Pesto Gnocchi

Last summer, I went to Chicago for the Pitchfork Music Festival.
After dancing wildly, singing outrageously, and generally
just getting down in 90-degree heat (which is better than the previous year’s 104 degree temperatures), and after eating festival food (funnel cakes, beers, stir fry, ice cream), on the way back to the hotel, my pal and I passed this restaurant—VOLARE.

It was a little corner of Italy or so it seemed, given the circumstances of sweat, beer, and exhaustion. People laughing, clinking glasses, surely they were speaking in foreign languages, definitely they were having the time of their lives, all packed into this corner patio in downtown Chicago. We raced back to the hotel to sponge off some of the sweat and returned, eager to expand our vacation into something much more continental. On the menu were pages and pages of options: vodka sauce, orecchiette, hand-made spinach ravioli, and on and on. Our eyes simultaneously located the “gnocchi” and then scanned the list of possible sauces: pesto indeed. We weren’t hungry at all, so whatever we ordered HAD to be special. Pesto gnocchi: the candy of pastas. The waiter, Nicholas, complete with Italian accent and effervescence, brought crusty bread and very dramatically swirled olive oil with Parmesan cheese on individual plates. We tore into it with our Chianti, of course, and we listened to the couples at surrounding tables ooh and aah over their spaghetti and tortellini and tiramisu. This place was amazing.

The pesto gnocchi arrived and Nicholas took his time, lovingly dividing it between two plates and presenting it to each of us. The first bite: ohmygod. This wasn’t food; this wasn’t even candy. This was the stuff that tears were made of. We savored it, bite by bite, and with each little potato puff, we become more and more engulfed in the haze of this Italian mirage on East Grand Ave. Are those clouds over there? Yes they are! The heavens, are they opening? Uh huh! Am I effervescing? Sure sounds like it! Truly, I had never experienced a taste like this, a texture both chewy yet tender, soft, yet toothsome. And the pesto—the brightest green you’ve ever seen. It’s as if it had never been processed, ground, mixed with heavy substances, sprayed with pesticides: just minuscule bits of basil just aching to be paired with the finest olive oil and pinoli. We loved it; we laughed, we very nearly cried; we were very full.

This, of course, commenced the quest for the perfect pesto gnocchi in St. Louis. We tried it ourselves, bragging of our ability to puff out little bits of equally tender potato at a friend’s dinner party. We failed. That’s another story.

But just a few weeks ago, I had business in Chicago and stayed over with a friend. We walked around downtown, visiting Millennium Park and reveling in the energy of Michigan Ave. We enjoyed a cheese plate at the Ralph Lauren restaurant. Hours later, however, after a failed attempt to find that perfect family-owned Italian bistro that had existed for generations on Rush Street that my friend was certain was the perfect place to complete the evening, I remembered VOLARE. We googled it on his Blackberry, took a taxi, and there it was, the mirage still wavering it its luminescence. No people crowded the patio singing in Italian, but then again, it was 30 degrees and raining. But inside, yes, inside, the same essence seemed to linger in the air, a faint buzz of the continent, albeit dulled, but still present nonetheless.

Of course, pesto gnocchi was in order. I had raved about this stuff to my friend; I practically cried over my cheese plate when remembering the way the puffs melted in my mouth. So we ordered a bottle of Nebbiolo and enjoyed the bread and olive oil mixture that Nicholas (the same waiter!) carefully prepared for us, but I held back. I didn’t want to fill up on bread and become another statistic.

The pesto gnocchi arrived. I slowly, carefully, stuck in my fork. The air seemed to ripple as I moved it towards my mouth. Finally, that flavor, that texture, arrived; it was as I remembered. Angels singing? Check. Rays from heaven? Indeed. It was magic. We toasted, we shared bites with our neighbors at the next table, and merriment ensued. Nicholas came by to check on us and I asked him what the secret was: “I have tried and tried, but I can’t replicate this. It’s amazing. What is the secret?"

As he opened his mouth to answer and his lips began forming the words, my friend knew, he KNEW, exactly what was coming out. A slow motion, “n o o o o” emitted from his lips right as Nicholas said, “it’s the chicken stock.”

The horror. The disappointment. The betrayal!

Needless to say, I was done. I pushed it aside. I ordered dessert. I gave up the dream.