I spent the weekend on a decongestant induced producivity high (that pseudoephedrine stuff really makes me unable to sit still! Sure clears out the sinuses though) which turned me into a bit of a domestic superwoman– cleaning floors, and bathrooms, and reorganizing my pantry, labeling all of my spices, and fertilizing the garden, and trimming it, and doing laundry, and making a delicious dinner of tri tip, chimichurri sauce + farro with fava beans, and washing/prepping all the produce in my refrigerator (which believe me, was a lot). To boot, I made this cake. And it’s delicious.

Torta Caprese – Flourless Almond Chocolate Cake Recipe
9 ounces (255 g) quality dark chocolate
1 cup (225 g / 2 sticks) butter
1/4 cup (25 g) dark cocoa powder (I scored some Valharona)
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/4 cup (250 g) granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups ground almonds*
6 eggs, room temperature

In 2006 I was living in the heart of Florence and attending culinary school. The best class I took was the regional Italian cuisine course with Marcella Ansaldo — we made a few typical dishes from pretty much every region in Italy throughout the semester. One of the recipes was for Fritole – yeast-based Italian doughnuts from Venice, traditionally eaten for Carnivale.

I posted about Fritole back in November of 2006–a few months after returning from Florence. I remade these delicious treats this morning; it is Easter Sunday and it made for a peaceful, tasty breakfast treat for the two of us. It’s a typical day in SF; the weather doesn’t know what it’s doing and it’s somewhere between heavy fog and rain, with a little bit of light poking through. We looked over our wet garden with some good coffee; fritole made the whole thing come together.

Note: You can prepare the dough the night before, leaving in a room-temp spot (not warm) overnight. Simply stir/punch down the dough in the morning, and let rise 30 more minutes before frying. It makes brunch a breeze!

Italian Fritole Recipe

1 1/2 C all purpose flour (200 grams) + 1 Tbsp
1/2 C brown sugar (60 grams; can use granulated too)
1 egg
1 packet yeast (8-10grams; fresh brewer’s yeast is great too)
1 C milk, divided (up to 200ml milk; any type)
1/4 C golden raisins (50 grams; can use other types of raisins too)
1/3 C dry sherry (or brandy, whiskey, flat champagne, etc)
1/2 tsp salt (generous three-finger pinch)
high-temp oil like peanut, safflower, or pine nut (most traditional) for frying
powdered sugar for dusting

Optional Ingredients (non-traditional):
1/2 tsp orange blossom water (add with milk) or
1/2 tsp cinnamon/nutmeg (add with flour) or
2 T chopped almonds (add with raisins; you might consider a few drops of almond extract w/ the milk too)

Combine the raisins with the sherry. You can substitute boiling water if needed. Microwave for 1 minute to warm combination and set aside to plump (5-15 minutes). Once plumped, drain the raisins and toss them with 1T flour until nicely dusted.

Warm 1/2 C of milk to about 110 degrees; add 1 tsp brown or regular sugar and stir. Add the yeast (mixture should be warm when adding). Set aside to bloom (at least 10 minutes).

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar. Whisk well. Use more flour if needed. Add the egg and dusted raisins, stirring gently but not thoroughly with a spoon. Add the bloomed milk mixture and stir until just combined. If the mixture is too dry (it should be sticky but combined, not runny), add more milk as needed, up to 1/2 C more. Cover the dough with saran wrap and let sit 1-2 hours in a warm spot*.

Prepare a large plate with two-three layers of paper towels (a draining rack is ok too, but the towels might remove more oil). Get some chopsticks or heat-resistant tongs ready. Put a light dusting of flour over the top of your batter to make preparation easier.

Heat oil in a wide pan with sturdy sides (like a high sided sauce pan) to medium high heat; the oil should be at least 1.5 inches deep. Once warmed, test a small dot of batter–it should rise to the top immediately and bubble around the batter, but not burn it in the course of a minute**. Using two large spoons, section just-smaller than an egg size scoops and gently place into hot oil. When deep golden brown, flip each doughnut over and cook; remove when evenly colored and cool on paper towels.

Serve with powdered sugar on top.

Makes 15 golf-ball sized fritole. 3 per person is sufficient.

*If the dough sits more than 2 hours, simply stir around to deflate and let rise 30 more minutes. This can be repeated twice if necessary.
**If the doughnuts seem to be cooking too quickly or getting too dark before you can flip them, lower the heat slightly and allow them to cook longer or else they will be gooey inside.

I have made a Florence google map guide to my favorite places and picks for accomodations, shopping, restaurants and wine bars in Florence along with extensive notes for each marker and some suggestions for what to pair the stop with. I hope you’ll find it useful!

I can’t remember who it was, but someone was talking to me about how effortlessly the French will whip up a souffle for dinner, something on par with opening a can of soup or mixing rice a roni in an American household.

I do love a good souffle, and while I’ve been more partial to Alton Brown’s cheddar souffle (and sometimes adulterate it with blanched broccoli or asparagus pieces), I was inspired by Molly from Orangette‘s recipe in Bon Apetite, which I bookmarked some months ago (it uses gruyere–I used a combo of comte affinee, a more sweet gruyere very snack worthy and not stringy at all, and a 4 month cave aged gruyere). Granted, while I was making it I made some adjustments in line with my beloved Alton Brown recipe (like the mustard powder..), but I thought sharing both with you would make sense. I did use a 5 qt souffle dish and it serves 2-4 people depending on how much cheese your boyfriend likes to or is willing to eat.

Alton Brown’s Cheese Souffle Recipe

Molly Wizenberg‘s Everyday Souffle (maybe it was her story..)

Updates have been slow lately, despite that I’ve been cooking lots of super-fresh pasta primavera, pestos, grilling, and making fresh lemonade just about every day. I’ve been traveling, and there’s more ahead.

I took a trip to the south and ate, and ate, and ate. I only managed to grab pictures of the last day, so I have some of crawfish (the bottle tops are from the local beer we snuck into the restaurant):

And I’m outbound for a big overseas trip tomorrow–my first trip ever to this particular location–so you can expect, potentially, even some updates from abroad since I’ll have internet access while I’m there, unlike while I was in the south (really, truly, in the “sticks”).

I have crazy stories about being stranded in Italy, spending an unplanned night in Rome, eating fried chicken in Georgia, getting back to San Francisco and more but mostly I left 10 kilos in Italy. Yep. You can have them, Italy. Send them to the south.

Something sharp is LODGED in my foot after several days at the beach in Levanto. Yesterday the surf was really rough (2nd day of red flag) and i took a beating along the rocky sea floor and as I came out must have hit a sharp rock or a peice of glass or something that is now really not ready to come out of my heel. This is problematic considering I am suppose to travel for 20 hours in a day or two.

Italy is almost a memory. I’m in Florence for my final couple of days running errands and buying olive oil and repacking, being hot and humid, wearing dirty clothes. I’m sick of eating. I’m sick of shopping. I want to go home.

What I will miss of Italy will be a few of the people I’ve met, and they aren’t even around right now or they have left the country too so it’s quite lonely. J is off in Sri Lanka and isnt even available for a good phone call. Maybe I’ll visit my favorite neighborhood bar, even though its on the other end of town from my hotel. I also managed to screw up my itinerary in my head and book one less night in the hotel than I need, so I have to change hotels the night before my flight, to who knows where, which sucks, because my current place upgraded me to a king bed and my own bathroom, and it has air conditioning, and I cannot really even put the value of that into words.

Wish me luck everyone, I’ve got a rough ending coming up.

I had a wonderful weekend via smart car in less traveled Italy only to have my purse and everything possibly very valuable to me inside it at the time on the bus ride from the car drop off to my apartment. Mostly I was in Castagnetto Carducci and Bolgheri, but hit San Gimignano and others on the way.

Last weekend I took a trip to Cinque Terre and spent a few hours on the way in Pisa (quite underwhelming). Cinque Terre is right up there with Big Sur for favorite places ever and because of its accessibility and the presence of cheap eats and fresh seafood, I might even like it better than good ole’ California. It is one of the most romantic and wonderful relaxing places I’ve ever been.

I went with two roomates who ditched me after half a day but I met an English girl and spent a whole day with her–she was very interesting and a great relief from my boring, bordering unbearable roomates.

I ate Pecorino (three ages) with honey (2 kinds), foccacia with tomato sauce and mozarella bufala, Prociutto with melon, tiramisu, linguini with Bahi Bahi (a local crustatian similar to a lobster) in a light tomato sauce, ravioli veal with ragu, and drank a local white wine varietal, cappucino, Barbera, and more.

Some moments since I’ve been here, all within Florence as I’ve written seperate entries about trips.