Our version comes via Marcella’s book listed above. Often I find myself customizing and personalizing a recipe, but often a recipe needs no improvement, which is certainly true in this case. For another approach, though, check out this version from Abruzzese chef Laura Decina, as published in the Washington Post.

– Justin

Patate maritate

1)  While your oven preheats to 400 degrees, peel a pound of potatoes and slice them into the thinnest rounds. If you own a mandolin, use it. Toss with olive oil to coat well. Season very generously with salt. Potatoes soak up a lot, though remember that the parmigiano is salty too.

2)  Grate about a cup of parmigiano-reggiano and slice thinly or shred about eight ounces or more of mozzarella, preferably mozzarella di bufala imported from Campania. Chop about ½ cup parsley, and grind quite a bit of black pepper.

3)  Mix together the parmigiano, parsley, and pepper.

4)  In a baking dish, drizzle olive oil over the bottom and add bread crumbs to lightly cover.

5)  Add about a third of the potatoes, with just a little overlapping. Add half the mozzarella and half the parmigiano mixture.

6)  Repeat with the potatoes and then with the cheeses.

7)  Add the final layer of potatoes and top with bread crumbs to cover lightly.

8)  Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 400 degree for around 45 minutes, until nicely browned.

9)  Serve immediately or slightly cooled.

A note from November:

We were very happy to meet the founders of Context Travel at our recent November dinner. We had known about and admired Context for a few years, having been acquainted with several of their docents, but were delighted to discover the connection. Lani and Paul’s story is marvelous, and we feel a bond with them especially for the fact that they started their business in the same year that they had their first child, as we did (ours being a much smaller business, of course). As crazy as it gets at times, it is a true joy!

– Dillon

Click to view slideshow.

Of course, Italy is wine country. Until very recently, beer in Italy has always occupied a lesser and subordinate role. Beer might be something one enjoys with pizza and other casual fare, though it’s hardly been worthy of serious study or reflection. But in the past fifteen years that’s all changed. Micro-breweries are popping up throughout Italy (though mostly in the North at this point), inspired by their European and (yes) American counterparts! Not satisfied to simply imitate more traditional styles, Italians are pursuing the art of brewing with their own distinct character, producing both traditional beers and beers pushing into new frontiers.  Many are idiosyncratic to be sure, though nearly all have character.

At our recent visit to Sabatini’s I enjoyed two very different Italian bottlings. The first was a remarkable sour red ale produced by Panil in Emilia-Romagna. This style of beer is in many ways more reminiscent of wine, and can be a helpful bridge for wine drinkers into the world of beer. Fermented in wood for up to eighteen months, these beers develop sourness from their development of lactic and acetic acid. The folks at Panil claim that their bottling is the only fully natural and traditional example of this venerable but rare style. Panil Barriquee comes only in 750ml bottles, so bring a friend!

The second beer comes from one of Italy’s most important leaders in the craft beer movement, Baladin, located in a small town in Piemonte. Baladin also has a restaurant in Rome (Open Baladin) serving an amazing variety of Italian and international craft beers. Unfortunately, they try their hand at American pub food, which is significantly less successful. The Baladin beer I sampled at Sabatini’s was Isaac, a witbier distinguished by its potent, refreshing aroma and evocation of citrus and chamomile, a distinctly Italian interpretation of a traditional and widely popular style.

The pizza at Sabatini’s is also enjoyable and distinctive. It is certainly American and not Italian in its approach, but within that context it is unique and has personality. The family business was founded in 1958 and is currently operated by Lindo Sabatini, grandson of the founder. It is Lindo’s passion and commitment to quality which drives the excellent beer offerings, and I’m deeply grateful he’s put such beautiful beers from Italy within such easy reach! For those interested in sampling a number of these beers, Sabatini’s is offering a pizza/Italian beer tasting this Wednesday, November 16.

For an even larger selection of Italian beers, one can go to Eataly in NYC, either to the market on the lower level or up to the new rooftop brewery/brewpub, which is a joint venture of American brewery Dogfish Head and Italian breweries Baladin and Del Borgo. My last experience of Eataly, when I was nearly trampled by the thronging mobs, has not encouraged me to return, though I’m sure that the rewards would be high for those who can brave the crowds. For a quieter reflection on Italian beers from the comfort of your own home, here is an excellent article.

Hounded by this obsessive pursuit of perfection, occasionally we lose faith in a dish that we once were quite fond of. It happened recently during our dinners on October 22 and 23. We had placed a cauliflower torta (or pie) on the menu,  a dish very much in keeping with the fall weather and one in line with our desire to focus more and more on ingredients from our kitchen garden. But our cauliflower was a failure in the garden this year, and what is worse, I had begun to find the pie a bit boring and uninspiring. I nearly removed it from the menu to replace it with a dish I was more excited about. But somehow I didn’t, and the pie remained on the menu. I consoled myself that it was merely an appetizer and not the focus of the evening.

But life has a sense of humor, and the pie was the star of the evening, the favorite course of many of our guests on both nights. It’s a reminder of how subjective taste really is, and how a dish insipid to one can be inspired to another. I’m not sure I’ll be making it again for myself any time soon, but I’m thrilled that it was so popular with guests. I promised several of them the recipe, and here it is:

Cauliflower Torta with Prosciutto Cotto

I take no credit for originality with this recipe. My cooking has been shaped principally by Marcella Hazan, and a number of my recipes come directly from her excellent books, particularly Marcella Cucina. Prosciutto cotto is simply “cooked ham”, though if you can find imported Italian ham it will be much superior to a domestic one. Wegmans sells an Italian roasted ham which will do the job nicely. You can always eliminate the ham for a vegetarian version.

1)   Boil or steam one small to medium-sized head of cauliflower (cut into moderate pieces) until tender.

2)   When the cauliflower is cool enough to handle, chop or slice it into small pieces, say the diameter of a quarter.

3)   Melt some butter in a large pan and saute the cauliflower in the butter for a few minutes until well coated, seasoning with salt and pepper.

4)   While the cauliflower is cooking, make a bechamel sauce by melting 2 tablespoons of butter in a medium pan and whisking in 2 tablespoons of flour. Take the pan off heat and very gradually add a cup of milk which has been heated until steaming. At first the mixture will thicken, but as you gradually add more milk, it will thin out and be quite thin at the end. Return it to medium heat, and let it cook, stirring often, until thickened like heavy cream, or perhaps even a bit thicker. Season with a bit of salt.

5)   Optionally, dice up about ½ pound of good, plain ham.

6)   Combine the cauliflower, ham, 2/3 of the bechamel, and about a cup of grated parmigiano-reggiano. Add two beaten eggs and a small grating of nutmeg (important!).  Pour into a pie dish or equivalent, level out, and top with the remaining bechamel and a little more grated cheese.

7)   Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes until nicely browned. Serve warm or slightly cooled down.

- Justin

We had two dinners at the farm this weekend: our regularly scheduled October dinner and a special benefit dinner for two families, from West Pittston and Fernville, PA, whose homes were devastated by the September flood from Tropical Storm Lee. The menu was autumnal, featuring our own Savoy cabbage and Forks Farm beef in an appetizer of meatballs on cabbage braised with bacon; cauliflower pie with ham; crepes with mozzarella, prosciutto, and tomatoes; our own house-made sausage served with a stew of our potatoes and red peppers; and pears poached in red wine with house-made gelato fior di latte.

On Saturday night we had a mini-reunion of Philadelphians who have either relocated to this area or still share time between their city and country homes. It was lovely to serve them and see them mingle after the meal. We were especially humbled that one guest said our cooking reminded her meals at Vetri. The great delight in running a rural restaurant is the sense of how rare fine restaurants are outside of a city. This certainly isn’t true everywhere; after travelling in Italy people are often say how exceptional the food was in small, out-of-the-way places. We like to emulate that. We’re proud to be “out-of-the-way” and serving a rural community with a quality of cooking most often associated with urban living in this country. The majority of our guests come from within a 30 miles radius of our farmhouse.

The benefit dinner on Sunday night was a real joy. We had chosen two families — one from close to our workplace and one from just south of the farmhouse — whose homes had been similarly devastated by the September flooding in this area that followed Tropical Storm Lee. One family’s home was condemned; the other’s is currently in restoration. Both have lost so much and spent so much time under stress in the past six weeks, we wanted to give them a night of peace, good food, and that magic that always comes with fellowship around the table. So, we invited these two couples to come as our guests of honor, and our other guests generously donated funds to benefit them.

It was a night celebrating our past and our present, as old friends who knew me as a child joined with new friends who know our children. There was abundant warmth and fellowship at the table, and the tastes and smells of autumn in Justin’s cooking. We are humbled and blessed by the community that surrounds us.

- Dillon

in rainy Autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

Dylan Thomas, “Poem in October”

Click to view slideshow.

So many small and large communities alike have been affected by this flood. We have been aware of the amazing community spirit in some of our small towns. Honestly, it is a privilege to be with them, help out, and share in that spirit. As time passes, because so many of us were not affected, it can be easy to forget. Here at the farm, we have organized an October benefit dinner for two families in communities that are more than an hour away from each other but are both near the banks of the same mighty Susquehanna. Our own little stream was transformed into a river, our wheelbarrow was filled to the brim, but our garden was fortunately well-drained enough not to be too affected.

Tragically, just ten miles east of us in the town of Shickshinny (population 900) — a lovably-named, unassuming little place whose streets had just a month before seen parades and festivities to celebrate its 150th anniversary — refuse, drywall, and mud-soaked furniture still rests in piles on the sidewalks. It’s hard to tell whether the town will live again at all. But the “Shickshinny Gorilla” (something out of Flannery O’Connor who is a fixture on Main Street, advertising a fitness center and known as ”Mr. Gorilla” to our 4-year-old son, Peter) lives on in his Facebook page, with 1,912 fans.

- Dillon

As I’ve written before, our two very different lives — living on campus at the boarding school where I teach during the school year and living in the country, operating the restaurant and vegetable business during the summer — can in some ways be jarring and hard to reconcile. Going back and forth between such lives can be disorienting.

But in other important ways, my teaching of Latin and my work on the farm reinforce and support each other. Both represent a commitment to work that is timeless and essential. We of the past century have forgotten that Latin was at the heart of human experience for more than two thousand years, and that a great deal of the most important expressions of human thought were conceived and written in Latin. Teaching this language helps students reconnect to this long chain of our collective past. Only in the past hundred years have we as a culture broken this chain in favor of an education which has placed the acquisition of white collar vocation skills above the traditional educational aim of the acquisition of knowledge, thoughtfulness, and character. Ironically, the political institutions we so enjoy today would have been inconceivable to the founding fathers if not for their formative education in the Greek and Latin classics. As David McCollough recently explained:

“Yes. One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I’m absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth-century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that gave them their sense of the classic virtues: the classic ideals of honor, virtue, the good society, and their historic examples of what they could try to live up to.”

It’s perhaps no coincidence that a society which has given up the study of Latin and Ancient Rome is a society which has lost a sense of any “historical examples of what they could try to live up to.”

Perhaps most poignant of all for me is the connection between my love of farming and my love of Vergil, the most famous of Ancient Rome’s poets. Vergil was raised in northern Italy in the 1^st century BC amidst a backdrop of civil war. Vergil’s love of the countryside is reflected in two of his major works: The Eclogues and The Georgics. The former is a series of short pastoral poems while the latter is a practical treatise and philosophical reflection on farming. Even in his most famous work, The Aeneid, a work largely of strife and warfare, Vergil’s love of the rural life manifests itself in his choice of simile and metaphor.

A hundred years ago, one living in our farmhouse could walk a mile to the closest one-room school house and study Latin. Today, one must drive thirty miles to the private school where I teach. To many, this shift is an insignificant one. But I would argue that it is reflective of a deep confusion about what sorts of things are most worthy of study. Is it a coincidence that the century which saw an exodus from the study of Latin is the same cenury which saw an exodus from the study and practice of farming?

– Justin

Note: A wonderful commentary on this subject can be found in David Grene’s memoir, Of Farming and Classics. 

My memories of my days at Pane are swept up in dim, romantic restaurant lighting and the fast pace of the kitchen; music of Laura Pausini and Nek and Zucchero that would become iconic to us; Deirdre’s impeccable sense of style and true sweetness and gentility; Caleb’s “rock star” quality tempered by his humble, kind nature and sense of humor. Memories of helping during the evenings do swirl together, but one thing always comes into focus when I think back on those days: after the last table had cleared, around 10 PM, Caleb and Erle in the kitchen would take orders from us all, including Olga who was serving and Victoria who was washing dishes, and they would cook a meal for us, a different dish for every person in some cases. We would all sit down in the dining room and eat together. There was a beautiful feeling of abundance in this. They made the time for it, as late as it was. They cooked for us and for themselves. No grabbing a bite on the side during the evening, no cooks going without food. We would serve customers, and then we would serve each other. On our recent trip, I asked Caleb and Deirdre if they still sit down with their staff at the end of the evening, and they said yes. That’s the way to run a restaurant.

-- Dillon

This year Dillon and I treated ourselves to a trip to celebrate the end of our summer restaurant season. We stayed up late finishing restaurant dishes and laundry on Saturday, and headed off to Woodstock first thing Sunday.

Our meal was wonderful, as always. The style of cooking is very similar to our own — certainly the same language — but in the hands of another cook (or speaker), the dialect is a little bit different and a welcome change from the familiar. Highlights of our meal included two pasta: spaghetti with pork, figs, and ricotta; and spaghetti with zucchini, lemon, and parmigiano. Equally remarkable as Caleb’s cooking are Deirdre’s wine pairings.  Drawing from a vast array of hand-picked Italian bottlings and based on her own expertise as sommelier, Deirdre’s pairings are always a highlight of the meal. Her interest not only in wine but in scents more broadly contributed to her exquisite cider infusion, Orleans, a collaboration with a local cider maker, and served as the aperitivo di sera. The aromas evoked fine perfume as much as the more typical scents of fermented beverages.

Deirdre at the door to the winery

As delightful and inspiring as our meal was, however, the real highlight of the trip was a visit to Caleb and Deirdre’s farm, featuring newly developed vegetable and flower gardens and a vineyard/winery. When we first met Deirdre and Caleb, these extensions of their restaurant business had yet to develop. In an interesting way, our paths are mirror images: I got interested in cooking through farming, while Caleb and Deirdre got interested in farming through cooking. A wonderful, inverted parallel, made even more meaningful by the fact that a simple gift of Italian seeds I sent them the Christmas after my apprenticeship inspired them to undertake more vegetable growing, a small way of repaying the debt I owe them for changing my life. So often we never know the effect we have on others.

Caleb and Deirdre’s farming enterprises are ambitious indeed. They have a lovely raised-bed, vegetable box garden, with pathways of tiny stones. They have fruit trees, roses, and flowers. A hoop house for winter vegetable production. But their greatest ambition has been devoted to their new, budding vineyard of wine grapes, hearty northern varieties like Marquette and La Crescent, but also noble European varieties like Riesling.

For many years Deirdre has been Pane’s sommelier, artfully pairing carefully made Italian wines with Caleb’s dishes at the restaurant. This work led to a broader interest in liquors, spirits, and perfume detailed in her wonderful book Libation: A Bitter Alchemy. The logical and most recent extension of this interest has been her own experimentation and production of spirits, infusions, and wine-making. Thus the cider infusion Orleans mentioned above. Thus her own attempts at winemaking and her first vintage just coming up for sale. Her La Crescent, though her fledgling attempt, I believe to be the most interesting East Coast wine I’ve drunk.

I was reminded on the trip why we need to push ourselves to reconnect with those doing wonderful and meaningful things. Through such experiences we become rejuvenated and re-inspired. We renew our faith in the possibilities of things. We reinforce our ties to those whose kindred nature offers us strength. And finally, we rededicate ourselves to the sort of life we most deeply want to live.

– Justin

We first learned of Caleb Barber and Deirdre Heekin of Pane a year or so before through their book, Pane e Salute (recently reprinted as In Late Winter We Ate Pears) — part cookbook, part memoir of time in Italy when they discovered their true calling. We found it by chance in Borders. We felt great kinship with the authors and were eager to travel to their restaurant. We hit it off and set up plans for an apprenticeship.

Woodstock is a special place. Full of tourists, to be sure, but also full of charm and great beauty. It is one of the most picturesque and elegant places I know. During the apprenticeship, every afternoon and again every night around midnight I had the privilege of walking the mile or so from my lodgings to the restaurant, which is in the heart of town, though tucked away on the second floor out of sight from the main street. It was a magical walk in many ways, particularly after work in the deep silence of midnight. 

The restaurant was also magic. It was then and still is now the most Italian of restaurants I know of, not only in its preparation of food, but also in its intimate space. Seating around 20 guests, the space is full of charm and comfort. The menu is organized in the Italian style in courses. Caleb does nearly all the cooking himself, and as with all good cooking, his personality shines through.

Caleb Barber and Deirdre Heekin

It was from Caleb that I first learned how to roll cracker-thin pizza crusts, as one finds in Tuscany and Rome. From Caleb I learned to season without fear. From Caleb I learned just how minimalistic great cooking can be. Slices of zucchini deeply browned and seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. The great Roman classic cacio e pepe, spaghetti tossed with pecorino and black pepper. Prosciutto sliced fresh and accompanied by local mozzarella di bufala.