"Letter From Town: The Almond Tree" by D.H. Lawrence + Almond & Chocolate Biscotti

The problem with Italian cookbooks is they make me pine for Italy. (See my infatuation with Rome from two summers ago.) July marked fourteen years since I've been back, so when I began reading page after page about tomatoes and chestnuts and garlic in Guilia Scarpaleggia's From the Markets of Tuscany, my heart simply burst before I was even halfway through. The antidote, of course, is heading into the kitchen. 

Giulia and I first became acquainted through blogging. (She even wrote a dreamy Literary City Guide to Florence.) Her Tuscan blog, Juls' Kitchen, is a favorite of mine, and when I learned her latest cookbook was set to be published in English this spring, I promised to be first in line. The cookbook is organized by market, which any traveler will tell you is probably one of the best ways to explore a new town. Giulia traversed Tuscany meeting vendors, sampling local specialties, and then took that inspiration straight to her Tuscany kitchen to bring the flavors home.  

"To every generation, the market is the beating heart of the town, pulsing with chitchat, friendly shouting and bargaining, and the aroma of roast chicken, croquettes, and porchetta ...

Traveling around Tuscany for over a year to visit its weekly, large indoor and smaller organic markets was a learning experience, one that helped me to better know and love this region I call home—my place in the world. While I was lost in small talk with local producers, buying everything from honey and local cheeses to pork fat sausages and fragrant peaches, my partner Tommaso would follow me with camera in hand, capturing what was unique about every market and how each differed in character and changed with the seasons."

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Letter from Town: The Almond Tree

By D. H. Lawrence

You promised to send me some violets. Did you forget?  
  White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge?  
  Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge  
Of our early love that hardly has opened yet.   

Here there’s an almond tree—you have never seen        
  Such a one in the north—it flowers on the street, and I stand  
  Every day by the fence to look up for the flowers that expand  
At rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean.   

Under the almond tree, the happy lands  
  Provence, Japan, and Italy repose,  
  And passing feet are chatter and clapping of those  
Who play around us, country girls clapping their hands.   

You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown,  
  All your unbearable tenderness, you with the laughter  
  Startled upon your eyes now so wide with hereafter,   
You with loose hands of abandonment hanging down.

This poem is in the public domain.

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Thanks to a dusty copy of the Norton Anthology of Poetry, D.H. Lawrence was one of the first poets I ever learned about. So you can imagine my delight when searching for poems that celebrated almonds, in any small way, I came across these lines of verse that begin by revealing "early love that hardly has opened yet." When we move to the almond tree, there's tranquility under its branches throughout Provence, Japan, and Italy (perfect for the recipe to follow). For a moment we're transported, resting somewhere in the shade.

By the end of the poem, there's a play on "a flowered gown" which could either be the poet's beloved, or the almond tree, with all its "unbearable tenderness" and "loose hands of abandonment hanging down." Something has changed. We're not privy to the details, whether the relationship has stalled, affection has wained, or the almond tree simply stops bearing nuts year after year. I suppose the only place of refuge is back under the almond tree that "flowers on the street," and the daily ritual of going to the fence, looking for flowers, wondering what they mean. Sometimes we must sit with our questions, and resolutions take their own time to reveal, both in life and in the poems we read to enhance our days.

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Almond & Chocolate Biscotti

Makes 20 to 24 cookies

This recipe is lightly adapted from the pages of From the Markets of Tuscany by Giulia Scarpaleggia. Inside the cookbook, there's an entire page dedicated to the history of biscotti. Read it and you'll learn the word biscotto means "baked twice" in Italian, and that they came about in response to conservation—they'll stay fresh in a closed tin for up to two weeks. There are also notes on Antonio Mattei, who opened his first biscotti factory in 1858, in Prato, northwest of Florence, and although the bakery is owned by another family now, you can still visit there to taste these sweet little cookies.

Giulia's basic recipe is for almond biscotti, and she shares four variations to try. I combined two of the suggestions to make a dark chocolate and almond version I was so happy with it made me wonder why I hadn't been making biscotti part of my holiday baking routine for the past few years (they'll make perfect edible gifts this season!).

(Note: While typing up this recipe, I realized I accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder, but the recipe still turned out wonderfully!) 

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup almonds, coarsely chopped
3 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Instructions:
Heat oven to 480°F. Add 2 eggs plus 1 yolk to the bowl of a stand mixer. (Save remaining egg white to use later.) Add sugar to the stand mixer and beat with the eggs until light and frothy, about 1 minute. Soft flour, baking powder, and salt over the mixer, then add the orange zest and mix on low speed until dough comes together. Add almonds and dark chocolate and fold in with a spatula.

Line a baking sheet with a silpat and separate the dough into two sections. Using a small icing spatula, spread dough into logs, about 12-inches long and 3-inches wide. I tried doing this by hand at first and the spatula really makes it easier, especially since the dough is a bit sticky. Beat egg white with a fork until frothy, then brush it over the dough. Slide the baking sheet into the oven, reduce heat to 350°F, and bake for 20 minutes. (Starting with high heat will help keep the dough from spreading too much.)

When the first bake is done, the biscotti should be golden on the outside but still tender inside. Let cool 5 minutes, then transfer logs to a cutting board and slide into 1-inch pieces. Arrange biscotti back on the baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden. Let cool completely on a rack before enjoying dunked in your coffee (or plain!).

"Gardening" by Leslie Contreras Schwartz + Italian Stuffed Tomatoes

My cookbooks have a new home. 

You see, summer snuck up on me for one rather monumental reason: we moved. The whole thing was somewhat unexpected, and the short story with the happy ending is we found a new place to call home and moved in record time (10 days to be exact). I'm tired just typing that. 

The unpacking, naturally, took a bit longer.

June was also the month spent reviewing the copyedits for my cookbook, so this season I've been all about simple cooking, and revisiting some old favorites. And because my cookbooks look all fresh and perky on the shelf, I've taken to pulling them down one by one, flipping through a section or two, and cooking my meals for the week from what I find inside. I'm so glad I've started doing this again. 

The most recent cookbook I've lost myself in is Rachel Roddy's My Kitchen in Rome. This one I was eager about from the start. It seems like so long ago now that Rachel announced she was even writing a cookbook, and I couldn't wait to order my copy. Sadly, we had to wait even longer for the U.S. version to arrive, but it was worth the extra months.

My Kitchen in Rome is beautifully written, truly. My remarks here likely do not do it justice. You should know that if you find yourself on the couch one afternoon, you will be transported to Italy and your heart might ache just a little bit when you realize you are actually not there.

But that is where food does its magic work, because I've been calling myself a Roman for the past couple of weeks by spooning beans over bread and stuffing the first tomatoes from my farmers' market. I've also been reading some poetry. Not as much as I should be, but enough to stumble across this lovely little poem.

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Gardening

by Leslie Contreras Schwartz

There is too much work:
the turning of soil,
the watering, and pulling
the bright green weeds that choke
and curl the fruit. I want only
the joy, the taste of tomatoes
pouring down my lips,
the sun on my throat.
I like the soil under my nails
but I feel forsaken, tricked.
I watch the garden fester
and dry out, the tomatoes
small and weakening in
the cracked bed. It is like my daughter,
who one day draws picture after picture
of rainbows, bursting hearts, spells “love”
backwards, sideways, forward, then
for days lies on the couch blinking
at television or just talking to herself,
her sister. Too much work, this joy,
the colors of fruit, the frothy soil,
too much sun and magic. We all
need retreat, to rest, to feel
sometimes that it will come to us
by itself, a heavy plate that
says this is all yours.

from FUEGO by Leslie Contreras Schwartz © 2016; ISBN:  978-0-9965231-5-8;
Saint Julian Press. Reprinted with permission from the author.

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I can't think of a more perfect poem for the summer, and for my own particular season in life. First, wanting only the joy. I'm certain we all want this, though we're well aware of how life works. There are joys, then disappointments, then more joys, then a rough day, then a splendid one. This is the way of it. But I love how profound the ache is here, as if the speaker is on the brink of just giving up entirely, being ruthlessly honest.

Next, at the very end, the lines about needing to retreat, rest, to "feel sometimes that it will come to us / by itself." As someone for whom self-care is of the upmost importance, I resonate with these lines so much. Even when the tomatoes are ripe, and our days are filled with "sun and magic," it can all feel like too much work. Even the joys. Some days, this is true, but the poem ends on a hopeful note, doesn't it?

A hope that whatever it is we need most will find us when it's time. It's certainly a message I need to hear today, and perhaps I'm not the only one.

Italian Stuffed Tomatoes with rice and potatoes

Adapted lightly from My Kitchen in Rome by Rachel Roddy

This makes a wonderful, leisurely lunch or light supper, but as Rachel is kind to remind home cooks, "good stuffed tomatoes do indeed come to those who wait." There is a fair amount of waiting with this dish. Waiting for the tomato shells to drain, waiting for things to bake, then waiting for the dish to rest and settle and cool down a bit. Do not begin this dish without knowing what's required, which, more than anything, is simply your time and a bit of care. I halved the recipe and used four tomatoes instead of eight, but you can certainly double this for a crowd or ample leftovers.

Serves 2

4 firm, large tomatoes
Salt
1 plump garlic clove, finely chopped
4 basil leaves, torn
5 tablespoons Arborio rice
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus some extra for the potatoes
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound Yukon potatoes, peeled

Cut the tops off the tomatoes and set them aside. One by one, hold the tomatoes over a bowl and scoop out their insides by gently scraping the interior with a spoon. Let the flesh, seeds, and juice fall into a bowl. Sprinkle a bit of salt in the cavity of each tomato, then place them cut-side down on a clean tea towel or paper towel-lined cutting board so excess liquid can drain.

Blend the tomato flesh, seeds, and juice in a blender; pout into a large bowl. To the tomato liquid, add the garlic, and basil. Next, add the rice and olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper; stir. Leave to sit at least 45 minutes.

Cut the potatoes into 1-inch long matchsticks. Pout the potatoes into a bowl, pour a little oil over them, and sprinkle lightly with salt. Toss with your hands until well coated.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the hollowed-out tomatoes in a lightly greased baking dish. Spoon the rice inside until they are three-quarters full, then put the tops back on. (Sadly, I completely forgot to do this!) Scatter the potatoes around the tomatoes and bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, or until the tomatoes are soft and beginning to shrivel. The rice should be plump and tender, and the potatoes soft and golden. Allow to sit for 30 minutes before eating. Pour yourself a glass of white wine while you wait.

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Preludes and Pasta

Our sense of smell can be transporting.

Years unfold.

We tumble back to childhood. 

On the second day of fall, I was making soup. It was still a pot of ingredients—celery, onion, crushed tomatoes—when I walked outside with Emma where the air had started to feel different. September is often our warmest month in Los Angeles, and even though the temperatures hadn't dropped significantly, the sun was shifting. 

By dusk or just before, a crispness emerged. Not cold or brisk, just a whisper of the cooler days to come, when the sun lets us down gently that soon it will set at the unfortunate hour of 5 pm. 

Out of the blue that afternoon I'd suddenly craved spaghetti and meatballs. It's a quintessential fall dish, and for this Italian, something of a comfort food. Who am I kidding. It's the comfort food. But I had no spaghetti and no pork and no beef. I wasn't prepared for this fierce a craving, so I went on making another Italian comfort food, the minestrone I've been making for the past couple of years with chard and plump white beans. Sometimes squash or sweet potato. 

There I was outside, letting my dog sniff the grass and search for pinecones, sorting through the long week, hungry for pasta. When she pulled me back inside (and she has this habit of pulling down the hall only on the way back, like she can't wait to get home) I started smelling something familiar, perfumes of the Italian restaurant I grew up eating at, and very specifically of their minestrone. It was composed of a thin broth with translucent onions and soft carrots gathering at the bottom of the bowl that I used to dip saltine crackers into and tentatively take small sips of from a silver spoon. 

When we arrived at our door, I realized I had been smelling my soup the entire time. Not a neighbor's dinner as I had assumed, but the one I'd put on the stove and poured homemade beef stock over and slipped a Parmesan rind into before slipping outside. I somehow managed to comfort myself that night, in the simplest yet profound way. 

But I still needed the meatballs and two days later, the kitchen filled once again with the scent of tomatoes and garlic and parsley and meat simmering away in a sauce laced with butter and onion. 

And it happened that I read T.S. Eliot's preludes that morning, as delivered from The Poetry Foundation to my inbox. I couldn't deny the timing, and the fierce connection I felt to the poem with its "smell of stems in passageways" and "burnt-out ends of smoky days." If there were ever a perfect meal (and poem) to usher in the new season, I believe I have found it.

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I

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

-T.S. Eliot, from Preludes

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Spaghetti and Meatballs

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg's recipe. (Serves 6)

A few notes.

• Definitely chill the meatballs. They'll be slightly damp beforehand and will need the chilly air to firm up before forming.
• I doubled the recipe, making approximately 22 golfball-sized meatballs, offering plenty to freeze for later.
• I followed her sauce recipe, too, a version I make often, but added a Parmesan rind to the sauce as well. If you have one on hand, slip it in for added depth of flavor.

For the sauce
2 28-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
4 ounces unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1 onion, peeled and halved through root end
3/4 teaspoon salt
Parmesan rind (optional) 

For the meatballs
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup whole milk
8 ounces grass fed ground beef
8 ounces ground pork
1 cup finely ground Parmesan (plus more for serving)
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 plump garlic cloves, grated
2 eggs
1 pound spaghetti

To make the sauce, combine the tomatoes, butter, onion, salt, Parmesan rind (if using), and 1 cup water in a heavy stockpot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with more salt and freshly ground pepper if needed. 

While the sauce bubbles away, start on the meatballs. Combine the breadcrumbs and milk in a small bowl; stir until well combined. Let stand 10 minutes.

Dump the beef and pork into a large bowl. Add the Parmesan, parsley, salt, pepper, and garlic. Whisk the eggs, then pour into the bowl. Use your hands to squeeze milk from the breadcrumbs, then add them to the bowl. This is when the real work starts. Dig your hands into the bowl and quickly and gently mix until all ingredients are evenly combined. Chill for at least 15 minutes. 

Turn the sauce onto low heat. While it warms up, roll clumps of meat into golf ball-sized balls and arrange them in a single layer in the pot. Cover and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl. 

Cook spaghetti in a large pot of salted water until al dente, about 7-8 minutes. Drain, reserving a bit of the cooking liquid. Add spaghetti to the sauce, along with a bit of the reserved water, and stir to coat. Divide pasta among plates and top each serving with meatballs and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.