September Newsletter
The summer of Dante's Inferno!
This summer was brutal. Temperatures are in the 90s and 100s all summer, with a few rainy days. I spent the summer inside. Earthquakes, erupting volcano’s, drought? Dante was from Florence, so I think he must have gone through a similar summer when he wrote the “Inferno- Hell” section of the Divine Comedy.
This week, I have a chef with me, and we are doing R&D for a new Tuscany tour he wants to offer. We have been touring Florence and Chianti. It’s still hot, but with occasional clouds, which help a little.
Tomorrow, I will take him to Bologna. How can you not visit when in Italy? It is an easy day trip from Florence, 48 minutes on the fast train. We are overnighting to go and see the parmigiano-making process. Parmigiano is always made in the morning, so we’ll be up early and then visit Modena. I am looking forward to our little getaway
Preserving the Seasons: In the kitchen, we started foraging figs in the abandoned farmhouses around us. Figs are everywhere. It's hard to imagine eating an entire tree of figs per family; most have more than one tree. Where I live, many people have moved down to the city leaving their gardens, so I never need to buy figs. These lighter figs are closer to our house and nearby is an even larger tree with figs with a darker center, I find them more flavorful.
I made my recipe for preserved figs with lemons, which was sent to those with a paid subscription last week. I also roasted a pan and then used the figs in a tart.
I used the preserved figs and their syrup on my pancakes this morning.
Tonight, I will serve it with gorgonzola cheese for an antipasto. Salami and figs are a common pairing in Tuscany for merenda, a snack.
Celebrate the Vendemmia- Wine Festivals in Chianti
If you are in Tuscany in September, there are several wine festivals going on. It’s a good way to be able to taste a lot of wines and meet the producers.
At most of the festivals now, the local producers are present and you buy a “tasting glass” and tickets to taste.
Impruneta has an actual parade with the floats made with grapes.
September 5-8 Greve in Chianti/ Expo Chianti Classico
September 13-15 Panzano in Chianti/ Festa del Vino al Vino
September 29 Impruneta/ Grape Festival
Pomorola, the simple base tomato sauce, is being made all over Italy now. Personally I am waiting for a certain tomato we call Fiorentina to be ready.
You want a meaty, vine-ripened tomato. Most people use a San Marzano or plum tomato.
Simply cut the tomatoes into large pieces and cook with some basil and salt.
You can add carrot, onion and celery, or simply just onion. Every mamma has her version.
When it totally falls apart, put it through a food mill. Cooking time depends on how ripe the tomatoes are. Then use a food mill to remove the skin and seeds.
You can place in jars and sterlize to keep in your pantry or fill ziplock bags and freeze.
Here is a blog post I had written:
A sure sign summer has arrived is the appearance of sun-ripened tomatoes to make Pomarola, simple tomato sauce. To celebrate, yesterday I picked up my first kilo of Fiorentini, a local heirloom tomato for sauce.
The best flavor and consistency for sauce comes from these kind of tomatoes. One does not make sauce from salad tomatoes, as they contain too many seeds and too much water. The best tomatoes have a higher ratio of tomato to seeds. The San Marzano from Naples is the tomato used mostly for sauce and for canned tomatoes in Italy. Roma is a good tomato as well.
At the end of summer, when the tomatoes are the cheapest, families will by hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and put up sauce for the rest of the year. They recycle all sizes of bottles. This is from down in Naples area when I attended a tomato party.
If you don’t have a great tomato to make sauce, use canned tomatoes from Italy; (not “Italian-style”) as they are picked in season and canned when at their peak.
Pomorola- Simple Tomato Sauce
Wash the tomatoes and remove the stems.
Crush with your hands into a sauce-pot.
Add some torn basil leaves and sea salt.
Cover and let cook.
The sauce is cooked when the liquids are released from the tomatoes and the skins are falling off.
Place all the contents into a food mill ( passatutto) and puree.
(Do not use a food processor, as it chops the skin and seeds up into the sauce.)
The foodmill separates the pulp of the tomato from the skin and seeds.
You will be surprised at how much comes out. Keep pureeing until all that is left are rolled up skins.
To use as pasta sauce:
If the sauce is watery, boil until the excess water has evaporated.
Add a tablespoon of butter to the sauce and tear some additional basil leaves in, one or two.
Cook pasta in salted water, drain well and return the pasta to the pan.
Add tomato sauce to the pasta and let cook together, the pasta will absorb the sauce, giving it more flavor.
Serve hot, topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Summer in your mouth!
This sauce can be frozen in small batches or bottled to keep summer all year long!
Video lesson below for paid subscribers.