When I started this newsletter, more than 40 issues ago (!!), I wrote: “Eventually I would like to host dinners for small groups of subscribers, because the most important part of sustainable living, to me, is the sustenance of human connections.”

I’m happy to report we are on our way! Thanks to my game inaugural guests Rosa, Andy, Catherine, Jim, and Peter, the Oct. 22 pesto class and dinner ran over its prescribed two hours by another three, long enough for the autumnal breeze to dry out the patio for dessert al fresco.

There are two meanings to “recipes for disaster,” and this event was about the second one: to make and share recipes for joyful meals even, and especially, when it’s dark outside.

My company was too gentle for criticism, constructive or otherwise, so I kept my own ledger of the goals for and against in this pilot edition.

Off-brand:

• Too much ice in the aperitifs, too little parmesan on the bresaola
• What kind of Italian forgets to offer espresso at the end of a meal?
• My gas stove (I use a small induction cooktop when I can but should replace the whole range)
• A Porsche GT4 in the driveway of our solar-powered house with two EV chargers (my son’s car, who to be fair served as unpaid house photographer, and who keeps saying he’s going to get an EV for daily driving)
• Pesto would be more photogenic if poured artfully over each portion, not thrown into a bowl with the drained pasta and tossed as if the two had gone months without a romp.

On-brand:

• Lovely company and conversation, mostly my guests’ doing while I cooked distractedly
• A light spray of truffle oil on the bresaola for a nice finishing touch
• Successful blind olive oil tasting and pesto class
• Pesto and homemade pasta: modest curb appeal, major palate pleasure
• An appropriately Italian operatic soundtrack
• Dinner inside at Thanksgiving-cozy table, long outdoor coda fortified by amaro and limoncello
• New connections made, contacts shared, freshly pressed Tuscan olive oil on order (to get yours, see below)

My plan is to get on Airbnb Experiences and offer regular classes and dinners with a rotating menu. I’ll share the listing when ready. Events will be held at our house in Highland Park, but since I have readers in Canada and Italy, as well as in other states, it might be fun to borrow a kitchen somewhere else from time to time.

These speculative statements rest on a lot of assumptions, some highly aspirational, but that's part of the fun of trying something new.


Next week I’ll tell you about the reason for the operatic soundtrack: my great-grandfather Raffaele Lollini, the Barber of Bologna, who unlike the one from Seville, was 100 percent real and a feared musical critic, as well as sometime impresario.

Before I get to the oil from the hills of Chianti, here are a couple more photos from Thursday.

I wrote earlier this year about my friend Michelangelo and his family (web post here for paid subscribers), who run a farm near Chianti, an hour from Florence.

Michelangelo harvests the 500 olive trees on his property by hand, with help from the four children when they are not busy with high school or university (and let’s be reasonable, their social lives). Mechanical harvesting is faster, obviously, but can damage both tree and fruit.

With this oil, I know exactly how and where the olives were picked, with what care in their sorting and selection, and what speed in pressing before their acidity starts to rise. The last time I organized a blind tasting Michelangelo's oil won easily, against some very respectable mass market competitors.

The new harvest has just been pressed, and Michelangelo emailed me last week to see if I would like some sent over: “I don’t think you ever tried it so young. It is really at its best, like us, you know, when we were young.”

I plan to buy three liters. My inaugural class participants also expressed interest, and they have dibs, along with paid subscribers. Each olive tree produces a couple of liters. It only takes 300 or so buyers, at one can each, to soak up the entire production, and the farm already has a loyal clientele.

If you think you might want some, reply to this email and I’ll introduce you to Michelangelo. The price varies by harvest but is far less, even with shipping, than what I would pay in Los Angeles for organic, single-estate, 100 percent Tuscan extra virgin olive oil, assuming I could find it.

The farmhouse can accommodate 8-10 visitors, and when I first wrote about his family, I imagined a little group stay organized by Guido’s Recipes. That idea popped up again in conversation Thursday. It’s a nice dream, perhaps to be revisited.

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Bresaola in Citronette

Bresaola, a cured beef sliced very thin for buttery texture, originates in Valtellina, a valley that separates the mountains of Bergamo from the Alps. I remember gazing down on Valtellina as a child, after an arduous hike (for eight-year-old me) had brought us to a summit on the southern rim. Across from us were the alpine peaks, which we never visited and seemed as mythical as the Andes.

I can get bresaola from Valtellina in Vancouver, but not in Los Angeles, not even at Eataly, last I checked. Trader Joe's carries an acceptable domestic substitute. My local specialty market, Bristol Farms, presumes to charge $85 a pound for their product, of provenance undisclosed.

Citronette is a simple dressing made by whisking a little lemon in olive oil. It's best not to drizzle lemon directly on the bresaola. Lemon juice will oxidize and basically cook the delicate slices, but suspending it in oil reduces its direct contact with the beef. You don't have to use lemon, of course, but I find it complements the other flavors.

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