“My Calabria” - La Cucina Calabrese at Cavallo Point

A year ago I could have found Calabria, the region at the very toe of the Italian “boot,” on a map, but would have been hard-pressed to tell you much about it. Today, although I have not yet been there and still have much to learn about the area, I feel I know more about it than many other Italian regions, and it has moved up to the top of my list of places in Italy I would like to visit. Why? Rosetta Costantino of Oakland.

Alex, Cassie and I took our first cooking class with Rosetta in Emeryville this past February, and a good deal of what I learned about Rosetta’s background is described on the post I did following that class. A few weeks ago we learned that she would be giving another class on Calabrian cuisine on our side of the Bay - at our favorite cooking school at the Cavallo Point resort in Ft. Baker, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The class filled up almost immediately after it was announced, but the three of us managed to sign up.

One of the reasons we particularly wanted to take another class from Rosetta at this time was that she has just come out with her long-awaited cookbook entitled “My Calabria,” and we were eager to see it and pick up copies. Rosetta has been working on the cookbook for five years in collaboration with Janet Fletcher (who also wrote the wonderful 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article about Rosetta and her family, which was where we first heard Rosetta’s name) and all reports indicated it was worth waiting for.

So, a bit before 4:00PM on Saturday we arrived at the Cavallo Point cooking school were we were met by Rosetta and her mother, Maria Dito, who had happily joined Rosetta for the class and who is featured in many places in My Calabria. Jayne Reichert, the director of the cooking school, was also there with her staff, Rosalyn, Jen and David.

While we were getting settled, the staff poured us some Col Vetoraz prosecco which we enjoyed with local cheese and the superb bread baked at Cavallo Point’s Murray Circle restaurant by the resort’s pastry chef, Ethan Howard, who earlier honed his skills at Bouchon, Martini House and The French Laundry.

While Ethan’s bread has nothing to do with Calabria, it is a sufficient reason in itself to visit Cavallo Point. Just incredible crust, texture and flavor – in my view the equal of Tartine’s rustic country loaf which is among my local gold standards.

Jayne kicked off the program with an introduction of Rosetta and some reminders about knife safety, and we then reviewed our handout with recipes for the following dishes which we were to prepare that evening (the page numbers indicate the pages in My Calabria where the recipes for those dishes appear):

~ Fried eggplant balls (Polpette di Melanzane) as an appetizer [p. 32-33]

~ Hand-Made Calabresian fusilli pasta with tomato sauce [pp. 85-87 -- we dressed the fusilli with the tomato sauce prepared for the vrasciole rather than the sugo di capra (goat sauce) paired with the fusilli in the cookbook]

~ Stuffed pork rolls in tomato sauce (Vrasciole [Calabrian for “bracciole”] alla Verbicarese) [pp. 196-198]

~ Cauliflower salad with anchovies and olives (Insalata di Cavolfiore) [p. 240]

~ Flourless walnut cake (Torta di Noci) [pp. 341-342]

Rosetta then gathered us around and gave us a brief demonstration of the preparation of each dish.

After that, we were divided up into groups to work on the individual dishes. I was assigned to eggplant balls/cauliflower salad, Alex pulled pork roll duty and Cassie went off to work on the walnut cake.

All of the teams' preparations went very smoothly with liberal help from Rosetta and the Cavallo Point crew (and Maria!!). The most interesting dish we prepared during the evening was the Calabrian fusilli. In most parts of Italy fusilli refers to the corkscrew shaped pasta pictured below.

However, in Calabria it is a completely different pasta. First of all, Calabrian pasta, like other Southern Italian pasta, uses no eggs – just flour and water (incidentally, Rosetta mentioned that she prefers to use organic unbleached flour made by Central Milling from red hard wheat, which is available at COSTCO). However, it is the means of preparation and shape that sets Calabrian fusilli apart. The pasta is first rolled out into a long thin rope about the thickness of a pencil which is then cut into smaller segments of about 4 inches each. Then you take a #1 knitting needle (or, as we did, a clean length of metal clothes hanger wire), press it down into the pasta, then roll the cylinder while spreading it along the length of the wire. When it is sufficiently thin, you then deftly (at least Maria and Rosetta did it deftly) slide it off the wire in a smooth motion leaving a long, hollow tube of pasta. The following photo shows some of the fusilli we prepared and here is a video I took of Rosetta demonstrating the preparation.

Maria also showed us how to make another Calabrian pasta shape – called filei or, more descriptively, ricci di donna (“woman’s curls”) – in which the same pasta segment is wrapped around the wire in a spiral and then rolled in the same matter. See the following photo with examples of both fusilli and filei pastas.

In the midst of our work, as an appetizer we fried and served the eggplant balls which were very easy to prepare and very tasty.


All the dishes came together nicely at the end of the evening and we took our seats while the Cavallo Point staff dished up the courses. We started with a first course of the fusilli dressed with some of the tomato sauce in which the pork rolls had been cooking. That was served with a Greco di Tufo “Terrantica” white from the I Favati winery in Campania.

That was followed with a serving of the Vrasciole alla Verbicarese with the Insalata di Cavolfiore, accompanied by an Aglianico “Contado” from the Di Majo Norante winery in Molise.


The meal was topped off with a piece of the walnut torta accompanied by a dollop of whipped cream enhanced by a splash of Passaro Nocino (walnut liqueur) from Scalea in Calabria.

If you want to try to make that liqueur yourself using fresh walnuts, the preparation is described here in Rosetta’s Calabria from Scratch blog (mark your calendar for next June 24).

All of the dishes were excellent and ones which I would make again. I thought the fusilli were especially notable – a very nice meaty consistency and weight to them. The pork rolls were exceptionally tender and tasty (they were filled with ground fat and parsley so they remained moist) and the dessert (which we had also made at the February class) was a perfect light end to the meal. The cake’s airy texture and flourless preparation seemed quite similar to the hazelnut torte we had enjoyed on our recent trip to Piemonte (see #12 at this post), and Rosetta confirmed that the same dish could be made using various nuts.

At the end of the dinner we were able to purchase copies of My Calabria which Rosetta kindly autographed (Maria signed mine too!). More about that below. However, perhaps the real treasure of the evening was a bag of spices – ground sweet and hot Calabrian peppers and wild fennel seed -- which Rosetta and Maria had brought along for me, and which will be finding their way into some of the fresh Calabrian sausage we learned to make at the February class. The wild fennel seeds had been painstakingly harvested by Maria by hand, a process described in the cookbook at page 215.

It was yet another fun evening at Cavallo Point -- special thanks to Jayne and her hard-working staff.

On the following day I curled up with My Calabria and made my way through most of it. It is a wonderful book – far more than just a cookbook and an introduction to Calabrian cuisine, it includes a good deal of information about Rosetta’s family and upbringing in Calabria, as well as information about places to visit in Calabria. In fact Rosetta just returned from leading a culinary tour of Calabria in October which is described in this post on her blog. The tour visited many of the places that are described in My Calabria. Rosetta spends a good deal of time on her Calabria from Scratch blog and it is a very effective supplement to her new cookbook.

My Calabria also benefits from the photography of Sara Remington (if I had one wish, it would be that more of Sara’s photographs could have been included in the book), and the collaboration of Janet Fletcher mentioned above. Alex, Cassie and I were fortunate to take several courses from Janet at the Cheese School of San Francisco and always found her to have a knack of putting food in the social and geographical context from which it comes. That same knack can be seen in Janet’s other books and in her regular “Cheese Course” column in the Chronicle, and it resonates throughout My Calabria.

However, what I have personally valued most about the time we have spent with Rosetta and reading her blog has been the way in which she conveys her family’s philosophy towards food, which includes preserving their, growing in their suburban back yard much of the food that they consume (see the following photo of Rosetta with her father, Vincenzo, with the tomato plants in their back yard which looks like something out of the Amazon rain forest), and wasting virtually nothing.

This was impressed on me again on Saturday night in a small way when, in the midst of preparing the cauliflower salad, Maria came over and asked Jayne if she could take the discarded cauliflower greens home to feed to their rabbits. As Rosetta points out in the book, her parents’ experience in Calabria, especially during the difficult period at the very end of World War II, left them “with a deep aversion to waste and a profound respect for what nature provides.”

A few weeks ago Oliveto hosted a dinner featuring some of the dishes in My Calabria and they also shared a very nice video online showing a recent visit to Rosetta’s backyard garden.

If you have not completed your holiday gift shopping, I can assure you that anyone with any interest at all in Italian food would love My Calabria. Hopefully a visit there will be in the cards during 2011!

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The Goats of Rossotti Ranch

I really like goat, so a few weeks ago when I noted at the Sunday farmers market in San Rafael a new stand -- Rossotti Ranch -- featuring goat meat, I stopped by to say hello. Rossotti Ranch is just west of Petaluma and is owned and operated by Tony and Julie Rossotti who come from different two families which both have roots in agriculture and livestock raising in Marin - between them a total of nine generations.

I have had goat in a number of different forms over the years -- primarily in Mexican places (e.g. as birria or barbacoa), but also a memorable goat and lamb meatball dish (Polpettine di Capra e Agnello in Verde) we enjoyed at a dinner at La Ciccia featuring the cuisine of Abruzzo.

I had also begun to notice more articles in the food press about goat with some intriguing recipes, including:

~ NY Times: “How I Learned to Love Goat Meat”
~ SF Chron: “Goat Breaks into Bay Area Menus”

However, I had never tried to prepare goat myself, so I was interested to see what Rossotti Ranch had to offer.

Rossotti Ranch has a very good website with some tasty-looking recipes (in particular, their North African Barbecued Goat Shanks caught my eye). The site also includes some interesting information about the healthy qualities of goat compared to other meats:

One of the first things I learned while talking with Tony and Julie was that they would be participating in an upcoming cooking class sponsored by Marin Organic at Cavallo Point - an event featuring both goat from Rossotti Ranch, and vegetables from Dennis and Sandy Dierks’ Paradise Valley farm in Bolinas. Having had such good experiences on previous events at Cavallo Point, I went right home and signed up.

The class was last Tuesday night. Our good friends, Sandy and Connie Calhoun, who are good sports when it comes to exploring different cuisines, joined me.

Jayne Reichert, the Director of the Cooking School, opened the doors to the classroom for us at 6:00, and after a glass of prosecco and a chance to look over the ingredients and meet the Rossotti’s and the Dierks, we took our seats and the program got started.

The following was our menu for the evening:

~ Roasted Beet Salad with Creamy Garlic Chive Dressing
~ Goat Meatballs with Potato Gnocchi, Green Beans and Parsley Pesto
~ Goat Shoulder braised with Allspice and Oranges and served with Oven Roasted Kohlrabi, Sautéed Lacinato Kale and Over Roasted Tomatoes with Basil
~ Nectarine Tart with Cornmeal Crust

and here are a set of photos of the final dishes:

We prepared everything during the class, with the exception of the braised goat shoulder which Jayne had started earlier in the day given the time required to cook it.

Everything was great, although the dish that I thought was best and that I plan to try in the near future was the meatballs. Here is the recipe for that dish:

A similar recipe appeared in the New York Times article cited above.

Given that goat is so lean, both recipes recommend the addition of pork to provide a bit more fat content. The meatballs were formed using as delicate a touch as possible, then lightly browned in a skillet, and finally placed in a chicken stock in which a large Parmigiano-Reggiano rind had been simmering. The meatballs were then further simmered in the stock and served with it.

The meatballs were served with potato gnocchi (incidentally, for aspiring gnocchi makers, here is an excellent how-to video featuring Paola Bagnatori of the Museo ItaloAmericano) and green beans which was a very nice counterpoint. However, if I was to make the dish, I think I would substitute some Cannellini beans for the gnocchi (perhaps the excellent Tuscan White Beans with Sage and Garlic (Fagioli alla Salvia ed Aglio) dish we made at Cavallo Point with Judy Witts Francini) or just serve the meatballs with pasta - perhaps with a light tomato sauce or pesto Genovese.

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Paella at Cavallo Point with the Spanish Table

A few months ago while preparing for a Spanish wine tasting at our office, I happened to wander in to The Spanish Table store in the Strawberry Shopping Center in Mill Valley. I met Andy and Tanya Booth, the husband and wife team who own and operate the store, and was impressed with their broad selection of Spanish wines, food and other products. I have been back often since, including for some of their wine tastings on Saturday afternoons which I highly recommend.

Since I already knew Andy and Tanya, when I saw on the Cavallo Point cooking school schedule that they would be teaching a class on Spanish cuisine featuring paella, it was a no-brainer to sign up. Although our son, Alex, with his seafood allergies, was not up for the class, happily his fiance, Cassie, joined me.

When Cassie and I got to the class we were happy to find both Jayne Reichert, the cooking school’s director, and her colleague Jennifer Rudd, with whom we had also taken classes before. They were serving sangria and chilled sherry to welcome the class, together with some snacks including Campo de Montalban and Garrotxa cheeses, warm Cerignola olives and wonderful bread from the Cavallo Point kitchen.

The ingredients for the class were on display for us on the main work area and we checked them out while we enjoyed our beverages and appetizers.

The following were on the menu for the evening:

~ Gazpacho Andaluz, a cold vegetable soup;
~ Gambas al Ajillo, garlic shrimp;
~ Ensaladilla Rusa ("Russian Salad"), a potato and tuna salad;
~ Two different paellas - Paella de Amontillado (named after a variety of sherry, with chicken and chorizo sausage) and Paella de Mariscos (with seafood); and, for dessert
~ Tarta de Santiago, an almond cake named after St. James (Santiago) which is a specialty of a town in the Gallicia area of northwest Spain called Santiago de Compostela, the destination of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.

After an introduction of Andy and Tanya by Jayne and some reminders about knife safety, we split up into groups and got started on the dishes at workstations set up around the room.

Cass and I joined the group that prepared the Gazpacho and the Tarta de Santiago, which turned out to be relatively quick work. I would particularly recommend the Tarta which was similar to the Torta di Noci (Walnut Cake) we made not long ago at our Calabrian cooking class. Here here is the recipe.

Jen also taught us a special egg cracking technique which Cassie easily mastered!
We then joined the rest of the class which was working on the other dishes. While everyone else was working, Andy prepared the Gambas al Ajillo which we enjoyed while we watched the prep work.

Although Andy prepared the dish in a skillet, he pointed out that it would ideally be prepared in a terracotta cazuela dish. I anticipate that will be a future purchase at The Spanish Table.

One of the most interesting things I learned during the class was the Jayne’s preparation of chunks of albacore for the Ensaladilla Rusa using a confit technique of heating the fish submerged in olive oil seasoned with herbs.

The lightly cooked albacore was fantastic by itself, and Jayne indicated it could be refrigerated under oil and used for several days. Here and here are a couple of links covering the use of that confit technique with tuna.

Once all of the paella ingredients had been prepared, we moved to an outdoor deck near the kitchen where they had sent up a couple of gas burners for the two large paella pans. Unfortunately, while it was a sunny day, a strong wind was blowing and threatened to blow out the burners. However, the Cavallo Point staff rose to the occasion and a cart soon arrived with blankets for all, which also served as a convenient windbreak.

We enjoyed the Gazpacho and Ensaladilla Rusa al fresco while we watched Andy and Tanya prepare the two paella dishes.

When we could hear the telltale crackle that indicated that the soccarat, the delicious rice crust at the bottom of the paella pan, was forming and the paella was ready, we moved back inside for the main course. The following are photos showing the ingredients and final product for the two paellas (the Paella de Amontillado first, and the Paella de Mariscos following), as well as the served dishes.



We had two very nice wines - a Palacio de Fefiñanes Albariño and a Artadi Rioja - to accompany the meal.

Then it was time to finish with our Tarta de Santiago which Jen had sprinkled with powdered sugar and plated beautifully with some fresh strawberries.

I understand that that it is traditional to sprinkle the sugar onto the cake over a cross of St. James so as to leave a silhouette. Unfortunately we did hot have a St. James Cross handy, but here is what it would look like.

As with our past classes at Cavallo Point we had a great time, and it was fun to spend more time with Andy, Tanya and Jayne.

We are looking forward to our next visits to both Cavallo Point and the Spanish Table.

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Be Tuscan Once a Day – A Friend Returns to Cavallo Point

Last year Alex, Cass and I had a great time at a cooking class at Cavallo Point taught by Judy Witts Francini who was visiting from Toscana. A few weeks ago when I saw on Judy’s “Over a Tuscan Stove” blog that she would be returning to Cavallo Point, I immediately signed up for the class. Alex and Cass were not able to join me this time, but my friend Kaz, who also loves to cook, agreed to come along to keep me company.

Kaz and I arrived at Cavallo Point a bit early, so we decided to kick the event off with an Anchor Steam Liberty Ale at Cavallo Point's Farley Bar, one of the nicest places in Northern California to pass some time while watching the Golden Gate.

Just before the class’ 4:30PM start time, Kaz and I headed upstairs, past the Gregory Colbert display of elephants, to the cooking school’s facility on the second floor. Judy greeted us at the door together with Jayne Reichert, the cooking school’s director, and Jayne’s colleagues, Rosalyn England and Jennifer Rudd. Happily, we discovered that a couple of friends, Reidun and Angela, were also taking the class.

One of the enjoyable parts of any cooking class is to see the ingredients laid out in preparation at the start. Cooking is like many things in life – sometimes the anticipation is almost as good as – or even better than - the ultimate consummation.

After everyone got settled in the room with glasses of Col Vetoraz Prosecco, Jayne introduced Judy who made a few comments (including how she had just escaped Europe on one of the last flights out before the Eyjafjallajokull volcanic ash cloud closed things down), and away we went.

Our menu for the day was:

~ Antipasto: Tuna with White Beans
~ Primo: Ragu with Pici
~ Secondo: Sicilian Grilled Braciole (stuffed beef rolls)
~ Cortorno: Garmugia (a Spring vegetable stew from Lucca)
~ Dolce: Chocolate Salame

Antipasto: Tonno con Fagioli

While she was making her introductory comments, Judy prepared and served the antipasto course - a Tuscan favorite of tuna with white beans and red onions. Very simple and a great combination. The beans, cooked with sage and garlic, were a dish we had prepared at our earlier class with Judy, and are excellent on their own. The tuna was from the Pacific and packed in olive oil.

After that appetizer, Judy divided us up into groups to tackle the remainder of the dishes.

Primo: Pici con Ragu

Kaz and I were assigned to il primo, with Kaz on pasta and me with the ragu team.

Pici is a Tuscan pasta - about the thickness of a pencil - which had its origins in the area around Siena. Nancy and I first tried it in 2006 when it was served at a wonderful dinner at a small restaurant named Osteria La Porta in the small town of Monticchiello in central Toscana between Montepulciano and Montalcino. We were told by the proprietor that an older woman from the village came in each morning to make it. Most recently we had it at Sociale in Presidio Heights in San Francisco. One thing which distinguishes it from many other types of Italian fresh pasta is that it uses no eggs in the dough – simply flour and warm water.

Here is a collection of pictures illustrating the steps in the preparation (at least a couple of those hands belong to Kaz!). Notwithstanding the good work of the solitary matron of Monticchiello, it is the sort of dish where it certainly helps to have a team effort.


Jayne took the prize for the longest pici of the day – such a showoff. Accordingly to Judy the ability to make long pici is a highly-prized trait among young women (and hopefully today young men too) in the Siena area.

While Kaz was working on the pici, I was over with the group preparing the ragu. If we were in Toscana, the only proper meat sauce for pici would be one with cinghiale – the Italian wild boar which is found throughout Toscana.

However, for our dish, we used ground sirloin with a bit of prosciutto and porcini mushrooms. Not bad, but I always prefer a pork-based sauce. One tip Judy gave us when preparing the soffritto (the minced carrot, onion, celery mixture that forms the base of the ragu) was to let it almost burn in order to caramelize it fully and thereby enhance the flavor.

Secondo: Braciole Siciliane alla Griglia

The braciole were thin slices of beef rolled around a filling of breadcrumbs, garlic, chili flakes, parsley and lemon zest. Another Italian name for braciole is involtini, which is the name for this dish that I had heard before. Once the individuals pieces had been rolled up, we then took three rolls, put three skewers through them, and then cut between the skewers to form individual pieces - a nice trick.

Patrick and I learned to make a similar dish a couple of years back at one of our Sicilian cooking classes at Mezzo Mezzo in San Rafael (in that case named Involtini alla Palermitana) although that version used veal and a much richer filling (including ham, mortadella, cacciocavallo cheese, and pine nuts) and was sauteed in butter and white wine.

I also came across a wonderful post (with excellent photos) on the Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook blog about a class that Judy had taught at the Becchina Estate in western Sicily at which they had prepared an Involtini di Manzo (Stuffed Beef Rolls) dish that was similar to our Mezzo Mezzo dish, although it incorporated a tomato sauce. As Judy pointed out with virtually every dish, once you have the basic concept down there are many directions in which you can take it.

Contorno: Garmugia

Judy explained that this Spring vegetable dish – or at least its name - originated from the beautiful walled city of Lucca a bit west of Firenze in Toscana.

The group working on it was at the far end of the room so I did not see much of the preparation. However, the ingredients included sliced baby artichokes, fava beans, asparagus, peas, young garlic and pancetta.

Dolce: Salame Dolce

This was an interesting dish – one I had never heard of before but which is apparently well-known to every Italian child. Despite its name it is meat-less. Its ingredients included pieces of cookies to imitate chunks of fat (Petit Beurre cookies), sugar, butter, egg yolks, cocoa and grappa.

After forming a salame shaped log, the dish was wrapped in foil and put in the freezer to firm up.
Once all the prep work was done the cooking proceed pretty quickly.


The pici were boiled in salted water (per Judy, add the salt AFTER the water is boiling to avoid staining your pot) in batches, then added with ladles of the ragu to a separate pot until all were done.

Once everything was ready, the dishes were turned out, the salame dolce was sliced, we took our seats and were served.

In addition to the Prosecco we were served at the beginning of the class, during our meal we enjoyed a white 2008 Falanghina dei Feudi di San Gregorio and a red 2007 Langhe Nebbiolo from Parusso. Both excellent pairs.

Judy also had with her some copies of her new cookbook – “Secrets From My Tuscan Kitchen” – which includes recipes for the dishes we prepared, and which I was happy to see carries the "Tuscan Husband Seal of Approval" - è buono! = it is good! I picked up a copy.

It was another fun day at Cavallo Point thanks to Judy and the hard working Cavallo Point staff (from the left in the below photo: Judy with Jayne, Rosalyn, and Jen), and Kaz and I certainly had a good time.

Plus, where else can you walk out of class and be able to see night falling over one of the world’s most beautiful bridges?

I am looking forward to our next visit to Cavallo Point, not to mention Toscana!

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