Sprout & Pea

A few weeks ago, I returned from one of the best vaca­tions of my life. I trav­eled to Italy for my friend’s wed­ding. Not just any friend, but my very first friend. Nicole and I have known each other since we were babies and she is also the per­son who kick­started my love for healthy eat­ing and cook­ing. In fact, she is the rea­son this blog is called Sprout & Pea. When I began this blog, I thought it would be fun to col­lab­o­rate with Nicole and so the two of us came up with the name Sprout & Pea in honor of know­ing each other since we were sprouts and peas. Nicole’s fash­ion career since took off and her time did not per­mit for blog­ging, so I con­tin­ued with Sprout & Pea on my own, but Nicole’s influ­ence has been with me every step of the way. It was mag­i­cal to see my very first friend get mar­ried to such a won­der­ful man on the most beau­ti­ful island in Italy. They truly have a love that inspires, just as Italy itself inspires. Rome and Ponza were a life refresher. They taught me to live and love hard and fear­lessly. I brought back both a gen­eral opti­mism and an absolute love for Ital­ian cook­ing– I fell in love with the food even more than I had expected.

Every sin­gle meal was deli­cious and every last bite was savored. There is a fresh­ness in all of the food there that sim­ply does not often exist in Amer­ica. Their pro­duce doesn’t even com­pare to the local farm fresh pro­duce we get here– as incred­i­ble as some of it may be. The toma­toes are truly an entirely dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence– sweet, juicy, fresh and sim­ply mouth­wa­ter­ing. The best part is that I ate my weight in bruschetta, pizza and pasta three times a day and never once did I feel grossly full.

While every meal was mem­o­rable, my favorite, hands down was at Spir­ito DiVino. I found this hid­den gem by googling “best restau­rants in Traste­vere”, the area we were stay­ing in (what we liked to call the Brook­lyn of Rome). We made a reser­va­tion and headed over, real­iz­ing I had for­got­ten to give the man on the phone a name for our party. We were greeted by a young gen­tle­man with a sharp sense of humor who quickly said, “Ah yes, I wrote down Amer­i­cans”. The night was off to a good start. He asked where in Amer­ica we were from and when we said New York, he pointed to the table behind us and said “they are from New York too”.  It turned out, the table of four behind us were not only from New York, they were from Green­point– the exact neigh­bor­hood we all live in in Brook­lyn. The world couldn’t have been much smaller. Many of the reviews warned to pre­pare for a 3 to 4 hour meal. The restau­rant is solely run by a father and son, with the wife/​mother doing all of the cook­ing her­self. Once we sat down at our table, the son came to our table and explained that if we’d like, his father would come to the table and explain the menu to us. We didn’t hes­i­tate a moment. Ten min­utes later, an older gen­tle­man was stand­ing next to our table and began going through every item on the menu with us. He con­tin­ued to tell us all about the restau­rant and the his­tory of the very spe­cial and ancient build­ing that it is housed in. The three of us savored every bit of our incred­i­ble meal which included: Cheeses of Roman coun­try­side with pears, pruns and cin­na­mon jam, spaghetti with cinta senese bacon, parme­san fon­due and saf­fron, wild boar with blue­berry sauce, and pork shoul­der pre­pared accord­ing to recipe of Gaius Matius who was a cook of Julius Cae­sar– cooked with apples, onions, honey, vine­gar, red wine and spices. After we were stuffed to the brim, the father came back to our table and sat down with us while he told us all about the wine cel­lar down­stairs that is over 2000 years old. He poured us each another glass of wine on the house and we headed down to one of the tables in the cel­lar and took it all in where all three of us got instant chills. Spir­ito DiVino was hands down the most mem­o­rable meal of our lives. It was a meal cooked and served with a gen­uin love and pas­sion for food.

Every meal in Italy had a magic to it that I am cer­tain I will always carry with me when prepar­ing meals in my kitchen. When I returned to New York, I thought I might be ready for some non-​​Italian fare, but i found myself both crav­ing and truly miss­ing all of the won­der­ful food that I expe­ri­enced there. So for my first meal back, I decided to make some white beans in tomato sauce. Of course, the toma­toes here (even the canned San Marzanos) will never com­pare to the toma­toes in Rome but still, the dish hit the spot and I still have not stopped crav­ing the food of Italy. Here’s how to make it…

1 can whole peeled San Marzano toma­toes chopped
1/​4 cup of crushed can toma­toes (you can also just use the liq­uid from the canned peeled toma­toes)
1 plum tomato diced
1 sweet onion diced
6 cloves of gar­lic chopped
3 tbs olive oil
1 can can­nellini beans
2 tbs white wine (I used a sweet and bub­bly moscato d’asti)
1/​2 tbs bal­samic vine­gar (I used bal­samic cream)
Salt and pep­per to taste
Greek yogurt to top with

Heat olive oil over medium-​​high heat and add onions and gar­lic. Saute until onions are translu­cent (about 5 min­utes) and then add the diced toma­toes. Saute for another 5 min­utes and then add chopped peeled toma­toes and tomato liq­uid. Add the wine and vine­gar and sprin­kle with salt and pep­per. Stir and let sim­mer over low-​​medium heat with lid par­tially on for about 10–15 min­utes. Add beans and let sum­mer for another 5 min­utes. Remove from heat and serve in a bowl. I scooped with a slot­ted spoon to strain some of the liq­uid. Top with Greek yogurt.