Dgourmac's Blog

Tim’s first draft of his Master’s thesis had been on my desk for some time now, so today is the day I tackle reading and editing.

On the other hand, it is Saturday, and I have the kitchen all to myself, so it is a Working Lunch.  Tim: sorry for a few drops of wine on page 24.

We have some good leftover roast chicken, but I decided on another plan.  Turns out that I had a lovely piece of yellowfin tuna I needed to cook, plus some new condiments from gustiamo.com, including wicked good sun dried tomatoes and Colatura, a concentrated juice of salted anchovies.

For those of you following this Blog closely, you will recall that Michael and I began last Fall exploring greater Boston in search of the finest pizza places.  Well, yesterday was our second trip, and it was a very good one indeed.  (If you haven’t been reading that closely, then this will just be another ramble about food.)

The trigger for selecting the location from our previous list was the occasion of Michael’s dental appointment, which was in Brookline, so we chose to go to Same Old Place in Jamaica Plain.  To the regulars who know it well, it may be just be the Same Old Place, but to us it was a great find!

Storefront photo from Google maps, 662 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain 02130

We were fortunate enough to find a parking place right in front, and we arrived late enough so that the lunch crush was over.  While we stood at the counter contemplating our choice of toppings, we were greeted warmly by the owner, Fred Ciampa, who shared some of the history of the store, along with a rundown on food choices.  Michael and I agreed on one large pizza with roasted green peppers and black olives, and we bit into the pie with vigor less than 10 minutes later.

The verdict was unanimous.  The dough was thin, crisp and tangy.  The sauce was very flavorful.  The cheese was just right, not too heavy.  Peppers were good, though I might have preferred red ones.  The olives were fine for canned, and even the red pepper flakes were noticeably fresher and better than the usual offering.

Now that we knew the food is excellent, it was time to make good on my promise to Barbara to bring home pizza for dinner.  With some coaching from Fred (in the booth below) and from Michelle at the end of the counter, we chose a large mushroom and onion — partially cooked, to be reheated in a 550-degree oven on a hot pizza stone for seven minutes — to take home.  We also ordered one grilled chicken salad dinner, as well, which turned out to be a fine first course.  All in all, it was worth the 38-mile trip each way, and I will certainly do it again!  Thanks, Fred and Michelle.

Oh, yeah, when we go next time, we will take advantage of our host’s real estate savvy, too, and park in the customer parking lot behind the store (photo below).

Saturday night was a delightful reunion and dinner with our 2008 CBE Israel trip companions.  It was all the more special because of Peter Abelow’s presence, as he was the scholar-in-residence this past weekend.

Our group in Jerusalem, above.

I will take the opportunity with this Blog to provide a copy of the Roasted Sweet Potato, Chickpea, and Mandarin Orange Salad that Barbara made for the dinner.  A number of folks asked for the recipe, so here it is:

Barbara Weiss’ Roasted Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad

Yesterday we had a pizza party for seven people.  It was fine, but as usual, we had leftover fixins of assorted sliced, chopped toppings in the refrigerator.  Recognizing that, and thrilled to be the recipient of several stalks of Lynn’s post-freeze kale plants (which I had cooked the day before), I decided to make up a new minestrone.

The refrigerator also contained the remnants of the Provencal roast chicken from Formaggio Kitchen, earlier in the week — so I was “good to go”.  Here is the resulting Minestrone — classic and all my own at the same time.

If you want a copy of the recipe, here it is in PDF form:

My Autumn Post-Pizza Party Leftovers Minestrone