Tag Archives: ernesto

21st October 2018 by Bill Leave a comment

Ernesto’s Torta d’Autunno

One of the special treats of our Food & Wine Tours is our small group cooking class at our friend Ernesto Parziani’s restaurant Perbacco. Cooking with Ernesto, as many a guest will attest, is an all day affair, preparing course after course followed by a long, leisurely meal (accompanied by numerous wines). The icing on the cake is often a karaoke session led by Ernesto.

And speaking of icing, last week’s cooking marathon with Ernesto introduced us to a new seasonal dessert, an autumn cake that highlights apples and raisins – Torta d’Autunno. This dessert couldn’t be easier or more delicious. Give it a try and let us know how it came out!

ERNESTO’S TORTA D’AUTUNNO

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs beaten
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter softened
1 ½ cups walnuts
½ cup raisins
zest of 1 lemon
2 cups flour
1 pk. pane delgi angeli (baking powder)
1 apple peeled and sliced

DIRECTIONS

In a mixing bowl add butter and sugar and mix together. Add eggs, raisins, walnuts, lemon zest, pane degli angeli and flour and beat together.

Pour into a buttered cake pan. Press apples lengthwise into the batter.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until done.

Apple Cake Read more

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One of the special treats of our Food & Wine Tours is our small group cooking class at our friend Ernesto Parziani's restaurant Perbacco. ...

How To, Recipes

14th October 2018 by Suzy Menard Leave a comment

Ernesto’s Onion Soup

There’s something satisfying about a low-and-slow dinner that pairs perfectly with crisp autumn weather. So while we’re getting into sweater weather here in D.C., we’re outsourcing dinner ideas from our Italian friends in Cannara—this hands-off onion soup is a minimalist masterpiece that transforms the humble onion into a creamy and rich soup that’s perfect for when you want something warm and simple to fill you up.

ERNESTO’S ONION SOUP

INGREDIENTS

White onions

Water

Olive oil

Salt

Garnish (pink peppercorn, black olives, celery, herbs, etc.)

DIRECTIONS

– Start with 3 or 4 white onions and slice into thin strips. Add them to a wide pot and pour in a 50/50 mix of water and olive oil until onions are half submerged.

– Add salt, then cook for about 30-40 minutes on medium-low heat, until onions are translucent and soft.

– Blend mixture, adding about 1/2 cup of olive oil to emulsify. Texture should be smooth and creamy. Add salt to taste.

– Garnish as desired. Serve.

warm and simple Read more

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There's something satisfying about a low-and-slow dinner that pairs perfectly with crisp autumn weather. So while we're getting into sweater weather here ...

Home and Abroad, Life in Italy

12th October 2018 by Teddy Menard Leave a comment

Teddy’s Cannara

The small town of Cannara, my temporary home during my 3 month Italian sojourn, is undeniably small. And this is a great thing! The 10 or so minute stroll from the idyllic countryside farmhouse to town center brings you past the single supermarket, the pizzeria, the bank, the hardware/convenience store, the town monument, then plops you down at the bar. I’m using the definite (the) rather than indefinite (a/an) article here because, well you can be sure it’s the bar because it’s the only one in town. While on one hand this means fewer options, you don’t need anything else when you arrive to Bar Blue Sky and the baristas know how you take your coffee, or you start to pick up the rules of the card game that seemingly every male over the age of 60 in the town congregates to play in the late afternoon every day. For two weeks each year, however, this small town becomes the center of Italian cultural and culinary fascination during the Festa della Cipolla.

Cannara is known throughout Italy, and to some extent even throughout Europe, as the place where the best onions are grown. The onion is the agricultural legacy of Cannara, and this two-week long festival celebrates the bulb by opening pop-up restaurants throughout the town with onion themed menus. All the cooking sends out the smell of onion through the town and beyond, drawing visitors in on the scent streams from far and wide. And a crazy thing happens – this small town suddenly becomes absolutely bustling! An estimate of visitors over the two weeks I received from every Umbrian I know was between 60,000 and 70,000. This is for a town that my own estimate would say has about 1,000 residents, so you can imagine the change of scenery!

At nights during the festa, the town is alive with dangling lights, live music, local artisan vendors selling their wares, and, of course, innumerable onion dishes from which to choose at the various temporary restaurants. Hiring a staff to work for only two weeks is likely a tall task, so they skip it altogether – the employees are composed of town locals, coming in pretty much any age imaginable (I’ve seen some 7 year old-waiters and some 70 year old-waiters) who volunteer when they can throughout the course of the celebration. And because everyone is excited to try the once-a-year food options, the lines are huge. Arriving late on the last night of the festival, Cal and I had no time to wait and instead pulled the real clever move of eating at the best actual restaurant in Cannara – Perbacco – with the talented chef Ernesto and his delightful wife and host Simona.

We ate roasted onion; we ate onion soup; we ate onion pizza; we ate onion cream; we ate onion ice cream (shockingly good). It was a full meal and a satisfying meal, and Ernesto made the perfect wine recommendation for two novice drinkers – he so casually explained that the bottle of wine satisfied all of the specific areas of our interest (from Umbria, dry, not heavy but with enough body, spontaneous fermentation) without us even giving him any criteria. And, lo and behold, two novice drinkers finishing a whole bottle of wine together (and a digestivo) led to a pretty fun evening! We stayed at the restaurant for about three hours, taking up conversation with the Dutch spouses seated next to us and reveling in the fashion choices of the visiting population ambling our typically sleepy streets.

To end the night, we made our way to the Onion Disco Pub. To my knowledge, this outdoor bar and venue is closed for all but these two weeks of the year, so you have to know that folks make the most of its brief opening. The music bumps from here across town most nights of the festival, and it is where people gather after having dined on their onions and need to start – or keep – drinking. It was the largest – and youngest – crowd I’ve ever seen in Cannara, singing along to the band’s covers of classic Italian pop hits. Once tired, we left the scene and headed home, thankful for the short walk from the center of our small town.

A dopo,

Teddy

Cannara Festa della Cipolla (Onion Festival) Read more

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The small town of Cannara, my temporary home during my 3 month Italian sojourn, is undeniably small. And this is a great thing! ...

Home and Abroad, Life in Italy

30th October 2017 by Suzy Menard Leave a comment

Food for Thought

Was it too much food? Absolutely. Do I regret eating any of it? Not one bite.

We are here with our Food & Wine Tour group to Discover, Savor and Share – to explore the foods and wines of Umbria. It’s not possible to shape the experience without enjoying a few extra bites. We have six full days to discover hundreds of years of traditions. To enjoy a meal around the table – not standing at the bar eating a sandwich. For Americans, relaxing over a meal can be a challenge. To linger over two meals a day can be excruciating.

In the states we multi-task our way through a meal. Sitting at our desk with a phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Grabbing a bite to eat and a cup of coffee or a bottle of water every time we get into the car. Italians enjoy a small coffee at the bar and if they want more they make an additional stop. The idea of eating in the car is foreign. Their cars are not littered with fast food wrappers. Their children don’t eat foods that are non-spillable so that they can eat on the go. When I’m in Italy it all makes sense. When I’m back in the states I’m the one biting into an egg sandwich as I speed down I-95 at 70+ miles per hour – only to have the perfectly cooked yolk explode all over me and over the windshield. So much for multitasking and freeing up my time. Should have spent 15 minutes sitting down and relishing my breakfast instead of half an hour detailing the car.

We spend our week in Italy enjoying many meals together with new friends. Our most over the top, I-can-never-eat-another-bite-again day is at Ristorante Perbacco with our friend Ernesto. He has designed a 14 course tasting menu (sometimes more but never less) for us to cook together and to enjoy together. Starting with a main course and working backwards to dessert the fun never ends. We spend our day making dough that can be transformed into fried bread, baked bread or even pasta. Making pasta dough and turning it into five different shapes, each needing a separate sauce to showcase it. And most of all we relax and we laugh together. We are creating so many different foods that we don’t need to worry about precision and as a result everything turns out perfectly. So we pour a prosecco, take off our aprons and toast to another successful adventure together before we sit down and eat.

If I had to take out a few bites – where would I begin? I would begin at home – never in Italy.

Finding the Right Balance in Italy Read more

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Was it too much food? Absolutely. Do I regret eating any of it? Not one bite. We are here with our Food & ...

Experience Italy, First We Eat, Our Family Table, People

6th April 2017 by Suzy Menard Leave a comment

Ernesto is the Besto

I know this might shock you, but I love food and I love to eat out. However, my least favorite trend at restaurants (aside from sharing plates that come in all shapes and sizes) is ordering my food to have it come out of the kitchen as it is ready.

No rhyme or reason, no order of preparation, just a random delivery of food. So depending on what is happening in the kitchen – if the pasta line is backed up and the fish station is slow you may get your main course before your pasta. Roasted olives intended to be a starter show up right before dessert. Who knows what will be served with my cocktail. With this convoluted method it’s not possible to pair a wine with each course. As we know, one of the biggest challenges in any kitchen is timing; timing is everything, it takes a talented chef to prepare a variety of plates for each table that are ready to be served together. There is a constant distraction from what is being served when the food comes on a whim and the plates are meant to be shared. It is natural to focus more on the passing and making sure things are divided equally, but that interrupts the experience the dish is meant to give. Randomly putting plates of food on a table is not a sign of creativity – this should not continue as a trend and we should not be rewarding disorganization and laziness.

Cooking with Ernesto is a unique experience, like no other. And while for some a day spent cooking with him can be overwhelming and daunting – for me, it is an exciting and endearing adventure. Not one recipe at a time start to finish, rather many pots on the fire: pasta being rolled out, sauces simmering on the stove, meat roasting in the oven and cookies and cakes baking. Now this is the way I love to cook!

In this experience, Ernesto teaches us that multitasking is how to accomplish the full menu. To start you have to create a plan, nothing happens in his kitchen without a lot of thought going into it. To execute your plan, you have to pace yourself and not over complicate what you are doing. Think ahead and save time – dice the celery, carrots and onion (sofrito) at once and use it over and over again for different recipes. Make the bread dough at the beginning so it has time to rise before being baked or fried. Make one pasta dough but create different pasta shapes for different dishes.

Ernesto also teaches us that making pasta by hand is fun and easy. My advice is start out small – make pasta for one or two – 100g of flour to 1 egg per person. Mix it together and then stretch it out. You can’t overwork pasta dough – it’s not precious like a pastry dough – this is where you can really dig in and work the dough. Once it’s sliced, toss it with semolina and then make into two little nests.

For me the best part of spending a day cooking with Ernesto is the obvious joy of everyone cooking together. With Ernesto, it’s all hands on deck, there’s so much to be done everyone always has something to do. And don’t worry there’s no mistake that can’t be recovered. In this kitchen, there’s no screaming or yelling, no reason to be frantic; we have the whole day together to relax and try new techniques.

At the end of this exhausting day we get to enjoy the foods of our labors. And no matter the order the components were created, because of our plan the dishes are finished in order – and served with a plan: Antipasti, Primo, Secondo with Dolce at the end. Ernesto brings us no randomness, just organized chaos with a goal: enjoying an unbelievable meal together.

Ernesto teaches us multitasking Read more

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I know this might shock you, but I love food and I love to eat out. However, my least favorite trend at ...

Casa, Experience Italy, Home and Abroad, Life in Italy

2nd April 2017 by Suzy Menard Leave a comment

Christmas is for Family

In Italy there is a saying, “Christmas is for family and Easter is for friends.” For the Menards it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. Everyday is Christmas and everyone is family.

Arriving to Perugia airport after a very uncomfortable (but friendly) RyanAir flight we were instantly on home ground. The sights, the sounds the smells – all very familiar and very comfortable. The beautiful, lush, green farmland, the birds singing overhead, the scent of spring mingling with freshly mowed grass.

It’s a short drive to the house and we are exhausted after a 4:30am wake up call. Peace and quiet and a comfortable bed are calling to us.

We pull up to the house and immediately Chiara pops out to welcome us home.

We unpack quickly and drive to Bevagna for our traditional welcome to Umbria lunch with Simone and Desiderio at le Delizie del Borgo. Spring has arrived – in the form of a bowl of tagliatelle with fresh artichokes.

After a long – much needed nap – we walk into town to have a glass of wine with Federico Bibi and his children Olivia and Gabrielle. We promise them that their mother is just days away from returning home after running our kitchen at Via Umbria in DC.

And finally we walk the Bibi family home and stop in Perbacco for a quick dinner with Ernesto and Simona – a quick dinner is soon forgotten as the evening turns into sharing story after story and grappa after grappa.

And day one is complete.

Everyone here shares our love and passion for Umbria. They have grown up here and choose to raise their families here. There is a magic in the air and they want everyone to know it. They have all joined us in Washington to share their love of Umbria. Coming to cook dinners for our guests, to teach us about wines, to explore the history of jacquard linens in Umbria and of cashmere. This is a community who works with their hands – at the end of the day it’s not about a stack of papers or an empty mailbox – it’s about plants growing in the garden, freshly baked bread, wine opened and served at just the right moment, scarves (did I say scarves?), tablecloths, sweaters and hats from the highest quality linen and cashmere. It’s the blending of the old and the new. We all have the same dream and work together to make sure that Umbria is preserved and shared. We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our friends (now family) in Umbria.

When our children were young their school talked a lot about teachable moments. “An unplanned event during the day that adults can use as a learning opportunity for kids….parents and providers should capitalize on the moment, and provide the opportunity to extend or expand the child’s learning.”

For us, every moment is a teachable moment; an opportunity to learn about what we are seeing and doing; to meet new people and discover new ideas; a moment to stop and reflect on what is happening.

This week we will live every moment to the fullest.

Here in Cannara we will be introducing our group to our family in Italy. We will be drinking local wines, cooking traditional food, discovering the area and most of all learning together and laughing together. Enjoying every moment.

And in Washington at Via Umbria we will be introducing guests to our family in the states. We will be drinking Umbrian wines, cooking Umbrian food, discovering imported products from Umbria and most of all learning together and laughing together. Enjoying every moment.

Thank you to everyone who believes in our dream and works so hard to ensure that everyday is Christmas and everyone is family.

And Easter is for friends Read more

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In Italy there is a saying, “Christmas is for family and Easter is for friends.” For the Menards it is not always ...

Experience Italy, Food & Drink

1st April 2015 by Via Umbria Leave a comment

Vinopalooza Photo Diary

What we loved about the end of our day: unfussy yet superb antipasti, pasta, made from start to finish in front of your very eyes, flowing wine, and dessert to die for. Dinner at Ernesto’s is served.