Professional Foray #13: Sorry Grom (and sorry readers), I'm back - with a new NYC favorite, Maialino

Photo by Kelly O'Connor from Maialino's Facebook page

Readers, if there are still any of you left, I'm sorry.  I've neglected you (but not ice cream) for a long time.

However, someone has brought me back into the fold.  And her name is Jennifer Shelbo, pastry chef at Maialino.

Friends, this is the best gelato in New York.  Not only is the texture perfect - and I mean spot-on, no margin of error, to the .0001% perfect - her flavors are wildly good.  It's creamy, but light on the tongue and melts instantly in the mouth, bum-rushing the palate.  After a very, very good meal (and a wonderful evening at the theater - run, don't walk to catch Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in "Driving Miss Daisy") I had the bruschetta di canella (Italian for "cinnamon toast"), chocolate, and almond straciatella.  The cinnamon is a pale, delicately flavored cinnamon gelato with crunchy bits of cinnamon-y cracker-y stuff on top, like the topping on a great muffin, sprinkled on the gelato.  The almond was amaretto flavored, with wisps of great dark chocolate woven through.  The chocolate was complex and richly flavored without being heavy, dense or overwhelming.  Because of its effortless texture, it went down easy.

Contrast this with, for example, the chocolate at Grom, previously my contender for best New York gelato.  I don't know if I should admit this but the last time I had a taster of the dark chocolate, I puckered my mouth and said "I'm just not strong enough for that."  See, I don't want to move into a mindset where the gelato and I become adversaries.  No, I'd rather the gelato to be my intimate confidante.  And at Maialino, I think I've found my new best friend.

Why Sicily is the greatest place on earth: The Empire of Ice Cream

A gorgeous paean to Sicily and its tradition of gelati, by Mary Taylor Simeti, in Saveur.

Christopher Hirsheimer, from Saveur, issue 52

..."Sicilians took their ice cream very seriously, at all levels of society. In northern Italy, ices remained the preserve of the sick or the wealthy until the late 19th century, owing to the cost and limited availability of ice and other ingredients. But in Sicily even peasants considered ices their due. William Irvine, an English gentleman visiting there in the early 1800s, marveled that "wretches whose rags have scarse adhesion enough to hang upon their bodies, yet find a baioc [a coin worth less than a penny] to spend in the ice shop". The lackadaisical Sicilian legislators may have been described as an "ice cream and sorbet parliament" by King Vittorio Amedeo II in the 1700s, but these were men who knew their priorities: when in 1774 Palermo's supply of snow gave out, the parliament dispatched armed dragoons to Etna to procure more. The demand for snow was insatiable. It is said that during a ball given in 1799, likely for the Bourbon king Ferdinand and his wife, Maria Carolina, such a quantity of ices was served that their production required 11,000 pounds of snow."

Attention, ladies: It's JUST A MOVIE (plus review of San Crispino gelato, Rome)

I repeat, this is a MOVIE.  Make-believe!  Credit: Rex Features

Remember the Sex and the City tour that shepherded out-of-towners around New York to various sites featured on the show, including a pit stop at Magnolia Bakery where participants downed cupcakes in emulation of the show's characters?  In case you don't, here is A.A. Gill's brutal description of it in Vanity Fair.  As if that wasn't sad, and strange, enough, a new manifestation of this phenomenon has taken hold in Rome.

The Telegraph reports that women hoping to emulate Julia Roberts' character in Eat, Pray, Love are lining up to buy gelato at San Crispino, a gelateria near the Trevi Fountain.  This is terrible news for at least two reasons:
1. A lot of women are in for a disappointment if they think that a cup of gelato (there are no cones available because the owners fear the cones might not be all-natural) is going to turn their lives into an Elizabeth Gilbert/Julia Roberts fairytale.
2. This means next time I go, the lines are going to be even longer and the already surly service (number of flavor tastings is already capped at one - see an earlier post on the ethics of this policy) will be even surlier.  The number of flavor tastings may be brought down to zero, a shame, since the flavors are seasonal and there are often surprises.  

The only upside of this I can possibly envision is that San Crispino might consider it in their best financial interests to keep the shop open on Tuesdays, the day they currently take off, if doing so is within the limits of Italian law.  This is widely known as the best gelateria in Italy, if not the world.  Or does being the best gelateria in Italy by default make you the best gelateria in the world?  Ponder that tautology.  Anyway, I adore this place, and also healed a broken heart there senior year of college by returning three to four times per day, to the point where every time I stepped through the doors, the staff (who had by then warmed to me) would smile and ask "Ancora?!?"  (Again?!?!). 

I tend to choose from the same constellation of flavors: the canella e zenzero (cinnamon and ginger), the meringue al cioccolatto (meringue with Valhrona chocolate chunks), the chocolate, the crema di San Crispino (honey flavor) and then chestnut, rumored to be the late Pope John Paul II's favorite, if it's available (it is in wintertime).  The meringue is something else: a light, delicate and aerated frozen version of a meringue cookie, not too sweet (as the cookies often are), and studded with bitter chocolate.  It's a perfect foil for some of the richer, creamier flavors.  Goodness me, I can taste it just thinking about it.  I am actually salivating right now...gross.

Anyway, ladies - enjoy the ice cream, enjoy the book, but try not to conflate fiction and reality.  I've done that before and it's always turned out badly.

What else can you get for the price of an Otto ice cream?

Really?

My friend Zoe Feigenbaum, a fantastic chef who runs the show over at The National cafe and restaurant on Rivington Street, just posted the following on Facebook:

"But Otto is SO good. $10 is nothing for such bliss. I would totally skip 1/2 a movie to eat ice cream of that caliber."

I'm trying to think of other things that one might get for $9.50, the price of a cup of Otto gelato.  Here are some that come to mind quickly and easily; feel free to add your own:

-a flight to Marbella from London Stanstead on Easyjet
-four rides on the subway
-four slices of pizza
-unlimited texting on a Sprint PCS phone plan
-a movie ticket in 1998
-just over 21 stamps
-at least a dozen ears of sweet corn at the farmers market

Any other ideas? 

Professional Foray #5, Grom, Bleecker Street, NY

A confession is in order.  This is, and has been, my favorite ice cream (or gelato) in New York since winter.  So this is less of an evaluation than a sticky, approving wink at what I think is so far the top ice cream in town.  I have friends who have come back from trips to Italy raving about this place. 

My first scoops, in winter, were of chocolate and chestnut, a winning combination if there ever was one.  Later on, I came back for spring flavors: ginger, crema di Grom (crema, an eggy custard flavor, with chocolate flakes and crumbled vanilla biscuits), lemon cake, and the flavor of the month, fior di latte with candied cherries and chocolate flakes.  This terribly sophisticated take on Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia did not quite do it for me (I prefer a base with more flavor than just milk), but the crema di Grom was outstanding - lush and full of tasty chunks.  What sets Grom apart is the quality of its ingredients, which manifest themselves in an unbeatable texture.  Furthermore, texture aside, the flavors are also excellent: the chocolate is complex and rich (I always have the regular dark chocolate as the extra-dark chocolate is overwhelming for me), the coffee intense and smooth, the chestnut gentle and well-rounded.

One for each hand.

Anyhow, I returned Friday evening with several friends in a professional capacity (my previous half-dozen visits were sort of an internship, maybe?)  Like the greedy children in Umberto Eco's story, my friend Mara and I decided to get two small cups, so we could try four flavors.  One of our cups was vanilla and chocolate, the other tiramisu and crema di Grom.  The scooper, a very sweet Italian youth who I am guessing is the nephew of a friend of the owner of the franchise and who needed a summer job in New York while he takes the odd English class (his English was halting, to be generous), graciously let us try as many flavors as we wanted as long as we kept smiling at him.  All four flavors were truly, truly excellent - the vanilla/chocolate cup was like the ultimate version of a Mr. Softee swirl, and the tiramisu and the crema di Grom had similar mix-ins, so texturally they were a brilliant complement.

These flavors, and several crazy, crazy Youtube videos, were then savored on a stoop on Leroy street.  All in all, an excellent evening.

Grom, several locations in New York City; this one was at 233 Bleecker St (at Carmine), (+1) 212 206 1738, http://www.grom.it/eng/gelaterie.php, small $5.25, medium $6.25, large $7.25, extra-large $8.25

Proustian moments #1, from Olivia Snaije

The first installment in a series of ice cream recollections.  This one comes from my friend Olivia, a writer in Paris.  When I first sent her this blog, she immediately shared this:

Cioccolato con panna is one of my favorites

I grew up in Rome, not the chic new pedestrian Rome, but the old Rome with cars and motorcycles zipping all over. Besides a few dreary months during the winter, it seemed to me as if every day after school, I would link arms with my best friend Sandra and go for a stroll. It was a given that we would stop and buy a gelato. We both, unfailingly, chose the same flavors every day: fragola, limone e panna, panna being the home-made whipped cream they put on ice cream. I lived near the Campo de' Fiori and she lived in Piazza Farnese so our perimeter was very small. We would usually go to a gelateria on Via dei Baulari; once in a while we might cross over the border that was Corso Vittorio Emanuele and buy an ice-cream near Piazza Navona. As Sandra recently confirmed to me in an email: "we adored fragola-limone."



Thank you, Olivia!  I'll be sharing mine soon, and would love to hear more from everyone else.