John Bubala, chef-owner of Chicago’s Timo restaurant, walks fast, but he stops often. Something catches his eye at almost every turn and all of it prompts exclamations of delight.
The 21st Century graffito beneath an 18th Century tile set into a building’s wall? “Classic!” said Bubala.
The open-air Saturday market, filled with local produce, regional fish and ingredients that Americans think of as pricey “specialty foods”? “Classic!” said Bubala.
When chefs sneak out of their restaurants, they take a busman’s holiday. Their free time is invariably work that’s disguised — sometimes thinly — as pleasure. We tailed Bubala as he stepped away from his stove and into the wider world for inspiration. We were curious to see what a chef thinks, sees and feels when he travels. We were curious about what he tastes. And, of course, we wondered how he’d bring it home.
Bubala traveled to Turin in October as a chef-delegate representing the Chicago chapter (called a convivium) of Slow Food, an international organization that prizes artisanal and traditionally crafted foods. He attended Slow Food’s biennial Salone del Gusto and the second Terra Madre summit, held in adjoining locales near Turin. The Salone del Gusto is a huge tasting event, featuring foods from around the globe. Terra Madre gathers those who produce artisanal foods, providing a place for them to share knowledge, problem-solve and bolster confidence.
It wasn’t Bubala’s first trip to Italy. In 1995, he visited Tuscany. So inspired was Bubala by his Tuscan sojourn, during which his family and some friends rented a villa and shopped and cooked from local markets, that he eventually changed his restaurant’s emphasis from French to Italian. The switch resulted in renaming the restaurant from Thyme to Timo (the Italian word for thyme). But his 2006 trip was very different.
Bubala made the most of his time in Turin and its region, Piedmont. He was able to spend a day and a half scouting the Salone del Gusto before it opened to the public. It was a smart move. For an admission of about $20 per person, visitors could sample at virtually every booth — free. As one might imagine, once the doors opened, the show was soon jammed with a gridlock of shoulder-to-shoulder enthusiasts. But the show floor was open only to delegates for the first two days, and Bubala used that time wisely.
“Wow, yak cheese,” he said softly, stepping away from the Tibetan booth in Slow Food’s Foundation for Biodiversity exhibit. “It’s not exactly my thing, but I’m glad I tasted it.” He said the cheese had a very strong, almost rank, flavor. We decided to take his word for it.
At a booth anchored by a larger-than-life carved wooden pig in chef’s toque and apron, Bubala tasted a selection of six prosciuttos. Watching him was an exercise in enlightenment. Normally ebullient and expansive, Bubala became completely focused inward as he tasted his way through the samples. He closed his eyes as he chewed each thoughtfully, slowly. Indeed, the prosciuttos — from six manufacturers in six areas — were very different, especially when tasted side by side.
Exploring Turin
“Nothing prepared me for the sheer diversity of product,” he said over an espresso that afternoon after tramping through the Salone del Gusto for most of the day. “The diversity of kinds of prosciutto, the unpasteurized British beers, the cheeses … it makes you think that maybe this kind of diversity could become mainstream in America.”
Rejuvenated by that espresso, Bubala was ready to hike around the city.
“One good thing about this trip,” he said, craning his head to look at every angle of the cobblestone streets, “without my wife and kids along, I can go as fast as I want to. Or as slow.”
He was particularly smitten with the city’s oldest quarters, closest to its center. He popped into virtually every church he passed, taking time at each to light a candle and say some prayers. “I collect churches,” he said, somewhat apologetically.
He stopped to talk to a man roasting chestnuts in the street — the conversation hampered slightly by the fact that Bubala speaks no Italian — and came away with a paper cone of steaming chestnuts. After eating one or two, he tossed the rest into the trash. Lots of tasting still lay ahead.
Walk, stop, look, taste. Flat bread. Pizza. Gelato. Walk, stop, look, taste.
Turin is the capital of Piedmont, the region in northwestern Italy with a culinary tradition enriched by fertile farms and plentiful game. Its proximity to France and its prominence as a wine region ensure that the Piedmontese take the table very seriously. The Piedmont is home to the white truffle and, in fall, everyone goes mad for porcini and other wild mushrooms, freshly plucked from forest floors, destined for robust braises of rabbit or venison. Piedmontese beef is esteemed throughout Europe.
Bringing the flavors home
“This trip was like oxygen,” he said. “You become alive again. You train with Europeans [as a chef] your whole life in restaurants and hotels, and they have a flavor profile and understanding of product that Americans don’t understand. The products are so good and so simple, and the simplicity of the cuisine is just amazing.”
He was not adequately prepared, he said afterward, for what he saw, smelled and tasted.
“What happens is that you see a thousand things,” he said. “If you can make a dozen changes, you feel like you’ve made some great strides [in your own cooking]. Take lardo [spiced and preserved pork back fat, long a poor man’s delicacy]. It’s one of the 10 best things I’ve ever eaten. But it’s cured fatback! Nobody’s going to eat that!”
He means that his American customers may have a terror of fat that their European cousins do not share. Yet Bubala set about curing his first batch of lardo almost as soon as he arrived home from the trip. “The first thing I did when I got back was jump on the Internet and Google ‘lardo’ to find out how to make it,” he said.
Bubala’s passion for things Italian is not hereditary, since the Chicago native is of Irish and Slovak descent. His father, a doctor, and his mother, a school nurse, raised Bubala and his two sisters in Glenview. Now Bubala, his wife of 15 years, Linda, and their three children live in the East Village neighborhood on the city’s Near West Side.
Bubala doesn’t claim to do “authentic Italian” or even “authentic Italian-American” food. Instead, his style is to think about local ingredients the way an Italian might, he said.
There can be no doubt, however, that Bubala’s second Italian trip influenced him as much as his first.
“Hey, I have some news for you,” he said in a phone message, several weeks after his return. “We’re renaming the old Thyme Cafe Baccala [after the Italian word for salt cod; it’s at 1540 N. Milwaukee Ave.]. Yeah, it’s going to feature food from Piedmont. I’m hanging a bunch of pictures from my trip to Turin on the walls. It’s gonna be things like pork-belly risotto with smoked cheese and braised chicken thighs with white beans. People are gonna love it!”
After March 30, you, too, can taste Turin.
Baccala spread
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Soaking time: 24 hours
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Yield: 24 servings
* Look for baccala, dried salt cod, at Italian and specialty markets, or buy it from an online vendor like Amazon.com. It’s usually sold by the pound, but will keep for a year or longer.
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon minced Spanish onion
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 baking potatoes, peeled, diced in 1/4-inch pieces, boiled until fork-tender
4 ounces dried salt cod, soaked 24 hours in water, drained, roughly chopped
1/2 cup each: milk, whipping cream
2 teaspoons grainy mustard
1 teaspoon white truffle oil, optional
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
24 toasted bread rounds or mini puff pastry or phyllo shells
4 pitted cured black olives, chopped
1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; add onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, potatoes and cod; mix well. Cook until the ingredients come together, about 1 minute; reduce heat to low.
2. Slowly add the milk and cream until the mixture looks like mashed potatoes; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Set aside to cool about 10 minutes.
3. Puree the mixture in a food processor; mix in mustard, truffle oil, salt and pepper to taste. Spread on bread rounds or fill mini pastry shells. Serve hot or cold; garnish with chopped olives.
Nutrition information per serving:
128 calories, 55% of calories from fat, 8 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 14 mg cholesterol, 10 g carbohydrates, 4 g protein, 430 mg sodium, 0.5 g fiber
Prosciutto with roasted grapes, ricotta, melon and saba
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 2 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
* Saba is a syrup made from the “must,” or grape residue left after winemaking. Look for it at specialty grocers like Fox & Obel or at Italian markets. It’s sometimes labeled “mosto cotto.” Balsamic vinegar can substitute.
18 thin slices prosciutto
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
30 red seedless grapes, halved
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
8 ounces arugula
Sherry vinaigrette, see recipe below
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 ripe seasonal melon, seeded, cut in thin wedges
2 tablespoons fresh ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon saba (grape must) or balsamic vinegar
Freshly ground pepper
1. Place 3 slices of the prosciutto in the center of 6 dinner plates. Drizzle the olive oil on the prosciutto; set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat; add the grapes and vanilla bean. Cook until grapes soften, about 2 minutes. Transfer to the prosciutto plates; discard vanilla bean. Let cool slightly.
3. Toss the arugula with the vinaigrette, season lightly with salt. Divide among the plates of prosciutto. Place 1 melon wedge in the center of each plate; top each melon wedge with 1 teaspoon of the ricotta. Drizzle the saba over the salad; grind fresh pepper to taste.
Sherry vinaigrette: Whisk together 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar with 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with 1 /4 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Nutrition information per serving:
231 calories, 58% of calories from fat, 16 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 24 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 10 g protein, 1,047 mg sodium, 2 g fiber
Monkfish saltimbocca with fontina and arugula puree
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Yield: 6 servings
* If you can’t find monkfish, substitute any firm, mild white fish, such as cod, pollack or haddock. Chef John Bubala suggests serving this dish with pasta tossed with asparagus tips and green beans.
1 cup arugula, loosely packed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 small (3 ounces each) monkfish fillets
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 thin slices prosciutto
12 thin slices fontina or smoked gouda
1. Combine arugula and olive oil in the bowl of a food processor or a blender. Process until mixture is a smooth puree, adding additional olive oil if necessary to make a spoonable sauce; set aside. (If you have more than you need for the finished dish, it will keep refrigerated for two weeks or more.)
2. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Season the monkfish with the salt and pepper to taste. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add monkfish; cook, in batches if necessary, turning once, until fish turns light golden, about 3 minutes. Remove to a baking sheet. Transfer to the oven; cook to desired doneness, about 5-7 minutes for medium-well.
3. Layer a slice of prosciutto between two fillets on a baking sheet, stacking the fillets at an angle. Top each stack with a fontina slice. Return to oven until cheese melts, about 3 minutes. Drizzle arugula sauce over fillets.
Nutrition information per serving:
459 calories, 56% of calories from fat, 28 g fat, 12 g saturated fat, 127 mg cholesterol, 1 g carbohydrates, 49 g protein, 929 mg sodium, 0 g fiber
