Black, Blacker, Blackest

Risotto Nero

All that glitters is ... golden goodness?

MSNBC reports: Parmesan producers bank on cheese.

All that is golden in bank Credito Emiliano's temperature-controlled vault is not precious metal, but something equally prized in Italy: aging Parmesan cheese.

Row upon row of 85-pound wheels of straw-colored Parmesan cheese, stacked some 33 feet high at a secure warehouse, age for as many as two years under the care of bank employees trained in the centuries-old art of Parmesan making.

The program allows Parmesan producers to pump cash into their business by using their product as collateral while it is otherwise sitting on a shelf for the long aging process. While the mechanism was not born out of the current economic crisis, dating rather from Italy's post-World War II years, producers say it is ever more important because it ensures that credit keeps flowing during otherwise tight times.

A cheesemaker turns over a percentage of his production, say 25 percent, to a bank warehouse and is given a certificate which can be presented to the bank to secure the loan, Morini said. In many cases, the cheesemaker then sells title to the cheese to a distributor while the cheese is still aging.

"An advance payment, as the one offered from Credem (Credito Emiliano) is a really positive thing because it gives at least the chance of surviving the lapse of time, hoping that the market will recover in a short period of time," said Cristian Bertolini, a quality check expert for the consortium.

Typically, a Parmesan maker who produces 7,000 wheels a year might put up 2,000 as collateral for a loan. According to Morini's calculations, each wheel is worth as much as 300 euros ($425), valuing the cheese collateral at 600,000 euros. The bank would then issue a loan of 60 percent to 70 percent of the value, so around 420,000 euros.

The Parmesan loan business contributes just 1 percent to the bank's annual revenue — but is critical to its image in the region, where agriculture is a key economic driver, said William Bizzarri, director of the Credito Emiliano subsidiary that deals in Parmesan deposits.

Bizzarri said Parmesan deposits are up about 10 percent due to the recession. At capacity, the cheesy deposits are worth from 120 million euros to 130 million euros.

Only disagreement is that they are surprised that the assets are up. Hard assets always go up relative to financial assets in a deflationary environment.

Go, parm, go!

Three Variations on a Theme

Same veggies. Different execution. Makes all the difference in the world.

(Recipes to follow.)
Pasta with Green Peppers, Beans, Summer Squash, Eggplants & Anchovies
Rotini with Green Beans, Green Peppers, Olives and Feta
Summer Pasta with Yellow Squash, Green Beans and Purple Basil

Zucchini Burgers

The trick to getting moist succulent burgers (irrespective of whether it's beef or zucchini burgers) is to keep them moist and handle them as little as possible.

Under no circumstance should you "press" them. Whenever the CC sees someone press down on a burger on a grill with a spatula, he wants to go postal on their ass. They are squeezing the flavor out of the burger!

Zucchini Burgers

Feed your inner mathematician!

Yep, they're real! And they're named after Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the co-founder (along with Isaac Newton) of the infinitesimal calculus.

Harvesting Squid Ink

Getting squid ink is easy. You need raw squid (squid that have not been cleaned.)

What's hard is that the ink stains everything. So you need to avoid splatter and clean up in case thereof. And yes, it does stain everything in sight!

Yank the squid behind the head and pull the tentacles outwards.

This is what it looks like (yep, that's the eye.)


The glistening silvery thing is the ink-sac. You need to puncture it gently and squeeze over a container. This is the hard part. You can't squeeze with your hands otherwise your hands and nails are gonna get stained. Use the back of a spoon (which is also gonna get stained. Scrape that ink off with another spoon (this is valuable stuff!)



Squid ink

Anticuchos de Corazon

Yesterday, the CC had the pleasure of eating grilled, marinated cow hearts Peruvian-style.

Yep, that's cow as in cow, and heart as in heart. Not for the faint of heart.

It was marinated in cumin, garlic, aji pepper and lime, and it was tender and succulent. It is necessary to enjoy texture to appreciate this because hearts are all protein so they are texturally delectably silky yet chewy.

Summer Squash Soup

Summer Squash Soup

Julia Child

It seems customary to report on the subject thanks to the movie made by the idiotic-beyond-idiotic, border-line retarded "chick-flick twit". No, the CC has not seen the movie but we're gonna talk about the cookbook author and not the persona or the chick-flick or the twit.

It is no great secret that most foodies have read Julia Child.

Opinions differ on the subject, and the CC has definitely besmirched the woman's reputation on her favorite subject of omelettes (with perfectly good science and reason.)

Arguably, you would do better to learn French cooking by consulting Anne Willan or Richard Olney.

And she was no more "authentic" than Paris Hilton. She wore wigs during her show and had two face-lifts. Chances are they don't tell you those things during the movie. Nor do the asinine foodies bother with such blunt brute facts during their wild adoration bordering on hagiography.

But there would never have been an Olney or a Willan without a Julia Child. Plus, we're here to judge her on the basis of her books not her vanity.

What matters is the sheer joy of food as well as pure unabashed joie de vivre that leaps off every page. It's opinionated, detail-oriented, definitely old-fashioned. It's not "pitched" to a "marketing control group". It's tone is friendly if bossy; accurate if opinionated.

Certainly, some of the equipment has dated. We can do better in that domain, and she'd agree herself. But her dictum that happiness is as much in the doing as the final result is completely on target.

Above all, there is the sensual love of food and life. She was sui generis and so are the books.

It shows. It shows in spades. You can't fake this.

If ever there were books that just by the sheer forceful power of the author's personality could dispel the blues, it's these ones. There are few better things worth doing in life that spending an afternoon on the couch with Julia. (And yes, she'd howl in mirth at the smuttiness of that pun!)

She was right about butter too.

Linguini with Garlic-Scape Pesto & Fava Beans

The Color Purple

This morning, the CC blanched some fava beans in salted water in a steel vessel. The residual water had turned a vivid purple an hour later (the beans were only blanched for three minutes.) The CC could not find an explanation using the usual suspects (Web, McGee, etc.)

It probably has something to do with anthocyanins (responsible for purple and red colors in most veggies.)

Thoughts, anyone?

Break

CC's on a break. Too hot to cook!