A while back Adri Barr Crocetti was blogging about making Corzetti, a pasta shape that has been made since the middle ages. Well…once I clapped eyes on those beautiful disks of pasta imprinted with designs that reminded me of ancient coins, I just knew I “needed” to make them!
Here’s the thing…Corzetti stamps are a specialty of Liguria and I wasn’t going to be in Liguria. Here’s where Facebook friends came to the rescue. Adri suggested the stamps could be ordered from Terry Mirri a guy in Sonoma, California who makes artisanal stamps that are works of art! Or you can order stamps on-line from Fante’s.
During the Facebook sharing about the Corzetti, Judy Witts Francini posted the name of a shop in Florence called Gioia della Casa near the Mercato Centrale who sells them. Well, as luck would have it, we were going to be in Florence in a couple of months! Thanks to Judy Witts Francini, I came away from Gioia with four stamps…woo hoo! Two were for us and the other two were bought as a gift for our good friend and chef, Andrea Carlson, owner of Burdock and Co.
Now, this is Vancouver and I am pretty sure that Corzetti pasta is not a pasta that Vancouverites had ever been introduced to. Well, thanks to that gift, they now have, as Andrea has been putting Corzetti pasta on her menu ever since we gave her the stamps. Apparently, the chefs like making them and sometimes customers ask about them where others just take for granted that Chef Andrea always has unusual items on her menus. Check out her menu here and look down the menu items for the spring time version, it sounds amazing (like the rest of the menu). And…if you live in Vancouver, make a bee-line to Burdock!
I might not have been Columbus discovering the new world…but it’s kind of cool to think I played a small role in introducing to the local food scene this Ligurian speciality that they probably have neither seen or eaten before!
