By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist
Foraged wild garlic flowers
This week, I transformed a Tuscan meal into a Northern Californian one–a typical meal like I would find in the place I call the home of my heart–the Chianti region, just 45 minutes south of Florence in San Casciano in Val di Pesa. I would often go to lunch at the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), a small grocery store on a country road with a room in the back turned osteria during the lunch hour. Everyone from farm worker to bureaucrat would come there to eat. It was a place to have a good, simple meal. That place was my inspiration for a dinner this week. So instead of the farmer and the bureaucrat at a roadside osteria , we had writers, poets and composers around a redwood table.
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I love the simplicity of Tuscan food. The meats and vegetables are super savory while the bread is saltless in order to sop up the rich flavors. I roasted a salty chicken and created a Tuscan paté with the livers, capers and anchovies, and served it on toast. I made a grilled bread salad with a tangy vinegar dressing and bulked it up with a spicy wild cress and arugula. I sautéed a deep green kale with wild garlic and chilies. Then used fennel, pomelo, radicchio and foraged wild garlic flowers as a salad so beautiful I will serve it again tomorrow.
“It was so divine,” said Amahl Khouri, a playwright from Jordon. “Every bit of it.” Nothing like sharing the love of food and a sense of home around the table.