Drive down Interstate 5 from Redding, past up-and-coming Red Bluff (you’d better believe it), through the olive trees around Corning, past the countless fruit trees and rice paddies, the ducks and geese near Willows and Maxwell, through Williams and the obligatory stop at Granzella’s (even though it burned to the ground last October, they’re running a smaller operation across the street and are slated to reopen in full splendor this July), the boring I-505, the always-heavy trafficked I-80, where everyone goes much faster than the posted speed limit, and you are suddenly transported into another world.
You’ve done this. You know what I’m talking about. You’re in the Bay Area.
My travelling companion is my 9-year-old daughter. Armed with portable DVD player, five-day rentals from Blockbuster and the newest Harry Potter (books on audio), we braved the child’s boredom of a long drive, the “I’m hungry” and “I’m thirsty” and “I need to use the bathroom,” and made our way to our good friends and hosts, in Marin County.
“It’s always cold here,” my travelling companion said upon our arrival.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good birthday party for an 11-year-old, or a visit to the San Francisco Zoo (in fact, I enjoyed both, even if the animals seemed to have a certain defeated posture about them).
But somehow I always manage to squeeze in the old haunts, the places that have titillated me since I first came to the Bay Area more than 30 years ago. Naturally, they are food-related. Many have come and gone, only to be replaced by newer versions.
There is Draeger’s in San Mateo, with its wonderful grocery downstairs and excellent cook’s shop and restaurant (Viognier) upstairs. The restaurant originally got its direction from Gary Danko, who had previously been executive chef at Ritz Carlton’s Dining Room, and has since opened his own place (Restaurant Gary Danko), arguably the highest-starred eatery in San Francisco. (I still remember my seven-course meal there several years ago). Then there’s the Oakville Grocery. The original store, in Healdsburg, is not as good as the one at the Stanford Shopping Center, which is worth a visit sans Oakville. Dean & DeLuca, in St. Helena, is worth a look-see, but you can buy almost everything they sell for far less elsewhere. (I used to frequent the original store, on Green Street in Manhattan, when Mr. Dean strutted around with his meerschaum, and the swarthier DeLuca would actually listen to my suggestions about carrying this or that, even if he didn’t always comply. Once the flagship moved to Broadway, and they opened the branch in St. Helena, I think they got too big for their britches, but that’s just my opinion.)
After our day at the zoo we ate at Fog City Diner, Cindy Pawlcyn’s landmark, on Battery Street. Born and raised in the Midwest, she moved to California in 1983, opening Mustard’s Grill, FCD, and a dozen or so other places; all hits. A perfect cheese and bacon burger (beef from Niman Ranch, order online if you’ve got bucks to burn), and a glass of draft Pilsner Urquell, and I had almost forgotten the defeated look on the mandrill’s face.
We started with a most wonderful creation, though, Amazing Truffle Fries with Asiago:
Amazing Truffle Fries with Asiago
Make fresh, perfect and most excellent french fries (didn’t Doni show you how to make them recently?)
Season them (that’s code for salt) hot out of the fryer and drizzle good quality truffle-infused oil (white or black, your choice).
Freshly grate asiago over, not too much (you don’t want a big mat of melted cheese, these aren’t nachos).
Garnish with finely chopped chives.
Wait for the compliments. You won’t have to wait very long.
Remember to take your cholesterol-lowering medicine. You’ll need it.
My travelling companion was impressed with the burger and fries, but complained that the women’s bathroom is too small: “Someone opened the door and bumped me in the head.”
All restaurant critics should be under 10.
We meandered our way back to Marin, detouring through the Presidio, where my host showed us graves of people we didn’t know (and presumably will never get to know), and the building in which he got married a long time ago. My travelling companion wanted her portable DVD player. “Thank you, my friend, that was fascinating … I need to use the bathroom.”
That night, when hunger returned, my hosts began steaming some broccoli. I can’t help but chime in, especially with my closest friends: “You know, there’s a wonderful dish they do in some parts of Italy, pasta with broccoli sauce.”
Within a few minutes they’re observing and I’m cooking (my therapist says I need to keep an eye on this). Here goes:
Pasta con Broccoli
Place ¼ cup olive oil, 2 – 4 cloves of peeled and thinly sliced garlic, 6 – 8 cups of broccoli flowerets (such as the ones that come already prepped in a bag, from Costco), about a cup of water, and sea salt (to taste) in a covered sauté pan and cook over medium heat.
The goal here is to completely cook the broccoli until it becomes a sauce – hammer it. You may have to add additional water. The broccoli is cooked enough when its own mother can’t recognize it. It should look like pesto.
Meanwhile, bring water to a boil in your favorite pasta pot (you don’t have a pasta pot, shame on you, you’re not my friend). Season the water heavily (6 quarts of water requires at least 3 tablespoons of sea salt), none of this light-weight, half-hearted sprinkling, thank you. Use a good dried spaghetti or similar shape.
Let’s talk a little about pasta. Which is better, fresh pasta (pasta all’uovo) or dried (pasta secca)? In fact, most of the time dried pasta is better, because fresh pasta is often poorly made. The real answer though, is that they’re very different foods.
Fresh pasta is primarily a product of northern Italy, made from soft wheat flour (Triticum aestivum) and eggs. It combines beautifully with butter-based sauces but not olive oil (try making spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, using fresh pasta, and you’ll get a stiff, matted mess). Eggs, soft wheat, and butter are ingredients of the more affluent northern Italy.
Historically, the south couldn’t survive on soft wheat because of its short shelf life. In fact, starvation was quite common in the southern peninsula until the Arabs introduced hard wheat during their conquest of Sicily in the 9th century. The pasta in the south of Italy still resembles the pasta of long ago. It is made using nothing but finely ground hard durum wheat and water. Nowadays it is extruded, under great pressure, through bronze dyes, and slowly dried in the sun (the good stuff, that is). The specific wheat and the technique used in making it determine whether it maintains its shape, or falls apart; whether it remains al dente, or quickly becomes limp and mushy.
My gold standard for dried pasta is Rustichella, from Abruzzo. It has excellent flavor (after all, a pasta dish is equally about the pasta and the sauce), and has a relatively long-lasting “al dente window” (my term). They even make an organic line, which doesn’t make a discernable difference in the flavor, so far as I’m able to tell, but is more enjoyable to eat, knowing you’re not shoveling pesticide residues into your body. The only downside is cost: One pound of the organic runs around 6 bucks. I also like Montebello, available at Whole Foods (another haunt and column in itself), and DeCecco, available here in Redding (though not DeCecco organic, would someone please make a request to Holiday Market). I don’t like Garofalo, the brand carried by Costco. It quickly goes from al dente to limp and then falls apart. A good sauce cannot save a bad noodle.
Someone wrote this on the internet: “When I saw my most famous only-available-in-Italy pasta at Costco last weekend, I almost fell over in astonishment. This is the pasta that my sister hand-carried– lovingly hand-carried– back from Italy for me. The pasta that I’ve been rationing and only cooking with the most special sauces because it is so devine… The pasta that I requested my cousin to bring [me] when he visits [from] Italy this summer… is now available at Costco (in Mountain View, Calif.).”
Now I believe everyone is entitled to his opinion, but this idiot needs to have his head examined. Go ahead and by that crap at Costco if you want, Just don’t tell me about it.
What about pairing pasta and sauce? There are countless sizes and shapes of pasta throughout Italy. What’s that about? A little background: Modern Italy became a nation-state during the Risorgimento on March 17, 1861, quite recent in historical terms.
Before that, Italy consisted of a series of city-states. Many Italian towns and cities to this day are perched atop hills and mountains, ideally suited to defense. People who live in Orvietto may never have been to Sienna, only an hour-and-a-half drive north. When you ask an Italian where he’s from he will not reply that he is from Italy. Instead, he may say that he’s from Canonica (a small town of around 200 people), or Firenze or Roma. The towns remain insular, even today, at least when it comes to dialect, customs and food. Your penne is smooth, ours has little ridges. Your fusilli is a short and fat helix, ours is long and narrow.
There is a concept, however, that seems to remain true all over: The thinner the sauce, the greater the surface area of the pasta to which it is paired. Think of the surface area of a few penne on a fork and compare that to the much greater surface area of several strands of spaghetti twirled around the same fork. Which one would hold more (very thin) olive oil and garlic sauce? If the sauce were a very chunky, meaty duck ragu, however, the penne would be the perfect spouse (and, indeed, they are a classic marriage).
One more thing and you’re ready to enjoy that wonderful pasta with broccoli – don’t throw that precious pasta cooking liquid away! It’s perfectly seasoned (remember?) and with its residual starch content, it is just the right thing to thin out a sauce that’s too “tight” (high-class, professional chef term). If you’ve cooked that broccoli right, it’s too tight. So, add the very undercooked spaghetti to your hammered broccoli, along with a cup of your pasta water (see why you need a pasta pot, so you can remove the cooked pasta without throwing out that precious cooking liquid).
Toss them together over heat (I use tongs) and keep adding water until the pasta is perfectly cooked and lightly coated with the sauce (the right amount of sauce is when there is none pooling on the bottom of the pan. The Italians don’t even refer to it as a sauce – salsa – but rather as a condimento.) When it’s ready, add some chili flakes (we want the capricious bite of an occasional chili, not the evenly imbued heat such as you would get if you had added them at the beginning), and a drizzle of your finest olive oil (off heat). Sprinkle with freshly grated Pecorino Romano (a hard sheep’s milk cheese, typical of southern Italy, where sheep and goats thrive, but cows don’t – available at Costco), and enjoy.
Fred de Picciotto has been an avid cook for more than 30 years. In his spare time he develops software and practices medicine.
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