Dancing Spoon

About Ashley Bartner

Contributors Our

Meet Ashley Bartner
Ashley Bartner is living the foodie dream in Italy. Together with her Chef-husband, Jason, they own and run La Tavola Marche, an organic farm, inn, and cooking school in Central Italy's region of Le Marche. We're very excited that Ashley is now sharing her foodie dream with us, as a contributing writer, here on Dancing Spoon.

I live in Piobbico, Italy (population 2,000 - on a busy day), in the little known region of Le Marche, with my husband Jason, where we are the only “americani” for miles and miles! Jason and I live in a 300-year old stone farmhouse, run an inn, cooking school, and organic farm!

Two years ago we made a life changing decision and left the “daily grind” of New York City for the Italian countryside! After falling in love with Italy on our honeymoon in 2006, and with no kids or mortgage, we took the risk of our lives and opened an agriturismo with a small osteria and a cooking school run by Jason, who was previously an Executive Chef in Manhattan. Our little slice of paradise is an old restored stone farmhouse with five huge guest apartments surrounded by over 500 acres of farmland, rolling hills, and truffle rich woods.

We knew we wanted to run an agriturimo and cooking school as we had stayed at numerous other agriturismo's throughout Italy and enjoyed the atmosphere of vacationing on a working farm. La Tavola Marche is founded on our feelings that food is the most accessible, unique, and enjoyable way to get to know a new destination. Culinary experiences not only enhance traveler’s enjoyment through pleasing their taste buds, but also allow for an immediate immersion into the local culture. Plus, when we travel, that is our most favorite part — eating our way through every city, state, and country!

We love to share the simplicity of  Italian cooking, taking the freshest possible ingredients and preparing them simply. What a great vacation, to stay in a relaxing beautiful setting, learn to prepare this delicious food, and take home more than just memories: the ability to recreate a bit of Italy at home. And Italians do this best — celebrating life at every meal!

I am excited to share with you, Dancing Spoon readers, all the pleasures of the table: growing, cooking, eating and celebrating food! Tutti a tavola - everyone to the table!

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Ashley Bartner is living the foodie dream in Italy. Together with her Chef-husband Jason, they own and run La Tavola Marche an organic farm, inn and cooking school in Central Italy's region of Le Marche. In her  column Delicious Italy, Ashley shares the secrets of the Italian kitchen with local seasonal Italian recipes, organic gardening tips, food festivals and markets, day trips in Le Marche, Tuscany, Umbria and beyond! Celebrating life at every meal, from the farm to the table. What better way to know a culture but through its food! Ashley is a proud member of Slow Food both in The United States and Italy, and only cooks/serves what is in season and locally grown, supporting the local economy. La Tavola Marche

Jason is a professional Chef with years of experience as an Executive Chef in New York City and Italy. Ashley is a host-extraordinaire and writer for Italia! Magazine.
Follow their adventures on their lively blog: La Tavola Marche Blog

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Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

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Seafood Summit 2010: Paris

Seafood Sustainable

by J. Michael Wheeler
Seafood Summit 2010:
Challenging Assumptions in a Changing World
I can't think of a better place to challenge assumptions in a changing world than Paris. The Seafood Summit 2010, is to be held in Paris, France, from January 31 - February 2, 2010. The Seafood Choices Alliance explains:

Seafood Summit brings together global representatives from the seafood industry and conservation community for in-depth discussions, presentations and networking with the goal of making the seafood marketplace environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.

While many industry events offer companies networking opportunities to showcase their products and services, Seafood Summit is different. It is the only venue that connects large and small companies from a diverse array of industries with leaders from the conservation community to bridge the gap between the latest science and the reality of the seafood marketplace. Summit attendees include international representatives with vested interest in the seafood industry, including: fishermen, fish farmers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, food professionals (chefs, restaurateurs), conservation organizations, academic scientists, media, and policy makers.

Information about Seafood Summit 2010 will be updated regularly. For further questions, contact Seafood Summit. There are discounts for early registration. Discounts for early registration available until 30 November 2009.

Seafood Choices Alliance is an international program that provides leadership and creates opportunities for change across the seafood industry and ocean conservation community. Founded in the United States in 2001, Seafood Choices helps the seafood industry— from fishermen and fish farmers to processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, and food service providers —to make the seafood marketplace environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

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The Bistro Part One

2008 Favorites

by J. Michael Wheeler
Every year we like to showcase our reader's favorite articles. Here's an all-time winner!

I’m sure it was Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast that made me fall in love with French food. Not Taillevent French food, but the café, the bistro, la bar. Before I ever ventured to my culinary nirvana I was steeped in Hemingway’s France: his baguettes, his well-lit tables, his wines. Then I read his almost-contemporary in Paris: A. J. Liebling’s wonderful adventures in eating: Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris. Next came, of course, Julia Child and actually trying to cook coq au vin.  And surprisingly, it was very good. But not as good as that first coq au vin on that first trip to France.

And then we were hooked. My former wife and I made frequent trips to Paris and Nice and Burgundy. I was able to arrange my schedule (I ran my own marketing and design studio) to allow several 2 or 3-week trips to France a year. And since that meant only 28 or 42 chances to have a meal (we didn’t really count breakfasts in the tally) we poured over Patricia Wells’ A Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, and A Food Lover’s Guide to France. Then there was the Michelin Guide and Le Guide du Routard. Each trip yielded notes and restaurant business cards: recommendations for places to try on the next trip.

The Season of Apples

by J. Michael Wheeler

While L.A. has many food trends and fads and flash-in-the-pan food movements, it doesn’t have what one would call food traditions. It certainly doesn’t have seasonal food traditions (excluding the candy season of Halloween) because it doesn’t really have seasons. I was born and raised there, and until I moved to Boston, I didn’t know from strawberry-season, or maple syrup-season, or apple-picking-season. In L.A., it seemed there was always corn or strawberries or apples. And they always tasted the same. Kind of “what’s the big deal?” flavored.

New England, on the other hand, has seasons. Like those short couple of weeks in the spring when you can get fiddlehead ferns. I cook them up like asparagus and they are a real treat. Blackberries and strawberries are here and gone. We have wild raspberry bushes right in our yard: each summer they explode with fruit and there is nothing better than munching on a handful of sun-warmed berries. Except picking a bucketful and making a pie. Off the coast of Maine, for only a few months of the year, are caught the most delicious, small, sweet shrimp. And of course the fall brings Apple Picking Season.

Blue Nuns: A Foodie’s Profile 1

Foodie About a

by J. Michael Wheeler

Blue Nuns and Coors Beer
I began my creative life as a writer. I wrote fiction for five years and during that time I was a very successful bartender; my writing, not so. I had begun tending bar at the end of my second year in college in San Diego. Soon my college studies and restaurants found an inevitable synchronicity: I had just discovered the writers based in the Parisian café life of the 1920’s (think Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast) and I was introduced to the world of food at the restaurants where I worked. And suddenly my path became clear: with Hemingway as my guide I’d write short declarative sentences and eat at well-lit Parisian tables.

The Bistro

Memories Taste

by J. Michael Wheeler

I’m sure it was Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast that made me fall in love with French food. Not Taillevent French food, but the café, the bistro, la bar. Before I ever ventured to my culinary nirvana I was steeped in Hemingway’s France: his baguettes, his well-lit tables, his wines. Then I read his almost-contemporary in Paris: A. J. Liebling’s wonderful adventures in eating: Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris. Next came, of course, Julia Child and actually trying to cook coq au vin.  And surprisingly, it was very good. But not as good as that first coq au vin on that first trip to France.

And then we were hooked. My former wife and I made frequent trips to Paris and Nice and Burgundy. I was able to arrange my schedule (I ran my own marketing and design studio) to allow several 2 or 3-week trips to France a year. And since that meant only 28 or 42 chances to have a meal (we didn’t really count breakfasts in the tally) we poured over Patricia Wells’ A Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, and A Food Lover’s Guide to France. Then there was the Michelin Guide and Le Guide du Routard. Each trip yielded notes and restaurant business cards: recommendations for places to try on the next trip.

Business Breakfasts

the Road Eating on

by J. Michael Wheeler 
Business Travelers Get Better Choices

The executive travelers’ breakfast just got better. The New York Times (New Menus, New Mission for Breakfast) reports that the hotel industry is creating menus that “emphasize health, renewal, and especially a better grade of coffee.”

Omni Hotels has introduced its Art of the Breakfast program that includes shade-grown coffee, whole grains, and pork from a family-owned ranch that uses certified humane methods.

Elaine Chu

Contributors Our

Elaine Chu has spent the past 25 years traveling to over 79 countries, eating her way through cities and villages, from the most famous restaurants in Paris to single-table street kitchens on the banks of the Yangtze River. In addition to just outright enjoying food, Elaine connects to real life and people through native cuisine and its associated traditions.

In Search of Pyramids

Kochary Finding

The Food: Kochary
The Place: Hilton Kochary
Location: Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt

From where I stood, the small, upstairs room visible through the windows appeared crowded.  The ground floor entry area was brightly lit and open to the street. To the left, behind a small counter, one man stood ladling food from a row of large bowls and opposite him, another man  stood next to a small table with a register. A third energetic younger man wove a pattern between them and the second floor as he lifted large trays covered in plates up the stairs, then descended again bearing empty bowls. The constant flow of people – couples, families, young people and, importantly for me as a single, female diner in busy Cairo - groups of young women – was all the encouragement I needed. I stepped into the doorway and stood at the foot of the stairs. Everyone smiled and the man next to the table said, “Welcome.”

I held up one finger.

“Small or large?” Since I didn’t really know what I was in for, “Small,” I answered.

“To drink, Coca Cola?” I looked in the refrigerator case.

“Orange soda.” The man nodded me up the stairs. 

No menu, no prices. I only knew that I was about to have kochary, the favorite food of the man who had been seated next to me on the airplane earlier in the day.

Until recently, I’ve taken the usual tactic of asking people I meet what their favorite restaurant is, in “such and such” place. Suddenly, one day, for no real reason, I began to ask, “what is your favorite food?” – just as one would ask a friend or acquaintance. The answers are much more interesting than restaurant recommendations. The reasons that people have favorite foods always have stories: connections to meaningful life experiences; family, places. It’s also liberating. Rather than trying to track down a restaurant, perusing a menu and trying to decide what the best selection is for that one meal, chasing one dish can be done in so many more ways. In this case, I was on my first foray outside of the hotel since arriving, walking the busy streets of the main shopping area of Cairo at dinnertime. I had no idea what “kochary” was except “lentils” – the immediate response to my question from a man returning home to Egypt for his father’s funeral. I didn’t even know how it would be written. Arabic is written without any vowels, so phonetically translated into English, has many possibilities. Ko-shah-REE; cocherie; kocherry; in this case, “kochary.” I happened to look up at a sign as I passed by earlier and thought, “Aha! Kochary!” but kept walking with an eye open to other possibilities, then came back past it as I retraced my steps toward the hotel. As I stepped off the street, I wasn’t concerned with what is was, or even how much it cost – knowing that the cost of living is comparatively low to the USA, it couldn’t be too overpriced or the place would not have been so popular.

Upstairs, the long, low-lit, narrow room held around twenty tables and was very warm. Especially warm since I was trying to fit in with conservative Muslim style and wore a long-sleeved, baggy, blouse over my T-shirt and ankle-length dress. All the other women were well covered from head to toe; I would remain so too.

I chose a table not far from the window overlooking the busy street, near a group of chattering young girls. A moment later, a flat, white, pasta-style bowl with a pyramid of steaming food was put in front of me, along with another small bowl containing about one cup of a red sauce. I looked at it closely.

The pyramid turned out to be short macaroni tubes, chopped vermicelli, garlic, white rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, and fried onion, unmixed and dished out in layers. On the side of the bowl sat a couple of wedges of the small, round daq lemons – similar to Meyer lemons – commonly found in Egypt, and as I would later find out, garnishing the side of every plate served.

I tasted the bowl of sauce – it was a tasty tomato sauce, a little tangy and a little spicy. Then I tasted the contents of the two condiment bottles on the table – hot chili sauce and garlic-infused vinegar. I looked at the tables nearby for clues from the other diners as to what to do next.

Some made a small well, poured in the sauce and mixed. Others mixed just a bit with a spoonful of sauce, one mouthful at a time. I chose to emulate the big man at the table next to me who mixed up the whole bowl, shook a little hot pepper into the tomato sauce, poured the entire bowl of sauce into the big bowl, squeezed on a little lemon and mixed again. He impressively hoovered down the entire large-sized bowl in about eight minutes and left.

But I ate slowly, enjoying the simple flavors – almost like a bowl of spaghetti - but more toothsome with a mix of shapes and textures; dense lentils and chickpeas, crunchy fried onions, chewy rice and macaroni, the tartness of the tomato sauce and the hint of garlic and spice. Nothing shocking or particularly foreign, just satisfying and very, very filling. I’d be ready to go out and plow an entire field after this carbohydrate feast!

I walked downstairs and stopped to pay at the register.

“Five pounds,” said the man behind the register.

I took out my Egyptian money and paid with a ten-pound note. I understood now why kochary is so popular. Delicious, fast, and no-fuss: the filling meal, including a can of orange soda, cost the equivalent of ninety cents, a good deal even by local standards.

The inevitable question followed as I received my change: “Is this your first time in Egypt?” (No, my fourth.) Emboldened by my new status as a paying customer, I walked over to the counter where the bowls of ingredients were being dished up – a spoonful of each into a deep bowl then turned over into the flat bowl it was served in and garnished with the fried onions. I pointed to each and asked what it was, to make sure I hadn’t missed something from the recipe.

I stepped back out onto the street satisfied, fortified and feeling a sense of accomplishment for my new discovery, I thought of the guy sitting next to me on the airplane, coming home and having kochary.

- Elaine Chu

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Elaine Chu has spent the past 25 years traveling to over 79 countries, eating her way through cities and villages, from La Tour d’Argent in Paris to single-table street kitchens on the banks of the Yangtze River. In addition to just outright enjoying food, Elaine connects to real life and people through native cuisine and its associated traditions.

What's your most interesting food discovery? Tell us here.