A Trail of Two Pastas

A plate of pasta in Lisbon, Portugal, unveiled my life’s missing puzzle piece through simple, local and fresh ingredients. This established an appreciation of community and a connection to food I’d seek eternally.

A Trail of Two Pastas

Jet-lagged and groggy, and stomach growling from the insufficient bag of peanuts on the cross-Atlantic voyage, I craved a familiar dish. My New Jersey Italian American radar detected a tiny street cafe on a lively cobblestone side street.

“Pasta aglio olio burrata, por favor,” I ordered in broken Portuguese, over the Fado guitars harmonizing perfectly on the graffiti filled street. A few songs later, the noodles glistened in the sun. I inhaled the coastal breeze. Lightly fried garlic and juicy tomatoes in the salty air smelled of my family preparing dinner at the Jersey Shore. The peppery chili flakes offered a complex heat, balanced by the earthiness of an olive oil so fresh and green, I struggled to identify this kitchen staple. The creamy burrata transformed the elements into a sauce right there on the plate. The bright, almost golden, pasta welcomed the simple ingredients as if they existed to be together. WOW. I just discovered magic for the first time.

I twirled the first bite of pasta, shocked by its light airiness compared to the dense noodles I was accustomed to in the US. The music from the busy street pulsed through my fork, floated onto my palate, and then stopped. I forgot about the travel, the music, the hunger. All that existed was me and this plate of pasta. I sipped the table wine, looked at my friend, and teared up. My taste and senses buzzed.

Hungry to understand what was so different about this pasta compared to the hundreds I’d devoured in my previous 30 years, I asked the friendly server a seemingly generic question - “How was this so GOOD?!” She paused, as if surprised by its obviousness, “We know where our ingredients come from.”

They knew the cheesemaker who stretched the burrata, and exact trees the olives were harvested for the olive oil. The chef made the fresh pasta daily using local semolina flour, and the red peppers came from a farm just outside of the city. I tasted a community of people, ingredients and flavor coming together on the plate.

I needed to know more.

Back in the US and deep into a European culinary obsession, I came across an episode of the Untold Italy podcast featuring Danielle Oteri, an art historian who runs a tour business specializing in southern Italy called “Feast Travel”. She spoke of an olive farm in Montepulciano with a cooking school that offered the opportunity to spend a week living in a villa immersed in the local culinary community. I made a mental note, “this sounds perfect, I will jot this down”. I was driving, so naturally, I did not jot it down.

Serendipitously, I encountered this olive oil farm again months later in a Food & Wine article outlining the best cooking schools in Italy - the land of love, art, and of course, pasta. The thought alone ignited the earthiness of the fresh green olive oil, an image of glistening noodles and the buzz of the European streets I’d first experienced in Lisbon. Taking it as a sign, I was on a plane to Italy two weeks later.

The villa, Poggio Etrusco, was an Italian cooking school on an olive oil farm in Montepulciano, located halfway between Florence and Rome. It was hosted by US born chef, cookbook author, and a local seed in the Tuscan community, Pamela Sheldon.

Tuscany awaited with a rolling landscape of artists, chefs, farmers, and curious travelers. Each maker provided a glimpse of what went into the menu. I met the cows that produced the cheese, and picked olives from the trees that transformed into that formerly foreign looking green kitchen staple. I hunted for truffles in the forest with a fluffy local dog named “Millie”. The passion and love were ingrained in the soil.

I thought about the friendly server in Lisbon, and how nonchalantly she offered this secret. In Italy I learned that quality wasn’t so much a secret, it’s the law. European food regulation bans many food additives that are permitted in the US; organically enhancing the flavors and quality of ingredients that are used in everyday cooking.

During our final cooking class, I felt passion dance through my fingertips as I rolled the dough for the “Pici all'aglione”, the Tuscan version of the “Pasta aglio olio'' I first tasted in Lisbon. Inhaling the smell of lightly fried garlic and fresh peppers simmering on the stove for the sauce, I savored the moment with my new friends, fellow travelers and locals while traditional Italian music danced across the villa. Knowing where flavor comes from and the community of people who will gladly sit at the table with you, glass of chianti in hand, and ecstatically break down the makings of a dish. Simplicity, the canvas of a new land, understanding how the same pasta dish is transformed through local, fresh ingredients. The things that would forever make my soul sing.

Bon Appetito!

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