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If I had to describe the kind of food that I make and the food that I like to eat, I would say it’s food that’s very ingredient-driven. The ingredient becomes not only the inspiration, but it becomes the key element in any dish. And quite frankly, if you start with something that is so well-sourced, and something that is so delicious, really at least, three quarters of the work has been done for you. Porchetta of my favorite. It’s very simple. I wanna make something that’s delicious. Delicious. Thank you Yeah. Welcome. There you go, you can finish it? Finish the coffee. All right. Corina, the list. Okay. Starting off. You’re gonna take care of the plates and whole setting and what I have to decide if I’m gonna use my pretty little plates or just the standard white big ones. So they can load up- Let’s use the pretty, your prettier ones. . Cause it’s such a small group then they can go back and get more if they want, right? Okay. No plastic? No plastic. No. This is not a plastic party. Okay. So now as far as food. Okay. so tomatoes. tomatoes. cauliflower, cabbage, onion, ceci- I have onions, and I have some mixed salami that I’m gonna slice on the slicer. So it’s 10 with the bufala. And.. oh! Whose dog is that? Is the gate open? Where did it come in from? From there? That is hysterical. Okay, so cauliflower- The cameo. I’ve never seen a dog before. Billy, you’re gonna get us a Savoy cabbage, right. And I showed you the leaf of it. Not a smooth one, you remember I showed you that, and you’re gonna get me a head of cauliflower, Right? Then can you also get me a box of sale fino, not grosso. This is painfully slow. I love when these cook, these roast if there’s a little bit of the stem that’s left on it’s so pretty, doesn’t always stay on, like that one didn’t but when I can, I keep them that way. And so, And so I’m trying to be careful cut where they’re still attached to the vine. But I don’t always get it. Okay. I’ll look at that The juices are coming out and they’re caramelizing before all of the grapes are roasted. I just want a small clump of them. So I’m okay. But what we want them to be is to completely- We’re almost raisin-y? Raisin-y Yeah. Like those. Those look beautiful. So we’re making kind of like, instead of using a jam for our pecorinos or doing or making a semi-jam with grapes but I usually don’t cook them in such a hot oven. See what I want them to be is like that. And then we’ll do the mint yogurt. When are we gonna eat? What time is it? It’s not food time. Look at my yield of my- You’re kidding. Do not eat one of those. Just one, I have to try it. I don’t have that many. Tomato off. Let’s pretend it’s noon. Are we gonna pretend it’s noon, Nancy It’s 45 minutes to wine time. Wine time is always 12 O’clock at my house. I’ve never had a real helper in the kitchen. This is quite a treat, wine time might be at 11:30 as opposed to 12. I’m not opposed to it. All right. Oh, it’s a pretty day. I’m gonna get some other herbs. This is the cloth that’s gonna go over. You can put it over and see if we need to iron it. Yeah. For the kids it’s perfect. I’m gonna go work on pergola and you can start on the food. Yep. Okay. So the vinaigrette we have to do is we need to do a simple lemon vinaigrette. Then we’re gonna add lots of fresh herbs to our salad. How beautiful, Okay. So later, like very end, we’re gonna slice radishes cucumber, all that kind of thing. Right. But if you make the vinaigrette, if you do the two vinaigrettes one for the cauliflower, and I’ll give you the recipe and for the cabbage and do the mint. So maybe you start with the mint yogurt, and I just put in, I grate garlic microplane, salt- Right. So like a tzatziki-y? With no cucumber, Okay. But and mint. So mint, microplane garlic, salt and lemon. Okay. Both lemon rind and lemon juice. Okay. Okay. I’ve got my pine nuts, I need my garlic, I’m gonna start with three cloves, three large cloves. And then we just which salt do you want from here? You know, I’m gonna get the corse. Yeah. I can use that flaky salt. And Pesto is just such a beautiful, beautiful flavorful sauce. It’s just it feels like Italy to me. And I’m gonna just keep chopping basil until you tell me to stop. The basil pesto that I make here tastes nothing like the basil pesto that I make in Los Angeles. But all the herbs have such a better flavor than I’m used to. That’s a lot of Pesto. That is gorgeous. Right? Look at that color Right now it’s three o’clock, Okay. the cauliflower’s blanched but it has to go in the oven. Cabbage is gonna go in the oven, and the onions are gonna go in the oven. All right. So it would be nice if we were done with all this cooking by six. Okay. Because they’re not coming until 8:30. So we could have a nice break, and 7:45 I’ll slice the meat. That’s it. Okay. All right, I need olive oil. You know what you can do? What? Corina, otherwise I can do it also. is if I open it up, will you grind salt Yeah, just grind salt into the nooks and crannies. That’s good. Now when you blanche it, do you blanche in salted water too? Yeah. Really well salted water. Okay. Good. Yeah. Say goodbye. So you’re not writing that down. I’m just thinking if we need a little bit more lemon. We’ll get it. We’ll have it, it’ll be fine. That’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. We just don’t want, okay. Did you find a Tartufo? and what about the pepato? They have a quarter like the pepperonchini? No, no, no, no one with black pepper. Yeah. I know. That’s fine. That quarter one, black pepper they have two. Pepato. I don’t know what else to say to you. I don’t know what else to say. You got the bufala? Yeah. Yeah. But did you get mozzarella or did you get bufala? He’s fired? What? I know I can’t talk to him, you talk to him. He needs bufala, tell him. All right. Okay. You can’t get good help anymore. You’ve been handed over to Corina because you got Nancy on frustration level. And it has to say bufala, if it doesn’t then it’s not bufala. He’s got a list. I know. It’s like really? [Michael] Tell him I said to continue on to Rome and get a flight back home. Can I use a potato oil? Yeah. I was gonna say. What’s our sauce for the cabbage? Our vinaigrette? Lemon juice, caraway, shallots and Dijon, olive oil and some champagne vinegar. Where’s the rest of the oil? It could be like break time, Nancy. Really? All right. I don’t think anybody likes anchovies as much as you and I. I know. So we should just save this box. Here. Do you wanna try this? Yeah. Of course I do. So silky and beautiful, huh? Right. The best. Problem with these anchovies, you can never eat another anchovy that’s not from Spain. Right. The texture, flavor, Ugh. Just so good. All right. Test our cabbage for done-ness. Where’s the knife? Its good. Its gorgeous. It’s glowing. So I have a finocchiana, which is a traditional Italian, sorry. Traditional Tuscan, salami. And I have a Mortadella and I’m gonna be slicing a pork salami. I start buying salami at the beginning of the summer. And then, by the end I have all these bits and pieces and I lose track of where they came from and what they are. This is apertivo. We have some cheese, crackers, olives, just a little snack that when people arrive and usually the dinner is not quite ready they’ve got something to snack on. All right. I think that does it. This is apple vinegar, not apple cider vinegar, but apple, they call it apple balsamic vinegar. It’s made locally in Panacale. I actually don’t see apple cider vinegar here. I love apple cider vinegar. I use it a lot in dressings. When you serve a dinner that has many el.., you know large varieties, such as the one that I’m preparing tonight, you gotta make sure a couple things: One is that the flavors of what you’re preparing go together because people have a tendency to really pile up their plate with food. Some of the stronger dishes like these onions which are gonna be vinegary and sage-y and bay leaf-y, they’re gonna flavor something that might be a little bit more mild like the cauliflower. Let me check… Yes. I don’t know who’s there. See if Aldo is open, he might have lemons three lemons, three to five, the more the merrier. Okay. Do you need those now or for later? Later, later is good. Later works. People that are the ones that are, let’s say are really into manipulating food, or are wanna be TV stars. They’re not drawn towards my kitchen. Honest food is what we make and a lot of people, And not everybody wants to cook that way. Yeah. It’s changed a lot in the 25 years, as the way we look at food, and the way we make food. A lot of it is interesting and innovative. And it’s probably a natural progression because once you know all these skills and you have the technique, you might wanna like fuck around with it, I guess but you should also make sure that you have that foundation before you start breaking the rules. And a lot of people just wanna break the rules because I think it’s really cool to be doing crazy food, but they don’t even know how to roast a chicken. Right, Nancy? That’s right. Or make a mayonnaise. Or make a mayonnaise. How we doing here. Is this what you’ve been waiting for? The bufala! Wow.