Bananas is good (seafood charcuterie is, too)

The mayoral multitudes of Flavortown.

Guy Fieri has beautiful handwriting.

Of the few things I gleaned from the Flavortown Mayor during a still-secret project I had the incredible good fortune of working on last month, this is the one that keeps coming back to me.

You see the bleached hair, the big sunglasses, the bling. And then you see Mr. Mayor jot down some improvised lines on a note card, his letters loopy and lithe, and you realize this Camaro-driving, cigar-smoking cheflebrity has multitudes.

“Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” occupied the vast majority of my TiVo hard drive in the late 2000s and early 2010s. If Buddy or I was going to a new city, the first thing I’d do is search Google to see if Guy had been and where he’d eaten.

This led to ostrich burgers at Tioli’s Crazee Burger in San Diego, meat-and-threes at Matthews Cafeteria in Tucker, Georgia, and minuta sandwiches and shrimp empanadas at La Camaronera in Miami’s Little Havana.

Back then, I worshipped Anthony Bourdain. I made recipes from Alton Brown. But I followed (quite literally) Guy Fieri.

When I got to the set of this still-secret project, I wasn’t sure Guy would be hugely involved or even present. Then I made my way to my spot, and there he was. He shook my hand and thanked me for taking part. He had a say in every take and every retake. If a table was too short, Guy raised it. If a napkin was sloppily set, Guy refolded it. If a line was said too quickly, Guy told you to slow down, breathe, say it again.

And if Guy didn’t like an intro, he walked over calmly, borrowed your pen and jotted down a new intro in his beguiling handwriting, while you held your breath and marveled at the off-the-charts bananas-ness of the situation (bananas, as Guy often reminded me on “Triple D,” is good).

You tried not to say the thoughts streaming through your mind, “OMG IT’S GUY MOTHERF*CKING FIERI, RIGHT THERE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU ANNABELLE!!!!” You tried to smile, speak slowly, ee-nuhn-cee-ate your words. You thought about his pretty handwriting again, and all the many other Guy-Fieri multitudes you will never ever know.

And then you thought of your own multitudes. You thought: you know what? you belong here, too! You have cooked food, researched food, eaten food and written about food for more than two decades. You’re Annabelle Motherf*ucking Tometich (OK you didn’t think that part, but the “you” of a few weeks later did, and she’s great).

You took your spot, smiled, laughed, tried to make it feel effortless. And then you went home and crossed your fingers, hoping, hoping, hoping this project will, one day, not be a secret.

Bite of the Week

Seafood charcuterie at Casa Neri in Naples

When was the last time you weren’t bored by a charcuterie board?

2018?

As more and more great meats have made it to our part of the country, even the better charcuterie boards locally have become homogenous. There will be wispy prosciutto, pepper-crusted salami, perhaps some speck or country ham. Every now and then you’ll find a silky pate. Maybe some lardo. And then it’s olives and cornichons and grainy mustard and honey.

I love all these things, and I am hardly immune to their charms. But ordering a charcuterie board has become like ordering wings or guacamole. You do so not to be dazzled or surprised but to be comforted, to know what lies ahead.

And let’s not get into the restaurants hawking “charcuterie” plates filled with Gouda, Gorgonzola and goat cheeses. Again, I adore these foods, but they are fromagerie not charcuterie. Words matter.

When I met my friend and former colleague, Diana Biederman, for lunch at Casa Neri in Naples recently, she told me she was working on a charcuterie roundup. I rolled my eyes. “I know, I know,” she said. “But this place does seafood charcuterie.”

I took back my eye roll and perked right up.

Casa Neri doesn’t call it “seafood charcuterie,” it calls it “salumi di mare,” which sounds even more elegant and refined; the antithesis of boring. The dish consists of slivers of smoked tuna and smoked swordfish, along with meaty hunks of salmon marinated in fruity olive oil and fresh herbs. Its crowning touch is a bowl of “aioli” made from the leftover water in which the restaurant poaches its octopuses. This water is whipped with oil into something wonderfully creamy and subtly briny.

Put it all together with some crusty bread, some lovely olive oil, and you get something wholly surprising — in the most dazzlingly delicious way.