Hail Cesare

I’d just come in from dinner and turned on the TV. Idly shuffling through the channels in search of a screwball comedy or an old Raymond Chandler film, I caught a flying glimpse of a chef stirring something in a pot and the stentorian tones of Robin Leach’s voice.

“My god, it’s Cesare!” I exclaimed and burst out laughing at the sheer improbability of it.

But there he was, the mustachioed chef from Italy’s Piedmont region, gesturing as broadly as a mime (he doesn’t speak a word of English), performing his risotto al Barolo for the viewers of the Food Channel while Bruna Giacosa, daughter of Barolo producer Bruno Giacosa, translated.

Cesare Giaccone--known simply as Cesare in Piedmont is chef-owner of a 25-seat restaurant in Albaretto Torre, a minuscule village in the mists of the Langhe, the wine country that is home to Barbaresco and Barolo. But he is a true original, and the world has beaten a path to his remote door.

“How does it feel to be named by International Herald Tribune critic Patricia Wells as one of the 10 best restaurants in the entire world?” barks Leach.

“Like ascending to the angels!” answers Cesare, smiling beatifically.

Yet Cesare, who has been praised in the same breath as three-star chefs Joel Robuchon, Fredy Girardet and Alain Ducasse, owns not a single copper pot and has no kitchen brigade to speak of--unless you count his son Oscar, who helps out in the kitchen, and a part-time local girl who chops vegetables. His dining room, comfortable but certainly not elegant, would hardly make him a candidate for Relais & Chateau’s next guide. Cesare’s honor--and his notoriety--is based solely on his cooking.

*

I remember the first time I went to “da Cesare” (officially called Ristorante dei Cacciatori) more than a dozen years ago, with a Barolo producer who was a big fan of the restaurant. We turned off the Alba-Barolo road at Gallo Grinzane and drove along the valley floor past villages we could barely sense in the fog, taking a series of hairpin curves up to Albaretto Torre. At one point, our headlights caught a truffle hunter and his dogs ambling into the forest, his head resolutely turned away so we’d never know which hunter was interested in this particular stand of trees.

Named for its square 14th century tower, Albaretto Torre (pop. scarcely 300) is so small it doesn’t have a bar--or even a phone booth. Although everything looked closed up for the night, the winemaker drove on. At the end of town, next to the very last house, he turned in and parked beside a handful of late-model BMWs with German license plates. A few feet away, a black-and-white truffle dog strained on a leash.

“This is it?” I spluttered. “There’s not even a sign!”

Inside, the country restaurant was all coziness and warmth, with hand-crocheted cloths on the tables and bright oils and watercolors on the walls. The entire dining room was redolent with the smell of kid roasting over the embers in a fireplace. As the spit turned, it creaked a little and sent the scent of rosemary and garlic wafting into the room.

Over the mantle was Cesare’s naive painting of four cherry-red Ferraris on their way to Florence. And rather too close to the fire for any winemaker’s comfort were bottles of Barbaresco and Barolo with labels from the Piedmont’s greatest producers: Gaja, both the Conterno brothers, Mascarello, Sandrone, Clerico. . . .

We had an astonishing meal that night, one that I still recall in every detail. Potatoes buried in the ashes and splashed with grappa just before serving--an old peasant dish, the winemaker told me, but in Cesare’s version, paired with a pheasant mousse. A “poker hand” of funghi--a fabulous plate of local porcini mushrooms cooked five ways, presented on a bed of chestnut leaves Cesare had gathered from the woods. A whole onion baked on a bed of rock salt, with trompe-l’oeil “roots” of grated Parmesan.

He made wide ribbons of cornmeal pasta and sauced it with leeks gently stewed in butter and cream. And then we had the mahogany spit-roasted capretto, so succulent, so stupendous that everyone who comes to Cesare asks for it, even if they’ve ordered another main course too.

At the end of the meal, Cesare appeared, his eyes twinkling above his bushy mustache, bearing a crumbly hazelnut-cornmeal torte fresh from the oven. And then he was gone, back to the kitchen, from which we heard the rhythmic clank of his whisk hitting the side of the bowl: zabaione, which he makes with fragrant local Moscato instead of the usual Marsala.

I’ve been lucky enough to eat many times at Cesare’s since that night long ago, and I’ve spent days in his kitchen watching him cook. It’s the only way to get a recipe. He cooks so instinctively that he rarely measures or pauses to consider the steps.

In the kitchen, he is a blur of motion--juggling skillets, keeping an eye on the oven, splashing his homemade Barolo vinegar onto a roast duck, adding a judicious dollop of cream to the sauce for the quail, plating each and every dish. I’ve tried scribbling furiously in a notebook, but it’s impossible to keep up--or to read my handwriting later--so I resort to talking into a small tape recorder, giving a play-by-play description to be disentangled later.

*

Albaretto Torre has only about 300 inhabitants. “Not as many as in a small apartment building in the United States,” Cesare says, laughing. And on any day, it seems as if half of them come to the kitchen door. There are his brother and sister-in-law, bringing a tray of fragile tuma, fresh sheep’s milk cheese just turned out of its mold. Someone else staggers in with wood for the fireplace. An old woman drops off a gift of apricots or a bouquet of herbs and stops to tell a bawdy story.

On my last trip, I dropped in one afternoon and found a couple of local characters bent over a full-bodied soup of borlotti beans simmered with onions and pork riblets in heated discussion about the origin of the Piedmontese dialect, which is related to langue d’oc, the language spoken in Southern France.

Like almost everyone in this village, Cesare had a hardscrabble existence as a youngster and had to leave home at 16 to find a living. A scrawny kid, he apprenticed as a cook and worked all over Italy and later in Germany and Switzerland. But his dream was always to come back to Albaretto Torre and open a restaurant, which he did in 1980. This is a man who knows and loves every inch of the Langhe.

Like the legendary grappa maker Romano Levi or Barolo producer Bartolo Mascarello, the 50-year-old Cesare is the kind of character these lost villages of Piedmont seem to produce. Although he has traveled the world, he finds wonder and delight in the everyday, in everything this region has to offer: in the old baker in the next village who cooks his yard-long grissini in a wood-fired oven, in the supple tajerin (tagliarini) noodles made with 30 egg yolks to a kilo (2.2 pounds) of flour. He’s renowned for knowing his ingredients and searching out the very best. Even in Piedmont, the best is in short supply.

On a couple of occasions, I’ve gone with him to the outdoor market in Mondovi. In one part of the market, men with deeply furrowed faces squatted behind Little Red Riding Hood baskets, the wild mushrooms they gathered in the hills that morning hidden beneath checkered cloths.

“These are the faces of old Piedmont,” Cesare says.

People recognize him and call out as his slender, stooped figure moves quickly through the market, stopping to sniff or finger a mushroom. No, no, he repeats over and over, patting the foragers on the shoulder as he moves on. Wearing a leather jacket, his shoulders hunched against the early morning cold, Cesare is on the prowl for ovoli, the egg-shaped mushroom with a delicately musky flavor that comes into season sporadically, a few days at a time. Finally, he finds a handful that pass muster.

In the stalls, women offer skinny haricots verts, yellow wax beans, green beans streaked with violet, perfect little cabbages, new potatoes with the dirt still clinging to them. You can smell the fragrance of the nectarines and peaches from yards away. We buy up violet eggplants, tomatoes puckered like little purses, scarlet peppers. He adds pale feathery finocchio and bundles of spring onions to his basket.

On the way back, he wants to stop and buy some porcini from a man who collects mushrooms from foragers.

“This is one of the best valleys for porcini,” he says as we rumble through the fog-shrouded hills. We drive into a tiny village and pick up a slice of tomato-smeared focaccia from a bakery, eating it hungrily and polishing off an espresso in three seconds flat.

Then he’s ringing--and ringing--this fellow’s doorbell. Minutes later, the guy sticks his head out a window, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Disheveled, his hair sticking out every which way, he comes down to talk mushrooms. He pulls some flats from a holding room and shows the heavy brown-capped porcini to Cesare, who is dismissive. The mushroom man is outraged.

Then the fun begins. Soon they’re shouting at each other in Piedmontese, the words flying faster than I can follow, the gestures ever more dramatic, eyes rolling: They look as if they’re about to come to blows.

Ten minutes later, it suddenly comes to a halt. They’ve agreed on a price. Lire and mushrooms change hands. When we get back into the truck, Cesare reveals that he’s been buying mushrooms from this same guy for 30 years--and they always argue like that.

*

Next stop: a small farm where he’ll pick up guinea hens and a capon. The woman there is a specialist in castrating poultry. At one time there used to be someone like her in every village, but now she’s the only one in this part of Piedmont, he tells me, just as a wizened woman in black comes out holding four fully feathered birds.

Back in the kitchen, he is a volcano of energy, absolutely focused. I squeeze into the corner to watch this virtuoso, this whirlwind, this one-man brigade de cuisine cook. In one battered skillet, he’s cooking a rabbit with scraps of yellow pepper, a little bit of broth and wine. He’ll use a little roasted rabbit, too, to make a salad he originally created for the late bon vivant and Barbera producer Giacomo Bologna, with sauteed apricots, chopped porcini and a scattering of tiny fava beans dressed in orange juice, Moscato and olive oil.

He takes kid chops, dips them in bechamel and sets them in the refrigerator to chill. (Later he’ll dip them in egg and bread crumbs and fry them in olive oil for an antipasto.) He fills a big roasting pan with the ingredients for a ravioli stuffing of turkey and veal, throwing in handfuls of rosemary, wild herbs and greens. Then he singes the plucked guinea hens over the gas flame, splits the birds in half, and roasts them buried under a coverlet of gold wheat berries.

Next to the stove is a charming still-life of two leeks, a few brown eggs and a white plate framed in gold with Cesare’s name scrawled across the bottom.

“Cesare!” booms a distinctly German voice, as a tall, exquisitely dressed fan bursts through the kitchen door. Cesare’s name is as famous in Germany as that of Ducasse or Robuchon. And in late fall, Germans and Swiss swoop down for the weekend in their fast Mercedeses and BMWs to feast on white truffles and Barolo.

One night I watch in astonishment as Cesare stuffs fistfuls of smashed truffles into a filet of beef, wraps it in oiled paper and foil, and tucks the magnificent piece of meat carefully under the embers to roast. He has timed it to be done just as a party of Germans would be sitting down to dinner. But they are an hour and a half late and by the time they arrive the beef is overcooked. His beautiful surprise is ruined.

Cesare is known for his truffles. He’s an extremely knowledgeable buyer and insists on meeting the trifulao who actually found the truffle before he puts his money down. In truffle season, he can kill you with the bill, laments one winemaker, who also grants that Cesare also has the most generous hand with truffles, literally burying dishes beneath a flurry of truffle shavings.

*

Whenever I go back to Piedmont, I drive up in the early morning to the back of the restaurant, to the kitchen door where I know I’ll find Cesare in the scrubbed kitchen, sleepy-eyed, making an espresso. I go to say hello, but I can never resist lingering as he gears up for the day. He cooks with a kind of spontaneity and joy that’s rare to see in a restaurant kitchen.

Who but Cesare would think to combine peaches and porcini in one dish?

Once I saw him run out into the night and followed, curious. It was pitch-black, and I couldn’t find him at first. Then I saw a blur of white up in a tree. It was Cesare picking cherries in the dark. Gathering up his apron filled with the dark sweet cherries, he ran back into the kitchen to make a dessert he had just invented: fresh cherries cooked in a little Barolo.

I’m fascinated, too, by the way nothing is wasted in his kitchen, which is the lesson that the peasant tradition has to give us. Crumbs from the pan di Spagna (sponge cake) are used to make a fruit gratin. The first thing each morning, he starts his brodo. Into the big pot go quail parts, quail skins, a couple of hens, halved white onions the size of lemons, a few tomatoes. He finds a Parmesan rind and throws that in too.

He lights the fire and puts the capretto on to roast for lunch. Every once in a while, he rushes out to brush it with olive oil infused with parsley, sage, rosemary and garlic. And when it’s time to serve the succulent meat, the kitchen resounds with the sharp blows of his heavy, curved knife cutting through the kid, bones and all.

Fish? He rarely serves it. You might find salmon trout or a river fish occasionally. In Piedmont, if you want to eat seafood, you follow the ancient salt road down to Liguria. Cesare’s friends look forward to the week of fish menus he does each summer. To do it, he has to get up before dawn and drive two hours or so to meet the fishing boats on the coast. He is uncompromising about the quality of the fish.

To my eye, the restaurant hasn’t changed a hair since Cesare has ascended to culinary stardom. Oh, a couple of years back he added a small glassed-in veranda. He may have more Riedel glasses and a slightly bigger cellar now. His younger son, Oscar, an enology graduate and drummer, has joined the kitchen. His 23-year-old elder son, Filippo, is back from his military service, running interference in the dining room. And daughter Elisa still hand-letters and paints the night’s menu.

When Cesare came to Los Angeles to cook a dinner at Rex in January, I had breakfast with him one morning at Campanile. I thought he’d like to taste some of the breads, since he’s now baking his own breads too. Cesare is always full of projects.

This time he tells me that when his sons are old enough, he’d like to give them the restaurant. “My dream,” he says, pausing dramatically, “is to build a little place with maybe three rooms and a galleria with books. And I would cook for just one table! One night, we would eat in the library. Another night, we would eat outside under a tree and the stars!”

* Painting from Marylin Morris at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet from the Rose Cafe and Market,

Venice.

CORNMEAL PASTA WITH LEEKS

CORNMEAL PASTA

1 cup finely ground cornmeal, organic if possible

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon olive oil

5 eggs

Pinch of salt

Mix cornmeal, flour and salt together and mound on work surface. Make well in center, add oil and break eggs into well. Beat eggs with fork, gradually incorporating flour from sides of well to form soft dough. Knead in more flour as needed. Scrape up any scraps and knead into dough. Flour work table and knead dough by hand until dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky, 10 or more minutes.

Divide dough into 4 parts. Flatten 1 part on lightly floured surface and roll out by hand (cornmeal makes dough easy to work, but it’s a little too soft for pasta machine). Repeat with remaining dough.

Lay pasta strips out on work table or wooden surface to dry. When pasta is no longer tacky, roll up strips and cut by hand into 1/2- to 3/4-inch noodles.

LEEK SAUCE

1/4 cup butter

1 pound slender leeks, white part only, finely sliced

1/2 cup whipping cream

2/3 cup or more rich homemade broth

Salt, pepper

Heat butter in skillet and gently stew leeks until slightly brown, about 15 minutes. Add cream to cover, then broth. Cook over medium heat until sauce is bubbling, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cook pasta until al dente, about 5 minutes. Top with little leek sauce.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

604 calories; 599 mg sodium; 263 mg cholesterol; 34 grams fat; 60 grams carbohydrates; 15 grams protein; 2.23 grams fiber.

SMALL QUAIL WITH HAZELNUTS (Quagliette alle Nocciole)

Another of Cesare’s antipasti, this one features quails, fresh peas and hazelnuts. His version also includes a little snowy white filone (veal spinal cord), but we’ll leave that out of this adapted version.

6 quails, quartered

3 tablespoons Cognac or brandy

Salt

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup shelled peas

1/4 cup cream

1/2 cup chicken stock

Butter

6 to 8 sage leaves

1/3 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

Sprinkle quails with 2 tablespoons Cognac or brandy and little salt to taste.

Heat olive oil in skillet and saute peas with little salt and remaining brandy. Reduce heat, cover and cook 5 minutes. Add cream and chicken stock.

In another pan, heat 3 tablespoons butter with sage leaves, then add quail and saute briefly on each side. Sprinkle hazelnuts over and place skillet, uncovered, in 350-degree oven while finishing peas.

Cook peas over high heat until cream and stock come to full boil, then reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, 5 minutes.

To serve, spoon peas onto each plate with quail and hazelnuts in middle.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

388 calories; 336 mg sodium; 115 mg cholesterol; 29 grams fat; 5 grams carbohydrates; 25 grams protein; 0.76 gram fiber.

HAZELNUT-CORNMEAL TORTES

1 cup whole hazelnuts

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

1/3 cup uncooked polenta

Toast hazelnuts at 350 degrees until fragrant, 12 to 15 minutes. While still warm, rub nuts in clean dish towel to remove as much of skins as possible. Chop in food processor, pulsing until medium fine but not powdered.

Sift flour into mound on piece of paper. Add lemon peel.

In large bowl, cream butter with sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg yolk. Stir in polenta; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture and finally hazelnuts. Dough should resemble stiff cookie dough.

Divide dough into 2 balls. Press each ball into bottom of buttered 8- or 9-inch pie pan (Cesare uses flimsy aluminum pans). Place on middle rack of 375-degree oven and immediately reduce temperature to 325 degrees. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Makes 10 to 16 servings.

Each serving contains about:

227 calories; 95 mg sodium; 52 mg cholesterol; 16 grams fat; 20 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 0.39 gram fiber.

STUFFED ROASTED ONIONS (Cipolle Ripiene)

One day in late fall, Cesare brought out a whole onion, roasted to a deep mahogany on a bed of rock salt, as an antipasto. On closer inspection, its wisps of “root” turned out to be a trompe-l’oeil cluster of Parmesan strands. The onions were stuffed with a bechamel flavored with Parmesan and the pureed interior of the roasted onion. Easily prepared ahead, the stuffed onions need only be warmed in the oven before serving.

Rock salt

8 small to medium white onions

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

1 cup milk

1 1/4 cups freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Dash freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup vegetable stock

Pour rock salt 1 inch deep into baking pan large enough to hold all onions. Peel onions, leaving roots intact, and arrange, root-side up, on top of rock salt. Bake at 350 degrees until onions are soft, about 1 1/2 hours.

Meanwhile, melt butter in small saucepan. Add flour and mix to make smooth paste. Cook, stirring, until flour is light tan, about 5 minutes. Add milk and cook, stirring, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Whisk in 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Mixture should be quite thick; it will thin when pureed onion is added. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg and continue cooking at least 30 minutes over very low heat, stirring occasionally to keep from scorching.

When onions are soft, remove from oven and cut small slice from root end. Scoop out insides of onion, leaving just shell intact, and puree insides in blender or food processor along with vegetable stock. Stir onion puree into cheese mixture and whisk to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning. Dish can be prepared ahead up to this point.

Fill onions with cheese-onion mixture (pastry bag makes job easier) and top each onion with scant tablespoon of Parmigiano Reggiano grated to form long strands, which will form trompe-l’oeil “roots” when browned.

Place onions back in same baking pan on top of rock salt and continue baking at 350 degrees until browned, 5 to 10 minutes, then reduce heat to keep warm until ready to serve.

Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

126 calories; 224 mg sodium; 20 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 0.48 gram fiber.

LAMB CHOPS ALLA NINO BERGESE (Bistecchine di Capretto alla Bergese)

At Cesare’s, these bistecchine are really delicate kid chops. When Cesare gets in the whole kid, he sets aside the leg and haunch to roast over the embers and uses the ribs to make this dish, named for a famous Italian chef, which he serves as one of his antipasti. The tiny chops are dipped first in a layer of besciamella and then in beaten egg and bread crumbs. Crisp and golden on the outside, they’re beautifully pink inside. The idea is very adaptable to lamb chops. Serve them as a light main course. Just be sure they’re cut thin. Essential equipment: a heavy stainless steel round meat pounder (the side of a cleaver will do in a pinch, but you can’t get as close to the bone).

12 to 18 small lamb rib chops, about 1/2 inch thick

Flour

Butter

Extra-virgin olive oil

8 to 10 sage leaves

1 cup milk

Salt

Freshly ground white pepper

Dash freshly grated nutmeg

2 eggs, beaten

Dry homemade bread crumbs

Thin each chop by pounding gently with meat pounder, hitting as close to bone as possible and trimming away any little spurs of bone that interfere. Place 1/4 cup flour on plate and dredge each chop lightly, shaking off any excess.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil in skillet and when very hot, add sage leaves and saute chops 1 minute on each side (you may have to cook meat in 2 batches). Remove to baking sheet or platter, tilted so fat drains away. Chill chops in refrigerator.

Meanwhile, melt 3 tablespoons butter in small saucepan. Add 3 tablespoons flour and mix to make smooth paste. Cook, stirring, until flour is light tan, about 5 minutes. Add milk and cook, stirring, until sauce thickens. Season to taste with salt, white pepper and nutmeg. Pour into shallow bowl and, while still warm, dip chilled chops in sauce and arrange on platter with bones protruding outward. Reserve remaining sauce for another use. Chill until sauce on chops is firm, about 2 hours.

Dip chops first in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs, laying chops down on platter as before. Refrigerate until ready to finish cooking.

Just before serving, heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil in skillet and saute breaded chops, turning carefully once only, until coating is browned, about 5 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels and arrange on platter for serving.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Each of 6 servings contains about:

437 calories; 263 mg sodium; 184 mg cholesterol; 33 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 26 grams protein; 0.09 gram fiber.

CRANBERRY BEAN SOUP WITH PORK RIBLETS (Zupetto di Borlotti)

One day I walked in at lunchtime to find the grizzled designer and artist Gianni Gallo and a friend hunched over steaming bowls of bean soup. When served, the potatoes have broken down to small chunks, the beans are plump, tender and full of flavor. Cesare doesn’t cut apart the pork riblets, which are left over from boning out a pork loin. They’re meant to flavor the broth. Nothing is ever wasted.

1 pound dried borlotti or cranberry beans

Water

Extra-virgin olive oil

1 small stalk celery, chopped

1 slender leek, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

3/4 pound small boiling potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 (2-inch) stick cinnamon

1 sprig fresh rosemary

2 to 3 sprigs parsley

1/4 to 1/2 pound little pork ribs, optional

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Soak beans overnight in water to cover. Next day, drain and cover with 2 quarts cold water. Bring slowly to boil.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in skillet and saute celery, leek and garlic until wilted. Stir into soup pot. Add potatoes, cinnamon, rosemary, parsley and pork ribs. Cook until beans are very tender, about 2 hours. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve in warmed soup bowls. Pass extra-virgin olive oil on side.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Each of 6 servings contains about:

357 calories; 76 mg sodium; 184 mg cholesterol; 9 grams fat; 56 grams carbohydrates; 21 grams protein; 2.38 grams fiber.