Master Chef in Quarantine

Quarantine, a word we are all familiar with right now. Italy has been on a national lockdown since March 9th and here in Boston we were told by my company to start working from home starting at around lunchtime on March 11th. Although restrictions between Italy and the United States look very different right now, there is one thing that we all most of us are doing right now and that is, staying at home – #iorestoacasa (I stay at home). I could go in depth on a political rant right now with what I currently think about this entire situation, but what I do know and firmly believe is that it is a time to stay at home in order to stay safe and to keep others safe as well.

What a life adjustment – I mean, are we in a movie? It almost seems like it. I’m a tried and true optimist and live with faith in my heart always – and that is why I’m personally using this time to try and look at the small silver linings, whatever the situation may be. Our family is currently spread out between Genoa and Milano and it has been strange for all of us to not see people in your community – whether that be at church, the store, or at an aperitivo (pass me a spritz!). Now that these social interactions have been taken away, much like they have here in the U.S. (no more brewery visits in Boston with friends) it’s been hard to find new ways to stay social while being stuck at home.

One thing that our family has in common, is the love of cooking and being together around the dinner table which always includes critiquing the cuisine of choice of the night (“this needs more salt” – “piu olio” – “che buona!”), laughing, telling jokes and just being together. This is a very important time of the day in Italian culture and it’s very much become my favorite part of the life that Roberto and I have created here in the states. Now, because of staying and working from home, we get to share TWO meals (lunch & dinner) with each other daily – my silver lining because I love cooking together!

During our second week of quarantine and watching Cucino da Incubo with Master Chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo (his website here: click) and Little Big Italy (we will definitely speak more about this show at some point ;)) I had an idea that we were going to have our own little “virtual master chef cook off” where we would select a menu and each set out to cook our own version of the selected appetizer, primi piatti (first plate), secondo (second plate) e dolce (and dessert). We could get our creative juices flowing in the kitchen and then all sit down to a long meal together over Skype. In the U.S., we are six hours ahead, so Roberto and I would be having a very large and long Saturday lunch (not complaining).

That Monday we had a family group chat where we decided on everything we would be making that upcoming Saturday. Being from Genoa, Focaccia (link to the recipe here) was chosen for the appetizer, per il primo (for the first) a Carbonara, il secondo (the second) was a roast with your choice of side, e finalmente il dolce (and finally the dessert) – una sopresa (a surprise)! We made the menu 5 days ahead of time to make sure that ingredients were available (also, it’s VERY hard to find yeast right now in the U.S.) and that we could purchase them on our one shopping trip that we were making per week. Please note, there is always a lot of debate when discussing food with Italians.

Saturday came and Roberto and I got up early – HA, just kidding we forgot to set the alarm – but upon rising, we got the roast prepped and ready for the grill/smoker (bring on the flavor) and I got to work on the focaccia since that would need at least 2.5 hours to rise and another 15 minutes of baking time. We love listening to Eugenio Finardi, Coldplay, Zucchero and Genesis when we are in the kitchen, it’s become our little tradition.

After the dough was set to rise, I then started making the homemade tagliatelle that would be used in our spin of a carbonara. Carbonara uses eggs, pecorino, and gianciale (hard to find here, but substitute with thick cut bacon or pancetta) and some salt and pepper – thats about it! We decided to be extra fancy and serve ours in parmesan cups, that we cooked up in about 10 minutes, the recipe is as follows:

• Heat your oven to 260 degrees C (500 F).
• Grate fresh parmesan.
• On a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper – or in a microwave – scatter the cheese into a circular shape without leaving much space between the shreds
• Once this has cooked for about 6-10 minutes (keep watching) and is a golden color, remove using a spatula.
• You will want to mold this cheese into a glass bowl and place a glass cup on top of it to keep it’s shape.
• Once it has cooled, you will have your parmesan cup!
• *I’ll be sure to post more pictures on how we did this as our kitchen was in full master chef mode and we forgot to take photos*

Now that the meat was on the grill, the focaccia prepping all of it’s goodness for the oven, the pasta ready for the boiling water, and our delicious cheese cups were finalized – I started on the tiramisu (Roberto’s grandmother’s recipe) and decided to add visual appeal by creating dark chocolate pieces and placing these in our wonderful IKEA (I’ve broken about 8 of these) wine glasses.

Roberto went for a Cannavacciuolo inspired side dish, called Caponatina, which consists of eggplant, zucchini, red peppers, carrots and pine nuts. Each of these vegetables is cut up into small cubes and cooked one at a time in a pan with some olive oil and seasoned with salt. Simply delicious and also very healthy (win/win). We loved it so much, we made it twice in one week.

Our lunch began at around 1:30pm EST and we had our laptop set up with Skype and each dinner table dialed in in order to begin our feast. All of the dinners that we have together as a family include a well-set table. We are not talking about breaking out the luxury crystal china (do people still have that?) but having a nice, fresh table cloth, bottles of water, bicchieri (glasses), una bottiglia di vino (a bottle of wine), silverware and appropriate dishes (all of ours are from IKEA –  yay!) because dinner means time together, and that’s special.

We sat for hours, virtually, and ate and talked like we would if we were all under the same roof. We went course by course, drank wine, ate and didn’t even talk much about the fact that we were in the midst of a pandemic. Although we couldn’t taste each other’s cuisine – even though WOW, I wish I could have – the Italian culture of being together at the table never felt better in a time like this. I’m looking forward to keeping this newfound virtual tradition alive while we still live an ocean apart. I hope that this can inspire you to create a new tradition while you are staying at home – whether that be cooking up a new recipe, video chatting with friends and family, finding a new hobby, tapping into a new creative outlet, and finding the small silver linings that can make life a little sweeter in a strange and aloof time.

Let me know what you are doing at home and if you have tried something new!

With faith, family and focaccia,