Termini was a breeze, I was able to stamp our ticket with no problem, and our train departed without a hitch. Here’s the one part I try to under emphasize when I take friends to Lecce for cooking school – there is no easy way, really, to get there. In theory, we booked first class train tickets (only nominally more expensive than coach but infinitely more spacious and comfortable. Well, the best laid plans, as they say. As the conductor came around to punch our ticket, he informed us there had been an accident on the tracks and that we would exit the train in Benevento, transfer by bus to Foggia, and then board another train to Lecce from there. He explained his all matter of factly, like “non problema”, but we were annoyed, as you might guess. Turns out the actual logistics were incredibly organized (especially for Italian standards) and we only spent a few minutes at each transfer. The real problems were that this set our trip back by over an hour when we were already arriving late and the train from Foggia to Lecce had no first class seats. The hassle, at least for me (I won’t speak for the full group), melted away as soon as I saw Silvestro and Antonio outside the station, waiting to take us to Palazzo Rollo to check in. And I relaxed another two notches as we made our way past the incredibly gorgeous cathedral, lit up at night, accentuating the intricately carved pieces of the famous Leccese stone, on our way to dinner. I think perhaps everyone else finally relaxed upon entering the over the top charming kitchen of The Awaiting Table, where they were literally awaiting our arrival. The candlelit dinner upon arrival is meant to present all the dishes we will be cooking for the week, and as such, is quite a feast. I didn’t photograph the dishes because you’ll see them later in the week as we make them and because, frankly, anything photographed under this level of candlelit ambiance just looks like a jumble, like this. But stay tuned, I’ll share the photos and the recipes throughout the week. Tomorrow, off to the market for our first experience there, then on to cooking, eating, vino, siesta, cooking, eating, vino, siesta…you get the idea, right?

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