a sfizi and a pisco sour

internet is still down, and this time i'm at a starbucks the size of a closet.

before i left boston, i worked at il casale, a brand new rustic italian restaurant in the boston suburb of belmont, which just a couple of years ago was still a dry town. we opened shop in the town's old firehouse, helmed by chef dante de magistris and his two brothers filippo and damian, and brought the town not only its first full bar, but with the success of his epynomous dante, the city chic approach to dining in a broken down, pretension-free and familial friendly package. so many of the dishes on dante's menu are replications and interpretations of what his nonna cooked for him and his brothers growing up. il casale itself means the farmhouse, or rural home. and to top the whole sentimental thing off, the boys grew up just around the corner. sort of too much just how perfect story is, right?

that's why when i saw this profile piece on the brothers and their father leon from the globe, i decided to share.

just after opening il casale, when buzz was building and every night we were on the lookout for the short, dark-haired type of a woman that could by any possible chance resemble the reaper of sorts who'd either seal the restaurant's fiscal fate like an angel or flatten it like a mythical giant—the globe's restaurant critic, devra first—leon's wife, and the woman the boys looked to like a saint, lost her battle with cancer and passed away. it was a crushing blow at such a pivotal time for the restaurant, and one couldn't help but wonder how in the world the boys would cope. there was an incredibly thick wave of sorrow that overcame the staff, a sense of what do we do now? so helpless, but wanting to help so badly—but it fast became apparent there was only one thing we could do. bear down and work our tails off. and suddenly the staff knew the menu inside and out, bottles of nebbiolo and wines from piemonte flew off the shelves, and the kitchen just worked it, plain and simple, like a perfected machine, in total unison.

i left for chicago soon after and one week into the move, had a message from the staff. my heart dropped, because i knew it only could have been one thing. dante was aiming for a three star review and i just had this sick, stomach-churning feeling they'd fallen well below the mark. but then i signed on to the globe's website and saw, below a picture of dante's fritto misto and the words "devra first," three and a half yellow pointed stars.

the review was titled "just like nonna used to make," and it sort of summed everything up perfectly. life works in the funniest ways. i'd never go as far to say that it was grace's passing that lifted the restaurant to a whole new level, high enough to earn devra first's highest ever rating with the exception of one other restaurant, but it's no stretch to say that somewhere, somehow, an angel was certainly watching over that old firehouse on leonard street.

thursday night panzanella

alicia came home the other day with a baguette. it was touched only on sunday when i cut a piece off for a sandwich. so today, when i was cleaning the kitchen out, i came across a hard and stiff as a tree trunk piece of transformed foodstuff. enter the influence of chef dante de magistris.

panzanella was something we served at the restaurant for events. it'd almost always be out with a crudité spread, but never once was it on the menu, nor would it be at any fine dining restaurant. the dish is literally a salad of leftovers. and here's what i did:


there's only one way to soften this bread and still maintain any hope of it returning to any sort of edible state. you have to rehydrate it. i cut the bread—literally taking a mallet to my kitchen knife the bread was so hard—into essential cubes. then just cover with water, and if you care about your food actually tasting good, season it. the key, and what i stole from dante, was hitting the mixture with tomato. i used a simple sauce we had in the fridge, but even juice works. you want the acid and the sweetness—and believe me, it'll show through. the bread literally absorbs this.


i love basil and only included this picture because of how flippin' big the basil leaves were on the plant i brought home from green city market. unbelievable.


the salad can be whatever you want it to be. mine was tomato, roasted red pepper, red onion, garlic, lots of basil, fresh mozzarella, lemon juice, olive oil and vinegar. season it how you want and boom, there it is. there's nothing complex about it and really, the point is to use what you have in the house. there's no reason to hit the store for anything you throw in it.

it makes you think about how much something like this makes sense, and thank god people in the old world cooked this way. for dante, tossing a panzanella on a crudité table added a touch of rustic italian charm, while hardly cutting into his food cost at all. and why in the world aren't we cooking like this more often, and encouraging one another to really do so?