Pie Contest

What is it about pies?

Last week, I found myself being pressured to make some pies. First, Lou brought home several stalks of rhubarb with hopes I'd make him a rhubarb pie. They had been happily standing in a pitcher of water on our counter for a few days when Heather forwarded me a link from Daily Candy about a pie contest at Southern Exposure, near Mission Pie, on Mission and 25th Streets. She demanded that I enter the competition. Sheesh. Pushy Italians!

Thus, uh, encouraged, I decided to bake a couple of strawberry-rhubarb pies and enter the best one of them in the competition.

We had plans on Friday night, so I didn't get started making the pie dough until about 10:30 pm. I immediately ran into a couple of potential problems. First, I realized that I did not have enough chilled shortening in the fridge. Second, I realized that I did not have enough all-purpose flour to make the dough. I immediately threw the shortening in the fridge to attempt to chill it quickly, and I decided to use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour.

Last fall I had tried making pie dough with the whole wheat pastry flour, but the dough was a complete disaster. It was a crumbly mess. I know that I did not use enough water, but I also wondered if the whole wheat flour itself was part of the problem. Lou was convinced that it was, in fact, the whole wheat flour ruined the dough.

I have been using Julia Childs's recipe for perfect, flakey pie dough, and she says that you can use either all-purpose flour or pastry flour, though she doesn't weigh in on whether you can use whole wheat pastry flour. The few times I've looked for pastry flour at Bi-Rite or Rainbow, the only pastry flour I could find, was whole wheat pastry flour, so I figured that's just how it's made.

Last Friday night, off to a somewhat uncertain start, I began to assemble the dough. I mixed the flour and the salt, first added the cold butter, then the slightly chilled shortening, and I mixed them all together with a full cup of very cold, nearly frozen water. The dough was extremely moist and sticky, and about as well formed as the dough I made in March. I put the dough in the fridge to chill over night.

I woke up early on Saturday morning to roll out the dough and bake the pies before my swim practice at 11:30. When I took the dough out of the fridge, it was very hard, and even after I allowed it to warm up slightly, it was difficult to roll out. Slowly, gently, I rolled out four crusts. Two of them turned out very well, one of them was ok and the final one (actually the first one I rolled out) was a disaster. Slightly worried, I put them back in the fridge to rest.

Meanwhile, I headed out to Rainbow to buy some more strawberries and some quick cooking tapioca. I got home, cut the strawberries and rhubarb, sweated them in sugar, added the tapioca, some orange zest and salt and let the mixture rest for 15 minutes. Then I divided the mixture between the two pies, placed dollops of butter on the filling, covered them with the top crusts, brushed the tops with cream and dusted them with sugar before sliding them in the oven for about and hour and ten minutes.

I didn't cut deep enough vents in the better looking pie, but it came out looking fine. The filling in the other pie spilled out on the crust and over the side of the dish. Unfortunately, the crusts did not look very flakey.

After allowing the pies to cool, I texted Heather and invited her over to taste the pies before heading out to Southern Exposure to enter the contest. I opened a bottle of Sauternes and Lou used our new pressure device to "foam" some of the leftover vanilla ice cream in the freezer from the fourth of july. The pie tasted delicious. I was disappointed in the crust, however. Rather than turning out flakey, the crust was more crumbly. It tasted good--slightly like graham crackers--but it was not as flaky or as pretty as the crust I'd made in March.







After tasting, we headed over to Southern Exposure to deliver the pie. The scene was bustling and not at all what I expected. Quite honestly, I feared I'd be the only person to show up, but I was wrong. Eleven others beat us there, and there were about two dozen people milling around tasting pies, talking and enjoying the pie-making revelry.

I "registered," giving them my name and telling them what kind of pie I'd made. They explained the process: get photographed with your pie, cut a slice of pie for the judges, and go put your pie on the tasting table for others to try. I got my picture taken, and then went over to the judges. As I cut a slice, the piece kind of fell apart as I served it up (Heather said she saw me cringe). I thanked them and walked away. Lou immediately chastized me for not talking up my pie. He told me I should have "sold it." He refused to buy my argument that I couldn't sell a pie when I knew the crust was bad. He replied that George W. Bush didn't get elected President because he was the best candidate, but rather because he could sell it. I'm sure he was right; I could have sold it, but I didn't feel right about it knowing I can make really good crust.





I put the pie on the tasting table and admired some of the other pies. There were several interesting pies, including a pumpkin chocolate mole pie with sesame seeds and a beautiful blueberry pie with an elaborate lattace top. There was also a coconut cream pie with caramel, a la Tartine. It was a fun, festive atmosphere, but we left early before they announced the winners because I had a hair cut.

I didn't win, but I had fun, and we had two pies. I'm still not quite sure what went wrong with the crust. In the meantime, I think I'll stick with all-purpose flour, or I might try mixing all-purpose and whole wheat pastry flour half and half.

Belated Birthday Dinner: Chez Panisse

A French provincial summer dinner. That's how our server described the meal she served us at Chez Panisse on Saturday night. How perfect!

Several months ago, for my 35th birthday, Lou's parents kindly gave me a gift certificate for Chez Panisse. Lou's mom remembered how much I like the restaurant after we took them there for dinner when they visited us last November.

I was thrilled about the gift certificate, since it would mean that a trip to Chez Panisse would soon be in order. Sadly, Lou and I ended up canceling two planned trips because one or the other of us did not feel well.

When we finally arrived on Saturday, I was immediately reminded why I love this restaurant so much. Chez Panisse does not strive for elaborate food and nor does it deliver feats of molecular gastronomy like Alinea or the French Laundry. Rather, the restaurant delivers reliably elegant culinary pleasures and gracious service, along with a mindfulness of the chain connecting the farm and the table.

I must admit that I fell in love with the restaurant from my earliest days in California. I lived in Berkeley directly behind the restaurant for several months when I first moved to California, before moving across the bay to San Francisco. Each morning, I was awakened by the clinking of wine bottles in the recycling bins in back of the restaurant. That summer, I made a point to walk by the front gate of Chez Panisse on the way to the post office to check the menu for the week. I have yet to break the habit of reading the weekly menus.

The only exception is when I have a reservation. I like to be surprised by what I'm going to be served, so I refrain from looking at the menu before I pay a visit. On Saturday, we told the server that we did not want to see the menu (they lay out beautifully printed menus at each place setting) and she obliged us in keeping the courses a secret after making sure we did not have any dietary restrictions.

The first course was an apertif of mulberry juice and prosecco, followed by an exquisite plate of summer vegetables--grilled squash, zucchini, shallots, carrots, a few light greens, an egg, an anchovy fillet and house-made aioli. The vegetables were fresh and tender, and the combination of the aioli, the egg and the anchovy added wonderful flavors of salt, garlic and, well, egg. A very nice beginning.

I brought along one of the three bottles of 2002 Vincent Dancer Chassagne-Montracht ler Cru "Tete du Clos" I was able to get from Josh at Bi-Rite. You may remember that I first discovered Dancer's wines on my visit to Alinea in March. The 2002 was marvelous. It is a soaring, ethereal wine, with strong notes of lime along with very subtle hints of hay. I absolutely love Dancer's wines, and because he is a biodynamic producer, I thought this would be a great wine to bring to Chez Panisse. It paired pretty well with all the courses, especially the first two.

The second course was probably my favorite. We were served a provencal fish and shellfish soup with a rouille crouton. The soup--really a bouillabaisse--was made with clams, shrimp, monkfish, sea bass and a broth made of fish stock, garlic, parsley, minced tomatoes, shallots and saffron. It was amazingly delicious. Even though I did not grow up on the sea, the lightness and tenderness of the fish, the shellfish and the broth touched me deeply. The soup had soul, and it demonstrated why Chez Panisse is such an outstanding restaurant.

The main course was rack, loin, and leg of lamb served with rosemary and olive sauce and shell and wax beans on the side. It seems like we've been served lamb the last few times we've eaten in the restaurant at Chez Panisse, but I am never disappointed with their lamb (all raised on small, organic farms, by the way). Each piece of lamb was tender and moist, and the rosemary especially gave the dish a lovely summer flavor.

For dessert, we were served an apricot puff pastry tartlet, with a sabayon on the side. Our server kindly placed a candle in a small strawberry and presented my plate as though it was my birthday. She was very sweet. A delicious end to a wonderful meal.

Thanks Louie and Rae!

Bastille Day Luncheon at Michel-Schlumberger

Last Sunday, Heather, Lou and I made the trip up to Healdsburg to celebrate Bastille Day at the Michel-Schlumberger winery in the Dry Creek Valley. I had been to the celebration several years ago, and I had fond memories of an afternoon spent tasting French wines, eating well-prepared French provincial fare and enjoying the warm weather of Western Sonoma County, California (I first discovered Michel-Schlumberger not long after I moved to San Francisco when my friend Amy, from business school, came to visit and we made a stop at the winery during a weekend tasting tour of the Dry Creek Valley).

A few years later and shortly after Lou and I started dating, I asked him to accompany me for another Bastille Day celebration at Michel-Schlumberger, but he refused me, saying he wasn't ready for a day trip with me yet. Three years later, when I asked again he gladly accepted. I asked Heather to come along.

We got a very late start last Sunday, leaving well after 10:30 for a lunch that was set to begin at 11:30. It takes about an hour to drive to the winery, so we arrived shortly before noon. We were the last to arrive, and they gave us three seats at the end of a long table that was set up in the wine storage area of the winery. The room was dark and cool, a different set up from my first experience when the table was set up under an archway in the central courtyard of the winery.



Last time I was there, Michel-Schlumberger was featuring tastings for its French wine club--I think they used to import a few wines from France--but this time all the wines were Michel-Schlumberger's own wines. We missed the pouring of the Pinot Blanc, but arrived in time for the pouring of a 2005 La Brume Chardonnay and the serving of the first course. The Chardonnay was deplete of the Napa-like oakiness and butteriness of so many California wines, and instead I noted minor hints of lemon or citrus. The food was a salad of chard, pea shoots, sunflower sprouts and asparagus, served with grilled shrimp and a "gateau de mer," which was something like a seafood cake. The flavors were very nice.



The second course, also the main course, was beef and lamb shishkebabs, served with harissa pistou (more or less French pesto), with fingerling potatoes, wilted frisee lentils and grilled peaches. They poured a 2004 Maison Rouge. I thought the shishkebabs were a little weird, but the food was delicious, especially the lentils and the wilted frisee (I'm going to try that!) and the grilled peaches (I'm also going to grill some more peaches before the summer ends!).

The third course was a cheese course--a soft cow's milk cheese, a blue and a soft goat's cheese--served with a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cab was the best of the wines--it tasted of tobacco, plums and cherries. We bought four bottles!



And, for dessert, they served a strawberry and lemon verbena "Paris Brest" with candied pistachios (the dish was a soft pastry filled with lemon verbena cream, served on a strawberry gelee). Sadly, they did not serve a dessert wine.





It was a lovely afternoon, though the traffic getting back to San Francisco was horrendous. Thanks for driving Heather!

Lemon Sabayon Tart, from the French Laundry Cookbook

Well, I still have not yet written up the story of my experiences over the last couple of months at The French Laundry. Perhaps now that I've brought it up on Foodphiles, my readership will demand that I tell the full story. Until then, you'll have to make due with a short story--along with a few photos--about making the easiest recipe in the French Laundry cookbook .

Flipping through the cookbook, which Lou gave me about a month ago, I was immediately drawn to the recipe Lemon Sabayon-Pine Nut Tart with Honeyed Mascarpone Cream. Not only is it easy relative to many of the other recipes, but the combination of flavors stood out as light, fresh and endlessly pleasing. Keller's recipe calls for a making a pine nut crust, filled with lemon sabayon (kind of a lemon curd) and topped off with a scoop of honey mascarpone whipped cream. How could you possibly go wrong with such a combination of flavors?

Here are a few photos:

Amy and me before browning the tart under the broiler.



A perfect match!



At last! The tart with whipped cream and a gardenia from the garden.

Fourth of July Malt Ball Cake

I made the malt ball cake again for the Fourth of July. You can read the story of this cake here, but I was inspired to make it again because we had our friends Stephanie and Jen and their three daughters over for a celebratory lunch. Here's Breckin with the cake.



Lou and I toyed with the idea of arranging the malt balls in the shape of a star, but then I came up with the idea of just making a rough American flag design. It worked out perfectly, and I think the cake looks even better than the Easter cake. Pretty cute, isn't it? The shape of the cake vaguely reminds me of a red, white and blue styrofoam hat my dad used to wear on the Fourth of July when I was a kid.




As expected, the cake was a hit--colorful, moist, tasty--but I wouldn't dare post the pictures of Breckin's face covered in cake!

Farm Bill: Mixed Reports on Committee Action

According to National Journal, the House Agriculture Committee voted yesterday to reduce agricultural subsidies to farmers along the lines of what I wrote about here. There seems to be some doubt about how this is going to play out--read postings from Ken Cook and Scott Faber--but I tend to think that some movement towards reform is better than no movement. It's not clear to me that more money has been directed towards healthy eating programs or other sustainable food programs. More soon.

House Mark-up on Farm Bill Begins Today

Here's a great article from Saturday's Washington Post that reports on the divide among House Democrats about whether and how to reform the Farm Bill. The reporter focuses in on my fellow Kenyon College alumnus, Ohio Congressman Zack Space, who has come out against reform.

The mark-up begins this afternoon (now) in D.C., and you can listen or watch here. Scott Faber previews today's mark-up and gives his take on what members of the committee would see their districts benefit from reform.

More from Michael Krasny: "Organics"

Krasney did another segment on food yesterday on Forum. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm glad he's exploring the topic of what "organic" food labels mean and whether the food labeled "organic" is more healthy or not.

Farm Bill News: Nancy Pelosi Indicates Support for Subsidy Reduction

According to the .National Journal's CongressDaily PM (sorry I can't link to the article, but National Journal keeps its articles behind a firewall), Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Agriculture Chairman Petersen that she wants "stricter limits on farm subsidies for individuals as a symbol of Farm Bill change." The reporter, Jerry Hagstrom, quoted Petersen as saying, "Payment limits would do the most good to show reform." He is considering a proposal, according to Hagstrom, that "would end the three-entity rule that allows farmers to receive subsidies from three separate farming operations but would not place restrictions on their gains from marketing loans." Hagstrom reported that "the proposal would also lower -- but [Petersen] would not say by how much -- the $2.5 million ceiling on the adjusted gross income above which farmers cannot qualify for farm subsidies." He also reported that another change would limit the subsidies on a farm to a farmer and his or her spouse.

So, what does this mean? I take it as good news that Pelosi supports some kind of subsidy change, even if the changes are relatively modest. My guess is that she's heard enough from farmers and activists in California that she'll do what she can to try to change the subsidy scheme and diffuse the flow of federal farm subsidy dollars away from the Mid-West and from big farms. I do not have information now about on what's going on in the Senate, and I don't know how aligned or divergent the two houses are in their thinking. One other possibility is that President Bush could threaten to veto the bill if he's displeased with the changes Pelosi hopes to implement. In that event, according to Hagstrom, Petersen suggested to Agriculture Secretary Johanns that the 1949 Permanent Farm Act would become governing federal farm policy. I am not at all familiar with that act, but failure to reauthorize the act might be the best way to bring an end to federal farm subsidies. It won't happen. No one will let this bill sunset, and frankly, a lot of good programs would die if the bill expired. Be that as it may, I'm intrigued by the idea of how a veto threat might play out.

Finally, Hagsterom reported on one other interesting piece of news: Congressman Goodlatte has not yet signed on to Petersen's version of the Farm Bill. He is, according to Hagstrom, holding out until Petersen makes clear how he intends to pay for sections of the bill with offsets from other programs. More than anything else, Goodlatte represents the administration at this point in the process, but because of the makeup of the House he's more or less powerless when it comes to determining the content of the bill. Of course, I could be wrong, if the content of the bill is decided along regional and not party lines, he may have the ability to sway non-midwestern members who do not represent constiuents who reap great benefits from the current subsidy scheme. If all the votes during the mark-up fall along party lines, he will be sidelined.

KQED's Forum on the 2007 Farm Bill

I just found out that Michael Krasny did a show on the 2007 Farm Bill on Wednesday morning. Doh!

Michael Pollan was one of the guests.

You can listen to the recording here.

Simple Pleasures: Vanilla Ice Cream, Chocolate Fudge and Strawberries, Oh My!

Last night, after eating a delicious pizza from Pauline's (we ordered a medium meat special with hot coppa, orange bergamot and provolone cheese, all on a cornmeal crust. Amazing!) I decided I wanted to have a few scoops of the leftover vanilla ice cream we made on the Fourth of July, topped with hot fudge sauce. Our friend Amy had given us a jar of fudge, and for some reason, I was craving the combination of the two. I served myself three scoops of ice cream, warmed up the chocolate fudge, and sat down to enjoy my dessert. I couldn't help think of my dad eating a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV.

And guess what happened next? Lou save the day! He announced that he was going to cut up the strawberries he had bought for me to use to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie and drizzle them with chocolate. As he began to cut up the strawberries, he asked me if I'd like a few strawberries to go with the ice cream and fudge I was already eating. I nodded enthusiastically, and after a threw a few cut strawberries into my bowl, I discovered yet again the simple pleasure of the sweet combination of strawberries, chocolate and cream. Heavenly!

Virginia Farm Photos

Last year on Labor Day, Lou and I made a trip to Virginia to visit my family and see some friends who still live there. I wrote up some of the cooking we did that weekend here.

One of the afternoons we were there, we drove out with my parents, my sister and my niece to my Dad's farm, which is known as Lover's Leap (the farm got its name because it abuts a huge cliff and there's a legend about two Indian lover's jumping to their deaths from the cliff because their families did not approve of their love).

A few of the photos we took that afternoon were lovely, so I thought I'd post some of them after writing about Virginia yesterday. My Dad is not a farmer, but he leases out the land to a neighboring farmer who uses it to graze his milking cows. To my knowledge, neither my father nor the farmer receive any federal government farm subsidies. Not long ago my dad put a conservation easement on the farm so that it will remain mostly undeveloped in perpetuity.

This is a photograph of the Maury River, which runs through the farm.



This is me in front of one of the barns.



And these are the cows who live on the farm.

Sign the EWG's Farm Bill Petition

Register your support for farm bill reform by signing this petition.

Thanks to my friend Dusty for sending this along.

Farm Bill Update

Well, honestly, I haven't had much time yet to figure out who is coordinating any grassroots organizing to pressure Congress to reform the Farm Bill, but I did come across this blog at Environmental Defense and this blog over at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Both websites give good summaries of where the legislation stands (it's about to be "marked up" in the House, which means that the relevant committee--in this case the House Agriculture Committee--will consider the legislation and amend it before sending it to the full House for further amendment and a vote). Here is the House Agriculture Committee's summary of the bill as of July 10th. This looks like a fairly comprehensive listing of the current reform-minded bills pending in either the House or the Senate, though most of them will not move (meaning they won't ever make it out of committee (forgive the legis-speak, but I don't have a chance to use it very often any more)).

One of the things that strikes me as odd is that the Ranking Member (the senior most Republican on the committee) of the House Agriculture Committee is Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who represents the 6th Congressional District of Virginia. I was born and raised in the 6th District, in Lexington, Virginia. What's odd about the fact that Goodlatte is the ranking member is that the 6th District, according to the Ken Cook's Mulchblog and the analysis of the EWG, comes in 42nd or 5th from last on the list of committee member districts that receive agricultural subsidies. Cook's assertion seems to be that the 6th District would benefit from a change in farm policy that would shift subsidies away from crops grown primarily in the Mid-West to crops grown by smaller farmers across the country like the one in Swoope, Virginia (in the 6th District) that I wrote about here. I doubt Goodlatte will buck the status quo. As Ranking Member and former Chairman my guess is he's firmly in the pocket of agribusiness, but I could imagine that he might make some small effort to amend the bill if he received pressure from his constituents. Even a small change in the subsidy scheme could be a good start to eventual farm bill reform. Do I have any readers in Virginia?

I also came across this blog on food policy.

More to come.

More on the 2007 Farm Bill

There's a great story in today's Chronicle about the reauthorization of the Farm Bill. The reporter explores the growing movement to reform the farm bill by shifting the focus of the bill away from primarily subsidizing farmers (and agribusiness) to providing more support for regional and sustainable farming, promoting more healthy foods and diets and encouraging more environmentally friendly policies. The chief complaint against past Farm Bills is that they have primarily supported farmers who grow only a handful of crops--corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and rice--as opposed to fresh produce or livestock and that those foods, though cheap, are not actually good for us to eat. In April, Michael Pollan made a strong case for why what we've subsidized in the past has negatively affected our health.

I'm going to do some more research on the political organizing to change the bill, and I'll report back soon. I was pleased to see, however, that the Environmental Working Group, where my friend Dusty works, has compiled a database of farm subsidies for the last few years. Very interesting.

Last night, I picked up again my copy of Omnivore's Dilemma, which I had put down for the last month or so. I just finished reading the section in which Pollan writes about Joel Salatin's farm, Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia. Swoope is about 40 miles or so from Lexington, Virginia, where I grew up, and I was delighted to read that such an iconoclastic farmer is challenging the conventional wisdom in the Shenandoah Valley. This is the kind of farming a new farm bill ought to support.

Ratatouille

Lou and I saw Ratatouille on Saturday night. It's a well done (all food puns intended) tale of a foodie rat who yearns to cook. The story follows the rat, Remy, from his humble roots in the French countryside, where his family eats nothing but garbage, all the way to his stealth takeover of the kitchen of one of the most revered chefs in Paris. The climax of the movie is when Remy comes out (he had been hiding behind the chef's son, a bumbling dishwasher) and takes full control of the kitchen in order to prepare a French Laundry-like ratatouille for the story's bad guy, who is, of course, a food critic. Remy's ratatouille wins the critic over by recreating the tastes and flavors of his mother's ratatouille and by emotionally transporting him back to the warm and comforting embrace of his mother. The ratatouille scene is brilliant--both in a triumphal and a comedic sense--and I loved the message that good food not only delights and stimulates the senses, but also the enlivens both the heart and the mind. I also liked the message that food brings people (and rats) together, and makes relationships possible. That's what appeals to me about cooking and eating (this is not a celebration of baking as much as it is of cooking). Anyway, we laughed out loud longer than anyone else in the theater at the moment of Remy's triumph. It was a deliciously delightful movie made for foodies and non-foodies alike.

By the way, Frank Bruni wrote this essay in the NYT Week In Review yesterday, and I want to echo his view of how much Ratatouille seems to be a movie that could not have been made as little as a few years ago. Thanks to Julia Child (the real godmother of American foodies), food bloggers, celebrity chefs and everyone else who has preached the gospel of good cooking and eating, not to mention those who have prepared and sold gourmet cuisine, Americans now seek out and appreciate good food more than ever before. Thus, they--we--are able to fall for a story about a rat who, like them, loves food and yearns for more of it.

Go see it, and tell me what you think.

Oh, and guess what we made for dinner last night?

UPDATE: The NYT published Thomas Keller's recipe for Confit Byaldi, otherwise known as ratatouille.

FURTHER UPDATE: Here, Bruni ponders the portrayal of the restaurant critic in Ratatouille.

Snapshot Restaurant Review: Bar Bambino

For the second Sunday night in a row, I ate at Bar Bambino last night. Of the many new restaurants that have recently opened in the Mission—it’s two blocks from my house—I want this restaurant to succeed. Sadly, despite the good food we were severed on both visits, the service was uneven and slow.

Last Sunday, Lou and I walked into Bar Bambino at the end of a long day. Both of us had taken part in the Pride parade earlier in the day, and we were exhausted. Neither one of us was up for cooking, so we decided to check out Bar Bambino. We took the last table in the crowded front section of the restaurant across from the bar (the space is beautiful and sleek). At first glance, the menu seemed somewhat limited, but we quickly identified several dishes that looked interesting and noted the plenteous selection of cured meats and cheeses. We settled on a selection of meats—genovese, prosciutto, and salumi—and a Cowgirl soft cow’s milk cheese wrapped in nettles (a favorite of mine that I haven’t tasted yet this season). We ordered a salad of tuna, cannellini beans, and red onion, a Bucatini alla Gangivecchio (thick noodles, served with fried kale, raisins, pine nuts, pancetta and cauliflower), and the meatballs. The food was exquisite. All of the meats were tasty and beautifully presented. The Bucatini was outstanding, with the flavors of the cauliflower, kale, raisins and pine nuts, all doused in olive oil, simultaneously stimulating the sweet and the savory taste buds. The meatballs were firm and served with a delicate tomato sauce heavily laden with sautéed onions and kale. The tuna dish was light and refreshing, but because it was served with the food, we felt like it didn’t quite fit with the pasta and meatballs. We also ordered a 2002 Benati Nerello Mascallese, like what we ordered at A16. For dessert we ordered a chocolate semifreddo and cappuccinos.

The service was a little slow and clumsy, and the timing was off on our main dishes. The pasta, meatballs and the tuna came out together, so we didn’t have a chance to enjoy the salad alone. I would have preferred for the meats and cheese to come out together first, but there was a gap between them, with the meats coming first and cheeses following along later. I wanted the salad next, followed by the pasta and meatballs. Our server was attentive, and yet not good at following through. The main problem, I think, was that his assistant was overwhelmed or not up to the job. I watched bring out several dishes for other tables, look around and deliver them to the wrong table. The poor diners next to us seemed to get screwed on each course. They were given beef meatballs, instead of the vegetarian ones—that’s probably grounds enough for a free meal in my book—and their dessert and their side dishes were mixed up or mistakenly delivered as well. Our service was not nearly as bad, but it was painful to watch them suffer mistake after mistake. The oddest moment for us was when we questioned our server about our cappuccinos. Both Lou and I were surprised that the cappuccinos came out looking more like lattes or macchiatos than cappuccinos, but when we said something about them to our server he simply said abruptly, “No, those are cappuccinos.” I thought that was a little rude.

We went back for another try last night to send off my friend, Dan, who had been visiting for the last week. We ordered much of the same food—meats, cheeses, bucatini, and meatballs—though we substituted a dish of sausage and lentils for the tuna salad and we also ordered a side of grilled asparagus. The service was excruciatingly slow. Our server—who was very nice and accommodating—told us that the owner would be preparing the meats and cheeses and he told us that had been taking his time in fulfilling orders. He was right. We waited for nearly forty minutes for the first tray of cured meats, and then we waited another ten minutes for the cheese. The server kindly gave us a bruschetta with squash, sauteéd greens, and fontina for free, but it was appalling to be made to wait so long for a first bite. Once our main dishes arrived we happily devoured them, and the dishes tasted good but I’m not sure the food is worth such a long wait. Such good food deserves tighter, more efficient service. I hope they’ll pick up the slack. I’d quickly give Bar Bambino a rave review if they do so.