Oliveto Risotto Dinners
Wednesday & Thursday
April 26 - 27, 2006
 Risotto made perfectly--where the sauce is inseparable from the rice but not over-reduced, where the center of the rice kernel is substantial and chewy but not hard, where there is just enough butter and oil (but not too much), and where all the flavors meld together into one luxurious and delectable unified whole--is what Burton Anderson calls "a culinary apex." The cooking of such a risotto cannot be interrupted without diminishing it nor can it be left alone untended while it simmers. Just before it is done, adjustments must be carefully and skillfully made, and then the risotto must be served immediately.
Shortcuts are never entirely successful. If a restaurant were to offer perfect risotto on its menu every night, it would have a cook dedicated to its making and an additional stove to accommodate the pots.
We've often thought of how we might organize an entire dinner around risotto's coming out of the kitchen at just the right time. We finally devised a way to do it. It will be a different kind of evening for us, with two seatings and a prix fixe menu:
a platter of Oliveto house-cured salumi;
asparagus with balsamico;
risotto bianco;
braised farm hen with wild mushrooms (morels if we're lucky);
a special sweet
With the set menu, Chef Canales will know how many servings he'll be plating and have a flexible window of time in which to frame the risotto's single moment of perfection.
 In 2002 we visited the Rondolino family's organic 'carnaroli' rice farm-one of a number of rice farms that have made the plains north of the Piedmont town of Vercelli famous for superfino 'carnaroli' rice. The unpolluted water from Alpine glaciers, and such biological introductions as the herbivorous amur carp, have allowed Acquerello to carry the designation "organic" under both Italian and U.S. government regulations. After it has aged from one to three years in temperature-controlled silos (a method which renders proteins less water soluble), the rice is packed and distributed in vacuum-sealed bags.
We are pleased to be able to serve Acquerello's exceptional and distinctive rice for our Risotto Dinners.
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