Tuscan braised Savoy cabbage with sausages. Welcome November

Welcome, November, with your foggy mornings, the smell of toasted pan co’ santi at breakfast, the first nights spent in front of a burning fire, the roasted chestnuts, the jammy persimmons, and the olio nuovo. When I was younger, I wished I could skip you to get to December and the Christmas lights. I have no hurry now.

Now I truly enjoy your intimate atmosphere, the fall and winter vegetables that cram the market stalls, a cosy moment spent in front of our wood-burning stove reading a new cookbook, a walk in the mid-afternoon with Livia, surrounded by a landscape dressed in fiery colours.

November, you look good to me, I finally learnt to appreciate you. I just hope I’ll be able to slow down to cherish the little things that make you precious, like lighting a candle when I wake up early to work on our cookbook manuscript, or brewing a tea in the afternoon before Livia comes back home from the nursery school. You are unseasonably warm, so I wish I’ll wake up soon to a snap of cold that will make me reach for my big red woollen cardigan, a safe hug throughout the day.

And now, as always, a list of things I’m cooking and reading, as this is what is keeping me inspired and connected, from our last newsletter. Read it to discover also 10 recipes to cook this month.

What I am cooking

I baked my pan co’ santi, and with this dense, spiced Tuscan bread, studded with raisins and walnuts, enriched with red wine, extra virgin olive oil, and sugar, I ushered in the Tuscan festive season. I boiled a big pot of beans and some Tuscan kale to taste the new olive oil, the olio nuovo, along with a toasted slice of bread, that we call fettunta, namely a greasy slice of bread. It is a Tuscan tradition to welcome olio nuovo, and obviously, I made it mine. 

I bought my first Savoy cabbage of the season, then a second, and a third. I cooked again this potato and Savoy cabbage soup, a recipe that dates back to 2013, then I braised the cabbage with sausages, a seasonal Tuscan recipe from Livorno, adapted from our cookbook From the Markets of Tuscany, that you can find below.

What I am reading

November means always The Christmas Chronicles, by Nigel Slater.

I first virtually met Nigel Slater online, thanks to the seasonal, vibrant recipes he shares on The Guardian weekly. I started following him on Social Media, and this is when I discovered he had a new book coming out soon, The Christmas Chronicles. It was Autumn 2017. This marks the beginning of my unconditioned love for Nigel Slater, his humour, his Britishness. 

After The Christmas Chronicles, I started collecting and reading all his books: first his memoir, Toast, then Tender, The Kitchen Diaries, up to Greenfeast Spring, Summer and Greenfeast Autumn, Winter. I just received his latest A Cook’s Book, and from the few pages I’ve read it is another great book.

But back to The Christmas Chronicles, a collection of notes, stories and recipes for midwinter, that I’m re-reading every year since 2017.

This is probably what I like the most about this book, the fact that it is not just focused on Christmas: it is Nigel’s diary, with glimpses of life, memories and recipes, from the 1st of November to the 2nd of February, it embraces the whole magical season of winter: there are stories about decorations, gardening, trips to Japan and Vienna, about choosing the perfect fir to decorate, he talks about panettone and panforte, about making a wreath for your door, or wrapping up Christmas presents.

I came late to discover a love for winter. Growing up, it was summer the season when I felt free, invincible. Now I, a July girl, thrive in winter, in the season of fireplaces, hearty stews, frozen mornings, Christmas lights, candles, woollen scarves.

I love every single page of this book, every recipe I have cooked, each description, emotion, memory. It is a book to treasure.

I made Nigel’s dried fruit drinks for winter: apricot, orange and anise with brandy, figs and maple syrup with vodka and muscat prunes and sultanas. I tried his Christmas cake, which is now sitting in my pantry, fed every week with a drizzle of whiskey. We loved his roasted pumpkin with dukkah and pomegranate.

Where I have been

In October we visited some of Volterra’s best restaurants and food shops thanks to Confcommercio Pisa for Vetrina Toscana, a project by Tuscany Region and Unioncamere that promotes restaurants and food stores that use local products, as well as authentic producers. Spotting the Vetrina Toscana logo on a restaurant door is a guarantee of quality for tourists and locals alike. Volterra is a town that does not give up. Dealing with its geographical isolation, it has always preserved its traditions and its authentic spirit. Unlike many postcard-like towns that sold their souls to the hit and run tourism, forgetting their inhabitants, Volterra has been able to combine these two aspects.

On the one hand, with its museums, the Etruscan gates, the amphitheatre, the alabaster and the pecorino and the unique landscape that surrounds it, Volterra attracts tourists from all over the world. On the other, though, it offers its residents everything they need, to make them feel at home, and not guests of an amusement park.

You can find all the restaurants we visited here.

A Braised cabbage recipe from Piazza Cavallotti Market in Livorno

Livorno is not what one would call a classically beautiful city. It possesses little of the brilliant Renaissance charm of Florence, or the elegance of Lucca, or the history-rich, red-bricked medieval palaces of Siena. Yet Livorno is beautiful—on its own terms, authentic terms. Here the villas and palaces range from Art Nouveau and Fascist-era styles to more modern buildings dating to the 1960s following the heavy bombing Livorno suffered during World War II.

Keep this in mind as you arrive in Piazza Cavallotti to visit the fruit and vegetable market. What you will see is something genuinely and truly Livornese. The stands line up along the vibrant colours of seasonal fruit and wooden crates full of fruits ripe and ready for making jams. The ground is covered with evidence of deals made and provisions obtained: leaves, peels and seeds.

Get in line and have a listen to the assured tone with which the women of Livorno conduct their shopping. Learn from their pairing ideas and their requests.
Then head to see Antonio, the “king of lettuce,” and ask about ways to transform his vegetables into simple, genuine recipes. Pick up some red chilli pepper, known in Tuscany and in Livorno by another name—zenzero, meaning “ginger”, typically—as this is an often-mentioned ingredient in local recipes.

Cavolo strascicato – Braised cabbage with sausages

This recipe is adapted from our cookbook From the Markets of Tuscany.

“Use one sausage per person,” says Antonio. “This isn’t a side dish after all, but a main course to eat with plenty of bread for cleaning your plate.”
This is how Antonio, known at the Piazza Cavallotti market as the “king of lettuce,” explained the following recipe to me, with its fragrant garlic in a bit of olive oil, and chilli pepper, too, that ingredient we now know to be vital and abundant in the Livornese cuisine.

The sausages here are not intended to merely add flavour or accompany bread, but rather play a more important role, similar to the beans in fagioli all’uccelletto. The tomato and chilli lend colour and a touch of sweetness. The cabbage is cut into thin strips and cooked very slowly over low heat, absorbing all the flavours that will delight your taste buds. Serve with fresh, crusty bread.

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