Puntarelle at the Farmers Market / by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor
Here’s a photo of puntarelle at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco. The Farmers Market, packed with both farm stalls and food to-go stalls, has grown much larger since our last visit to the Ferry Building,
I’ve never seen so many unusual Italian chicories and endives for sale. I’m sure these vegetables must do well growing in the mild winter climate of the Bay Area.
This is the first time I’ve ever found real puntarelle in an American market. To prepare puntarelle for serving, you use the stem part of the leaves, which are cut into thin curling shavings and often dressed with an anchovy vinaigrette. We found these and other unusual chicories all over the menus in just about every trendy SF restaurant. Even the Japanese joint, Nojo, serving “pub food” like chicken skin skewers, has a chicory salad on the menu.
The best puntarelle alla Romana salad I had was at the spectacular new restaurant Locanda, part of the Delfina restaurant group. It didn’t hurt that the salad was preceeded by the best Negroni I’ve ever enjoyed, icy cold with a big sexy ice cube (you can see it on the right side of the small photo). I’m not a big drinker, but the Negroni is my cocktail, thus I’ve had quite a few of them, including at an elegant old hotel in Palermo, Sicily, that claimed to have invented the drink. So I think it’s saying something that Locanda’s version trumped them ALL.
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