“Who knew that you could bake a cake with a light bulb?” I can still hear my dad saying that after trying the first cakes I made with my Easy Bake Oven. Indeed. Who knew that food adventures could take me from Boston to Berlin and from Sicily to the Caribbean?In spite of growing up in a food-loving Italian family in Boston, I thought that I wanted to be a horticulturalist and went off to the Berkshires for my first degree. It took only a year to realize that plants could be my hobby, but food had to be my life. I studied pastry arts at the International Pastry Arts Center in New York and worked as a pastry chef for years in and around Boston before moving to Providence. My life, certainly my career, seems to have been built around culinary adventures and road trips ever since.
One of the first of these road trips took place in between my early pastry jobs. In 1989, I took my last few hundred dollars, packed a bag, and headed to Sicily to meet my cousins. It was a visit that would not only change my life but also my waistline. My cousins picked me up at the train in Messina and upon my arrival at the house they placed a large plate of macaroni with homemade marinara sauce in front of me. I can still taste it. I ate it all so as not to insult my family, but didn’t realize that the pasta was only a starter. They had prepared a feast for the first meal! Every bite was a flavor sensation: fresh fish dressed with lemon and olive oil; fresh greens from their garden; sausage, bread and the family’s homemade wine. For dessert we munched on freshly blanched almonds and white peaches that were so ripe you needed to wear a towel to catch the juice.
I’ve returned to Italy some six or seven times since that first trip. I’ve learned to settle into a small town and soak up the local culture, food and wine. Last year I spent ten days in Umbria at Casa Rondini, a small chef-owned agriturismo just outside of the tiny village of Montegabbione. These are small guestrooms or apartments on a working farm. I walked through the vineyards and olive groves, and savored the wine and rustic cooking. I even helped the owner prepare for the Saffron Festival, an annual fall weekend of culinary adventure. What fun to help pick the saffron in the morning and later to be part of a “committee” selecting pastries for the festival. My reward: an introduction to the local truffle dealer and a pocketful of her treasure … I made truffle risotto, truffle pasta, and truffle scrambled eggs. Everyone came back for seconds!
These “who knew” experiences happen all the time. Everywhere I go, I try to hunt out the small and interesting, family-owned restaurant. On a recent family trip to St. John in the US Virgin Islands at the end of a road seemingly to nowhere, we noticed a small shack with a hand painted sign that said “Miss Vie’s.” We were early for lunch but could wait on Miss Vie’s private white sand beach with a single palm tree, a short walk across the street through the family graveyard with its’ chickens. By noon, the shack was busy. Miss Vie cooks her garlic chicken in an old cast iron pot that must be seasoned to perfection. We ate lunch alfresco at a small picnic table while Vie gave eggs to one of her neighbors. Ummm, the flavors in that garlic chicken stayed with us all day and luckily we got the last piece of her special coconut pie for dessert.
And what’s the next adventure? “Who knows?” …but my husband has about 600,000 frequent flyer miles and something tells me we’re going to use every one. Maybe we’ll find the perfect Belgian chocolate. Oops, I forgot we already found that.
Cindy Salvato, aka “Cinzia” in Providence’s Federal Hill neighborhood, is a chef by trade but a teacher at heart. She was one of two finalists in the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Cooking Teacher of the Year competition in 2003 and has taught pastry arts at Johnson & Wales University and at Boston University. She studied in New York and Switzerland and honed her craft at some of New England’s finest restaurants: Michela’s in Cambridge, Mass; L’Espalier in Boston; and Le Grenier on Martha’s Vineyard. She worked behind the scenes as Associate Producer for the long running PBS cooking show, Ciao Italia. She is a certified Executive Pastry Chef, popular recipe developer and tester working for Whole Foods and others.
Cindy is the author of The Dowry Cookbook with featured articles appearing in Yankee Magazine, the Providence Journal, the National Culinary Review, Chocolatier, Modern Baking and Chef Magazine among others. She has the honor of being one of the top 100 women in America featured in Recipes for Success, a cookbook published by the Girl Scouts of America. Chef Salvato was also featured prominently in two books by Ann Cooper: A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen and In Mother’s Kitchen as well as collaborations with Lora Brody on two cookbooks: Pizza, Focaccia, Flat and Filled Breads from Your Bread Machine (nominated for an IACP award) and Dessert from Your Bread Machine.
She has most recently been successful with her Rhode Island Market Tours – leading small groups of foodies on behind-the-scenes tours of Providence’s quintessential Italian neighborhood, Federal Hill. Her other tours include a historical and culinary tour of famous Bristol, Rhode Island, and an afternoon on Matunuck Oyster Farm, where small groups learn about all things “oyster.” The tours are a hot ticket in Providence. You can learn all about Cindy’s entrepreneurial side on www.SavoringRhodeIsland.com.
Cindy lives with her family in Providence and has been part of the food world there and in Boston, Chicago, Germany and Switzerland. She is an active spokesperson for the Providence Rescue Mission.