The power of food

Food doesn’t just provide sustenance for survival, it connects to our emotions, enhancing  the experience of eating beyond the physical surroundings. We eat “comfort food” to evoke pleasures from childhood, calories and cholesterol be damned, letting memories nurture our souls with every bite. This is the flavor of “traditional,” where memory and sensation are the indisputable judges.

“Music can soothe the savage beast,” but food also has the power to affect the human spirit. As you eat, all is right with the world, and for a brief, shining moment, your psyche, as well as your body, is replete.

Treat yourself to a gourmet dinner and two-night stay at The Sage Hen in the heart of Sonoma County wine country, a tranquil retreat nestled among trees and overlooking a lovely, secluded rock garden.

Your stay includes two nights at The Sage Hen for up to four people and an intimate 4-hour cooking lesson in the chef’s kitchen. The session can be conducted in Italian, English or both.

Enjoy the authentic flavors of dishes like risotto al finocchio made with wild fennel; fusilli with caramelized onions, fresh basil, thyme and sage; focaccia with tomatoes and onions; grilled meats with sali d’arrosto, a blend of herbs passed down by the chef’s children’s Sicilian grandmother; grilled eggplant with dry-cured olives, pork and tomato; spinach salad with orange-ginger reduction; baicoli, slightly sweet Venetian cookies that double as crackers; affogato (ice cream “drowned” in crema di limoncello or espresso). The dishes are paired with carefully selected wines, either from top local wineries or from Italy. The Italian wines are from small producers who describe the organoleptic characteristics of a wine starting with the smell and the climate of the soil in their vineyards.

Crostatine di fragole

Your chef is award-winning cookbook author and university Italian instructor Brook Nestor. Brook is a consultant and food journalist for Italian chef Marco Sacco of Piccolo Lago Restaurant (2 Michelin stars) in Piemonte, where she also worked for six months. Brook spent almost twenty years in northern Italy, learning the most intimate secrets of Italian cooking through oral tradition.

Price: $1,250 for four people. For availability and reservations call toll-free 1-888-633-2417.

Both my kids love to cook, both ask me this question.

I’d never given it any thought, or so it seemed. Then I realized that a meal requires more thought than anything else. Cooking for a big event begins at least a couple of weeks out for me. The first step is to create a menu, then it’s a matter of dissecting the dishes to determine what preliminary dishes must be made to prepare the final ones. Do I need to candy orange peel, make a liqueur, bake cookies or pickle anything? Will any fruit or vegetables need time to ripen? After the preliminary shopping list is compiled comes the first round of cooking.

Then comes the detailed shopping list, which is divided into three sections: one week out, three days out, the day before. Cooking follows the same stages. Anything that can be prepared ahead of time is, avoiding freezing whenever possible. My son has told his friends to watch as I work, pointing out that all utensils and surfaces are cleaned immediately. What he’s seeing is efficiency, so every time I turn around, I don’t have to waste time clearing space or cleaning up. To do that, I have to envision each upcoming step, just like a piano player whose eyes are reading far ahead of the music his hands are playing.

The answer to the question is visualization, meaning mental organization. I make the dishes over and over in my head, regardless of how familiar I am with the recipe. As the day of the event approaches, I imagine serving the meal numerous times, examining each dish as I do so to make sure each component is right. This is an automatic procedure, a tried and true method that makes party day…a piece of cake.

“This is my sister, the American.” When I’m in Bergamo, this is how Annalisa introduces me. I’m no more her sister than the moon is made of green cheese, yet we could be clones. My nationality was thrust upon me the moment I was born, my relationship with Annalisa is the result of decades of hard work to overcome my birth defect. This introduction is the measure of my success at breaking into the ranks of Bergamo’s tight-knit, wary mountain culture. So I know it’s cheeky of me to make casoncelli in Bergamo. This is their signature pasta, which is exactly why I perfected the recipe. Recipes, actually, one even more traditional than the other. I chose the most traditional version.

It took me all day. Late in the afternoon, Annalisa walked by the trays full of pasta. “Those aren’t casoncelli,” was her comment. I was crushed. “Why not?” I mustered the courage to ask. “That’s not the right shape.” They needed to be longer, thinner, odder. I changed my technique immediately.

Then Stefania walked by. “That’s not the right shape,” she said. I immediately threw Annalisa under the bus, blaming her for the misshapen pasta.  “Mia madre li faceva a barchetta.” (My mother made them boat-shaped.) She showed me what she meant. The new shape was lovely, indeed boat-shaped.

The casoncelli were brought to the dinner table dressed in browned butter and sage and were gone in 5 minutes. Everyone ELSE said that’s why they wouldn’t bother making them, but Stefania’s and Annalisa’s mothers wouldn’t agree. It’s a matter of Bergamask pride.

I know many chefs and have many friends who are serious cooks, but I’ve never met anyone who lives and breathes food the way Giancarlo Bortolotti does. A chef from Salò, Italy, he’s had his own restaurants in San Francisco, knows the most influential and innovative trend-setters in the field, has unbelievable stories involving jobs he’s done. Every encounter with him is a learning experience: from hunting porcini mushrooms everywhere in northern California to streamlining operations in restaurant kitchens across the country, his expertise is vast and impressive. Every topic of conversation finds its way to food and cooking in no time at all.

Yesterday. Serving lunch to four fabulous friends, all female. The lasagna was resting, the fish was grilling, we were at the threshold of a buon appetito when the phone rang. It was Lygia, Giancarlo’s daughter. “It’s my dad. He’s been in a serious car accident near your house.  Please call me if you hear anything.”  A second before, our laughter swelled the room, now a life and death urgency transformed the good cheer and anticipation of sensory delights into silent, serious concern.

After a quick internet investigation, we found out where he was and my husband left for the hospital. He returned a little later with Giancarlo, who was very shaken, but unhurt. I served him some lasagna and he began telling us the story. “I was hit from behind by some guy who must have been going 100 miles an hour. He was on me in a second and my truck flipped over. I broke a window to get out. A motorcycle rushed past and hit some debris from the accident. He crashed. He was killed.” Overcome by the horror of the scene he was recounting, Giancarlo hid his hands in his face for a moment, then continued. “The man who hit me fled the scene. I feel like it’s my fault the guy on the motorcycle crashed. Madonna, che buone queste lasagne…”

I burst out laughing. It was joyous, not humorous. This last comment, whispered to himself, was too vital to be expressed in English. It came from the place in Giancarlo’s mind that had not been traumatized, reflecting a core relationship with food that protected something sacred in his psyche.  “Man, this lasagna is good.” Food was already healing. We were all glad for a reason to laugh. Our lunch had become a celebration of life.