In The Culinary Institute That Is Orvieto

This week has been and is still in the process of being defined by culinary experiences. Monday evening Jake, Jana, Penn and Grace and I partook of the amazingness that is Trattoria La Palomba. This is widely considered the best restaurant in Orvieto, and now I know why. What I liked most was that the cuisine is all very earthy Umbrian fare: mushroom and truffle based pastas, while game makes up a fair amount of the second course menu.

Matt Doll, our director, instructed Jake and I not to skimp. So we didn’t. I had scouted out the menu before, and had already basically decided what I wanted, based on recommendations from John Skillen and other professors. One of my criteria was that we order a bottle of the varietal Sagrantino di Montefalco, one of two Umbrian DOCG wines (the other is Torgiano Rosso Riserva), since I hadn’t tried it yet. Jake and I happened to run into Scott Cairns on the staircase right after talking to Matt about our plans for the evening; we told Scott that we wanted to order the Sagrantino, and he gave us a tip that would help us later: 2003 was not a good year, order a 2004 if possible or a 2005.

The proprietors of La Palomba are firm believers in the Slow Food movement. We arrived at 8:30 and just barely made it back to the monastery by 11. We were seated at a table that was ours for the evening; when you make reservations there, they cross off that table for the rest of the night. When we ordered the wine, we were first given a 2003 bottle. We asked for a 2004, for which we had to pay a whopping three euro extra; Penn and Grace, who had tried the 2003 before, said there was a significant difference in the taste. Our waitress brought out the correct bottle with four red wine glasses and a small white wine glass. After opening the bottle she poured a small amount into the white wine glass and smelled it to make sure it hadn’t been corked. She then prepped the other glasses by pouring the contents of the small glass into one of the red wine glasses, swirling the wine to coat the inside of the glass, and then passing that on to the next glass. The last glass to be prepped she handed to me to try the swallow of wine and give my approval. After that display, I was glad I knew how to taste! She handed out the rest of the glasses, poured for us and then left.

The bruschetta platters we were sharing were soon brought out; the pâté and sweet pepper slices were delicious, everything was very fresh. Then my primo piato (first course) arrived. Matt had told me I would feel like Treebeard eating this, that it was like eating delicious earth: umbrechelli con tartufo. I’ve discovered that truffle is probably my favorite taste in the world, seriously contended only by dark chocolate. This steaming bowl of pasta was the perfect thing for me, then. Umbrechelli is, surprise surprise, an Umbrian form of pasta that is made without egg, just flour and water, and is rolled like very thick spaghetti (but not straight; it has kinks and irregularities, as if the cook was lazy, or beset with arthritis). My bowl of cream covered pasta was brought to the table, and then the amazing part: our waitress pulled out a grater and a whole black truffle and proceeded to grate a mound of truffle shavings onto the pasta. The taste is indescribable.

While the roast pigeon dish almost made me reconsider (and I’ve found out since that they have rabbit!), I knew that my secondo had to be the cinghiale: wild boar. This is another Umbrian specialty, and the way that this particular dish was prepared was almost like a stew. My plate was given me with a heap of chunks of meat, thickly covered by a sauce made from tomatoes and peppers and likely some sort of cream and wine. The boar was wonderfully tender, bringing to mind the amazing lamb that I ate with a spoon at Molyvos in NYC.

All this time we’d been having great conversation and drinking the fantastic wine. We didn’t feel the hours pass at all. Grace had ordered a filet mignon in a nettle sauce; I tried a taste of the sauce, and it was delicious. Jake had also ordered the cinghiale, and Penn and Jana had also ordered the umbrechelli con tartufo. Soon it came time for desert, a difficult decision. Grace and Jana got panna cotta with caramel, which looked unbelievable. Jake ordered a walnut torte, and I ultimately decided on tozzetti, which are small desert cookies like biscotti (some were anise, some pistachio), with vin santo, a small cup of desert wine. I’d heard of this desert before; the whole idea is to the dip the cookies into the wine. It may sound a little strange, but it was actually a great combination. We left the restaurant fully satisfied in every regard.

Have I talked about Leonardo Maietto yet? He is the 23 year old son of Mauro, the man who owns Locanda del Lupo, the restaurant at which we eat every day. Leonardo speaks really decent English, and has actually become a pretty good friend here; he sits and talks with us if the restaurant is slow, and he even drove a couple of us to Lake Bolsena one day. Hopefully, if all goes well, he’ll be working in NYC this fall while I’m there. He has been in restaurant work ever since he decided to no longer pursue a career in ballet, and he’s worked in Canada and London. Anyway, yesterday afternoon he showed a small group of us how to cook pasta carbonara and a potato dish. Here are my notes for the carbonara; I apologize if they’re incomplete or confusing, I was furiously writing while trying to help at the same time.

Start w/ 5L of water (for 2 or 3 people), add 1L for each additional person.

2 semi handfuls of salt of 5L water

Cut bacon and onion, put in pan w/ oil, add white wine and black pepper after a few minutes, cook low heat until fat of bacon is mixed w/ oil (same color), stir

After adding pasta to water (2 handfuls per person for penne, for spaghetti enough to fit in ¾ ring w/ thumb and index finger), cook for 8 min. and then start checking

In bowl, one egg w/ yolk, pinch salt, pepper, splash or two of milk, splash of oil, whisk w/ fork (one of these bowls for every two people)

Finely chop parsley

When pasta is finished, strain and add to pan(s) w/ meat (one pan for every two people), add parmesan cheese and black pepper, raise heat and stir quickly until pasta has taken on color of oil mix, keep heat very hot

When very hot, take off stove and put on counter next to bowl with egg mix

Stirring very quickly, add egg mix and stir in so it is creamy, plate right away. If not stirred quickly enough and plated there will be cooked scrambled egg chunks from too much heat (no good)

Garnish with cheese, pepper, parsley

The most critical part there is that second to last step. Bad carbonara has egg chunks in it, it should always be creamy. I mean, it still tastes alright, but when we did it one batch turned out perfectly and the other was delayed too long before being plated, and the difference was noticeable. So keep in mind that this is not something that you make ahead of time, and then reheat when you’re ready to serve; you’d better be hungry, because it needs to be eaten right away!

We had a great time with Leonardo, and he was a good teacher, in spite of it being his first cooking lesson…we’d never have guessed.

The culinary experiences are set to continue tonight; Matt has been hosting small groups of us for dinner at his apartment, and tonight is my turn. He and Sharona are amazing cooks, so I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation. All the other accounts from students who have eaten with them previously have been absolutely mouthwatering. It will also be great to have a solid block of time to talk with the Dolls.

That’s pretty much all…I’m really happy with my travel writing piece (look for that soon, I’ll post it after the final workshop/critique), and things are about to get really, really busy. Ten days. More people arrive every day because of the events surrounding the installation of Bruce Herman’s show here. I’ve been talking a lot over the past couple of days with Paul Vasile, a Gordon music grad who works in NYC. He has an incredible mind for music, and has inspired me to seriously investigate modern and contemporary “classical” music, of which I am abashedly ignorant. But he’s also very interested in other spheres of creativity, and so talking with him has been a delight, and very energizing. The minds who are assembled here in this place right now…it’s fantastic.