The NEW YORK ITALIAN FOOD & WINE GUY Blog is dedicated to many things, but mainly to three very GREAT ONES being NEW YORK, ITALIAN FOOD, and ITALIAN WINE. What's greater than these?
Friday, March 25, 2022
Naples Best PIZZA is in Salerno
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Carbone Italian New York Red Sauce Traditions
NEW YORK
Friday, March 18, 2022
Dominico DeMarco has Passed Away - RIP Dom
Domenico DeMarco, who founded Di Fara Pizza in 1965,
has died. He was a link between the cooking of Southern
Italy and the city’s corner-slice culture.
Over the years he had organized his mise en place so compactly, eliminated extraneous movements so ruthlessly, that it could seem, to the untrained eye, that he simply bowed over a circle of raw dough and waited while it assembled itself into a pizza.
Mr. DeMarco has died at age 85, his daughter Margie DeMarco Mieles announced Thursday in a Facebook post. Originally from the Italian province of Caserta, he began making pies at Di Fara Pizza in Midwood, Brooklyn, in 1965.
He worked efficiently. That’s not the same as saying he worked quickly. Even in the years before Mr. DeMarco became something of a national folk hero and the lines on weekends would stretch on to the sidewalk outside his shop on Avenue J, getting hot food out of his kitchen took a while.
This was true no matter what you ordered. Eventually the demand for pizza pushed virtually everything else off the menu, but at that time you could still get an astonishing meatball sub, or spaghetti with fresh clams, or baked manicotti. That first time, I had meant to try a representative sample of the menu. Then I saw a handwritten sign — on a paper plate taped to the wall, if I remember correctly — that said “baby artichoke pizza,” and suddenly all I wanted was baby artichoke pizza. A whole one.
That really took a while. Mr. DeMarco sautéed what struck me as enough artichokes for four large pies and then spread them over the one that was going to be mine, all mine. Waiting for it to come out of the gas oven was one of the most thrilling moments of my eating life, and it was no less thrilling as the moment stretched to 30 minutes and kept stretching toward a full hour.
That day, I began to see Mr. DeMarco as a living link between the cooking of Southern Italy, where he was born in 1936, and New York City’s corner-slice culture.
Pizza snobs 20 years ago thought it was self-evident that the only worthwhile pizza was the kind made by Neapolitan-style brick-oven pizzerias like Totonno’s and Lombardi’s, which could trace their culinary lineage straight back to Naples. It was less clear that the greasily reliable New York slice, baked at lower heat in gas ovens and consumed on the sidewalk by guys like Tony Manero, belonged to any culinary tradition at all.
Today the gas-oven slice is an object of serious study and appreciation. Shops like Scarr’s, Upside and Mama’s Too have re-examined the style and offered subtle, respectful improvements. And it all started at Di Fara.
You couldn’t miss the integrity of Mr. DeMarco’s cooking, even though he did it standing still on a patch of kitchen floor no bigger than a bathmat. There was his sauce, both thicker and thinner than other slice shops’; it would be mostly absorbed into the dough, but would leave behind a few meaty red shreds of pulp.
There were the cheeses, plural, which he would grate directly over the tomatoes in some ideal ratio that only he knew. There was the live basil he snipped to order over the finished pies or slices. I never believed it all came from the single, scrawny potted plant growing in the window, but there are people who will swear they once saw Dom himself clip off a branch. Before a second location was opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it was said that no one else was allowed to make a pizza at Di Fara.
Watching him make a pie forced you to change your view of slice-joint pizzerias in general. A lot of them aren’t very good, it’s true. But the gas ovens aren’t to blame. If Mr. DeMarco could use a gas oven to bake pizza that made you see the sun glinting off the Bay of Naples, then so could other cooks. They probably wouldn’t equal Mr. DeMarco’s stolid fastidiousness, but they could try.
The last time I went to Di Fara was just before the pandemic. It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and there was no line, like in the old days. There seemed to be half a dozen people working a kind of assembly line behind the counter, and I feared for a moment that Mr. DeMarco had been replaced by a team of cooks.
But every one of them was involved in taking orders, handling cash and making sure each slice ended up in the right hands. Hidden behind this assembly line was Mr. DeMarco, standing on his little square of floor, bowing over the dough, willing the pizzas into existence.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Wine Tasting New York Independence
CHAMPAGNE BOIZE:
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Dinner at Bar Pitti NYC
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Chianti Grand Tasting New York 2022
Join Chianti Classico at this Grand Tasting as they introduce the newest vintage as well as the new Additional Geographic Unit System.
About this Event:
***The Chianti Classico Grand Tasting on Monday February 28th is currently sold out.***
*If you are still interested in attending please email chianticlassico@colangelopr.com*
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Celebrate one of the world’s most prestigious wine denominations, Chianti Classico, at a Walk-Around Tasting with over 50 wineries and educational seminars by renowned wine cartographer Alessandro Masnaghetti at The Altman Building in New York City on February 28, 2022.
In June 2021, Chianti Classico approved the project of the UGA system (Additional Geographic Units) to differentiate and highlight the differences in climate and soil type of 11 villages of the region. The introduction of the UGA system marked a milestone for Chianti Classico and will help define and better explain the unique taste profiles of its wines.
The New York event will offer a fully immersive experience to attendees who will be able to viscerally experience the unique landscapes that make Chianti Classico wines so sought after.
During the event you'll be able to taste Chianti Classico wines and speak with winery representatives, from small boutique wineries to some of this region's more established producers as well as learning about the UGA system from Wine Cartographer Alessandro Masnaghetti.
Monday February 28, 2022
CHIANTI GRAND TASTING ... New York
Yes, the Grand Chianti Tasting is today. Having my morning coffee, and getting ready to head up to The Alman Building for the tasting. Well, two down and one to go, for this latest barrage of Italian WIne Tastings that started with the Brunello Tasting on Wednesday, followed by Tre Bicchieri on Friday, and now the CHiant Tasting today. Quite something. After two years of no tastings at all, due to the Pandemic, we now see a concentration of the 3 biggest Italian Wine Events of the year, all in a short 8 days time.
I'm looking forward to tasting some great CHianti and other wines made in the CHianti Zone. There will be a lot of wonderful Chinti wines to taste among the 50 participating estates, but I always have my sentimental favorites, which include Castello Verrazzano in Greve, from my good friend the Cavalier Luigi Cappellini, always some real authentic ( no Merlot, No Cab) Chianti wines, along with the estates great example of Vino Santo. Also in Greve, and along with Verrazzano as my two favorites are the wines from Villa Calinaia and my friends Conti Capponi, Sebastiano and Nicola Capponi, two brothers of the noble Florentine Family of Capponi. Villa Calcinaia is one of the most and important estates in all of Chianti Classico. The Capponi Family have been making wine in Greve for more than 500 years. Quite a pedigree.
Third on the list, and along with Villa Calcinaia, the estate of Fontodi from Giovanni Manetti in Pnazano, the next town south of Greve on Chianti Classico'S Chaintigiana Road that runs sout from Florence in the North, to Siena on the southern end. On the first day that I ever visited a wine estate in Italy, and was given a private tour and tasting by the owner of the estate, the first estate was Villa Calcinaia and The Conti Capponi, and after we took a tour of Villa Calciania and had a wonderful lunch with the two Counts, we left and made our way to Panzano and the Fontodi Wine Estate to meet up with Giovanni Manetti, who took us on a tour of the cellears and the vindeyards, before bringing us inside for a tasting of Fontodi's wonderful Chainti, Vin Santo, and Super Tuscan (Flaccinella) Wines. It was quite a day, and one I cherish to this day,
Well, Boys and Girls. It's time to go. Up to 18th Street and the Altman Builing where all the wonderful Chianti, Vin Santo, and my Tucan Friends await. I will taste the fine wines, visit and chit-chat with friends, and I will report back to you tomorrow to let you know about the wine and how the day went. So Ciao for now.
Daniele Bellino Z "Teh New York Italian Food & Wine Guy"
Basta !
CASTELLO VERRAZZANO
With GIOVANNI MANETTI of FONTODI (R) in Panzano
From VILLA CALCINAIA