Thought for Food II

Another weekend find, and one I'm not even sure I should be posting about. However...

I have long been a fan of Italian food, partly because in Edinburgh (a previous life) it was part of the landscape. Second and third generation Italian families had set up and were still running all sorts of restaurants, trattoria and delis. Some necessarily famous - Valvona & Crolla, on Elm Row, is reputed to re-export Italian wines to Italy, such is their buying power, and they remain the city's best source of borlotti beans, fresh truffles, chantrelles, lumpy tomatoes and honest, irregular sun-ripened peppers. Not to mention cheeses of every hue and humour, pates, salamis, hams, cotecchini, zampone, parma, speck, proscuitto...

There are two main styles of 'Italian' restaurant in Edinburgh, the near-ubiquitous pizzeria (full on fast food, pastas in creamy sauces, Chianti bottles suspended on the walls and staffed by waiters with a Masters in back-chat), and then the others. Tinellis, a pokey little space, serving divine home-cooked food. There are a few others, each with a particular speciality, and my own personal favourite, Scalini, in the space now occumpied by Restaurant Martin Wishart. Silvio Praino was the proprietor, a Calabrian who loved food and wine even more than he despised bureaucracy. It was Silvio to whom we would take a weekend's haul of ceps and puffballs, and see them proudly displayed in his window. It was Silvio who would visit our office on a Monday morning with several pages of faxed lists, a parcel of Barollos that he had bought sight unseen from an estate disposal, and now needed to pay for by selling some of it on. Some of the most venerable and extraordinary wines I have ever tasted reached us by this somewhat unlikely route, but how else could I indulge in a vertical tasting of 1963, 1973 and 1983 Pio Cesares?

It was also Silvio who introduced us to the concept of Italian dining. We would be seated in his little restaurant, talk about business and his latest run-in with the council, or laywers, or the bank (always the bank!), and then we would get to the point of making a decision. Only it wasn't up to us - it would be Silvio who chose. "I have some wonderful new boconccini from my mother which arrived yesterday, it's not on the menu, but you'll enjoy that. I think you'll have the fegato, and for Mrs EoD, I got a nice hake this morning. Plain grilled, a little lemon, some spinachi..." And so it was, he brought to our table what was best that day, what amused and pleased him, what he thought we would enjoy, And we always did.

So to the present. There is in Wafi City a little Italian restaurant called Belucci, on the first floor of the new extension tucked away in a corner past Marks & Spencer. They have the world's most formidable pasta machine working away in a glass box, and a simple list of classic zuppa, salsa e verdure. (Sadly, they can't yet offer the full glory of Italian dining, selling neither wine nor pork, but I live in hope.) But what they do provide is sublime - full flavours, honest, fresh ingredients, precise cooking. A real treat. And they come to your table to discuss things with you - Olivia, the proprietress, is on hand to guide you through the options, to help you select what will please you on that day, comfort in times of stress, or uplift and revive when you feel adventurous. This was our first visit, but certainly not our last.

Thoughts for Food

Cooking for Friends. Chef Matthias Gfrorer and his team hosted the third such event in St Maxim’s at the weekend, and very satisfying it was too.

Cooking for Friends is a sort of culinary club. Matthias takes over the restaurant, invites half a dozen rising stars from different kitchens to collaborate and show off their talents, and we get to enjoy the results. It’s fun, and highly entertaining in a foodie kind of way. Trying to identify flavours and ingredients. Tasting new combinations. Understanding what the chef was trying to achieve with a particular presentation. Each course is accompanied by an appropriate and interesting wine, which last night ran the gamut from Mercurey 1ier Cru to a sweet and luscious late-picked Muscat.

Highlight for me was the ‘Boeuf a la Mode’, a gloriously tender braise presented in a hollowed-out loaf, the original ‘trencher’ and a wonderfully medieval note in an otherwise thoroughly modern setting. Talking to the chef afterwards revealed just what it took to achieve such perfection of flavour and texture – two days of work, of near-constant attention and meticulous tasting. But boy was it worth it. Tender, unctuous, intense.

All stick and no carrot does not a better driver make

Dubai's police have been a lot more evident of late, pulling over errant drivers and generally acting on Shk Mohammed's edict to improve traffic flow. Actually, this is most welcome - visible enforcement of the rules is a powerful motivator to others.

Provided,that is, you know what the rules are. And I firmly believe that the solution to Dubai's traffic woes lies, not in more rules and radars, but in education. We have some of the best roads in the world. It is about time we had some of the best drivers too.

Many aspects of this are discussed in an article from the UK's Guardian newspaper, looking at the career of the superbly named lawyer Nick Freeman. The later part of the article looks at speed limits and their enforcement, and the extent to which speed is a significant factor in accidents. The author concludes:

"At the reception for his book, Stephen Haley explained that the idea for it had sprung from a simple problem - how best to explain important driving skills to his son and daughter. These skills were fairly basic - paying due care and attention, not relying on the skills of others, and not depending on rules alone to define safety on the roads. But they contained a universal truth: punishment was not the key. To travel well, one needed to take responsibility for one's own actions, a lot like life in general." www.safespeed.org.uk; www.minddriving.org

The rest of the article is here http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1937383,00.html

Worth a read.