11.20.09
It is my favorite time of year! Noooooo, not Thanksgiving sillyheads! It’s the annual San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival. This is by far my favorite holiday. All week long there are events throughout San Diego including wine tastings, classes taught by celebrity chefs, auctions and of course the main event which is on Saturday at the Embarcadero. On Friday Chris, Andreas (boss man) and I went to a cooking class taught by Paul Bartolotta of Bartolotta’s at the Wynn in Las Vegas at the Macy’s School of Cooking. Andreas took Lauren and I to eat at Bartolotta’s about 2 years ago and we ate the most amazing fish on their tasting menu. He is a very picky eater and chooses to only eat at places with the finest ingredients and with the best food. His theory is that if he is going so spend money and ingest things, they better be the finest that they can be. You will never catch him eating fast food, or anything out of a box or a can for that matter. He lives by the rule of only shopping around the perimeter of a grocery store. Or Whole Foods lol.

There was a 5 page print out on the table of all the things we were about to try and they immediately brought us a glass of wine. Chris accused me of inviting Andreas only because that was the only way I would get out of work early on a Friday in order to drink wine in the middle of the afternoon. Ha! Funny, but so not true. Sometimes Andreas and I have martinis during lunch, so there! (sticks tongue out) The course was designed to teach us about seafood, vegetables and olive oil and as I skimmed over the menu Paul (I am on a first name basis here simply because it is easier than typing Bartolotta each time) was explaining to us that he struggled (as I can imagine most chefs doing) with writing down a recipe on paper. I would assume that any decent chef would prepare his dishes from memory, experience and common sense. He started his class by explaining the three things that make a dish: time, temperature and a balance of ingredients. Makes sense, right? (just wait til I actually start cooking later on this year in my new place and I blow the kitchen up) His success is based on the fact that good ingredients make good food. He began to teach us that “unfussy is the new cool.”

Bartolotta has worked in 15 restaurants all over Italy (most were along the coast) and then worked in many restaurants in France. He learned his technique in France and learned all about the delicious rustic ingredients while in Italy. He suggests low energy cooking, less violent, and you will keep the food tasting more to it’s natural taste. At Bartolotta’s you will be served fish flown in from the Mediterranean each and every day. Paul spends his mornings texting, skyping and tracking his fish every 20 minutes to see exactly where they are. He says that if his fish arrives “looking not so sexy” he will have known that they took a jaunt to London by accident. All of his fish are line caught because if you catch them by trawling them they will drown and become waterlogged. Makes sense. His fisherman will literally email him photos from the Adriatic Sea and and ask “Do you want this fish?” Paul responds with “How much?” and the fisherman responds with “If you have to ask you cannot afford it.” And so the journey begins.

Our first taste was “Isalata di Piovra”: Octopus with fingerling potatoes in olive oil. First off, Andreas and I were convinced (and still are) that there is no place in San Diego that sells whole octopus. I hope someone proves me wrong and makes this for me one night at Top Chef: Loft Edition because even though I don’t even like octopus, I would have eaten 87 pounds of this dish. It was fucking incredible.

The second course was “Brodetto di Vongole e Porri”: Tiny Clams in a White Wine Broth with Leeks. This was also delicious and I found myself wanting to chuck the clam shells over my shoulder to get to the ones on the bottom faster.

Third course was “Trigilia All Ponentina” (I might be making the “a” a capital when it is not necessary): Red mullet with capers, ligurian taggiasche olives, tomato and roasted bell peppers. Red mullet is a fish that I have never tasted and it was a little fishy but still good. Would I order it again? Probably not.

Course 4 was “Ricciola con Radicchio e Salsa D’Acciughe”: grilled amberjack with wilted radicchio and anchovy sauce. Again, this is a fish that I have never tasted….. I think we have had it in sushi form, but the name escapes me now. Anyone? Beuller? Here the anchovy sauce can be made with a food processor but is traditionally made with a mortar and pestle.

At this point I would like to introduce the LTP Award. The “Lick-the-Plate” award of the afternoon. Holy shit the anchovy sauce was out of this world.

Course 5 was “Mazzancolle e Cannellini”: flavorless tiny prawn with undercooked beans. Ok, ok , that is not what the dish was called, but that is what it tasted like. I think the idea was right, but perhaps he wasn’t prepared and didn’t do what he was supposed to do with the beans. After all, this was an hour and a half class and beans take forever.

The Greek man sitting next to me (Andreas) asked Paul what his opinion was on Greek olive oil versus Italian olive oil. Paul chortled, the crowd went wild. It spawned a conversation about where the olives come from, what color they are and how very different they are. It’s an age old debate about the difference and which is better. The bottom line is they do taste different and until you know what the hell you are doing, choose the most expensive one. The more expensive it is, the less you have to use and the more flavor it will have. It is oil, after all, and the less you use, the better off your thighs will be. It reminded me of the time I was in Greece, drunk in a bar with locals and asked them if it was true if the Greeks like anal sex. The local replied “Anal? Oh that’s the Turks!”

It was a wonderful experience and it made me want to hop on a flight to Vegas to go eat at his restaurant the next day. I highly recommend it to anyone… did I learn something? Of course I did! Will I retain any of this by the time I get off my fat ass and start cooking for myself? Doubtful.

In closing, I want to share the one question that thankfully was uttered out of Andreas’s mouth ONLY for me to hear:
“Hey Paul, who would win in a fight… you or Mario Battali?”

If you are really interested in the recipes email me and I will get them to you. howilearnedtolive@gmail.com

also check out Slow Food