Easter with Marcella
There is a little house on the Giudecca Canal.
It’s painted in mustardy-yellow, it has a small garden, with currently in full bloom, purple and fragrant visteria, which spreads over a bottle-green pergola, leading to the entrance of the house. It’s one of the very few detached houses along that canal and it so happens that it is us, that live there now.
It also happened to be the house in which a renowned cook book author, Marcella Hazan, was a frequent guest and a good friend of the former occupants who lived here before us.
On the very top floor of the house, right above the pink rooms (they are all painted in pink) there is an attic, in which, one afternoon I unearthed Marcella Hazan’s cook books and brought them to the ground floor kitchen.
Certain voices have whispered to my ears that the mustardy-yellow house had been a very happy house, frequently filled with culinary feasts and illustrious people. The first floor high-ceiling room used to be a reception room, less formerly called by me: an aperitivo room, where our guests too, share a glass of a little something before dinner.
One of our dining rooms we call The Fortuny Room, it’s a rather grown up formal dining room of which walls are covered in an aged golden Fortuny fabric.
I like to call the second dining room: The Lunch Room, because it’s sunny and it’s facing the garden. Funnily enough, we haven’t had a meal there yet. I’m still waiting for a few missing pieces, mainly for the marble table, which I cant wait to put to use again. But since it’s Spring and the Easter was fabulously sunny and warm, we’ve officially started lunches-in-the-garden season instead.
Morning Coffee Cake
Marcella Hazan, born in Cesenatico in April 1924 (died in Florida September 2013), was a woman who started teaching science in a small town in Italy, in Emilia Romagna, but ended up teaching America (to begin with) how to cook Italian food, with a noticeable emphasis on the cucina regionale– regional cuisine, which is what you’ll find in Italy. It’s a term which we are all (or almost all) familiar with by now, but back then it was a new concept and a way of learning about the Italian cuisine, its produce and the dishes, and the wines! – a section mastered by Victor, Marcella’s husband. Most of us, who have an interest in Italy and Italian food culture, and in gastronomy in general, must have heard about Marcella Hazan, simply called Marcella, exactly like Julia (Julia Child).
I believe that the cook book titled: „The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking” is what you’ll be able to buy in most book stores today, but please don’t quote me on this.
What I found in the attic above the pink rooms were late editions of Marcella’s books, pages turned yellow by now and they all have a very fond and personal dedication to the couple who had lived here before us. It was Marcella’s memoir „Amarcord. Marcella Remembers”, that has drawn my attention the most. In Romagnolo, the dialect of Romagna, amarcord means: I remember, compressing the three slow-footed Italian words: io mi ricordo, into a single swift one word.
In the „Amarcord” there are two chapters dedicated to Venice, where Marcella and Victor lived in their top floor apartment with views over the Renaissance facade of the hospital and the Gothic basilica St. Giovanni e Paolo, the church in which they were married (many years after the civil ceremony).
The couple ran very successful cooking classes, Marcella supervised the food and cooking, whilst her husband dedicated himself to the myriad of Italian wines, having his own books on the subject published, and very successfully too. The team started to teach and do workshops in America, then in Bologna- returning to her native Emilia Romagna, and after that in La Serenissima, in their top floor apartment. The guests came from all around the world including famous personalities, who wanted to have a taste of a good Italian food prepared by Marcella, and learn how to transport that Italian long convivial meals into their comes and onto their dining tables.
Calle Della Testa (Cannaregio)
Yogurt, Lemon, Sambuca Cake
Marcella didn’t cook in our little yellow-mustard house, from what I’ve learned, she, as well as many other guests and friends, enjoyed delicious, sociable and properly cooked meals, also in the garden, from where I’m writing this post right now.
Marcella Hazan was a prolific cook book author and magazine contributor, she participated in many tv programs, some of them filmed later on in her life, at the San Marco Square and at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. Sadly, when filming the last program she stood in the cold, wet and grey weather for far too long, wearing a yellow jacket waiting for her „moment”. She became badly ill on the following days, leading to many workshop cancellations. I got a strong impression that it was then when she decided to close the chapter in Venice, as with age she found it too hard to climb the bridges and the winter weather was turning to difficult to bear. The decision was made, to sell the Venetian attico after almost twenty years of calling it home, and to move to Florida’s much warmer climate.
Calle della Testa (Cannaregio) is where Marcella and Victor had found their „perfect” apartment, in a large palazzo with a sixteenth-century courtyard and two large oleander trees.
I also read that the height of the building allowed them to look down on the neighbouring roofs and beyond them to the spire of the campanile in St. Mark’s Square as well various church cupolas and bell towers.
„The apartment, which occupied the entire top floor of the large palazzo, had twenty-eight windows, and when one walked past them, each brought up a different framed view of Venice. It was like being inside a magic lantern”, recalls Marcella.
On the sunny Ester Monday the Dégustateur and I walked to the Calle della Testa. I could vaguely figure out, based on the images from „Amarcord”, from which terrace Marcella was looking out over at the basilica. I could almost picture her on the very top, setting a table on the terrace leading to her cosy kitchen. Everything else I left to my imagination giving space to some mystery in the whole story.
Braised Squid in White Wine
Yogurt, Lemon, Sambuca Cake
Marcella and her husband purchased the Venetian apartment in 1980, then waited more than two years to obtain the permits they needed to complete the renovations they had decided on, and to make it suitable for their workshops. So the famous Cipriani Hotel on the Giudecca Island had become the first setting for Marcella’s cooking school. What wonderful times they must have been…..
The very first cooking class meeting was not in the kitchen though, but in the open air market that has existed for close to one thousand years, at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. It’s where I do my grocery shopping now, spotting and choosing what is glistening with freshness on the day, and what I’m in the mood for at the moment. I don’t just go to the market without a vague plan in my mind. I always know, more or less, what I want to buy, but that can change depending on what’s available and what looks absolutely wonderful at the moment. I also listen to the vendors and the whispers of the local knowledge, which is priceless.
I had finished reading Marcella’s memoir just before Easter and it just felt right to cook some of her dishes during the holiday period from the books I had found (I’d already owned „The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking”).
My main focus and interest however, fell on: „Marcella Cucina. Marcella cooks by your side with an inspirational collection of new recipes that brings to your table the flavours, the textures, the essence of Italy”, published in 1997, just before the apartment in Venice was sold in 1998.
This volume simply appeared the most appealing to me, it seemed so familiar and dear, perhaps because nothing that appeared in the book was not a part of of their life in Venice.
Marcella was very happy here living in her native country, but with time she found it hard to do all the walking and the humid cold winters, magical as they are, were not suitable for both of them anymore.
Braised Squid in White Wine
I chose and tried a few recipes, the ones that I found the most suitable for this time of year and an Easter break. But that is just the tip of the iceberg and I know that I’ll enjoy cooking from that cook book more often.
Hence for now, I’m sharing with you the recipes that we particularly enjoyed (which I also modified mildly). In the kitchen, be it at home or a restaurant, it’s normal to alter and adapt certain recipes to a different – new way of cooking, to changing tastes (less sugar in the pastries – that’s a fact) and salutary habits. Cooking should be a joyous activity to satisfy our own taste buds.
1. Braised Squid in White Wine with Spinach, Fresh Tomato and Chilli Pepper
2. Fricasseed Chicken with Pancetta, Capers and Peppers
3. Morning Coffee Cake with Chopped Apple, Pear and Sliced Banana
4. Yogurt, Lemon and Sambuca Cake
5. Raw Zucchini Salad with Mint and Tomato
Buon appetito,
Aleksandra xx
Raw Zucchini, Mint and Tomato Salad
Fricasseed Chicken with Capers, Peppers and Pancetta
