On Monday, I went to Double Zero Napoletana with the Atlanta Food Bloggers Society. It's located on Roswell Road just north of the Perimeter, more or less across the street from Ruth's Chris Steak House. This is one of those places that has been on my radar for awhile so I'm glad that my fellow bloggers gave me the excuse to go.
The restaurant provided us with an appetizer, the l'arrosto. Believe it or not, that roast pork with sides is on the small plates part of the menu. The chef explained that the pork was roased for about 6 hours. The garnishes included roasted garlic (amazing), eggplant, and peppers. The pork was exquisite---succulent and with a very roasted flavor.
I was on my own for the pizza so I tried one of my favorites, the quattro stagione. The traditional version has four different cheeses, one per quarter of the pie, in honor of a location near the Vatican, as I recall. This one had some extras, including roasted artichoke and roasted garlic. I was originally a little hesitant about fooling around with a classic and artichoke in particular. (I still remember my dad's insistent claims that artichoke was a weed that California farmers decided to market as a delicacy.) But the artichoke turned out to be almost my favorite part of the pizza. The sauce on the pizza was amazing, the perfect balance of tart and sweet. The crust itself was very thin in the Italian style, as compared to the slightly thicker New York or much thicker Chicago. But it still achieved that perfect balance of tenderness and chewiness.
And this is what food bloggers do when they eat---they take photos of everything that comes to the table. This shows Leslie of "The Food and Me" and Grant of "Marie, Let's Eat" taking photos of the latest arrival.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...



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