Posts tagged ‘Gustiamo’

Whether it’s a reaction to the brisk fall weather or the fact that I’m now able to have leisurely breakfasts at my dining room table, lately I’ve been obsessed with all manner of jams, preserves, and jellies. And ever since Danielle introduced me to the wonderful team at Gustiamo, they’ve been filling me to the brim with their selection of unbelievable Italian food sourced right from the local producers. Over the past few weeks, the Masseria Maida fruit preserves have been filling my belly on a near-daily basis.

Masseria Maida is based in Campania, a region in southwest Italy known for its incredibly fertile volcanic soil — as Tango Italia so eloquently puts it, the area was historically the Romans’ “vast vegetable garden and their orchard.” Using his grandmother Antonia’s recipes of only fresh fruit and sugar, Masseria Maida owner Francesco Vastola grows his own produce to make meltingly sweet jams, He’s also an expert creator of gorgeous red and golden tomato sauces, antipasto with unexpected bits of pumpkin and celery(!), and the most tender, delectable tiny artichokes.

But back to kicking out the jams. It seems so appropriately autumn that Maida’s pear-walnut flavor is my latest addiction. It’s honey sweet, with translucent ribbons of pears and crunchy walnuts studded throughout a loose golden syrup.

And because I’m happiest when adding a savory element to anything sweet, I’m swooning at how well these preserves match up with a salty cheese. A fresh and tangy goat cheese like Selles-sur-Cher, Boucheron, or this Sainte-Maure de Touraine is heaven when topped with the preserves on a piece of toasted baguette, but I’ve also been known to use a thin slice of Pecorino in place of a cracker and spoon the jam directly onto the cheese.

Should you be serving this to others (and not eating it over the sink at night like I have done), an elegant and impressive option would be these homemade Pecorino flatbread crackers.

Pecorino Flatbread Crackers
Makes about 60 crackers

• 3/4 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling out the dough
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into quarters
• 1/4 cup milk

Mix together cheese, flour, baking powder, and salt, then blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until the flour is moist and uniformly crumbly (using the same technique as making pie crust). Add the milk, stirring gently with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.

Sprinkle the dough with flour and knead gently until smooth, about 2 minutes. You can do this against the side of the bowl, actually, since it’s such a small ball of dough. Remove from the bowl, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350° and cover two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Divide the dough in half and roll out one at a time into thin (1/8-inch thick) rectangles, dusting your rolling surface and pin with flour to prevent sticking — it is a soft dough. Cut into square/rectangular cracker shapes and transfer to the baking sheets. I make mine on the larger side, about 3 inches by 2 inches. You may have to bake them in two batches depending on the size of your sheets.

Bake crackers for about 10-12 minutes, switching and rotating the sheets in the oven halfway through. Keep an eye on them as the crackers on the edge may brown more quickly. Pull the entire parchment paper sheet with the crackers onto a rack to cool.

I can’t tell you how many times I have vowed to start bringing my lunch to work and failed.  Seriously, it’s like New Years Eve mixed with Groundhog Day. I never make it more than a week before I get sick of sandwiches, my Tupperware smells like tomato sauce, or my attempt at a healthy salad leaves me with a sense of existential lack and I’m forced to eat a cupcake to make it all better. Our staff caf isn’t great, but it’s way better than most and they always serve a starch, a vegetable, and a meat or fish. It’s hard to hit all those notes with a packed lunch.

A lovely solution is what I’m now going to coin the “This and That Lunch.” Last week, the good people at Gustiamo invited me to lunch at their warehouse and office in the Bronx.  As lunchtime approached, the staff pulled a table into the center of the room, set it with real plates, utensils, and water glasses, and put out a spread composed of leftovers from home, brought by everyone. There was some swiss chard served straight from the Tupperware, homemade bread, a couple of slices of warmed-up pepperoni pizza, roast chicken, a few lamb chops, and a mixed-greens salad. Given that we were also in a warehouse of imported Italian foods, they had a bottle of gorgeous Tuscan olive oil for the salad, as well as delicious caponata that could make even Casey like eggplant. It was warm, communal, relaxing, nutritionally balanced, and economical.

Now I know that taking lunch is not something that many office workers make a priority, at least here in New Yorkistan,  where taking a lunch hour is perceived as something special if not indulgent.  But consider that if you could get just 2 or 3 of your colleagues to sit down together for a This and That Lunch, you could be eating a fully balanced meal without cracking open your wallet. Also, think of the environmental benefits of using real flatware and utensils! (I feel shame when I think of how many plastic forks I’ve sent to die in landfills for the next 300 years.)  Finally, it’s just good for the soul to carve out the time to sit down, enjoy your food, and talk to the people with whom you spend your day.

P.S. You can pitch in a few of your saved bucks for a French press and enjoy communal afternoon coffee in these faux-street cart coffee cups!

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