Mother’s Day – Italian Style
An inspiring, elegant, and whimsical lunch from my travels
I’ve returned from nearly three weeks in Italy.
I was planning on writing about the lifestyle differences between Canada and Italy, but that will have to wait, as I was reminded that next Sunday is Mother’s Day. Upon hearing the good news I’ve approached the menu with a gleeful zeal that really can only be explained as Italian passione.
Much of this Sunday’s lunch is inspired by – if not absolutely stolen from – my experiences in Italy. Ambience mimicked from our charming Umbrian country cooking school, table settings fashioned after what may very likely be my favourite restaurant in Rome, snacks from a wine bar we happened upon in Bologna.
Set and Setting
That’s a reference from a friend, though I do believe he was talking about dropping hallucinogenic drugs. But Mother’s Day is not that kind of party, at least not my mother’s, so let’s set that aside.
Of course, pick your favourite style for table settings. You may be sleek and streamlined with white dishes, crystal glass, symmetrical flowers, and clean lines, or whimsically rustic with a mix of textiles and textures. I used to be the former, now in my hippie perimenopausal years, I’m leaning into the latter. My table will feature a mix of wooden boards, clay bowls, and ceramic plates. Flowers, if any, might be foraged from nearby High Park (unless picking wildflowers in the park is illegal; then I absolutely won’t. If you see me in the fields on the weekend, keep walking.)
When I was at the cooking school in Italy, there were always a few casual bites placed on the table to nibble on with a glass of wine while cooking. These weren’t overly curated or elaborate spreads, but simple, clean, and delicious bites: sweet pea bruschetta, figs stuffed with ricotta, a bowl of plain, pickled caper berries (which are a new fave, by the way.)
There’s no point in going to school and not learning anything, so I’m taking a page directly from Il Ghiottone’s playbook. When everyone arrives, I plan to have the table lined with bowls of plump, snowy white, balloons of burrata, boards of golden and red tomatoes still stuck to the vine, cups of tangy caper berries, their stems still attached as little holders, and baskets of fresh focaccia, crystals of salt and flecks of rosemary glued to the crispy crust by rich olive oil.
To wash it all down, there will be cold, pale rosé. Because it’s spring. Because it’s Mother’s Day. But mostly, because I love it.
Con Divi Diamo
For the table.
We confused a lot of Italians who were too polite to say anything, but their knitted brows of consternation gave away their true feelings. But, the food was too good, and our time too short, to risk only ordering our own entrees and then feeling pasta FOMO.
So, for the table, con divi diamo, it was.
As we sit down to eat on Sunday, we will start with a helter-skelter selection of calamari fritti (from last week’s note – if you missed it the recipe is linked below), tortellini in brodo, and ceviche.
Secondi (ish)
What we loved at Il Ghiottone was the casual delivery of plates and courses. This is not to say sloppy or disorganized. There was a general direction to the flow of the meal, but nothing so rigid that soup needed to come before salad, which had to arrive before the main – in fact there wasn’t really a main, at all.
Smaller plates were served before the bigger plates, but that was about as strict as it got. Dinners were casual, delicious, flowing, and easy – exactly the way a dinner party should be.
We have a few people in our family who would be bereft without meat, or at last feel slightly incomplete, so we will grill a few steaks, slice on the bias, and lay out on a board for everyone to help themselves – or not.
A bowl of ricotta gnocchi in fresh tomato sauce will serve as a side, along with a series of vegetables – simply sautéed chicory greens with garlic, grilled radicchio (try it – it’s amazing) with balsamic and sea salt, a few roasted bell peppers torn into rough strips.
Wine will flow from brightly coloured decanters – we have a rich Chianti Classico from Tuscany for the red lovers, and refreshing Verdicchio from our recently visited Castelli di Jesi in Marche for the white fans.
Dolce
I’m generally not a dessert fan. After a full meal, the last thing I want is rich sweetness on top of a full belly. At most I want a coffee, and perhaps a walk.
But for those craving a little sweet to end their lunch, a simple gelato or palate cleansing sorbetto goes a long way. We learned how to make delicious ice creams while in Italy, though it does require an ice cream maker and isn’t something you can do by hand. Luckily, if you don’t have one, very good ice cream shops are all over the place. We will be serving either pistachio, stracciatella, or vanilla with a wedge of dark chocolate for a perfectly satisfying end to our Mother’s Day celebration.
NB
Should you be looking to add a little Italian whimsy to your Mother’s Day meal, here’s a recipe we learned for bruschetta con fave, or fava bean crostini.
Normally, fava beans need to be popped from their tough, fibrous outer peel, but braising them in milk, as they are here, softens the whole thing.
At Il Ghiottone, we added lots of sage with the garlic, but Italy’s fresh sage is far softer in flavour than Ontario’s, which I find overpowering, so I’ve left it out. And, in Italy, we didn’t bother with the cheese, but I’m adding it here, for fun.
Serve this with a verdant Sauvignon Blanc, Verdicchio, or brut sparkling wine.
Makes: 4-6 servings
Chef level: Easy
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp salted butter
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 lbs fresh or frozen fava beans, left whole but removed from the thick, green pod
1 cup full fat milk
salt and pepper, to taste
lemon juice, to taste
How to Make It:
Warm oil and butter in a medium sauté pan.
When the butter is melted and frothy, add the garlic and cook gently for a few minutes until just starting to colour.
Add the fava beans and cook in the garlic butter mixture for 3-4 minutes.
Pour in the milk and gently simmer for 15 minutes until the beans are very soft and the milk had thickened into a creamy sauce.
Meanwhile, toast thick slices of good bread and sprinkle with olive oil.
Remove from the heat, adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Spoon over toast and serve.
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Here’s the post from last week with the calamari recipe. I wish I knew how to make it look pretty, but I can’t quite figure it out. Either way, the link gets you there and really, that’s all that matters.
https://erinhenderson.substack.com/i/144206064/calamari-fritti