I'm back! A trillion thanks to Janet for keeping the seat warm! These last 12 weeks have been rough. But, in the last week, I did manage to meet up with Tanya, an EDOW reader who's a sculptor in Barcelona. (How did I accrue such a cool readership? Only you know the answer to that one, my friends.) We met up to share a bottle of Sauvignon Collio 2005 Ronco dei Tassi, a nice, acidic, full white from Friuli, over a plate of fritto misto. (Enoteca I Trulli -- very civilized for an after-work glass of wine.) Our reason for meeting up? She managed to smuggle a package of jamón ibérico de bellota from Spain for me.
How gorgeous is that? A queen among hams, bellota meat is maroon, dark like bresaola, not heavily streaked with fat. She recommended letting the refrigerated ham sit out for two hours to come to room temp so you can really taste the acorns in the fat, then serving atop slices of good baguette rubbed with ripe tomato, with fat arbequina olives and a glass of rioja or Iberian wine on the side. Obviously we're a long ways away from ripe tomatoes, so I may have to skip that part, but I'm really excited about digging in. I'll let you know how it goes. Apparently, in Spain, you just keep a leg of the jamón covered on your counter and carve thin slices off using the jamonero whenever you get hungry. I've promised to harass Tanya if I ever make it over to Spain. I gotta go to a country whose people know how to keep a pork leg on the counter for a year.
Jamón ibérico de bellota was only recently legalized in the States. If you're not going to make it to Spain anytime soon, you can get on a waiting list at Tienda.com.
dericious