Why do we call Nancy the queen of pistachios? What secrets can Ruth tell us about critic bait? And is Laurie really the only one of the three of us who loves tripe? Also, can food be too flavorful? These are just some of the things we’re talking about in today’s episode. We also discuss the vanity of cooking. We dish on show-off chefs and why Nancy says Thomas Keller and Massimo Bottura don’t fit in that category. We talk about why we love Sarah Cicolini’s Rome restaurant Santo Palato and the Pie Room at London’s Holborn Dining Room. Plus, why chefs like Italy’s Franco Pepe and Nancy use dehydrators. And could it be that writer and former “Great British Bake Off” finalist Ruby Tandoh is this generation’s Laurie Colwin? In addition, for you, our paying subscribers, read on for bonus notes. But first, let’s talk pine nuts.

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A better pine nut

Would you be shocked to learn that the pine nuts you’re most likely using in your pesto come from China or Siberia?

Nancy, of course, knew all about this. But Ruth remained ignorant until a few years ago, at a market in Italy she noticed that the pinoli were much larger than the ones she buys at home.

Back in her own kitchen, she scrutinized the pine nuts in her freezer. (Pine nuts are filled with oil, which means that left in the cupboard they quickly go rancid. It’s much safer to store them in the freezer.) Sure enough, the label said something about the various countries the pine nuts might have come from, and not one of them was Italy or the United States.

She took out a handful and laid them next to the ones she’d bought in Italy. Half the size! Then she tasted them. Half the flavor! These days she buys her pine nuts from Gustiamo, which owner Beatrice Ughi gets from the west coast of Italy where Pinus Pinea trees, better known as Italian stone pines or umbrella pines, grow. They’re expensive. And they’re worth it.

Pro tip from Nancy, who gets pine nuts from Sicily for her Mozza restaurants but also uses the smaller, more common varieties of pine nuts for big batches of pesto. Use pricey larger Italian pine nuts when you want to serve the pine nuts whole, as in the rosemary-pine nut cookies she serves at Pizzeria Mozza with her famous butterscotch budino — we’ve got a recipe below.

And if, like Laurie, you were wondering why we don’t just harvest pine nuts from all the pine trees grown in the U.S., here are two articles from 2017 that explore the issue: Modern Farmer calls “the downfall of the American pine nut industry, a truly embarrassing and damaging loss given that the pinyon species in North America can produce nuts (seeds, technically) worth upwards of $40 per pound.” The magazine cites a Civil Eats report that puts part of the blame on a U.S. Bureau of Land Management practice of clearing “thousands of acres” of piñon-juniper woodlands for cattle grazing between the 1950s and ‘70s because the trees were “useless as timber.”

The pistachio queen dehydrates

Nancy practically lives on Turkish pistachios, which are smaller and more flavorful than the American kind. She’s particularly partial to pistachios from Aleppo. There are many sources; one we like in New York is Russ and Daughters.

Nancy also loves Sicilian pistachios. But as she discusses in the podcast, if you want to get the nuts both green and crunchy, you’re going to need a dehydrator. “That is,” she says, “the best purchase I’ve ever made.” This Magic Mill is a favorite.

Another unexpected chef who uses a dehydrator is Slow Food hero Franco Pepe, who is also Nancy’s favorite pizzaiolo. She rarely spends time in Italy without making a visit to Pepe in Grani, his restaurant in Caiazzo outside of Naples. In f

Episode ID: 1000637704696

GUID: substack:post:139475664

Release Date: 06/12/2023, 16:52:16