Food Wine Italian Riviera Genoa | The Rambling Epicure

David Downie: Focaccia again, Santa Margherita Ligure

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, April 19, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

Santa Margherita Ligure is as famous for its frescoed buildings as for its focaccia, but since you can’t eat frescos, even though they look downright edible, the focaccia is what most visitors rightly remember (and the fish and pesto and other delicacies too). Though Recco is better known for focaccia, Santa, as the locals call this seaside resort, nonetheless has two top focaccia-makers. Only an expert would notice the slight difference in the quantity of olive oil and salt, or the size of the moonscape craters on the surface (bigger in Recco). One of the two bakers here goes out of his way to make sure the dough is slightly softer in the center than it is around the edges. That’s why connoisseurs order their slices accordingly.

Good luck finding theses bakeries: Fiordiponti is on a back road, Via Ruffini, on the Portofino-end of town, near the arcaded square called Piazza Fratelli Bandiera. Pinamonti is closer to the train station, down an alley near the Lido Hotel.

You can find more great food and wine addresses for this region in my book Food Wine: Italian Riviera Genoa.

David Downie and Alison Harris On Book Tour from April 20 to May 20 in NYC and SF Bay Area

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, March 31, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

Food and travel writer David Downie and photographer Alison Harris are gearing up for their U.S. book tour, to beat the drum about their pair of newborn books: Quiet Corners of Rome and Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light (April 25, 2011) and (April 5, 2011). The covers, if you please!

Details about the books, book tours and links to their favorite book sellers are listed on David’s site, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Also featured on their tour and already available for purchase: Food Wine Burgundy, Food Wine Rome, Food Wine Italian Riviera & Genoa, and Cooking the Roman Way (the new e-book version).

What’s on the playbill? They’ll be showing slides (actually, Alison will do a PowerPoint presentation), talking, chatting, interacting via riveting Q&As, giving live radio interviews (most are still to be scheduled), and generally performing all the other tricks and great things writers and photographers do on book tours. Singing, dancing, walking tight ropes, jumping through hoops…

David Downie and Alison Harris on Book Tour from April 20 to May 20 in NYC and SF Bay Area

Published by David Downie + Wednesday, March 23, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

Food and travel writer David Downie and photographer Alison Harris are gearing up for their U.S. book tour, to beat the drum about their pair of newborn books: Quiet Corners of Rome (April 25, 2011) and Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light (April 5, 2011). The covers, if you please!

Details about the books, book tours and links to their favorite book sellers are listed on David’s site, as well as on Twitter and Twitter.

Also featured on their tour and already available for purchase: Food Wine Burgundy, Food Wine Rome, Food Wine Italian Riviera & Genoa, and Cooking the Roman Way (the new e-book version).

What’s on the playbill? They’ll be showing slides (actually, Alison will do a PowerPoint presentation), talking, chatting, interacting via riveting Q&As, giving live radio interviews (most are still to be scheduled), and generally performing all the other tricks and great things writers and photographers do on book tours. Singing, dancing, walking tight ropes, jumping through hoops…

Crucial dates: They will be in New York from April 20-30.

NYC

Thursday, April 28, 5:30 – 7 pm
Rizzoli Bookstore, 31 West 57th St (5th-6th Ave.s)
Meet & Greet + Reading, Talk

They will be in the SF Bay Area/wine country May 1-18, and back home in Paris on May 19 and in operation on the 20th.

SF BAY AREA & Wine Country

Monday, May 2, 7 PM
Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera
Reading, Talk and slide show.

Tuesday, May 3, 7:30 PM
Readers’ Books, 130 E Napa St, Sonoma
National treasure Paula Wolfert introduces us.
Reading, Talk.

RADIO INTERVIEW
Saturday, May 7, 11:00 AM (Time may change but it will be between 10 am and 12:30 pm). KGO AM 810, “Dining Around with Gene Burns,” Live interview.

Saturday, May 7. 4:00 PM
Mrs. Dalloways Literary & Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley
Info: 510-704-8222
Reading, Talk.

Tuesday, May 11, 6:00 PM
Mechanics’ Institute Library, 57 Post Street, San Francisco
Info: 415-393-0114
Reading, Talk and slide show.

Wednesday, May 12, 6:00 – 7:00 pm
Omnivore Books, 3885A Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco
Info: 415-282-4712
Reading, Talk about food and travel writing in France and Italy.

Stay tuned, the above will evolve… And please spread the word…

Remember, if you can make it to one of our book events, and you can’t be in Paris this spring, you’ll always have Paris, Paris — the book!

David Downie: Pandolce, Italian Riviera Icon

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, February 7, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

Pandolce is one of the Italian Riviera’s culinary icons. It’s found from the Cinque Terre near Tuscany, to Genoa, all the way to Ventimiglia on the border with France. Ligurians call pandolce “pandöçe” in their challenging, tongue-dislocating dialect. For lack of a better description in English, you might reasonably call it a Christmas fruit cake.

Pandolce comes in two basic formats. The old-fashioned one, made in bakeries or at home (by about 10 people in the entire region) is tall, porous, airy and leavened twice, and has a round or dome-shaped form. It’s the Riviera’s answer to Milanese panettone.

The other Ligurian variety, which everyone mistakenly calls all’antica (it’s much more recent in invention) stands only a few inches high, is dense and heavy and fabulously good: take a look at the pic on this page (by Alison Harris, of course).