everything it should be and nothing it should not

I find it sort of incredible that my whole entire life has happened in at and around North America, specifically concentrated on the east coast and even more specifically mostly in Massachusetts; and then still, mostly on the south shore. And then I, Jess Benson formerly known as Jess Pithie formerly known as the Python formerly known as Porky Dickens and also currently known as Porky Dickens takes not one but TWO trips to Europe in the span of less than a month. Who brought Johnny Jet Setter to this cookout? Not me. No way.



I’m actually kind of surprised I didn’t get flagged by US customs for being a suspected drug mule. They must have been able to spot my weak gag reflex and inability to lie from behind their desks so they didn’t even bother to get up. But anyways, I’m sorry for the absence last week, we were in Spain for our much anticipated and long awaited honeymoon. The trips were totally terrific and completely, opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum different and I have NO idea how I got this lucky to be able to have two such awesome travel experiences in such a short span of time, but please do not tell the people in charge, because they might come and take it all away!



So I am back with a capital ‘B’ and I have been cooking at home quite a bit (read: broke). As always, I am prepared to share. What I’ve brought today is a terrific summer side dish. Yes, summer! Yay summer!! While we were gone it came! And since summer is the time of year where we wear less clothes but eat more hot dogs, I brought you something to serve along side (the hot dogs that is, not your unclothed body, weirdo). I love pasta salad but I’m often afraid of it because the pasta can be tragically overdone and the mayonnaise based dressing has usually been kicking it at room temp. for a while before I’ve gotten to it. So what I put together for my friend Michelle’s cookout a few weekends back was this: a rock solid delicious pasta salad packed with flavor from briny olives, sweet sun dried tomatoes, salty salami, delicious fresh herbs and veggies in a simple vinaigrette. It’s everything a pasta salad should be and nothing it should not.



PORKY’S PASTA SALAD

1 box rotini, penne or any other shape pasta
½ bag frozen peas
¼ lb. asparagus or green beans, trimmed into bite sized pieces
¾ cup sundried or slow roasted tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped
½ cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
½ cup diced dry aged salami
1 bunch basil leaves, washed, stemmed and torn 
1 bunch chives, minced
½ package feta cheese, crumbled
½ cup red wine vinegar
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp. Dijon mustard
Pinch sugar
Salt
Pepper



Set a large pot to boil. While the water comes up to temperature, clean and prep vegetables and herbs. Both the frozen peas and asparagus can cook in the pasta water and all three can be drained at once. This is a really simple time saver that essentially helps this whole salad to come together in the time it takes to cook a box of pasta. Once the water is boiling salt well and add the pasta, set timer according to the package directions. When 4 or 5 minutes are left on your timer, add the asparagus (4) or the green beans (5); at the 2 minute mark, dump in the frozen peas. Test a piece of pasta for doneness and if it’s nicely al dente, drain the whole pot. It’s okay if the green beans/asparagus retain a bit of crunch, you just want them to be lightly blanched and not raw.



In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine the red wine vinegar, oil, Dijon and sugar. Season with salt and pepper, clamp the lid on and shake vigorously to emulsify. Set aside, shaking again before use as needed.



Drain pasta and veggies together in a colander and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Dress the pasta and veggies while still warm (but not scorching hot) with about 1/3 of your prepared dressing. Toss well and let cool down to room temperature. Add all remaining ingredients, another generous drizzle of dressing and toss everything together gently with your hands. Taste and adjust seasonings/ dressing if necessary. Store in the fridge until ready to serve. This is delicious chilled or at room temperature so feel free to make it just before you head out to your cookout or picnic. Bring any extra dressing and add if it dries out at all.

Ciao Porky! Part II: APULIA

At noon on Sunday we loaded up into the bus, which more than any hotel room, would be our home for the next week. Our driver for the week was a man named Bruno Grasso. I know a few things about Bruno and these are them: he loves wraparound sunglasses, he speaks no English, but still gets all the best jokes and he possesses bus driving skills so powerful, that he may not even be a mortal being. The very last night of our trip I was seated next to him for dinner. As I mentioned his English skills are nil and I speak zero to little Italian. We both speak Spanish rather poorly, so we communicated with entry level Spanish and lot of hand gestures (the number and scope of which on my part most likely increased with each glass of wine I had). But enough about that, here’s the one thing I want you to know about Bruno Grasso: homeboy knows how to drive a bus. This may not mean much right now, but it will eventually.



We drove south from Rome towards Naples, hanging a left past Mount Vesuvius to hook diagonally southeast across the lower half of the boot, heading towards the heel. Our destination was the Rivera Winery- our first, and one of my favorite, visits. Rivera is located right in the middle of Puglia, which comprises the heel of the boot and the part of Italy that is nearest to Greece. For years, Puglia has functioned as a bit of an agricultural ‘mine’ for Italy’s biggest exports. Supplying the rest of the country with bulk grapes for low cost wine making, wheat for pasta and olives for oil; most people come through this particular area to catch a ferry to the Greek Isles and only in recent decades has Puglia become a winemaking region that’s coming into its own and worth exploring.



We were lucky enough to be visiting the very first winery that, three generations ago, had the foresight and vision to get out of the bulk production game and see if they could grow some estate-driven, proper wines worth putting their name on. The Rivera Winery is run by the DeCorato family. We were greeted by sons Sebastiano and Marco, and their parents Marilla and Carlo in their stone courtyard. Much like their wines, the members of the Rivera family were all, in their own ways, both elegant and approachable. The men, looking sharp in their perfectly tailored pants and slick suit jackets, welcomed us; first, Carlo in Italian and then Sebastiano in English. At the family run vineyards we visited typically the parents speak little English and the sons or daughters, who handle marketing and exporting, speak perfect English with a terrific Italian accent. It’s kind of a clear generational line as far as language goes and I find this rather sweetly symbolic. The elder generation stays rooted in the land and winemaking traditions typical to where they have lived their whole lives; the children are responsible for expanding the wines' place out in the world.



Following our tasting and tour we were treated to a meal that was prepared by Mama Marilla herself, who looked so chic in her crisp white shirt I would have not believed she had been working in the kitchen all day if I hadn’t peeked in the window as we walked by and seen her hard at work with my own two eyes.The food served was simple and satisfying and paired beautifully with each of the wines they presented. Before being seated for our full meal we sipped their Sauvignon alongside some crunchy donut-shaped taralli flavored with ground sesame seeds and indulged in a lot of their delicious, bright green olives. These olives are somewhat like Sicilian style olives in that they retain a more verdant green color and meaty texture by being cured in ash rather than brine. They are fresher tasting and more textured than typical brined green olives and I hammered back so many that I was quite confident I would wake up the next morning with my eyes sealed shut.



Once seated, we had a lovely four course meal which started with a barley ‘risotto’ dotted with thick, salty mussels, followed by (my favorite of the night) orchiette in a smoky tomato sauce. For the main course we had slow braised rolled beef (a bit like braciole) in an onion sauce with wilted local greens. This was followed by a sampling of two local cheeses, one cow’s milk, one sheep’s, and a dollop of Marilla’s ‘burnt’ orange marmalade. After cheese we were gifted yet another plate, this time with a crumbly piece of almond cake with a drizzle of creamy sauce and a few gigantic red strawberries. This meal, as with every meal for the rest of the week, ended with espresso and grappa. In case you were not aware, Grappa is Italian for “unnecessary shot of grain alcohol following your meal,” some nights I indulged and some I didn’t.



The next morning we spent a few more hours out in the Puglian countryside with Sebastiano, who gave us a tour of the famed Castel del Monte, which is not only a very cool 13th century castle, but the emblematic symbol of the Puglian region. It was a stunning sight, well preserved and unique in its architecture and surrounded on all sides by breathtaking views of Puglia. The hilly landscape was bright green, dotted with bursts of bright red poppies and to the east you could see all the way to the shore of the Adriatic. On the way up to the top of the hill we had hit a traffic jam of sheep being herded by a gang of local mutts and a weathered shepherd in a well worn hat, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.

  

Following our guided tour of the Castel we stopped for a few moments in some of Rivera’s vineyards, to admire the tiny baby bunches of Sauvignon and Chardonnay grapes and kick our heels in the gravelly soil that is the very source of their excellent white wines. As we loaded the bus to head out onto the road again, Sebastiano climbed in with a fist full of wild grown arugula snatched out of the vineyard. The pungent smell filled the bus and left me wishing I had a plastic bag to snag some for the road and make a salad for lunch. Southern Italy was beautiful and bucolic. The Rivera family made us feel entirely welcome, fed us well, showed us the sights and then sent us on our way, the peppery scent of fresh picked arugula plucked from a hillside vineyard filling the bus. We could not have asked much more from our first visit than that.



To read more about my wine trip to Italy, see Part I, here.

Ciao Porky! Part I: ROMA

Our first full day in Italy we were free to explore Rome. After dropping my bags, stretching my body out and taking a long and excellent shower, I headed back down to the lobby of our hotel to link up with someone or some people to go explore the city. A group of sales reps from our distributor were heading out to explore the city, so I tagged along with them. They seemed like a good group to hang with for the day and they generously let me, a total stranger who could have been SUPER annoying, into their fold quite nicely. The first order of business was a round of Aperol Spritz. If you’re not familiar with this drink you should get to know it. Aperol is a bitter, bright orange aperitif which, in this particular cocktail, is poured over ice and topped with Prosecco and a splash of soda water. It’s fluorescent-colored, refreshing, relatively low alcohol and shamelessly Italian. I liked them before my trip, now I’m almost annoyingly obsessed. A Spritz is also one of the only ways, we found, that you could actually get an Italian bartender to give you a normal sized portion of ice. A few themes became apparent over the course of our journey: salami is inescapable, coffees are tiny and Italians hate ice. Getting ice cubes was almost as much of a challenge as getting solid wifi. Being that I was on a trip, I cared slightly more about the ice than the wifi.



All over the cities in Italy there are tiny shops, a bit like convenience stores, with lottery tickets, cigarettes and semi-grumpy looking proprietors, much like any corner store you might tuck into anywhere here. The difference is they also have a full bar stocked, an impressive cappuccino machine and usually a bakery case with some swoon-worthy cannoli and cakes on display. These are the spots where most people pop in to have their coffee in the morning. They drink it at the bar, standing up, out of actual glassware; I’m not even sure getting a café to go is an option. It’s the sort of thing that is not rushed. This respect for food, drinks and meal times and tendency not to rush was something I saw quite a bit throughout the trip. And this propensity to give meals and the sharing of meals the time and respect they deserve was admittedly my favorite thing about Italian culture. At these bars, they also give you snacks whenever you order a round of drinks. I don’t know if this is a sort of legal thing, or simply an extension of the cultural more that food is meant to share; but you know I was into it, because nothing pairs better with drinks than snacks.



We wandered through the city, exploring various piazzas and squares, tucking into a basilica here and a church there. The most humble looking church door, or crumbling brick structure would hide behind it seriously stunning architecture, sculpture and art. They know how to do churches there, and I’m just talking the everyday walk around churches, I didn’t even get to the Vatican. The other thing that I found so cool about Rome (and this is going to sound incredibly pedestrian and semi idiotic) but it’s SO ANCIENT. Like worn, weathered, hella ancient columns every which way you look. You wander around one corner and there’s a cordoned off section of ruins with stray cats poking around; you grab a gelato and turn 180 degrees and all of the sudden you’re in the hulking shadow of the parliament building; or craning your neck at the expansive beauty of the Pantheon. The depth and breadth of the city’s historical place is absolutely everywhere you look.

 

For dinner that night I met up with another faction of our group, including Dan (the one friend I knew prior to the trip). About 10 people including us headed to Trattoria Gigetto in the section of the city that was formerly the Jewish Ghetto. As we gathered around the table for dinner the energy in the air was electric. It was Saturday night and we were in Rome, at the start of a whirlwind week of wine, food and fun. Everyone breathlessly shared their Roman experiences of the day and practiced enthusiastically shouting “Buena Sera!”



As we pulled our chairs in and the last two people arrived at dinner, two ice buckets filled with about 8 bottles of Frascati (the local white) were placed at either end of the table and a hulking platter of fried artichokes, squash blossoms and salt cod was plunked down next to me. As I looked over the heads of the people across from me, I saw weathered columns and the remnants of an old brick aqueduct. My chair wobbled on the cobblestone sidewalk and an old man with a guitar played Volare (I couldn’t even make this up). It was so f*cking Roman I almost just about died. Dan and I toasted to our good friend Tim, my boss and the reason I was able to come on the trip. The week was just getting started and everybody was ready to roll.



We had three hours the next morning before our bus departed for the first winery visit; so I linked back up with my buddies from the day before. We swapped stories about the prior evening’s dinner experiences as we walked the 30 minutes through the city to the Colosseum. Like all great monuments, the Colosseum is, um, pretty awesome. Now I use the word awesome a lot. I think it’s because I’m a bit of a valley girl in my speech patterns. But I do love that the wonders of the world, like the Grand Canyon and here, in front of me, the Colosseum are places where the only possible descriptor is “awesome”, because they truly are. We came upon it walking up a hill on a narrow side street and then there it was hulking at the end of the road: massive and strong. Despite the fact that part of it is crumbled it is by no means a crumbling structure. It dominates its surroundings, colossal as it is, and grounds everything in sight. Banking its right side were a few gentle hills and more relics and ruins. We drank in the view for a bit and then hopped the metro back up to our hotel. The crowds were too thick and our time too short to take the tour inside. Back up by the hotel the bus was waiting and we hit the road for a five hour drive all the way down to Puglia.



So that was Rome, experienced in a flash of about 36 hours: fueled by espresso, Aperol, adrenaline and the infectious energy of new people embarking on a shared experience. I have to say, it was an excellent start.

molto bene

It's been several days since I landed back at home and I feel like I am just now shaking the crust off. Eight places in eight days and a constant stream of gorgeous vistas, warm hospitality, glass after glass of wine, and plate after plate of cured meats. My salami tolerance is through the roof right now.



I'm sorting through all my notes and photos trying to make some semblance of order to the story of my trip to Italy. It was a non-stop barrage of movement, food, wine and people. I documented it copiously and I'm still sorting out how to best give the details of the trip here without writing 95 pages and providing you with 517 photos of stainless steel tanks and oak barriques.



It was a blast. It was a whirlwind. I'm happy to be home but sad it's over. Until I've worked out what to say and how to show it here, enjoy a couple stunning views and unashamed examples of 100% XXX NSFW food porn.



Ciao, dudes. I'll be back with words and photos (probably more than you're even going to want).

it's happening

I’m so into the new Justin Timberlake song that I should probably be arrested; or at the very least, taken into custody. Anyways, now that I got that out of the way I should tell you something: I’m going to Italy. Like, tomorrow. You can’t see this from where you’re sitting but I just did an embarrassing chair dance/ jazz shoulders move that I normally do right when the food comes whenever I’m out to eat. I do believe that to say I am pumped about this trip would be the understatement of my life to this point. I mean, it’s Italy. And I think, I thiiink they might have pretty good food there. So I hope the entire continent of Europe is ready for the aftershock of one jazz shoulder shake after another, because Porky Dickens is going continental.



I’m headed out on an incredibly cool eight day educational wine tour with a distributor and importer we work with at the store. This is hands down the most radical “work” opportunity I have ever gotten. I mean when I was an office manager there was this one time the free gift with our Staples order was a pump top coffee pot and I got to keep it. That was pretty cool; but this is slightly better. When I decided to make the move to completely change directions in my career, I never even thought that I would get an opportunity like this. I didn’t even know they existed! I’m totally humbled by the chance and was sincerely so superstitious about it actually happening that I hesitated to even tell most people until I received an email with plane tickets attached. This is happening. Life is happening and I am super pumped about it (high kick!).



So today, I’ll leave you with pizza. Of course pizza! Not just because I love pizza deeply, but also, because it's Italy. I know it's not like I haven't covered pizza ad naseum on here before. I've told you how I like to make it in summer, how sometimes I use a skillet or even fire one up with a salad on top. So I had to ask myself: is there such a thing as too much pizza? And you know, I’ve never been able to answer that question thus far in my life, so I’ll assume the answer is no. I also have happened to have made this or some form thereof at least three times in the past two weeks, so it’s fresh on the brain. This is our go-to weeknight pizza, with a chewy, puffy Sicilian style crust. The process is more about technique and temperature than anything else; this pizza is deceptively simple, yet ridiculously good. So enjoy it my friends, I’m gonna go gain some weight. Ciao!



WEEKNIGHT SICILIAN PIZZA

Store bought or homemade pizza dough
Crushed tomatoes (San Marzano or Pomi are good brands)
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Olive oil



The crucial steps to making this pizza delicious all revolve around two themes: temperature and technique. With temperature: take a “more is more” approach, cranking your oven as high as it will possibly go and letting your dough sit at room temperature until its almost so expanded and bubbly that you get worried about it. With technique (i.e. dough wrangling and topping) take a “less is more” approach, you don’t want the whole thing getting bogged down and soggy. The end result will be a puffy, bubbly, chewy, thick-crusted pizza that is light and airy and so easy to eat that two people will very handily crush it in one sitting.



Heat your oven as high as it will go: 500 degrees if you can; 475 if not. If you have a pizza stone, you can feel free to use it here. I do not have one, so I really don’t have a lot of experience with them. While your oven heats, let the dough sit out at room temperature. Once the oven is fully preheated, then begin to prepare your pizza. To stretch the dough: lightly flour your countertop and hands and gently press the ball of dough out into a small circle. Then, take that circle in your hands, hold it vertically and just pass it from hand to hand, letting gravity and the weight of the dough stretch it out. If you’re good and meticulous, you may even end up with a circle, mine always looks a little ragged and oblong. You want the edges to be thicker than the middle and the dough in the middle should be thinned out to about ½ inch or less, but not so thin that there are holes in it. If you do get a hole simply pinch it shut with your fingers. You have to be patient while shaping your pizza: doing it this way the dough won’t tighten up and snap back, but will gently ease out into its shape. Whatever you do, don’t use a rolling pin.



Grease a cookie sheet with about one tablespoon of olive oil and place the dough on top. Take two or three tablespoons of crushed tomatoes and spread onto the dough in a thin layer. A crucial trick that I read a few years back is to use just unseasoned, uncooked crushed tomatoes, not a cooked sauce. That’s what pizza parlors do and they’re the experts, right? Sprinkle a little bit of garlic powder, salt and pepper on top of the sauce and then top with shredded cheese. Don’t get nuts with the cheese. Remember: less is more. Pop the pizza in your oven and let bake for anywhere from 12 to 18 minutes. Check it periodically. If you had a wood-burning pizza oven, you would have pizza in less than five minutes, but since we’re all using conventional ovens, it takes a bit more time. Ideally your cheese should be melted and bubbling and the crust should be golden brown. Use tongs to peel one edge up and check to make sure the bottom is cooked and remove it when it looks ready. Scatter torn basil leaves on top and devour immediately, maybe with a salad if you're feeling virtuous and definitely with a cold beer.

Top with whatever else you would like, just don’t get crazy heavy-handed with the toppings. Some of my favorite go-tos: sautéed mushrooms and onions; sliced kalamata olives; sliced banana peppers; or, swap the sauce for basil pesto and top with blanched broccoli rabe if you want to get funky with it.