Every year I go to Taste, the artisanal food show in Florence. I love the old and beautifully renovated Stazione Leopolda, where it is located! I love the Michelangelo Hotel, across the street, where I always stay! I love Davide Paolini's selection of Italian food artisans! I love to meet so many of our producers! This event has something I cannot describe: it even attracts a smart, cool, interesting and good looking crowd. Magical! I love everything about the show. My dream? That the organizers, Pitti Immagine, transplant the whole show, including the Stazione, here in NY City. Possible? There is already a Michelangelo Hotel in NYC! Will Taste be next???
Taste is also an opportunity to meet friends who do not make food but are passionate about it. Here is Elizabeth Helman Minchilli, an American writer who lives in Roma and whose most recent work is the very successful Eat Rome app. I get so excited when I can introduce my friends to our producers, who then tell them all their fantastic stories! Here are Elizabeth with Andrea Fratepietro who makes the Bella di Cerignola Olives on his farm in Puglia. Andrea explained to Elizabeth the artisanal process of making his olives black (only strong jets of air to oxidate the olives, NO iron as the industrial products do). When you hear the story, when you meet the producers, you fall in love and you can't wait to try their wholesome products!
MAXXI is the new museum of Roma and a creation of world famous architect and Pritzker winner, Zaha Hadid. It is located in Quartiere Flaminio, near the Tevere and it blends perfectly with the old traditional and conservative neighborhood. MA (Museum of Art) XXI (twentyfirst century) is a beautiful work of art, it took only 10 years from bid to finish (a miracle!) and it opened in 2010 to international acclaim. I was finally able to see it last week. YES, beautiful!
But my biggest surprise was the restaurant, located in an existing renovated building in front of the museum. Cool and clean, with great and smiling hosts, they serve buffet brunch at a fixed price (17 Euros, when I went). They only use ingredients form Lazio (our kilometer zero when we are in Roma. Do they shop at Circo Massimo?). Fragrant breads, fresh salads and puntarelle, mozzarella di bufala, pecorino romano, perfectly cooked roast beef, fresh fruit, and the home made crostate and desserts... it felt like Ms. Hadid envisioned the menu, too. I couldn't believe I never heard of such a nice food place. Indeed, the only thing I could find online is this brief description of the operations (MAXXI21 Caffetteria e ristorante) in the same MAXXI website, in the middle of the page. So, now you know. When you go to Roma, go to see MAXXI and make sure you go at lunch time!
After we select our producers, we continuously check on them to make sure they keep up with our highest quality standards. We do the same with the places we recommend. This time it's the turn of Mercato di Roma, near Circo Massimo. It's an indoor market, located in a beautiful building which once was the old jewish fish market (the star of David is still in the dome, in the center of the building). Some of the best farmers, bakers, butchers, fish mongers, cheese makers of Lazio region sell their products here during the week end. Not only is this a wonderful place, I asked Pietro Hausmann, who works there now but used to work for Gustiamo, to give you a tour. IN ENGLISH!!! If you go to Roma, you must go to the market and meet Pietro. He will be your host. He starts here (click on the arrow):
Why is truffle oil still on the shelves of specialty stores and supermarkets when everybody knows it is made by adding a chemical essence to a mediocre olive oil? The latest is Jean-Georges Vongerichten who was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. When asked what is the "most overrated ingredient" he replies "truffle oil. It's like gasoline. I never use it in my restaurants. It's heavy, and it repeats on me." All the producers know, all the merchants know that truffle oil is made with chemicals. But why is it still sold in the markets? Only to make a hefty profit? If you ever had a doubt of our honesty, Gustiamo never carried truffle oil. And we are proud of it!
Chef Amanda Freitag is a celebrity chef, one of those who go on tv to do all those famous shows like "chopped", "next iron chef", "unique eats". Sometimes you watch these shows and ask yourself, who are these people? Well, Amanda is a real chef and knows what she is talking about. She was interviewed by our friends at FindEatDrink. Q. What pastas do you love to use? When it's not made fresh. Is there a pasta company doing a great job? A. Latini Pasta - ... Pasta Latini. It's cut through brass dies and this makes a HUGE difference as to how the pasta tastes and with the sauce, and what happens in the pan when you put it together with the sauces. Once you have that, it's going to be hard to go to your old standbys, because that is really unique, really beautiful pasta. CAPITO?
Everyone at Whole Foods has been fantastic! They were our best supporters, in particular after they tasted the olive oil, learned the story behind it and met the producers. Left, is Johan with Nicola Bovoli of Vicopisano. The people who work at Whole Foods know their stuff and they were all excited with having such unique products in their stores. They were very helpful and invited their customers to come and see us, by the SEIZE THE MOMENT rack, where we were doing our demonstations. This is the rack where you can find the EV Olive Oils from Italian small organic farmers.
You can buy them at Gustiamo, of course. But, if you live in and around NYC (Long Island, Westchester, CT, NJ)... you should rush and buy them at your local Whole Foods, because they are running a special program and offer them at a special HUGE discount. SEIZE THE MOMENT!!!
It was such a pleasure to be with Sienna Reid, this past weekend, at her booth at the NYTimes Travel Show in NYC. Her company, Italy Hotline, is based in Roma and offers customized tours to Italy, many of which are focused on food and wine. Hard to believe, Italy Hotline was one of the very few "Italian" booths at this important show! Sienna's booth was a huge success: it looked like everybody (the organizers say 15,000 attended each day) is about to go to Italy.
Gustiamo served Italian artisanal foods from the regions Italy Hotline to goes more often: Pandoro from Padova (near Venezia); cookies from Lazio (near Roma); fruit preserves from Campania (near Pompei). Everybody stopped by and after they tasted the food, they went to talk to Sienna, Gina, Marcello (Sienna's son) and Matilde because they want to meet the food artisans who make those wonderful products in Italy!
As if this were not enough, Sienna invited food writer Pamela Sheldon Johns who flew in from Toscana. Left is Beatrice, Pamela and Sienna. Pamela talked about Italian cooking and best ingredients. She also served food: artisanal pasta on saturday and crostini with beans puree on sunday. This was the cherry on the cake; the booth went wild and you could not contain the crowd. Watch the video, below (click on the arrow); it is the beginning of Pamela's presentation where she talks about Italy Hotline and her books "Great Pasta Sauces" and "Great Appetizers". Pamela also talks about Gustiamo's fabulous line of Italian artisanal products. Grazie mille, Pamela!!! Ladies, this was a great job, glad we were a part of it, congratulations to all and much success to Italy Hotline!
