Lombardia

Vinum Exhilarat Animum!

When I started this blog, I was clear that it would be about food and not particularly about wine, beer or spirits. Now however I’m changing my mind a little and this is for two principal reasons.

The first is because of the inspiration I’ve received from a friend of mine in the UK, Peter, who has a series of posts on his Facebook page under the heading, Vino Friday. Reading his posts led me to realise something, and that is the second motivation for what I’m about to launch on this site.

Living in Italy gives access to some first rate and world class wines, on the door step. The great wines of Tuscany (Brunello di Moltalcino) and Piemonte (Barolo) hold their own in the world of classic and noble wines and the best examples of them command very high prices. Other Italian wines from the Sud-Tirol in the far north to Sicily in the South offer great variety in terms of style, price and quality. Even in the realm of sparking wines, the bollicine of Franciacorta, not to be confused with Prosecco because they are made according to the méthode champenoise, can hold their own against many French Champagnes, even if they are from the cisalpine slopes of Lombardy rather than the the vineyards surrounding Rheims. Italy is proud of its wine production and is the second biggest exporter of wine to the UK, after France, BUT the Italians in general are not very open to wines from other parts of the world. Reading Peter’s posts, referred to above, has awakened in me many happy wine memories and I realise that I very much miss the wines of the Loire, South America, Oceania, South Africa and many other regions across the world.

Trying to buy so-called new world wines in Italy, or even French wines is very difficult and often expensive. The Italian wine market is protected, by fair means or foul and one has to work very hard to source a decent bottle.

I enjoy wine but am too lazy to learn the technical stuff however I am going to try to write the occasional piece on this blog to share my experience of drinking the odd bottle of wine. To help with this, I’ve recruited the assistance of Adam Serdiuchenko who will tutor me through the tasting of each wine. Adam is a WSET qualified sommelier and I’m looking forward to him helping me to describe the wines we taste.

As always the preferences and final assessment of what I like or don’t like will be mine – this is a personal blog after all, albeit supplemented with Adam’s professional knowledge.

July 30, 2021 1

An evening at the ranch

For years, in fact each time I’ve left town by car, I’ve driven past what I supposed to be a stables/riding school. It’s the Cascina Sesmones on the outskirts of Lodi. It’s a very tidy and pretty set up seen from the road, with well groomed healthy looking horses in the paddocks.

Recently a friend mentioned this same place in connection with a restaurant that he thought we might find interesting. How could it be, that after nearly 8 years of living here, there could be a restaurant I hadn’t even heard of and in any case I’d thought was simply a horsey place. Obviously a visit to explore it was necessary…

Sure enough the restaurant, Spazio Molino, is located within the Cascina Sesmones. Parking in the car park, the first sight was of the horses in their stalls. The complex also includes a conference centre and hotel. Anyone who has visited the winelands outside Cape Town, South Africa, will be familiar with the manicured beauty of their principal buildings and the inevitability of finding a nice place to eat. So it was with Cascina Sesmones. Everything is very well cared for and maintained, there isn’t a weed visible in the gravel, the paintwork is immaculate and the lighting superb.

The menu here is something quite innovative and even the reading of it gets the taste buds tingling. We sat and looked at the long list of dishes, any of which might be more than acceptable. We ordered water while we thought about food and wine. We chose the food and narrowed down the wine choice. Twenty minutes passed and still no water arrived, no order was taken and no-one checked as to whether or not we had any questions. By now we were thirsty – very thirsty! This was a dinner on a hot summer’s evening to celebrate the end of a working life of some 40 years. What promised to be a really good find was turning into an irritation.

When eventually we were given some water we ordered our food and an Argentinian Malbec wine. New world wines being a bit of a rarity here this was a real treat.

Starters were without doubt delicious, even if mine, seared beef with French oyster mayonnaise and gossamer thin shavings of Raspadura (the local grana cheese), appeared to all intents and purposes to be a main course.

Main courses didn’t quite live up to either the excitement promised by their menu descriptions or the excitement of the first courses. I had suckling pig which had a lovely crispy skin and a buttery jus contrasted with bitter spinach. It was nice but not special in the way the starter had been.

We decided to have puddings and waited to see the menu so as to order them. We waited and we waited and we waited. To this day no one ever came to take our order, so it was that we left, paying at the desk on the way out and giving our feedback. A reasonable discount was given for the lack of service.

Overall the menu here attracts me very much but the service puts me off to a very high degree. I will give it another go but am not hopeful that the service will be any better, having heard form others that they experienced something similar. If they sort this out, I’d be very happy to make Spazio Molina a regular haunt, not least because I’d love to visit Dafne and the other horses again.

July 2, 2021 0

Who’s Giacomo?

The website of this small restaurant isn’t fully functional yet, but it does link to a Facebook page.

The Prison

da Giacomo

River Adda

Last Saturday was cold and wet in this part of Lombardy, so the best option seemed to be to find a nice restaurant in order to while away the hours before settling down to watch some TV and snooze the afternoon away. The small town of Pizzighetone, in the Province of Cremona sits on the banks of the Adda river, which rises in the Swiss Alps before flowing through Lake Como and then on through the Lombardy Plain into the river Po. It was the scene of a major battle in the 18thC War of the Polish Succession but is today a quiet little back water with a collection of old buildings, a pretty crossing over the river as well as a pretty Church.

Keeping an eye on the chefs

Opposite the Church of San Bassiano is the restaurant da Giacomo. A brief wander around the town in the drizzle wasn’t quite long enough to prevent an arrival at the restaurant 15 minutes ahead of the reservation time of 1pm. The restaurant was empty, so a choice of tables was offered. The choice made was of one with a view into the kitchen where a husband a wife time worked in silence to finish their preparations for service. The maitre d’ (owner? Giacomo?) was friendly and welcoming and a nice glass of fizz from Franciacorta was offered and accepted together with a plate of salumi, consisting of Culatello di Zibello and a cooked pancetta which was unlike anything I’d experienced before. It was gossamer thin with creamy sweet fat and a very pleasing smoked taste; the perfect partner to the Culatello with its notes of the farmyard! We were also given a spoonful of quinoa with provolone, a bruschetta and a deep-fried savoury foam!

The menu offered a good choice, with two different tasting menus, one consisting of a meat selection ‘proposta di terra’ and the other more fishy, ‘proposta di aqua’ and also an interesting alla carte section, with a focus on the likes of quail, duck and guinea fowl.

For me, the choice for the first course was Tortelli al “Grana Antico” e caffe ripieni di melanzane violette, e ricotta stagionata (Coffee pasta stuffed with aubergine and aged ricotta and finished with “Grana Antico” cheese and deep fried slivers of aubergine peel). It was delicious, even though I couldn’t detect the coffee element. It’s always good to see something a bit different on an Italian menu. I followed this, not with Faraona (guinea Fowl), as I was seriously tempted to do, but with Veal Kidneys with mashed potatoes. Wow! It hard to imagine how it would be possible to make kidneys taste as yummy and certainly nothing like the overcooked pigs version of school days. They were gently flavoured, succulent and perfectly seasoned. The accompanying sage sauce was well balanced and the buttery mash was as smooth as silk.

Tortelli

Veal Kidneys

I don’t always eat puddings but when the first and main have been so good, its difficult not to follow-on with something sweet.

A saffron poached pear washed down with a glass of Passito was the ideal choice!

Oh and just a nibble of cheese, to taste.

May 11, 2017 1

La Locanda Del Benaco

A couple of weeks ago I was able to spend a few hours on the shore of Lake Garda, in a lovely little town called Salò. Today it’s a quiet sleepy lakeside town but in the heady years of complex Italian politics it was the centre of government of the Nazi-backed Italian Social Republic, sometimes know as the Republic of Salò (1943-1945). Like most forms of Italian extremism it faded and has left this gorgeous little sun-trap in its wake.

Lunch was in a typically unpromising lakeside eatery attached to a 3 star hotel, La Locanda de Benaco.

Initially the main attraction was the combination of views across the lake and the fact that there were tables with partial shade. Being offered a bowl of water for the dogs at the same time as we humans were offered drinks was a good start.

As we hadn’t planned to eat here, no research had been undertaken in advance and so it was a voyage of discovery. The menu was a bit different to most places and as you might expect from venue by a lake, it had its fair share of fish dishes. The meat options though were appealing too.

I started with Battuta di fassona, semi di zucca, uova di quaglia (Fassona beef tartare, with pumpkin sees and quail’s egg). The little fried quail’s egg was so cute and the beef was really tasty and all the better for being served at room temperature and not ice-cold. The pumpkin seeds added a welcome texture. It was perfect starter for a warm spring day, light, refreshing and bright and cheerful on the plate.

One of the problems with having a plate of nice food in front of me is that I want to dive right in and taste it. Writing a blog though requires me to take pictures first. In this case the temptation to tuck into my Guinea fowl with cauliflower cream was too great and alas it was half eaten before I remembered to take the pic. Here it is though, in it’s half demolished state. My apologies!

Guinea fowl is one of my favourites and is know as Faraona in Italy. I like it so much because it has the taste of the chicken of my childhood before they were quite as intensively farmed as they are today and had time to grow on the farm naturally. The skin here was crisp and golden with just one or two dark sticky bits to make it very lovely indeed. The yellow ball in the top left of the photo is polenta, which, I’m sure, would have been cooked to perfection but which I didn’t eat because of my own aversion to the stuff. I will try to learn to like it though – one day!

Matching the food though were the really friendly staff who were attentive without being overbearing and always gave a smile as they passed the table. I’d go back again for that reason alone.

April 5, 2017 0

My Kind of Food

Sharing stories about the kind of food I like to eat

Category

Vinum Exhilarat Animum!

An evening at the ranch

Who’s Giacomo?

La Locanda Del Benaco