Text 24121, 94 rader
Skriven 2009-05-16 22:54:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av BILL SWISHER
Ärende: Re: SMART CARS  90512
=============================
-=> Quoting Bill Swisher to Jim Weller <=-

 > Very pretty on a pine tree in your front yard.

 BS> We don't have any trees large enough to view frost on.  The moose have
 BS> killed all of ours.

Then you must kill the moose... and grill it.

 BS> left the garage door in the alley open [...] boiler in the
 BS> garage.  They spent a lot of money replacing pipes

I've seen that happen here too. To compound problems the guy had in
floor heating and was running pure water and not 50% glycol. The
whole system was wrecked.

 BS> Being a paranoid SOB when we had our alarm system installed
 BS> here at the house, for when we're traveling, I had 2 low temp alarms
 BS> put in, along with 2 high temp/smoke and 3 "water bugs"

Not paranoid, just sensible.

MMMMM-----Meal-Master - formatted by MMCONV  2.10

     Title: Grano Stompato
Categories: italian, grains
  Servings: 4

           wheat
           onions
           olive oil

One of the best single bites of my entire Italian journey came in
the town of Manduria, when I took my first mouthful of grano
stompato, a centuries-old peasant meal that reminded me just how
simple and sublime the right ingredients can be. 

The name of this dish, also called cranu stumpatu, translates to
"stomped grain", and it's nearly as simple as it sounds. Whole grains
of durum wheat are husked, soaked for twelve hours, and then pearled
with a heavy mortar; that wheat is then soaked again and boiled,
uncovered, for several hours. ("Durum" derives from a Latin word
meaning "hard," and true to its name, this firm and stubborn grain
demands an awful lot of softening.)

Eventually, the wheat mellows into a state not too different from
farro (made from the closely related emmer wheat) but with larger
grains and a bit more of a bite. Some preparations continue with
tomato sauce and perhaps a grating of sheep's milk Pecorino. But
Puglia is a historically impoverished region, and the poor and hardy
farmers were more likely to stop with just the grain, perhaps adding
drizzle of the ubiquitous native olive oil.

That's essentially how we encountered the grano stompato, at a lunch
at the Museo della Civilto del Vino Primitivo in Manduria. The chef
had sauteed a bit of onion in ample olive oil before tossing in the
cooked wheat. And that was all this dish needed. The oil was fruity
and sharp, enormously fragrant. The finely diced onion was expertly
softened, with a hint of caramelized sweetness. And the grain itself
was earthy and appealing, more satisfying than rice or farro, a
texture almost like steel-cut oatmeal writ large.

I don't like applying the word "revelatory" to food; I think it's a
somewhat florid term. A chocolate cake may be delicious, but it
rarely sparks a revelation. This meal did. I knew that certain
revered ingredients, like a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato or an
ocean-fresh lobster, were better left unadulterated. But I never
realized that simple kernels of grain could be treated the same way.

I finished every bite, though I knew several more courses lay ahead.
And as I pierced the last grains with my fork, I couldn't imagine a
more perfect meal. Were I an eighteenth-century Puglian farmer, I'm
sure, grano stompato would grow tiresome. But at that moment, I felt
as if I could live on it alone.

Posted by Carey Jones


  From: Serious Eats                    
 
MMMMM-------------------------------------------------



Cheers

YK Jim


... Keep steak simple: Meat. Fire. A Little Salt. That's it.

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