Swapper Profile: Sole Anatrone + Recipes for Handmade Orecchiette Pasta and Broccoli Rabe Pesto

Sole teaching a pasta-making class

Name: Sole Anatrone

Home (+ hometown swap): I live and swap in San Francisco!

Profession: I am an adjunct professor of Italian cinema, literature and Women and Gender Studies at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

How did you first get involved in food swapping? How long ago? I think the first swap I attended was about 4 years ago, here in San Francisco. I think I read about it in a local food newsletter and thought, “That sounds so fun!” – because for me fun = food + people.

What did you make for the last food swap and what inspired your choice?

The last thing I made for a swap was focaccia with three jars of topping: pesto, pickled eggplant, and roasted red pepper. I try to make something different for each swap. In the weeks leading up to the last swap I had been making a lot of focaccia and had been loving the summer eggplant harvest so I thought I would put something together with those items.

What’s your favorite thing about swapping? I love seeing recipes other people are testing out and being inspired by their choices. I often go home and try to recreate or transform some of the creations I tasted at the swap. The nice thing about the swap is that it is one of the few spaces left where you can talk about and eat food without being caught up in the world of commerce. I often use the swap as a testing ground, trying out new recipes and looking for feedback (pop tarts was a fun one!).

Sole and her co-chef, Chris

Who or what most influences your cooking? My cooking is very much a product of my biography. I grew up in Santa Cruz and in Italy, in my cooking that means an Italian palate with a California-hippie attention to nutrition, balance and seasonal produce. This is particularly clear in my pasta-making classes. Every couple months I lead a series of classes with my friend and co-chef Chris. Under the name “Delizia SF” we teach students how to make a variety of traditional Italian pastas and then we put a little California spin on the sauces, side dishes and antipasti. These classes bring me so much joy, we always have a wonderful time in the kitchen and the class ends with a great big group meal. We started with orecchiette, a semolina pasta my grandmother often made; most recently we made squash tortelloni in a hazelnut and sage-butter sauce. For more info contact: deliziasf@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.

What’s your favorite kitchen tool? My black wooden spoon. It is wide and round almost flat, the wood feels good in my hand and doesn’t burn my tongue or get stained if I leave it in tomato sauce. I love it!

Your current flavor or ingredient obsession? Carrots have been particularly delicious this year. I am currently roasting a batch for a carrot-pepper soup and have been tossing them in just about everything from chile verde and ragù. Usually we think of roasted carrots as being a fall food but these late summer carrots are so sweet; a nice summer dish is to take roasted carrots and toss them with olive oil and my herbed salt (rosemary, thyme, oregano and garlic) and add them to a salad of charred corn and ricotta salata.

Biggest food surprise? Jellyfish salad. I had no idea what to expect when I tried it for the first time many years ago at little Japanese restaurant in the outer Richmond. I was blown away but how delicious and textured the dish was, not too salty and not slimy at all, just a little crunchy and deeply refreshing. I love coming across ingredients that are new to me, that is a big part of why I love to travel; last fall in Portugal my adventurous palate led me to discover amazingly delicious warm cod and chic pea salad, and a deeply disappointing candied egg yolks! Jellyfish salad was a wonderful surprise but definitely a special-occasion dish!

If the Rapture came tomorrow, what would your last meal on earth be? My impulse is to list the richer, saltier items that I save for special occasions: prosciutto, raw oysters, Spanish-style clams in garlic and white wine, grilled tri-tip, tortellini in brood… But if I'm honest I would probably want something comforting (it is the end of the world after all!) so I might have a carbonara (with lots of garlic, pancetta, pecorino and peas).  

When I'm not in the kitchen I'm _________.

Teaching, reading, and thinking about food in other parts of the city.

Favorite local food experience: Chile verde from Puerto Alegre; walnut bread with burrata and mushroom-truffle honey from Beretta; and the Alemany Farmer’s Market.

Recipe by Sole:

Handmade Orcchiette with Broccoli Rabe Pesto

Download Sole's recipe here.

Double whammy! Cook the Books meets Tasting Jerusalem

I love serendipity, and this month it struck with the convergence of two communal cooking groups. Cook the Books 2013 with Meg of Grow & Resist and Briggs of Ohbriggsy! focuses on a different cookbook each month, and Tasting Jerusalem with Beth (@omgyummy) and Serene (@fringefood) selects a different ingredient each month from a single book. So September brings Jerusalem and pomegranate molasses to the spotlight.

Plenty is a favorite cookbook (though I'm nowhere near vegetarian), so I bought Jerusalem when it came out. While I admit I don't turn to it as often, I have been inspired by the flavors and recipes over the past few months. Choice dishes I've made have included Roasted Cauliflower Salad (p 62), Baharat spiced grilled eggplant over Mejadra (p 120), Baharat eggs over Mejadra, preserved lemons (p 203), and Lamb Meatballs with Currants, Yogurt & Herbs (p 199).

On the menu this month:

Cardamom rice pudding with pistachios & rose water (p 270) - As previously confessed in my Cook the Books Gran Cocina Latina post, I adore rice pudding. And rose flavored things. Especially the combination of cardamom and rose (see my french toast and meringue posts). As usual I made some of my recipe reading mistakes (long grain rice instead of short grain) and some substitutions (half & half instead of heavy cream, and a little extra milk with some sugar instead of condensed milk), so my version was no doubt a little less rich than Ottolenghi and Tamimi's...but it still looked and tasted gorgeous! The overnight liquid soaking part felt a little fussy to me; I wonder if there might be a way to impart the flavor of the spices without that step. Also, my sister gave me one of her rugosa rose bushes, which produces amazing blooms and rose petal jelly! The petals went into this dish too.

Shakshuka (p 66) - Me and Tunisian cuisine both have a passionate love affair with eggs. The recipe states it's a seasonal summer variation, and using all fresh farmers market produce and eggs really emphasized this point. The fresh flavors of the peppers and tomatoes shone through, and the harissa brings some spicy depth without overwhelming. Over the moon with this satisfying dish despite my less than perfect presentation. I halved the recipe and used only whole eggs (not whole eggs + yolks), so found it was a little tight in my pan and swirling the whites was just a bad idea for me. There will be a next time, so I'm sure this is a practice makes perfect kind of thing.

Wheat berries & Swiss chard with pomegranate molasses (p 100) - This dish was a strange one for me. First of all, though I should have had a sense of it from the cooking time (all together over 80 minutes), but I wasn't expecting it to be so stew-like. Served up with poached salmon on the first night, it was really tasty. Though the BF liked it less than me. True, I may have been a little heavy-handed with the pomegranate molasses, so it was pretty tangy, but to my palate a nice combination of textures and flavors. A couple days later we had some leftovers, and it had become much less pleasant tasting; bitter and strong. I did skip serving it with the suggested greek yogurt both times, so maybe that would have helped mellow out the strong flavors. I would maybe make this again, and fiddle with the ingredients and proportions in order to make it more savory, with just a hint of sweet, and less dominant sharpness.

One of the really fun things about immersing yourself in a single cookbook each month—or for longer!—is to investigate and savor different ingredients. I love going out to the various ethnic grocers in our neighborhood (rarely do I need to go further) and buying things I usually only look at or wonder about. And I frequently discover new ways to use a familiar ingredient too. At home in my own kitchen, I feel like I journey the world through food. And the exploration is made that much more interesting with good company. I can't wait to see what everyone else, from both cooking communities, cooked up this month!

And for the record (the second time), I WILL make the Chocolate Krantz Cake one of these days...

Note: My trusty old Canon PowerShot SD650 is on its last legs, and I recently crossed over to the dark side and now have an iPhone. I'm trying out all iPhone photos for the blog. and though I haven't spent any time exploring more than basic functionality, so far...I'm not convinced. Tips, thoughts and camera recommendations are all welcome.

Dehydrating Fruit - Cook It! September Resolution: Raisins

Grapes = Raisins. So simple. And so much more lip-smacking when you make them yourself. That's what I did for the Grow It Cook It Can It September Cook It! 2012 dehydrate fruit resolution.

I started with a bunch of small organic green grapes; seedless, and very flavorful. Gave 'em a rinse and pulled out all the stems. Though now I know why you sometimes get little stem bits in your raisins — those suckers can be tough to remove! Popped the grapes into the dehydrator at 135 degrees, and went to sleep.

After 12 hours, to my delight they were starting to look like raisins!

And after a little more than 26 hours, my grapes had been truly raisin-ified.

Since grapes are pretty much pure water, it can take some time to dehydrate them. Count on anywhere from 24-48 hours depending on the size of the grapes you are using.

These raisins really do pack so much more punch in terms of their pure, grape-y flavor, I have found myself mostly just eating them as a snack. This is one of the best dehydrating projects I've done so far, and the payoff was great.