Today I was frying up our first batch of arancini…“little oranges” you can find on streets in certain parts of Italy. But they’re not produce. Arancini are deep-fried balls of creamy risotto filled with meat, peas, sausage, Mozzarella di Bufalo, or saffron…mmmm…

They are sometimes called Supli di Telefono in Italian, which translates to “the wires of the telephone,” because of all the stringy cheese that dangle when you take a bite.

As I worked over the pot of bubbling oil, in walked Fabrizio Casini, our Florence-born produce buyer – or as I like to think of him, a worker of produce wonders. I love cooking for Fabrizio, especially Italian dishes that remind him of home.

But he said he’d never eaten arancini before. That revelation spurred me to make one of the finest batch I’d ever fried up. One bite and I could see on his face how joyous the flavors were as they oozed onto his tongue.

At that moment, he started talking about his family in Italy, growing up in Florence, palming the produce in his father’s market when he was just a boy. His whole life has been sensory-rich and food-centered.

Having been to Italy many times, I closed my eyes and pictured exactly what he was talking about. The places, the people, the senses…

I’m American-born and bred, but Fabrizio’s memories called up images of home, food, love, the concept of soul-filling and soul-touching. This is why I cook, why I stand in the kitchen and work ingredients into tasty pieces of art. Anyone who spends a life around food is devoted to the idea of conjuring feelings when people sink their teeth into something prepared lovingly and with thought.

When I closed my last restaurant, Emily’s, we hosted farewell dinners. On the last night, when all of the emotions of serving a last supper of sorts swirled around and inside me, I didn’t think I could handle speaking to the group about what they’d meant to me.

I didn’t have to. People rose from their seats, one by one, and told stories of favorite times in my restaurant. They shed tears, giving permission for my own, and recounted stories of first dates, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, births, even deaths. Moments celebrated and marked with food, friends and family.

The love of food can do that to you….share with me…..

– Hiller’s Head Chef Rick Halberg

Countless cultures have a phrase for clinking glasses and toasting to one’s good health. In Hebrew, it’s L’chaim. In French, it’s a votre sante. In Czech, it’s Na zdravi.

It’s not all colloquialism, either. Medical research shows a link between regular, moderate consumption of red wine and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers as well as the slowing of neurological degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

The idea that drinking wine in moderation is good for your health became popularized after the 1991 “French Paradox” broadcast on 60 Minutes. Ever since, wine consumption – red wine in particular – has risen dramatically.

How, exactly, does red wine promote good health? And do different farming or fermentation techniques provide different levels of protection?

Dr. Roger Corder, a cardiovascular expert at the William Harvey Research Institute in London, wrote in “The Red Wine Diet” about oligomeric procyanidins (OPCs) as the source of red wine’s health benefits.

Corder dismisses the idea that resveratrol is the reason for wine’s health-promoting qualities. It does exists in grapes and has been known to discourage cancer – but there isn’t enough reservatrol in wine to make a difference.

All red grapes, particularly those with thick skins and high skin-to-pulp ratios, contain OPCs.

After measuring OPC concentration of several common red wine grapes, Corder identifies Tannat as the grape with the greatest concentration. Tannat’s benefits can be seen in the surprisingly long lifespans of residents of the département of Gers in southwest France, whose local wine appellation is Madiran. Gers contains more than double the national average of men in their nineties.

Madiran’s principal grape is Tannat, a thick-skinned grape native to southwest France that makes wonderful dark, dense, smoky wines renowned for their ageworthiness.

“One small glass of this wine can provide more benefit than two bottles of most Australian wines,” Corder writes.

It’s a good thing Hiller’s sells Madiran!

Alain Brumont Torus, a blend of 50% Tannat, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20% Cabernet Franc, with loads of black fruit flavors and soft, ripe tannins, is on sale now for $11.99.

* http://www.whri.qmul.ac.uk/staff/corder.html
** http://www.whri.qmul.ac.uk/

- Eric Novak, Hiller’s Wine Guru