Little Italy Culinary Adventure

Have you ever walked around the Farmer’s Market just bewildered by the dizzying array of options, knowing that there are great ingredients right before your eyes, but not knowing quite how to put together a meal on the fly based only on what’s fresh and in season that day?

Well now you can go on a Chef’s Tour of Little Italy’s Mercato with a real Italian born-and-raised chef who honors not only the “fresh + organic” method of cooking, but also places a heavy focus on eating real food from the Mediterranean diet. Check out my hodge-podge video taken from our totally fun + romantic daytime date, here (no apologies from me on the lengthy video – I love Francesco’s Italian accent + I don’t mind sharing it, along with his delightful personality!):

Our day was a rare rainy one in San Diego, but to me that made it cozy + romantic. As for you, you will actually have it way easier with the typical sunshine beating down, and perhaps slightly more crowds to elbow out of your way.

Instead of covering your head from rain pelting you, you will need to cover your head from both harmful + nourishing UV rays. Either way, you will be talking + laughing + fighting to be heard over the occasional airplanes flying overhead to Lindburg Field, making fun conversation with the people you meet on this adventure and planning your wine purchases for later.

We tried all kinds of stuff. I was already bringing home mead + planned on getting wine for our great meal, so I couldn’t carry even more liquids like I’m some pack mule… but know that if I had a refrigerated carrier (+ someone to carry that) I would’ve bought some of this raw milk. It was delicious!

Francesco (or “Cheechu” as he prefers to be called) had some passionate feelings about arugula. Most of us dummies (I mean You) buy the baby arugula at the store which he calls “fake” and “weak,” and after tasting this big organic bunch with a strong peppery flavor to it, I’m inclined to agree with him.

Just because something was beautiful didn’t mean we bought it. If that were true, I would’ve bought these red carrots! They looked good to me, but Cheechu had other culinary plans.

There was a particular cut of meat he wanted but they didn’t have it, so he opted for Flat Iron steak. He said that the meat you buy from farms will shrink on you in the pan because they are stuffed with water and antibiotics.

True to his word, these steaks stayed about the same size as before cooking. Beautiful!

This is the arugula we would pair with the steak and some delicious balsamic vinegar. He said that this kind of dish really typifies Italian food – not pasta.

Another trick: if garlic is not in season, buy green garlic! They look like fat pinkish scallions, but when you hold the bulb to your nose you will smell the unmistakable perfume of garlic.

Have you ever heard of kohlrabi? I had not. Well I guess they are in season, and although they look like turnips (they are also called “German turnips,” actually) they actually smell like a radish, taste like their close relative the cabbage, and have the consistency of potato! The are far more nutritious than potatoes though.

The great thing about this tour is that you can sneak off if there’s a booth you wanna check out that the group bypasses. I’m not sure why the sea urchin/oyster booth was bypassed, but I wasn’t going to miss it!

The first time I saw these at this farmer’s market, I was closer to lunch and I got the uni with ceviche. That was delicious and I highly recommend it. But this time I was already pushing it with all the samples I had already tried plus knowing that we were about to prepare an Italian feast, so I just got the uni alone.

Wow. It’s so indulgent that it doesn’t feel right that they only charge $12 for this. The spines are still moving when they crack it open and clean it for you. How does it taste? Only like the ocean, if you could butter and sweeten it gently. It melts in your mouth and is just delicious.

Totally unrelated, but I also love people-watching at farmer’s markets. Look at this cool contraption this guy was using to carry this kid on his back! Bonus that the kid matched these stunning and sweet Cara Cara oranges.

This is some lovely broccolini. We would saute a couple of anchovies in olive oil (yes!) and then saute the broccolini in that for depth of flavor. Wouldn’t you expect it to taste fishy? It really does not. It’s the magic of hot oil I guess!

Then we went back to Francesco’s house. If you have an eagle eye, you’ll know I’ve posted from this house before: unbeknownst to me, Chef Francesco now lives in the house of my old bee teacher, Hilary Kearney! This house draws talented hipsters like bees to honey. I would say that this house has amazing teaching karma, if I believed in karma. Instead it’s just a coinkidink!

We stood around and discussed the Game Plan for cooking all of our ingredients. While drinking some wine.

We also cheated by using imported (but organic!) Sicilian gnocchi, but that’s only because Francesco said that making gnocchi from scratch “is a class by itself.”

There was a LOT of spirited conversation. You will find that the kind of people who go to this kind of thing are a lot like you, if you actually go to this kind of thing.

PROOF that we actually cooked instead of just watching!

Mmm, here’s the meat/arugula/parmesan dish. It was simple and wonderful.

And HERE is the fried kohlcabi! It was tasty and healthy.

One of our plated servings:

I cannot recommend this experience highly enough. Sign up and prepare to learn, and have a good time doing it!

And make some new friends along the way.

Buon appetito! xx