5D5M #5, Dinner at La Tufa

For our last tantalizing stop in Five Days, Five Meals, we pull up to a place we’ve driven by many times, as it’s on the way to Terontola, where our visitors come in on the train, a place called La Tufa. It’s in a town called Ossaia (which has a little history thanks to Lago Trasimeno battle star, Hannibal), and has one of those signs that for some reason catches the eye: cute font, welcoming swing, intriguing name. Every time we drove past, either Nat or I would say “we’ll have to stop there sometime.” But it’s over the hill, just far enough to be out of “wonder where we’ll eat tonight as it’s 7 pm and we haven’t decided yet” style planning. The other night though, we a not-last-minute plan, and ended up at La Tufa. And, we were glad we made the trip, cause it was as inviting inside as the sign would lead you to believe. Nat also got to realize a long-standing dream or having a pizza with French fries on it:

What a combo: French fries, pesto, mozz cheese. Dreamy (both in that it tasted dreamy, and was it all just a dream?). The pizza crust was good, as well as the topping. I would have been overly jealous, but A: we were sharing (a lot of pre-tirement involves sharing, by the way), and B: I ordered a hot (baby, it was cold outside) Ribollita, or bread and vegetable soup that was really tasty, almost like a bread and veggie casserole with a crispy top and hot center:

I also had a pasta course (cause really, I have a hard time ordering just one course when there are so many choices) and it ended up being quite different from the norm (the central Italian norm, that is). It was a pasta with a tomato pesto sauce, and the sauce, unlike most pasta dishes here (pasta dishes that aren’t a baked pasta, that is), was served in abundance. It was almost more American in style, with the sauce taking as much or a front seat as the pasta. Luckily, the sauce had very good flavor. The pasta itself was also different, almost spatzle-y, with shorter, thicker pieces of irregularly-sized pasta (which provided a chewy, captivating balance for the sauce):

Looks like we’re going to have to have our guests schedule more arrivals and departures near dinnertime. A fitting end to our workweek (at least in number of days) of meals, better known now in international circles as: Five Days, Five Meals. Hopefully your shirt isn’t too covered with drool.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio, La Fortezza

*See all Italian restaurants

5D5M #4, Our Regular Savior: Kentia Pizzeria

I feel somewhat bad about putting Kentia pizzeria into the Five Days, Five Meals schedule. Not because it isn’t a worthy meal-getting-place, but because we go there so often I don’t want to be shorting it by putting it in the midst of other eats. Maybe I’ll just need to do another Kentia post (my pics aren’t the finest). We first tried Kentia, which is in Umbertide, somewhat reluctantly, way back when pals Keith and Tasha were visiting and we all needed a quick bite. See, Kentia is (mainly) a takeout place, with just a few barstools. And when there are so many good sit-down pizza spots, why would we try a takeout place unless we were desperate for a snack on the run? That first trip was a revelation under a green awning (Kentia has a big green awning viewable for blocks). A different style of pizza (sometimes called "pizza al taglio"), Kentia brings out big square sheets of pizza, and then you point out how much you want, and then it’s sold by weight. The pizzas tend to be crisp, without a sloppy mess of toppings, but with quality, fresh ingredients. That would be enough to have us stopping in here and there, but what brings us back even more then “here and there,” is the combination of the pizza and the welcoming, friendly atmosphere and staff. It’s just a friendly place, with pictures of pizza and family on the wall:

Even the spices are smiling:

Especially when the pizza comes  out hot from the oven—so hot that it quickly steams up the glass-topped counter:

This trip, we both had “slices” (by this I mean: big squares of pizza) of mushroom with a white sauce. We took them to go (as we usually do—there’s something incredibly fun to me of taking them in the car) after telling the always-charming counterman (and owner from what I gather) we wanted them cut, which means he folds them up to make a pizza sandwich:

Genius. Another dandy aspect of Kentia? Two slices (about four inches by seven or thereabouts) and a Fanta orange soda for 4 euros. Unbelievable. I wish I could somehow convince him to open a Kentia in Seattle, cause there’s nothing like it--and I’m sure gonna miss it.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio, La Fortezza

*See all Italian restaurants

5D5M #3, Lunch at Il Feudo del Vicari

We woke up the other day with not a plan on the schedule and not a cloud in the sky, but with an itch to get out of the house. But, we’d woken up a bit late, so without enough time to do any serious exploring of a new town. Enough time, however, to do some lunchtime exploring of somewhere that didn’t demand a drastic drive, so we headed to Anghiari. Anghiari is a hilltown just into Tuscany, about 15 minutes at most from Citta di Castello, and across the highway from Sansepulcro, where we’d stopped a few times on past trips but hadn’t been yet (except to take folks to the shoe outlet on Anghiari’s outskirts) during the pre-tirement. Perched literally on a hillside, Anghiari is (I believe) a lovely spot--so much so we wondered why we hadn’t been spending more time there and are determined to go back again before leaving. But this time, we were on a lunch mission, and a Five Days, Five Meals mission, and focused in on finding the right spot. And the right spot was: Il Feudo del Vicari. We were taken upstairs into a cozy little room (except that the chairs were of the looks-good-but-kills-your-back straight-backed medieval style), where we ordered wine and a host of intriguing dishes. But first, check out my mysterious wine-drinking lunch companion:

We started with a dish that instantly rose into the precious “top ten dishes I’ve had this month list”—a cheese dip topped with truffles:

I mean, really, isn’t that amazing? Melted cheese (I believe it was a parmesan variant) with shaved truffles and light extra virgin olive oil on top? Fan-freakin-tastic. For my main, I had a lush ricotta-stuffed ravioli topped with butter and sage:

For her main, the mysterious lady above went to the pasta forest (in a way) with a tagliatelle porcini (and between us, it was better than my ravioli—even though the ravioli was tasty. But the porcinis were mushroom-y, teeth-y, and full of flavor):

As much as I love good pasta, my side dish may have been the finest post-cheese-dip part of the lunch though. A simple patate arrosta (or roasted potatoes), they were crisp, buttery, parsley-y, and perfect:

I saved the bottom one to be my last bite of our Anghiari lunching adventure.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio, La Fortezza

*See all Italian restaurants

5D5M #2, Cielo Chiaro Special: Artichoke Piadina

I haven’t had a lot of recipes here on the Six Months lately, not because we haven’t cooked at all, but just because I’ve forgotten to take pictures, or had time to write up said recipes. But I thought a recipe would fit in well in to Five Meals, Five Days and luckily we’d recently made an absolutely delish (and easy-to-make) dish for lunch the other day: artichoke piadinas. Piadinas are the lesser known (in the states, at least) Italian sandwiches (trailing their pal the Panini), utilizing a thin bread that’s somewhere between a flour tortilla and Indian naan, though that’s not doing the piadina justice, because they have a wonderful chewiness without losing sponginess that's hard to explain. If that makes sense. They’re usually available in bars, but usually with meat a-poppin', so for us veggies making our own is best. For this version, we used the artichoke skills picked up in our Calagrana cooking class. First, we cut off the stems to about 1-1/2 inches from the bud. Then, we shucked the outer leaves, all the way until we got to the tender inner leaves (with just a few layers of leaves left), and then we peeled the rough outer skin off the stem and leaf-to-stem-connecting-area (not sure what that’s called). Then, we cut off the top inch or two of the remaining leaves (just the top of the leaves). Then sliced the artichoke, leaf top to stem, into half inch or so slices. Nat added tomato to her sandwich and said it was “the awesome.” I disagree, since mine was obviously the best (just look at it):

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 artichokes, peeled, shucked, sliced
2 piandinas (or tortillas, or naan even)
1-1/2 cups cheese of your choice (one that melts nicely)
Five cherry tomatoes sliced in half (optional)

Directions:
1. Add 1-1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil to a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the sliced artichokes and sauté for five minutes or until just tender, stirring often.

2. Remove the artichokes from the first pan. Add the remaining olive oil in equal parts to the original pan and to a second large sauté pan, with both pans over medium-high heat. Add one piadina each to each pan.

3. Distribute half of the artichoke onto one half of one piadina, and the other half of the artichokes onto one half of the other piadina. Do the same with the cheese, and the tomatoes if you want.

4. Cook the piadinas until the cheese is nicely melted, flipping over to ensure browning on both sides.

*See more specials: Penne e Noce, Zuppa di Pomodoro e’ Fagioli,Torta Vegetariana, Lasagna Vegetariana con Tartufo Crema, Homemade Tagliatelle e Gorgonzola, Orzo Vegetale con Crema, Four Italian Drinks, Capellini Aglio e’ Olio con Porro, Ginger Ice Liqueur

*See all Cielo Chiaro Specials

5M5D #1: Lunch at La Fortezza

I was browsing the blog the other day (and yeah, I browse my own blog--what of it? I’m looking for comments--maybe you should leave one?) and realized with all our visitors, and with enjoying the unexpected February sunshine (as it snows in my other home, Seattle), and with reading  the new Steve Ditko collection I received for my bday, that I haven’t had much in the way of food on Six Months lately. This also means I’ve missed talking up a few restaurants that are worthy of mention. So, welcome to (drum roll—using grissini drumsticks naturally): Five Meals, Five Days (or, for short, 5M5D). I won’t wax as foodly poetic as perhaps I’ve a want to do, just to keep the courses coming, but will be serving some delish pics (I hope, at least), and won’t have any repeats of restaurants or recipes. First up: La Fortezza. We were recently in Assisi again, dropping off my mother and her gal pals Judith and Shelly at a nunnery (not for good, just for two nights), after driving some of the leanest streets in Italy, which happened after we took a quick stroll through this lovely Italian hilltown and stopped for lunch at La Fortezza (we had thought about going to al Frantoio, but it was closed. And now we know two great restaurants in this wonderful town). I started with a very thick strangozzi, topped with olive oil and fresh black truffles, and it was yummy, chewy homemade pasta matching well with the earthy truffles:

It was a blustery chilly day (even St. Francis might have shivered), which led Nat to ordering up a zuppa verdure that was packed with warming goodness (in the shape of a host of veggies):

I ordered a second course off the contorni menu, which had a surprising eggplant parmesan on it. The eggplant p doesn’t show up much on central Italian menus, so I had to order it—and it was a great choice. Cheesy, gooey, goodness:

Nat also had a somewhat surprising second course: crepes with a creamy, cheesy sauce. A melt-in-your-mouth delight:

A lunch to take the chill off, and have us dreaming of it as we drove away from Assisi—and into the first day of 5D5M.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio

*See all Italian restaurants