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Felidia, New York Buon fortuna -- three of us, all devoted pasta lovers, were looking for a special pre-holiday luncheon treat in New York. It is probably no great surprise that we found what we were looking for, with added stars galore, at Felidia's, the 58th street flagship of one of our favorite cookbook authors, Lidia Bastianich (see library), several of whose wonderful recipes are adapted in classicpasta.com.
The menu of the day featured, as one of its fixed price offerings, a "Pasta Degustazione" -- a sampling of three different pasta of the day (plus a desert, our one non-pasta event). Before we could place our order, however, our enlightened and charming captain, Zaheer, gently but thoroughly, captured our imagination with the delights available to us because it was white truffle season. We saw, we smelled, we "ah'd", we ordered. As a preliminary to the pasta degustazione we decided to share as a starter -- naturally -- another pasta, to take advantage of the truffle season. The basis for the truffle delight was an incredibly rich spaghettini -- a 30-yolk pasta -- called I Tajarin. Our spaghettini was served only with butter (only!) and then Zaheer did his magic, shaving the white truffles over the pasta. We have always been a fan of the special pastas made with extra yolks, as we find in Rome especially with the classic "spaghetti a cacio e pepe" of that city. (see spaghetti with pecorino and pepper). But this 30-yolk spaghettini took "rich" pasta to new heights. And it served as an incredibly perfect base for the truffles. We then moved on: each of us had the complete pasta degustazione. The presentation began with "gli strascinati integrali con broccoli rape e ceci" -- whole wheat strascinati, with broccoli rape and chick peas. The perfect proportions of the broccoli rape and the chickpeas, relative to the pasta, created an ideal taste combination -- simple and exquisite. The strascinati are a Basilicata or Puglia pasta: generally made fresh with lard and water. They are small discs, with a leaf-type character -- perfect, of course, with the classuc brocoli rape, and the addition of the chickpeas. The next course brought the next two pastas, totally different, presented in a divided dish. On the left were a few delicate ravioli, filled with pear and pecorino, and then so lightly touched with a bit of butter, crushed black pepper, and some more pecorino. On the right side of the dish, we had a sumptuous classic tagliatelle alla Bolognese, with an incredibly perfect rendition of a ragu of veal, pork and beef. A fitting, mouth-filling and taste-trembling climax to our pasta day of days. p.s. -- the deserts were a combination of a tiramisu (limoncello ladyfingers with mascarpone), palacinche (a Trieste-type crepe filled with rosehip jam and topped with rose ice cream, and a combination of several house-made sorbets. It was a glorious white-truffle kind of pasta day!
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