Mediterranean Summer (31 page)

“Maybe twice,”
la Signora
threw in. I had to suppress a smile. Rick had always commented on the impact of my
torta
on her usually minuscule appetite for sweets.

Instead, I said, “I am curious about breakfast. What are your thoughts?”

“We leave by seven in the morning, so maybe an American-style breakfast buffet would be the most practical. At that hour, it’s nice to have choices.”

“How about a changing egg preparation each day?” I asked to offer variety and keep her from asking for too much. As a restaurant cook, I was used to hitting the sack late and sleeping till well past breakfast. Breakfast had always been my least favorite meal to prepare.

“It sounds like you are on the right track, so let’s go ahead and assign the dishes to menus and the days they will be served.”

When we were finished, she smiled and closed the business discussion by saying, “Now, isn’t this better than faxing back and forth? Two hours and we have it all done.”

“You’re right,” I answered.

There was a silence that she broke. “And how long has it been since you’ve been home?”

“About five years,” I answered.

“This must be exciting for you, going home after all this time. Are you nervous? Are you going back to California or New York? And what are you going to do when you get there?”

I smiled. “I don’t even know yet. I need to think about that for a little while.”

“But are you certain of your decision?” she asked, as if trying to discern if there was any wiggle room in my earlier decision to turn down her offer.

“I may not be certain about where I am going to live, but I do know that I found what I was looking for in Italy.”

“
Bene,
” she said, smiling. “I hope we had a small part in this.”

“More than a small part.”

“After January, are we ever going to see you again?”

“Of course,” I answered without a minute’s pause. But it pleased me she had asked the question.

She smiled, and I smiled back. “That’s wonderful news,” she said. “See you on the twenty-seventh of December, and have a great holiday. And remember to have some fun in New York.”

We shook hands. Italians will invariably greet or part from friends with a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. But as closely as we had worked all summer, a kiss on
la Signora
’s cheek would have been entirely inappropriate.

I walked down the steps. Outside, it was Europe in autumn, a beautiful season. The air outside felt fresh and tangy. A driver stepped out of a dark green Alfa Romeo sedan parked in front of the building, came around, and held the door open for me.

“
La Signora
arranged transit for you.”

“Malpensa Airport,
per favore,
” I said to the driver as I climbed in.

“I know,” he responded with a smile.

On my way back to the airport my thoughts were on getting started with this as soon as I got home, because I needed to contact her people in England and start sourcing the ingredients I would need.

As the plane lifted off the runway, I looked out the window and half muttered, “
Ciao, Italia.
” The man next to me heard me and smiled. He was an American, and we began to talk.

Avanti

L
ike the conclusion of any milestone in one’s life, the season on
Serenity
ended with good intentions and the promise to keep in touch. I knew that in the small world of the yachting community, as long as I checked in periodically, I would hear about everyone else’s whereabouts.

Il Dottore
and
la Signora
’s annual New Year’s pheasant hunt was quite a production, hosted on a farming estate used only for the occasion. It was cold, but the staff and I were warmed up by the arrival of Rick, who was called to be part of
la Signora
’s international team. For the owners and four other couples, we were a service staff of eight. Everything had gone as planned, even though the days were longer than those in August. I had wonderful winter-season ingredients to cook and a well-equipped kitchen to work in. The cold rooms for food storage performed phenomenally well, maybe even better than refrigerators, but the coal-powered stove took some getting used to. And by the end of the week, it was no surprise
la Signora
proved to be the most successful hunter of the group.

Michele built his yacht management business and moved to a very upscale office in Cannes, France. He continues to manage
Serenity
and remains my point person for tracking the other members of the crew.

Patrick eventually moved on to become the skipper of another classic schooner,
Bellatrix,
managed a refit, spent a couple years on board, and then relocated to Chiavari in Liguria, where he became the restoration director for an Italian yacht-building company.

Kevin went back to Viareggio to begin his tenure aboard
Tirion
, a new state-of-the-art sailing yacht. He quickly proved his worth and was promoted to the job he was really after—fully licensed captain. When the yacht was sold to a European statesman, Kevin stayed on while keeping homes in both the United Kingdom and the south of France.

Scott proved tougher to track down, but I heard he spent the next couple of years working on yachts both in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean. He became, so I was told by Michele, a master at marine engineering and moved on to motor yachts.

Ian completed his home-training course to become an accredited sailing yacht captain. After a few stints as skipper on smaller private yachts, he took the necessary tests and put in the required hours to extend his license to larger craft. He married a stewardess he had met on one of the boats, and they make the Côte d’Azur home.

Nigel returned to New Zealand and opened a marine repair facility—with the sole purpose of allowing him to pursue his main passion, diving. No one had heard from him since.

Rick also found himself becoming the skipper of motor and sailing yachts. But more important, he finally gained custody of his son, got remarried, and had another child. I heard there was talk about him taking his wife and kids on an around-the-world voyage on a good-sized sailboat he was going to build.

For me, another journey was just beginning. I thought I could pick up where I left off, but it would not prove to be that easy. A lot of time had passed. You don’t notice how fast things change in America until you’re out of it for a while.

I started on the line in a couple of high-end restaurants, first in New York, then in California, to work my way back into the business. I quickly became a sous-chef and then
chef de cuisine,
always fortifying the menus with what I had learned abroad. A decade later, I successfully fused my restaurant background with my college degree in set and lighting design into the specialized position of culinary producer for food television. A great assignment came my way when I was hired to work with one of the masters of the medium, Chef Jacques Pépin, and the television series to his companion cookbook,
Fast Food My Way.

For each show, Jacques and I would do a final walk-through before the recipes to be taped. These occasions brought every element together for the first time—ingredients, steps in the cooking, movement around the set, the arrangement of kitchenwares, when to swap for a “twin” of what was being made to save production time, the finish plates, and table settings. He looked through his recipe while I worked from blocking sheets, choreographed blueprints of the segment. Occasionally there would be a few last-minute changes.

At the same time, the director followed Jacques and gave guidance to the cameramen for angles and shots. The producer watched for content and presentation while stage managers, prop stylists, and assistants stood by for any last-minute needs. Off the set, video, sound, and lighting engineers watched from the control room while the back-kitchen staff viewed and listened from a monitor.

One morning camera three was in need of a little tuning, and we were on hold for a short while. I looked around the beautifully decorated set, everything bright, clean, and perfectly lit under the studio lights—created for comfort with some elements from Jacques’s home. On one of the walls hung a model of a classic yacht.

“Nice boat,” I said to Jacques.

“You like boats?” he asked.

“I worked on one like that when I lived in Europe.”

“Did you cook on board?”

“For Italians,” I replied.

“That’s a good job. It’s a wonderful cuisine,” he said, admiringly.

“It was a lot of work, but I learned a lot.”

“I am sure you played hard, too,” he said with a smile.

I found out later that Jacques had spent some time early in his career cooking for officers in the French navy, moved up the chain of command, and became the personal chef to the president of France.

A couple weeks later, Jacques and I were going through our pre-taping steps. We were about to shoot the last of twenty-six shows. Just before the walk-through, while we were standing at the stove waiting for the others to assemble, he pointed to the boat.

“When the show is over,” he said to me, “that’s yours.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Jacques answered my question for me. “Memories.”

Recipes

SAUCES AND CONDIMENTS
Sughi e Condimenti

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Serenity
Marinara

Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette

Porcini Mayonnaise

Madame Quillier’s Rouille

APPETIZERS, SALADS, SANDWICHES
Antipasti, Insalate, Panini

The
Original
Spreadable Tuna Mousse

Marinated Chickpea and Arugula Salad

Shrimp, Summer Vegetable, and Rice Salad

Panzanella

Romano’s Warm Shrimp and White Beans

Grilled Tuna
Panini

Mozzarella in a Carriage, sort of

PASTAS
Primi

Baked Crêpes with the Don’s Filling

Shrimp and Garden Vegetable Cannelloni

Linguine with Clams and Zucchini

Spaghettini with San Marzano Red Clam Sauce

Dried Pasta with Tuna Sauce

ENTRÉES
Secondi

Baked Snapper with Tomatoes and Olives

Halibut in Crazy Water

Grilled Swordfish with Naked Caponata

Leghorn-Style Fish Stew

DESSERTS
Dolci

Fresh Fruit
Macedonia
with Mock Limoncello Syrup

Baked Stone Fruit with Sweetened Ricotta and Crushed Amaretti Cookies

Chocolate Capri Cake

Whipped Mascarpone Cream

Very Rich Cooked Cream

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Sugo di Pomodoro

MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS

Ripe and dense plum tomatoes
—pomodori maturi
in Italian—are crucial for making this very simple sauce. This base can be used wherever tomato sauce is called for and will marry beautifully with other flavors added to it, whether herbs, olives, diced prosciutto or salami, seafood, mushrooms, or cheese. Multiply the recipe to have it on hand. A good trick after peeling the tomatoes is to squeeze the skins a handful at a time to release the precious pulp and tomato water and add it to the puree.

2½ pounds ripe roma tomatoes, peeled

½ cup finely chopped yellow onion

2 tablespoons pure olive oil

1½ teaspoons fine sea salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Puree the tomatoes in a food processor or pass through a food mill. Heat the onion and olive oil together in a nonreactive saucepan large enough to hold the tomato puree over medium-low heat. A pot lined with stainless steel works best because it will not affect the flavor of the sauce. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the onion is very soft, translucent, but not caramelized, 5 to 8 minutes from when the onion starts to sizzle.

Add the tomato puree, salt, and sugar. Stir to combine with the onion and oil. Adjust the heat so that the sauce boils slowly and evenly, stirring from time to time from the bottom so the tomato solids do not cluster and burn. Boil until most of the water has been cooked out and the sauce starts to thicken, 35 to 40 minutes. The bubbles in the sauce will appear to be resting in the top surface of the sauce. Check the seasoning and add salt or sugar to taste if needed. The sauce can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for up to 3 months.

Serenity Marinara

La Nostra Marinara

MAKES ABOUT 4 CUPS

Make this on terra firma. It’s a good one. The root of the word
marinara
commonly used for tomato sauce is
marinaio—
sailor—so it made sense to have a version for
Serenity.
The hot pepper adds a nice element of heat that isn’t overpowering, but you can always add more. The subtle layer of seasoning added by the anchovy marries beautifully with fish and seafood, but since there is so little in the recipe, the sauce works with everything. A bonus to having this recipe in your repertoire is that all the ingredients come from the pantry. Perfect for emergencies and remote locations.

¼ cup pure olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, peeled, cut into 6 wedges, and the layers separated

3 large garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed

1 tablespoon roughly chopped anchovy fillet

2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley

Two 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes, pureed with their liquid

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

1½ teaspoons fine sea salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Heat the olive oil, onion, and garlic together in a nonreactive saucepan large enough to hold the tomato puree over medium-low heat. A pot lined with stainless steel works best because it will not affect the flavor of the sauce. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the onion and garlic are soft but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes from when the onion starts to sizzle. Remove the onion and add the anchovy. Using a wooden spoon, mash the anchovy with the garlic so that they combine into a paste. Add the parsley, stir, and continue to cook for 30 seconds, then add the tomato puree, oregano, hot pepper, salt, and sugar. Adjust the heat to keep the sauce at a low, steady boil and cook, stirring from time to time to keep the sauce from burning on the bottom, until the sauce starts to thicken, 30 to 40 minutes. The sauce will have lightened in color, and the bubbles will pop on the surface rather than coming from within. Check the seasoning and add oregano, hot pepper, or salt to taste if needed.

Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette di Senape

MAKES ABOUT
1
/
2
CUP

This
is
French dressing, and it goes with just about any salad or vegetable and even grilled meats. Whisking the oil into the vinegar and mustard will suspend it in the liquid, creating an emulsion that will hold for only an hour or so. This means the vinaigrette has to be made for each use—a bonus, because it will always be fresh. To vary the basic dressing, add crumbled blue cheese, chopped fresh herbs, crushed green peppercorns, honey, or minced black truffle after the last step.

1 tablespoon minced shallot or red onion

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

¹
/
₈
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

¹
/
₃
cup plus 1 tablespoon pure olive oil

Blend the shallot, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard in a 1-to 2-quart mixing bowl. Let rest for 5 or 10 minutes to soften the shallots. While whisking, add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream to start and keep the emulsion. Then add 1 teaspoon lukewarm water in the same manner to thin the consistency. Set aside for up to an hour so the flavors open up and evolve—or, as chefs like to say, “bloom.”

Porcini Mayonnaise

Maionese di Porcini

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS

At Gastronomia Peck in Milan, one of the greatest food stores on the planet, a signature pairing on their beautiful cold platters is spiny lobster or scampi with porcini mushrooms. This recipe takes from that elegant combination, making a perfect accompaniment for baked, grilled, or poached fish like salmon, sea bass, and halibut. Try it instead of plain mayonnaise in shrimp or lobster salad or as a great alternative to Louis dressing with cocktail shrimp and crab. And for land-based occasions, have it in sandwiches with cold roasted meats or chicken salad.

¾ cup pure olive oil

¾ cup canola oil

½ ounce dried porcini mushrooms

1 large egg (see Note)

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Blend the oils and set aside. Bring ½ cup water to a boil in a small saucepan and add the mushrooms. Remove from the heat and set aside to steep for 10 minutes to reconstitute. Place the egg, yolk, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Lift the mushrooms out of the water and gently squeeze out as much water as possible over the sink. Set aside the mushroom water left in the pan. Roughly chop the mushrooms and add to the food processor. Puree the mixture and, with the machine running, slowly add the blended oils in a thin, steady stream to make an emulsion. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the lukewarm mushroom water off the top and add in a steady stream while the machine is running. The mayonnaise can be used immediately or covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to a week.

Note:
This recipe contains raw eggs. People with health problems, the elderly, or those who are pregnant should avoid consuming foods with uncooked eggs, which, in rare cases, carry the potential for Salmonella infections.

Madame Quillier’s Rouille