NY Girl Eats World

Venice or Here

There are a handful of places that move with me no matter where I am in the world. Their memories, however brightened by my own imagination, are as sharp and sensual as their actual experience. I have so internalized these places that they are as much a part of me as any other part of my being. 

One of these is in New York City: a six-acre three-block stretch of leafy pathways, vine-webbed arbors and fountains tucked well uptown, at the western fringes of Spanish Harlem. It's all guarded by a high wrought-iron gate, whose bars end like spears — the tips of those nearest the garden's entry painted gold.

This is the Conservatory Garden, Central Park's only formal garden, which nevertheless heaves and breathes with wild abandon. The gates are those that used to stand in front of the Vanderbilt mansion (now the site of the Bergdorf-Goodman department store).

I have visited the garden in all seasons: when 20,000 tulips break winter's doldrums, and the crabapple trees are a riot of pink; and in the frozen denuding season when the evening sunlight filters through dry wispy reeds turning them into delicate filigree. In the summer, when I am home, I visit the garden almost daily.

I never grow tired of it. I never get bored. Just today, I happened upon a faded plaque screwed into the wooden slat of a bench. This sort of thing is not uncommon: many benches in the garden have dedication plaques to people, now passed, who used to come here as often I do.

But this plaque was different. The person who commissioned it had no interest in immortalizing himself or anyone else. It read:

VENICE OR HERE.

I sat down next to the inscription to take in the view that had inspired it. At this late afternoon hour, a great arching tree with a tangle of limbs was bathed in sunlight from the west. Two bronze children -- a boy tickling a flute, and a girl with a bird on her arm -- had their backs to me. Beneath the frilly hems of dried hedges were white clumps of remaining snow.

I knew this view. I knew it in the summer, the spring and the fall too — when the now dry pool is filled with water and a carbon copy of the patinated children quivers across its surface.

Yes: give me the shadowy streets of Venice, its crumbling palazzi and pink sunsets. Or, please, leave me right here.

One Love

If your mother ever told you that you’d meet The One as soon as you stopped looking for him, she was right. It happened to me.

I was in a small grocery store on the Amalfi Coast at the end of a hot and sticky June. I had my nose in a refrigerated case where there were hunks of cheese, containers of yogurt and bottles of milk.

“What do you need?” a man’s voice asked with a syrupy, seductive Italian accent. I’d noticed him when I walked in: thick black hair, radiant blue eyes, a muscular frame and a naughty smile.

Parmigiano, I told him, without looking away.

I heard the man leave his post from behind the cash register, then his light breathing as he peered down over my left shoulder. “Here,” he said gently, choosing a wedge of white cheese and putting it in my hand. “This will work.”

That’s how I met my One: the one and only cheese I could never part with. Grana Padano, I take you, to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

To understand the significance of this declaration you have to understand that I love cheese. I mean: I. Love. Cheese. Bring me to a cheese shop and put me in front of the display case, I will be happy to stand there with my nose pressed against the glass, reading the descriptions of origin and taste, imagining what a piece of each might taste like as it melted into creaminess on my tongue. With an imagination like mine, this is nearly as pleasurable as the act of eating.

Yet, if it came down to it, and I could afford to have only one cheese in my refrigerator, I would give up my triple cream, my goat cheese and, sigh, my artisan reserve manchego for the humble Grana Padano.

It’s true; Grana may not know how to tango or how to play a Chopin concerto. But it’s satisfying, dependable and comforting. It will never let you down. After all, let's be real: Even though we all fantasize about being with a mysterious, spontaneous romantic One, the One we end up with for life is usually a sturdy Grana Padano.

Grana has the dry, hard flaky texture of really good Parmigiano-Reggiano but with a lower tone of sweetness. Grana’s taste is a little earthier, a little nuttier. With each bite you are reminded that this food is made from the milk of grass-grazing cows. It yields to the teeth with several crystalline pops and then dissolves into a creamy, slightly tangy, coating on the tongue.

Grana Padano is a staple in many Italian homes. It was created by 12th-century monks living on the Paduan Plain, a wild stretch of the Po Valley in Lower Lombardy that they tilled and tamed. Today its production is controlled and protected. So when you go to purchase the cheese look for stickers that say “Denominazione di Origine Protetta” (Protected Des- ignation of Origin, D.O.P.) or “Indicazione Geografica Protetta” (Protected Geo- graphical Indication, I.G.P), which authenticate its production.

Grana Padano is a good substitute – often, I think, a better substitute – for Parmigiano. It can be grated over pasta and into soups and sauces. But my favorite way to eat it is as a simple snack with sweet slices of juicy pear. I also use the combination in my go-to appetizer for every occasion: slices of Grana melted over a thin crostini and topped with roasted pears and a heavy sprinkling of freshly ground pepper. It’s sophisticated simplicity.

My source for Grana Padano Stravecchio (meaning Grana that has aged 15-20 months) is Tutto Italiano, a Citarella outpost in East Hampton. The first time I visited the shop I found myself once again with my nose in a refrigerator case. This time Pasquale, a native Neapolitan, came to assist me. I showed him a wedge of Grana and told him I had found what I was looking for. His eyes lit up and he pulled me over to the fresh fruit aisle.

“I have all these people who come in and ask me what they can do with this,” he said, holding my wedge of cheese. “I tell them all you need is a few pears and a bottle of wine.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell Pasquale that I’d already discovered this perfect pairing. His passion for Grana Padano was a mirror to my own, and I let him gush until his heart was content.

Crostini with Grana Padano and Roasted Pears

Makes approx. 24 appetizers.

• 1 loaf of French bread or the equivalent
• 2 large Anjou pears, skins peeled
• 1 wedge of Grana Padano
• freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Slice each pear vertically against the core into four large pieces. Slice each piece vertically again, this time into quarter-inch slices. Place the slices in a single layer on a greased baking sheet and roast until soft and the bottoms are caramelized, about 15 minutes. Do not move them while they roast to ensure that they caramelize properly.

Meanwhile, cut the bread into 24 quarter-inch slices and lay them on another baking sheet. Then cut enough thin slices of Grana Padano to cover the surface of each crostini.

When the pears are done, cool them enough to handle. Assemble the crostini by topping each slice of bread first with cheese and then two pears in an X pattern. Broil the crostini on low until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Serve them immediately with a generous grinding of fresh pepper.

Blood Orange Sunset Over Sicily

For many days I had the pleasure of watching dramatic sunsets over Sicily from across the Strait of Messina: brick red bleeding into rust melting into tangerine with flecks of pink fading into old fashioned vanilla.

That was nearly a year ago, and I haven’t thought much about them lately. That is, until yesterday, when I pulled a knife through the globe of an orange, split it open and there it was: one of those stunning Sicilian sunsets.

I had purchased the orange – nearly a dozen of them – from the independent grocery store up the corner from my house. The produce bins are always laden with spiny fruits and riotous-colored vegetables that the Latino customers seem so sure about and which leave me gaping. This is the most beautiful thing I have every seen; it must taste good. This is a regular thought of mine.

Inexplicably placed near the onions, a gang of blood oranges beckoned me, winked at me, showed off their rouged, lacquered skin. Upon close inspection they were pretty puny – each one could fit in the palm of my hand and my hands are pretty small. Many were badly bruised and soft. But I found some resilient ones with lovely maroon dapples and firm-feeling flesh.

Satisfied with my loot, I headed toward the cash register when a sign stopped me in my tracks. Backing up, I read, “Sicilian blood oranges.” Wait a minute. Beneath the sign I found a pile of very regular looking oranges, except that their skin was a deep, rich orange instead of that indecisive yellowish orange that navel oranges sometimes have. Why didn’t they look like the blood oranges I was carrying in a plastic bag? Were they mistakenly identified? For curiosity’s sake, I took two of these and continued toward the register.

Back in my kitchen I poured the oranges into a bowl. The reddish ones had stickers on them: Moro Sunkist 4381. The larger, orange-skinned so-called Sicilian variety didn’t have stickers. It was time to settle this. I took one of each and sliced them down the middle.

Swept Away

The moro made my heart melt in my chest. It's interior was the painted western sky on a warm evening in Reggio di Calabria, a salty breeze sweeping in off the strait, unsettling skirts as women walked with their lovers and their loved ones for a passegiatta on the promenade. The heavy sun settling back behind Sicilia’s chunk of jagged hills and sloping cities, less than three miles across the cobalt water.

But this was a California orange.

The Sicilian orange did not have the same effect on me. Its prismatic flesh was predominantly orange with only a ring of bleeding around the outer circumference. I was disappointed.

But then it was time for a taste, and the Sicilian variety redeemed itself with elegance. Its flesh was superior in sweetness to the moro. It was juicier, too. If I wanted to eat a blood orange by itself, this was the one I wanted.

I had loftier intentions, though, and as it turned out the combination of these two varieties was exactly what I needed. I had in mind to make a salad similar to one typical to Sicily. Italians, including Sicilians, generally don’t add fruit to their salads, except citrus, and Sicilians take smart advantage of the citrus groves that swath the island’s rugged countryside.

There are so many variations to a Sicilian orange salad that I’m not sure which recipe is authentic. Some combine the fruit with fennel and olives, green onion or mint. I suspect it varies from household to household and the ingredients available. Such is the beauty of Italian cuisine (if there is such a thing; Italy’s cuisine is, of course, so regional.)

I decided to create my own variation, combining blood orange segments with basil for a note of licorice, with red onions for their color, crunch and sweetness, and with crumbles of grainy ricotta salata, a sheep’s milk cheese made from pressed and dried curd, which adds a pleasant saltiness to the salad as olives would have but also another layer of texture. I dressed it with a sprinkling of flavorful extra virgin olive oil.

This salad is full of color and contrast, just as Sicily is itself. When you go, you will find gritty, congested cities like the port town of Messina and fairytale hilltop towns like glamorous Taormina. There will be a hodgepodge of architecture from Arab-Norman cathedrals to Grecian temple ruins. Its people will show you hospitality and reticence, but you will find beauty in it all. Especially if you pause to watch a sunset.

Sicilian-inspired Blood Orange Salad

4 California moro blood oranges
4 Sicilian blood oranges
1/4 of a whole red onion
8 basil leaves
4 oz. ricotta salata
extra virgin olive oil

serves 4 for a light first course

Peel and slice each orange into approximately eight wedges. Slice the onion as paper thin as you can make it. Taking a few basil leaves at a time, roll them tightly around each other cigar-style. Slice them widthwise into a chiffonade. Crumble the ricotta salata between your fingers. Arrange the ingredients together on each plate and drizzle with olive oil just before serving.

OR

Turn the salad into a canapé. With each wedge, cut the pulp from the rind and place the pulp back on the skin, slightly off center so the eater will know its already detached. Sprinkle with a few pieces of basil and onion and few ricotta salata crumbles and drizzle with olive oil.

No Stilettos. No Champagne.

Champagne is such a formal drink. We drink it to celebrate all the most important occasions, when we’re dressed in our most uncomfortable outfits – men in suffocating tuxedoes, women in toe-breaking stilettos. After the toast, we usually leave half of it in the glass, because, let’s be real, if we really liked champagne, we’d drink it as often as we drink wine.

Instead of champagne, I prefer Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine that doesn’t take itself so seriously. While champagne and Prosecco are both sparkling wines, do not dare call Prosecco a champagne. A French waiter with a handlebar moustache will rap your wrists and tell you through snarling lips that champagne is sparkling wine produced only in the Champagne region of France and by a particular method. Prosecco, on the other hand, is a white-wine grape grown in the Veneto region of Italy (yes, near Venice).

To be fair, most of the champagne we hate is the cheap kind. The really expensive  stuff is something else. Still, I can get a really fantastic bottle of red wine for under $10 and a fine bottle of Prosecco for around $12. So what’s your excuse, champagne?

Prosecco is giggly, light and crisp. The taste often suggests apples and the color is usually compared to straw. The best are made principally with the Prosecco grape and come from the DOC of Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene (referring to a town and district, respectively, within the Veneto). The ultimate are labeled "Superiore de Cartizze," which means it comes from the Cartizze zone within Conegliano, an area of steep hills which produces the best Prosecco grapes.

Prosecco goes beautifully with fruit. The most famous Prosecco cocktail, the Bellini, is dressed up with peach nectar – a ray of golden sunset, liquefied. But most any fruit can accompany the drink successfully. Forget champagne and strawberries. Prosecco is the lover strawberry wants to run away with.

I married the two for the first time in Maratea, a seaside town south of Naples on the west coast of Italy. It sits on the only sliver of coastline that belongs to the Basilicata province, pinched in between Campania at the north and Calabria at the south. It remains a well kept secret, attracting mostly Italians and some British tourists. It’s a little rougher round the edges than the posh Amalfi Coast. You go to Maratea to be hidden rather than be seen.

I was staying in a top-floor room at the four-star Grand Hotel Pianetamaratea, with a balcony that not only overlooked the Tyrrhenian Sea but also the summit of Monte San Biagio, where an impressive statue called "Christ the Redeemer" stands 72 feet high.

Unlike the one in Rio de Janeiro, which looks out over the harbor and assumes the position of the cross, the Maratea Christ, made of concrete and sheathed in white marble, looks inland and holds its arms and palms skyward, as if to beseech the Father. From afar, it appears an opposing, almost austere, statue. But when I stood at its feet, the soft expression of the bearded face looking down at me, I felt overwhelming peace.

I was in Maratea attending a conference. My roommate, Gloria, and I had just spoken to a conference room full of Italians. She had been the smarter one. She used an interpreter. I had attempted my short speech in Italian, a language I never studied. I wound up referring to the pope as a woman. That’s right – blaspheming the pope in front of a room full of Italians. Perfect.

Incidentally, it's il papa, not la papa.

Afterwards, Gloria and I were of equal mind: We needed a bottle of bubbly to scrub the embarrassment from my mind and to celebrate an otherwise successful conference. Prosecco was what we wanted – a drink to giggle with us.

We went to the bar on the outdoor terrace, but the tender sent us to the banquet hall inside the hotel. We found a group of waiters there hanging out in a corner as they readied the silverware for dinner service. In our broken Italian – which had already proved so effective – we shyly asked to purchase a bottle. One of the waiters understood right away. He arched an eyebrow and flashed us a smile that was as approving as it was naughty. We even managed to score a pair of glass flutes.

Back in the sanctuary of our room, we slid open the glass doors to our balcony, where the sinking sun cast its warmth. Instead of chocolates on our pillows, the Grand Hotel had left us a container of whole strawberries – as though they had anticipated our every move. We ate the fat, sweet berries with our effervescent drink perched on the top of the world, watching clouds billow in from the sea, embrace the Redeemer and move on.

This was my kind of celebration. No stilettos. No champagne.

Worldly Though Humble

In my quest to find foods that exemplify the uniqueness of a region, there is one ingredient that works as a nexus in my memories, reminding me of many different places, including my own home. This is the chestnut.

Harvested in the fall and usually available in supermarkets through the winter, chestnuts were always part of my mother’s holiday feasts from Thanksgiving through New Years. Never incorporated into the meal, they always stood alone as a special snack after dinner and before dessert.

She slid the pan of scarred nuts into the oven to roast during the latter half of the main course. Sometimes we forgot about them and they burned, which was a horrible tease. If they didn’t, she set the pan between me and my father, because no one else seemed to care for them. My belly already swollen with turkey and stuffing, or fresh ham and candied yams, I was rarely hungry for the chestnuts. But their toasted-honey aroma seduced me and I ate them purely for taste pleasure.

Squeezing each chestnut on its rounded sides at its fattest point, the shell would pop open and split down the sides. After a quick examination for green mold, which is often prevalent in store-bought nuts, I peeled off any brown, fuzzy skin that didn’t pull away with the shell. Finally, I had it: the tender crinkled meat, starchy and sweet, still warm on my fingertips.

On a mild evening in January, five years ago, I was walking through Madrid, weaving through the tide of people who had taken to the streets for the daily passegiata. I left the long shadow of the royal palace at Plaza de Oriente and moved toward Plaza de Espana, where a statue of Don Quijote holds court. Drawing near I caught the warm, smoky scent of something vaguely familiar. I found the source at the corner of La Calle Gran Via, where a chestnut vendor scooped mahogany-colored nuggets from a hot sooty pan into paper cones.

At the time I was surprised to see a chestnut vendor; I never thought the nuts to be a very Spanish ingredient. And they’re not, really. Chestnuts are a kind of transcendent food, having a place in cuisine across the world and yet not particularly necessary to any of it. The winter landscape of the western world’s great cities – New York, London, Paris, Madrid – invariably includes the roasted chestnut vendor. But the chestnut isn’t just a seasonal street snack and there are more ways to cook them than over dry heat.

Throughout the ages and the world, dried and pulverized chestnuts have been used as flour. Chestnuts were part of daily sustenance, even in the United States, where American chestnut trees once filled the Appalachian forests. Then the chestnut blight hit in 1904, introduced by imported Asiatic chestnut trees. Even today the American chestnut tree continues to suffer and most of the chestnuts available in markets come from Europe, where the trees continue to thrive and their nuts are used in creative ways.

In a Parisian creperie, I found crèpe aux châtaignes on the menu among various fruit and chocolate fillings. The large, delicate round crepe was filled with luscious chestnut cream, sweet and rich, perhaps made from pureed chestnuts and heavy cream. With my crepe folded into a triangle and wrapped in paper, I ate it on the go. Now my memories of sitting near a pool in the Jardin des Tuileries and disturbing the gargoyles pouting on top of Notre Dame stir in me an urge to eat chestnut cream.

In Avellino, Italy, I drove with friends to Montevirgine, a monastery perched atop a steep mountain above the mist. Pilgrims have long made the perilous climb on foot to leave their prayer requests for the sick and the dead – a crayon picture of an automotive accident with bodies strewn across the street, a photograph of a gaunt man in a hospital bed, a woman’s pink glove, all pinned to an interior wall outside the sanctuary.

On our way, the driver, Mauro, made an unexpected stop to purchase castagne del prete, priests’ chestnuts, which were boiled in a liquid that left them particularly smoky and sweet and very delicious. We munched on them as we continued up the slippery mountain roads, which were cloaked with leaves wet from a recent spring thaw. Our vehicle began to slide, but instead of heading two feet toward the edge, where the mountain dropped away, we slid two feet inward and bumped into a rock wall. It was a soft crash that left the vehicle a little scrunched but still functioning. Better yet, we were still alive and on the mountain. Perhaps the prayers of the priests came with those chestnuts.

Back home in the States, I’ve been thinking of ways to incorporate chestnuts into my cooking. Early this past December, chestnuts came to mind when a bachelor friend asked if I would help him pick out a Christmas tree for his new home. When we got the tall, fat evergreen into place – near the fireplace, in front of the picture window – and we had worked up a good appetite, we opened a bottle of wine and I put two dozen chestnuts into the oven. When the smell of the roasting meat began to swirl through the house, a dense, mellow note beneath the high-pitch evergreen, I went to the oven door to check on the chestnuts.

The oven was too dark to tell if the chestnuts were charring, so I pulled the pan out and rested it on the stovetop. My friend came into the kitchen behind me and peered down over my shoulder, a nearly empty wine glass in hand. “I think they’re done,” I began to say when – POP! – a chestnut exploded from the drastic temperature change. I started and sprang back into my friend, who dropped his wine glass, which shattered and skated across the hardwood floor.

There was chestnut everywhere. My shirt was covered in sticky golden bits, my arm, the kitchen cabinets, the microwave, and the counter too. A little stream of red wine dripped down the front of the white dishwasher door, the only thing left bleeding from the attack.

After we recovered from a fit of laughter, we cleaned the kitchen, (I changed my shirt,) and I peeled the remainder of the obedient chestnuts. Long fusilli with chestnuts and sherry was thereafter born.

LONG FUSILLI WITH CHESTNUTS AND SHERRY

3/4 lb. long fusilli or other pasta

5 thin slices of prosciutto, cut into inch-wide strips

1 onion, sliced

15 chestnuts

½ cup chopped sage

1 cup chicken broth

½ cup sherry

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut an X into each chestnut and place in single layer on a baking sheet. Roast in oven approximately 15-20 minutes. Let cool slightly before taking out of oven, lest you risk explosion. When cool, de-shell, chop the meat and reserve.

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil and add fusilli. Cook until al dente and drain.

Meanwhile, set large sauté pan over medium high heat and coat with olive oil. Add prosciutto and when fat begins to render add onion. When onions begin to turn translucent, add sage. Deglaze with sherry, scraping up carmelized bits. Add chestnuts and saute until sherry reduces. Add chicken broth. When all the ingredients are well incorporated, turn heat to medium low.

As soon as the pasta is drained, add it to the saute pan, preferably when the pasta is still hot so it can absorb the flavors of the sauce. Mix and toss, then add the butter and combine as it melts. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Momentary Strangers

With overnight bags packed for two short days, we took a bus inland from Naples toward Avellino. The landscape turned from gray to green as we headed out of the city and into the mountains. We didn’t know what to expect from Avellino or who would meet us there, but this had become a familiar scenario.

As members of a five-person team sponsored by Rotary International, we were in Italy to "study" our professions and acquaint ourselves with Italian culture. When we signed up for the “Group Study Exchange” we knew we’d be traveling over 300 miles in 30 days, living in various homes and hotels, and wearing out our shoes. But we didn’t realize that we’d be handed off from one host to the next without a personal introduction.

We learned fast.

In Avellino we disembarked at a bus depot that was little more than a parking lot. As the people who looked like they belonged there began to peel away, we noticed a motley group of young men standing near a compact sport utility vehicle spattered with mud.

One was brawny, clothed in earthen tones and shod in boots. His dark hair was cropped short and he had a smoldering cigar pinched between his lips, which were framed by a thick moustache and well-trimmed goatee. A slighter man stood next to him with black wavy hair, dark sunglasses and a torso-hugging shirt. There were two or three others with them.

In one of those terribly awkward moments of doubtful recognition our groups approached each other and made contact. We realized they didn’t speak much English and we struggled with introductions. Mauro, the Cuban warlord, opened the back of his truck, shoved aside a camouflaged blanket and reached out for our bags.

“Oh Lord, we’re going to die,” one of my teammates whispered to me. “We’re going to get into that truck and disappear forever.”

Mauro introduced the guy behind the shades as Giulio, “the man all the ladies love.” That was all I needed to hear. I decided Giulio would get as little attention from me as was politely possible.

Two more cars arrived, including a beautiful twilight blue Alfa Romeo. A smiling figure emerged from the driver’s seat wearing a lime-green sweater over a white-collared shirt. He immediately started chanting, fists pumping,   “U-S-A! U-S-A!” This was Tranquillino, a hotshot young lawyer with a mag-netic personality. He had been part of the Italian exchange group that visited New York the year before, and though his name suggested a person of, well, tranquil demeanor, he turned out to be the ice breaker we all needed.

“I am Tranquillino,” he announced loudly and playfully. “International lawyer! Top manager! Great gentleman!”

With him was the elegant Gael, who, with her bombshell body and enviable poise, made women want to be her and men want to be with her. (Sorry, guys, she's not pictured.) Also, Gianluca, an athletic, well-traveled, genuine man whose kindness and gentlemanly manners stole our female hearts even before we learned that his family was in wine and pearls. Both he and Gael spoke English very well.

Over the next two days we would form friendships with this unlikely group that would endure distance and time. Moreover, we would learn that Avellino is a special town that has managed to exist beneath the American vacationer’s radar, overshadowed by surrounding destinations such as Pompeii, Paestum, Salerno and the Amalfi Coast, to name a few.

You won’t find flip-flopped tourists here. No flocks of pale-skinned people wearing matching ball caps following a guide with a pink umbrella. Instead, you’ll discover tile-roofed villages clustered in undulat-ing valleys, verdant mountains veiled in steel-blue mist, purple wildflower fields and ancient chestnut groves, and vineyards producing first-rate wines including Fiano di Avellino, Taurasi and, one of my favorites, Greco di Tufo (which I will write about soon).

Though Avellino suffered earthquakes and World War II bombardments, it remains rich in historical evidence – there are churches and castles and intriguing ruins – but it’s not for the nose-in-a-guidebook tourist. You come to Avellino to discover it by yourself. Or, if you’re lucky, you might make some friends who can show you around.

The unique group of people who took us under their wings shared every waking hour with us, drove us to mountaintop monasteries and crashed their cars in this pursuit (yet another story that will be told). They exceeded our expectations.

Mauro, an Italian special forces soldier, revealed himself to be a loving teddy bear of a man. Our first night in Avellino he invited us for a midnight meal that included meat he grilled over open flames in a brick hearth. We lingered long around his banquet table, finishing the night with glasses of rum mixed with pear nectar.

Giulio, yes, he was a ladies’ man, but he was so much deeper than that. He had a tender soul that he couldn’t hide under his suave exterior. He brought us home to stay with his family. He took me to have one of the most delicious cups of espresso I have ever tasted. A “vecchia Napoli,” he ordered, or “old Naples." The liquid I sipped was thick and seductive with suggestions of chocolate and hazelnut.

Gael and her parents opened their lovely apartment for a farewell party. A culinary goddess, Gael spent the entire day preparing a feast of regional specialties, including drying strips of eggplant on her balcony for parmigiana di melanzane. We ate until our stomachs were swollen, then we pushed back the chairs and danced. I hoped that if we all kept the party up no one would notice that we'd have to leave sweet Avellino in a few hours' time. Maybe if we missed our bus, I dont know. Maybe...

For the first time on our journey, someone escorted us to our next destination. Tranquillino road the bus back to Naples with us, where we were scheduled to catch the ferry to Capri. We said our goodbyes at the port. He had to leave to see a client. As he walked away I caught him looking back -- once, twice, three times. I suppose I was doing the same.

Holy Bread Is All the Rage

I thought when I left Italy I’d escaped him.

He had followed me from Calabria to Campania, his bushy eyebrows arched in a kind of meditative scowl, his arms often outstretched. He favored the element of surprise, showing up in unexpected places at unexpected times. I thought I was safe from his presence with an entire ocean in between us. But this was no ordinary stalker.

Two weeks ago his name was mentioned on a train departing Penn Station. Again, an unexpected place. My friend, Jeff, had received an unusual gift – a small container of dough from a Sicilian chef he knew. Jeff called it “friendship bread” at first and described a ten-day process of tending and adding to the dough. On the tenth day he would have to split it into four equal portions, bake one into bread and give the other portions to three good friends.

“I don’t know who to give it to,” Jeff said. “Who wants to bake bread?”

“Just throw it out,” I suggested with a flippant wave.

“Then what do I tell Robert? I can’t lie to him.”

“Alright, then give all three to me. I’ll take care of them.”

“But he’s going to ask me,” Jeff insisted. “Jeffa, who dida you giva da breada of-a Padre Pio to?”

“The what?”

I sat straight up and put a hand on his knee.

“Did you say Padre Pio?” I stammered.

The Italian priest had followed me home! It wasn’t possible. Jeff wasn’t Catholic – how did he know Padre Pio? I ducked, scrunched my shoulders down, then peered over the back of the blue vinyl seat. Was he on the train?

Naturally concerned by my behavior, Jeff beckoned an explanation. I was reluctant – the way the saint had floated in and out of my life for the past year was more strange than coincidental. But I had acquired a degree of affection for him.

I met Padre Pio in the bedroom of my 73-year-old cousin Angela’s house in Reggio di Calabria. Her house is known around the city as one of the loveliest – it has five stories and an elevator to bring you through them – and she enjoys giving tours to new guests.

I was on my second tour but it was my friend Kim’s first. Angela led us over to the little television in her bedroom on top of which sat a framed wedding photo and a smaller portrait of a man I’d never seen with a beard and bushy eyebrows. She gingerly picked up the latter and held it up to my face so I could get a better look. But she was holding it too close and I stepped back. She said something in dialect and came at me again. I took another step back.

I didn’t understand. I thought that maybe because she was elderly she couldn’t see the picture and that she had forgotten my younger eyes were healthier. “Bacilo!” she then urged. Even in the moment that I realized she wanted me to kiss the picture I still staggered backwards one more step. Finally I regrouped and did as I was told.

Then it was Kim’s turn. Angela did the same perfor-mance and Kim tried to talk her way out of it. “Oh, oh,” she said, grinning and nodding. “Nice, yes.”

“Kiss it, Kim!” I mumbled urgently. “Kiss it!”

It may be apparent by now that I am not Catholic. I am a devoted Christian, but I don’t know anything about Catholic tradition. I went to one of the largest Catholic universities in the U.S. and had a Jesuit professor (though I dropped his class after two weeks), yet when I walk into a Catholic church I am seized with anxiety, petrified I will cross myself backwards and put a hex on everyone. Clearly the Padre Pio incident was not an example of culture clash. I’d have faltered the same way stateside.

Kim and I laughed for days at my misstep. Angela didn't quit, though, and she encouraged me to watch the daily televised mass at Padre Pio's cathedral. Once she even led me to a recliner and turned the program on. I had no choice.

I left Reggio and went to Praiano, where I’d rented a villa. The landlord was generously showing me maps of the area on my first day and I asked her where I could find the nearest grocery store. She dragged her finger along a roadway and said in Italian, “It’s just past the Padre Pio statue.” After two months in Italy my comprehension was quite good, but I doubted myself. Or maybe I hoped I’d heard wrong. But I hadn’t.

So Padre Pio was there again, arms outstretched toward the sea, one hand filled with tokens and gifts left by people who obviously knew more about the saint than I did. I passed him every morning on my way to and from the market. I made peace with him then and we became friends. I saluted him each day in the same manner: a nod and a respectful “padre.”

Back in the States, he had returned to me. Soon I calmed down and decided to embrace what I obviously could not control. I helped Jeff bake “The Holy Bread of Padre Pio” on the tenth day. He pulled the bowl of fermenting dough from his fridge and I took off the plastic wrap. The surface was cratered with bubbles and smelled of yeast. We portioned it out and then added sugar, eggs, oil and baking powder. Forty minutes into the oven and a beautifully golden loaf was produced. I cut a slice and sampled it. It was pretty terrible. It had the consistency of cake, rather than bread, and tasted like sugar and yeast.

I’ve scoured the internet looking up Padre Pio’s bread and I discovered the dough was a very popular gift this Christmas. Those who respect the friendship bread tradition insisted the bread was worth the ten days’ effort for what it symbolizes, not necessarily how it tastes.

There is a "Padre Pio prayer" that comes with the dough and you're supposed to say it while you're preparing the bread. In it you ask God, through the saint's intercession, for something you "ardently desire." I thought of praying for Pio to relent. Instead, I told God I "ardently desired" to remain in good health -- despite eating cloying cake made from dough of an unknown age.

Beautiful Imperfections

            A well-traveled friend once wrote to me that a place often reveals its true character in the rain. The first time I visited Naples, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and after just two days I was back on a train, fleeing the city horrified and fearing for my life. Fortunately, when I returned to Naples six years later, it began to rain.

           Night fell and the gritty face I remembered turned luminous. The rain glazed the stone-paved piazzas and reflected the light from wrought iron street lamps. Stucco walls that were drab in the daylight soaked in the rain and turned brilliant colors: pomegranate, marigold and charcoal gray. The men who leaned their backs against buildings and tracked women with their eyes were gone – somewhere, hiding from the truth – and the hawkers and panhandlers had disappeared, too.

           I was with friends this time: four other Americans, an expat and a British woman, Barbara, who had married a Neapolitan and was raising her family in the city. Barbara retrieved us from our hotel near Castel dell' Ovo, a part of the city that is always lovely, and we followed her deeper into the darkness, up a stone staircase to the “Pallonetto Santa Lucia” district. We Americans knew no better and we worried only about dodging puddles and scooters as we scurried beneath umbrellas and naked clothes lines strung across the narrow cobblestone alleys.

 Later Barbara would say she probably shouldn’t have taken us to that neighborhood, “a haven for contrabandieri, inhabited by a lot of shady and seedy folk.” But we were going to her favorite pizzeria, Pavia, and though Barbara wasn’t Neapolitan by birth, she was a Neapolitan in spirit. And Neapolitans are serious about their pizza.

           Napoli is known as the birthplace of pizza, which bares little resemblance, by the way, to the 16-inch, New York-style pies most Americans know. Pizzas are individual-sized (though a half of one is more than sufficient for this NY girl) and they are cooked in wood-burning ovens that achieve a nicely charred yet chewy outer crust. From my seat at Pavia, a humble little cove of a pizzeria, I could see the thick orange flames swaying lethargically at the back of the oven. One man assembled the pizza while three or four assistants buzzed around him and watched the oven. The pizza maker moved quickly, shaping the dough with an authority that wasn’t pushy and dispensing the olive oil with a twirl of his arm from a traditional long-spouted, metal can.

          Many people believe what defines a pizza is its crust, and if you are a thin extra-crispy disciple, then Neapolitan pizza may disappoint. I believe, however, that the cheese defines the pizza and Neapolitans do it right. They use bufala mozzarella. At first glance, a large ball of buffalo mozzarella looks like the stuff we call “fresh mozzarella.” But it’s not. Buffalo mozzarella is made from, yes, the milk from water buffalo, which were brought to Italy from Asia by the Goths in the early medieval period. It has a creamier consistency, falls apart in your fingers and melts on your tongue. It is delicate and imperfect and hard to cut in clean slices. If left alone for only a few seconds, it begins to bleed its milky interior.

 As I left Pavia that first night back in Naples, I stepped into the wet streets with a full belly and sawdust stuck to my shoes. The rain had lightened and I felt that this visit would be different. That I could learn to love Naples even in the sunlight. Because sometimes the things we find most special are the ones that have won our love despite their imperfections.

            You’ve never tasted mozzarella until you’ve tasted mozzarella di bufala. It may take some searching – try gourmet markets like Citarella in New York (interestingly Citarella is the name of a famous bufala mozzarella-making family) – but it is a true revelation. I still have dreams of Neapolitan pizza pomodorini, a simple white pizza topped with bufala mozzarella, sliced Vesuvius cherry tomato and small leaves of fresh basil that have sizzled in the hot oil that pools in the center of the pizza. To ease my cravings I make my own pizza pomodorini in a 450-degree oven with fresh pizza dough I purchase from a local pizzeria (a slice is pictured above). Make sure to drain the bufala mozzarella well before topping the pizza or you will have a soft underbelly crust.

             And when you're in Naples, if you don't feel like venturing into suspicious neighborhoods, Pizzeria Brandi is a good alternative. Because it claims to have invented the "pizza Margherita" -- representing the colors of the then young unified country and named in honor of Queen Margherita -- Brandi is a tourist attraction. Nevertheless, the attractive restaurant, located in the vicinity of the palace and near the commercial heart of the city, also serves some of the best pizza I ate in southern Italy.

 

Under a Lemon Sun

I hauled a plastic shopping bag with a large wheel of pecorino cheese, a jar of homemade pear jam and two grapefruit-sized lemons from Reggio di Calabria, a coastal city at the toenail of Italy’s foot, to Praiano, a quiet, vertical village on the famed Amalfi Coast. My elderly cousin Angela – a generous, smothering grandmother-type – had packed the bag for me, and I suppose she thought the lemons from her parcel of farmland were far superior to their more celebrated cousins, limone Costa d’Amalfi. Otherwise, I don’t know why she would have sent me with lemons to the lemon capital of Italy.Lemon2

Known locally as Sfusato Amalfitano, Amalfi lemons have been designated protected produce by the European Union and their production is under strict control. Amalfi limone are known for their football shape and you can buy them in clusters at roadside stands or from wooden crates in front of alimentary shops. All along the coast, the sunny, dimpled fruit hang heavily from terraced groves that color the gray cliffs green.

But I didn’t have to spend a euro on lemons. Aside from the two Angela gifted me, I had a tree full of lemons in the courtyard right outside the little stone villa I rented for a week. I squeezed their pale golden nectar over fresh seafood salad with scungilli and plates of linguine con le vongole. I mixed it with sugar and ice for a glass of liquid summer.

But better than all this was its marriage to spaghetti in a dish I called, simply, lemon pasta. I had been conceiving the divine dish in my head for quite a while, but it was the lemons that I pulled from the tree with my own hand that inspired the dish to fruition. Since Praiano I have tweaked it, adding, for instance, toasted pignoli nuts, which I didn’t have on hand in my little kitchen perched above the Thyrrenian Sea.

For a light meal amid the weightiness of winter stews, to remember the tingle of summer sun across your paling skin, make a batch of lemon pasta and laugh at winter. Most importantly, it’s a no-nonsense one-pot meal you make to suit your own tastes.

[Note: For more on my little villa in Praiano, check out my forthcoming article in The Washington Post travel section this spring. I'll let you know when.]

LEMON PASTA           

• 1 box of spaghetti
• ½ cup good quality olive oil (plus a little extra virgin for final drizzling)
• 2-3 fresh lemons
• 1 wedge of Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1 cup pignoli (pine nuts)
• freshly ground pepper and salt
• fresh parsley to garnish (optional)

Cook spaghetti until al dente and not a second more. Meanwhile, pour the nuts into a dry non-stick sauté pan and toast over medium heat until they turn golden and their oils are released. Remove pan from heat. Drain pasta and return it to the pot. Poor the olive oil and mix it around until the spaghetti glistens. Use more if it looks too dry. Roll the lemons against the counter with your palm to get the juices ready to flow. Cut one lemon in half, squeeze over the pasta and mix in. Taste a few strands of spaghetti before adding another lemon and keep adding until you can taste the citrus, bright on your palate, but it isn’t overpowering or tart. Then grate or shave the cheese, grind the pepper and add salt to suit your tastes. (Don’t be afraid of the pepper. Grind until the spaghetti is well speckled. It will add a nice spicy contrast that will cut through the lemon.) Plate the pasta and sprinkle liberally with pignoli nuts. Toss the remaining nuts into the pot with the leftovers. Garnish plates with chopped parsley (if using) and drizzle with fruity extra virgin olive oil.