Tag Archive for 'Italy'

2011 Truffle Report #3

We arrived at Giorgio’s on Saturday and got our first look at what he’s recently been digging up: some beautiful specimens with nice fragrance and good weight. No ginormous ones like last year, but many in the 25 gram to 60 gram range. As always with Giorgio it’s a family affair and his niece, Caterina, was on hand to help with truffle scrubbing. Tomorrow we head to…

2011 Truffle Report #2

Aldo Vacca from Produttori del Barbaresco was taught that proper truffle shaving meant completely covering the dish. Here he demonstrates. This was a block-buster truffle. We ‘re at Trattoria Antica Torre in Barbaresco, famous for their hand-cut tajarin, that is made with only flour and egg yolks….

First Truffle Report for 2011

Oliveto co-owner Bob Klein and General Manager Shane Walker depart in less than a week for Italy in pursuit of truffles for our upcoming dinners. We’ve already heard some preliminary reports about the start of the season from a few of our contacts. Bad news first: Our friend Aldo Vacca in the Piedmont says…

Dinner with Francesco Ripaccioli

The Tre Bicchieri road show hits San Francisco this month, bringing to town some of Italy’s most outstanding winemakers. The notables include one of our favorites, Francesco Ripaccioli of Canalicchio di Sopra. He will be joining us for dinner wednesday, February 16th….

Truffle Report #3 – Truffle Pizza with Giorgio

In this year’s World Pizza Championships held annually in Salsomaggiore, our tuscan truffle hunter Giorgio Secchini and daughter Denise wowed the judges with their truffle pizza: Pear Marzolo tartufi with pecorino de Pienza, and…

Truffle Report #1: Why Didn’t We Think of That?

Camino pizzeria in Nieve. The wine list includes many well-priced, single vineyard, well-aged Barbarescos and Barolos. Pizza had fontina and mozzarella, two eggs and fragrant black truffles. Would have been perfect if it had been made with our whole grain flour. What an idea…

Dinner to Celebrate My Calabria – Nov. 4

A special dinner prepared by Chef Paul Canales in celebration of Rosetta Costantino’s beautiful new cookbook, My Calabria.
Rosetta and Paul initially met when both of their children were attending the same school here in Oakland. After learning about…

A Visit with Dario Cecchini

Whole Hog Dinners began here in 1999, and led to regular weekly deliveries to our kitchen of whole animals from Paul Willis. Soon, every other kind of whole animal followed, and three years ago we began receiving whole beef animals. So we think we’re somewhat knowledgeable in this “whole animal” thing. But this visit…

Produttori del Barbaresco, a timeline in progress

Aldo Vacca, the Director of Produttori del Barbaresco in the Piemonte region of Italy has been very important to Oliveto and the development of our ideas about wine.  Yet again, he steps up to the plate, and agrees to help us with this ambitious idea:

Truffle Report #5 – What’s that smell?

The truffle dinners are now in full swing and going very nicely, but I wanted to provide a brief wrap-up of this year’s trip to Italy. Monti-in-Chianti, about 10 miles north of Siena, has been the center of my activities since I began traveling to Italy (over ten years ago) to get truffles, and Giorgio Sacchini and his family have been…