(lively music)
- Hi, I'm Jerry James Stone,
and if you love Italian food, you're in the right spot.
Today I'm gonna show you
how to make these amazing vegetarian meatballs
that are made from eggplant.
They're super delicious.
And also, they're not too hard to make.
They're great on spaghetti,
they're great on a meatball sandwich
for those of you that are trying to eat less meat,
or if you just wanna try something new.
And I have a special guest today, Katie Parla.
She just wrote this great new book called Tasting Rome.
So everything Italian today.
I'm gonna dial her up,
we're gonna FaceTime and talk about her book,
talk about Roman food,
talk about anything that we can think of,
and I think you're gonna like it so stay tuned.
There's a fun recipe at the end,
we're gonna have lots of fun.
So let me just get my phone and I'll call her in.
Okay, I'm gonna dial her in.
Hey Katie, how you doin?
Thanks for joining me today.
Let's talk about your new book.
- Yeah, Tasting Rome is available wherever books are sold,
online and in actual physical bookstores since March 29th,
and it's all about the food of Rome
which a lot of people sort of associate with meat and organs
but is actually quite vegetal,
depending on where you look.
- How long have you been in Rome now?
- I moved to Rome 13 years ago,
so I've been there since 2003.
- And where were you before?
- I went there from Connecticut,
so I like to migrate through pizza capitals of the world.
So from New Haven to Rome,
but I'm from New Jersey originally.
- I love that pizza
has been the driving force behind where you live.
So what took you to Rome?
- I love Latin and the history of art,
so I figured I'd do some of those things as a career,
but then my path sort of
strayed away from history towards food and beverage.
- How does one go from studying history to studying food?
What was that transition like?
- The history of art and figured I'd move to Italy
and do my masters in an adapted subject,
but instead I did my masters
in Italian gastronomic culture.
So it's sort of like a cultural history degree
and I study and document what we eat in Rome,
what we drink, and why, and how food systems are changing.
- And when you're in Rome, what do you eat?
- It really depends on the time of day and the budget,
but in the morning, it depends.
Sometimes pizza by the slice,
which is a really classic savory breakfast or pastry.
Always laced with coffee, of course.
In the afternoon I like to do bigger lunches,
so I might go to a trattoria,
and no one really eats
the antipasto, primo, secundo, contordo, dolce
with wine and coffee and digestivo anymore,
it's just too much food,
and it's a bit too expensive for your average Roman budget.
But I'll go out for a pasta and some vegetables,
either raw or really, really aggressively cooked.
- That's great,
because I'm glad to know that I'm not the only person
who lives off pizza in the morning.
(Katie laughs)
Okay, so when you're eating out
and you're at an Italian restaurant,
is there a particular dish
that you kind of judge all Italian restaurants by?
- No, I think because all of these manifestations
of Italian regional cuisine appear,
they're so varied.
I mean, if I go to Boulder
and I'm doing an event at Frasca tomorrow
of course I'll wanna stick to what they do best
which is the food of Friuli sort of in a contemporary way,
whereas last night I was at this really wonderful place,
Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in Memphis,
and they do really, really hardy, rich pasta dishes
with, in one case, fresh peas,
in another, buttermilk pork,
things that you wouldn't necessarily find in another place,
but which were recommended,
and therefore I'm gonna trust the people
that are serving that food every day
to direct me to the most delicious parts of that menu.
- So when you're back in the States
and here on your home turf,
what's the one thing that you really, really crave,
that you miss after living in Rome?
- I need burgers all the time,
and I really, really am deeply obssessed
with the varied cuisines of the American South.
I think often we sort of categorize Southern food
as being a single thing, but it's so, so diverse.
In a similar way that Italian regional cuisine
is so different from the neighboring regional cuisines.
I love barbecue, I love pork things.
- Okay, so someone comes to Rome,
clearly you are the go-to gal for Roman eating.
Where can someone check out your resources?
Where is the best place for them to go
to figure out how to eat in Rome
and absorb all of your expertise?
- I have a website, katieparla.com
where all of my resources are listed.
There are tons and tons of free resources.
Blog posts that tell you where to eat and where to drink,
others that tell you specifically what to order
in certain places.
I also have an app for iOS devices called Katie Parla's Rome
and I've got a book called Walking Rome,
and then the cookbook, of course, Tasting Rome,
references a lot of dining venues.
But I'm also on Twitter and Instagram, @katieparla,
and I really, really am dedicated
to not keeping any secrets.
I don't have a stable of 10 restaurants
that I don't tell anyone about.
I want people to come to Rome and really enjoy what they eat
which is not so easy to do anymore,
and I want the people making great food
to have the attention that they deserve.
- I love that, that's awesome Katie.
Well, you've inspired me, I'm gonna go off
and make these delicious eggplant meatballs.
I think that I will be eating a lot of Italian food
in the near future as a result of this interview.
Thanks for joining me today.
- Thank you.
- Seriously, isn't she great?
Don't you just wanna stock up on Italian food now?
We're gonna do just that.
We're gonna make these delicious eggplant meatballs.
Super-delicious, super-tasty,
if you're vegetarian
this is one of the things I love the most,
because it's really hardy and filling kinda like a meatball.
You can use it in a meatball sub sandwich,
you can throw them on top of some spaghetti.
I think you're really gonna love it,
so let's go make it, shall we?
Okay, I think Katie's really gonna love this recipe.
You're gonna need about a pound of cubed eggplant.
Once again, I'll put a link in the show notes
to the full recipe.
You need some olive oil, some salt, and some pepper.
Let's get started.
Turn this baby on.
Add in a little olive oil.
Add in our eggplant.
Add some salt.
Pepper.
Okay, so this is ready.
Okay, so now we're ready for the next step.
We have the eggplant, we sauteed it, or I sauteed it,
pureed it, added it to the mixing bowl here.
We're gonna add in some minced garlic.
Some basil, some sage, some thyme, some parmesan cheese,
some Italian breadcrumbs, and some beaten eggs.
And just mix this all together.
Okay, there we have our eggplant meatball mixture.
Next you're just gonna form this into balls, like so.
We'll put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake 'em.
Okay, so our meatballs are currently baking in the oven,
and while they do that
I'm just gonna heat up some basic marinara sauce here.
And it looks like they're done, so here's the next step.
There we go, how great do those look?
I think you're gonna be proud, Katie,
I think you're gonna love these.
Just quickly take them, transfer them to the marinara sauce.
Just cover them with the sauce.
Bring the sauce to a simmer,
you can see it's already cooking up there.
Just let that cook for a few seconds
and then I'm just gonna top 'em
with a little bit of parmesan cheese, on each one.
Let it simmer for a few minutes,
and then when it's done just turn off the heat,
take a little minced parsley, sprinkle it on top,
and there ya go.
How do you like them meatballs?
So I stole the meatball.
These are super good.
I highly recommend making this recipe,
I think you'll be surprised at how hardy and filling it is.
If you like this interview and other ones,
be sure to check out my YouTube channel.
I have Ed Begley Jr, one of my favorite environmentalists
and super-amazing vegan.
I have Larry Smith from Six Words
and Orange is the New Black,
plus Bianca Del Rio, from RuPaul's Drag Race.
So stay tuned for lots of fun interviews, like this one,
and enjoy.
Oh my god, it's so good.
So good.
See you guys later.
(lively chanting music)