Erica De Mane

Recipe below, incorporated in text: Warm Asparagus Salad with Dandelions and a Taggiasca Olive Vinaigrette

Local New York State asparagus doesn’t show up here until late April, early May. By that time I’m usually so desperate for spring, I’ve jumped the gun an eaten enough California asparagus to be thoroughly sick of my own stinking pee. I’m getting to that point now, but nonetheless I’d like to share with you an asparagus preparation I’ve made several times recently and liked a lot. It involves good olives and olive oil, not much of a surprise coming from me, but if you’re more accustomed to a gentle approach with spring asparagus (butter, tarragon, a squeeze of lemon), this could be a nice change. I hope you’ll consider my mix of thyme, anchovies, Taggiasca olives, strong olive oil, and bitter dandelion.

Taggiasca olives come from Liguria. I love just about everything about Ligurian food, with all its herbs and wild greens, but I especially love these olives, a relative to the just-across-the-border Niçoise ones. They’re small and dense and sweet, with low acidity. They taste like fruit. Their colors vary from greenish brown to yellowish brown, to deep red, and to deep reddish brown. So beautiful.

Taggiasca olives are not always easy to find, even in New York. I often mail order them from Gustiamo. They’re worth seeking out, but you can make this with any darkish olives you like. My feeling is that if you like an olive, you’ll like the vinaigrette it makes.

The cultivated dandelions you buy at a grocery store or even at your farmer’s market have a different taste and look from the wild stuff you pick off your local golf course. They don’t have that sweet vegetable smell and taste. They’re more like ramped-up escarole. The cultivated stuff is grown for its leaves, which become dark green and about twice as long as wild ones. All the energy goes into leaf growth, not into the roots, which stay kind of shrunken. When I gather wild dandelion I pull up some by the roots. I like to sauté the roots along with the leaves for a bitter crunch, and for a nice bed for something like grilled swordfish. As you can see in my photo, I used cultivated dandelion here. The leaves were huge, so huge they had outgrown their denti. Often when they’re this big, I braise them with beans, some pancetta, and maybe rosemary. But soon I’ll have the real stuff shooting up all over my yard. That will make the best salad.

If you’d like to make a warm asparagus salad for two with dandelions and a Taggiasca olive vinaigrette, first roughly chop up a small, fresh garlic clove and two or three oil-packed anchovies (I used Ortiz brand). Stick them and a dozen or so pitted olives into a food processor. Add about a teaspoon of sherry wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons of good olive oil (I used Olio Verde, from Sicily), a pinch of salt, a few grinds of black pepper, and the leaves from several large thyme sprigs (lemon thyme is especially nice here; I didn’t have any, but if you can find some, give it a try). Pulse a few times, just enough to break the olives up into bits, but don’t let it turn into a purée. The vinaigrette should be pourable but have texture and lots of body, like a loose tapenade.

Choose thick green asparagus stalks, about three or four for each plate. Cut off the tough ends. When you’re ready to serve the salad, set up a pot of boiling water, add a little salt, and blanch the asparagus until tender. Drain and lay it out on paper towels.

Divide the dandelion leaves up onto two plates, with their tips pointing outward in a circle.  Place the asparagus on top. Drizzle a generous amount of the olive vinaigrette down the middle of the asparagus. Garnish with thyme sprigs, if you like. Serve warm.

And if you’re down in the West Village, you’ll want to check a new Italian place, part mini-Eataly type market, part restaurant, open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, from the same Italian guys who own Alice, around the corner, a restaurant with one of the best fritto mistos of fish I’ve had in the city, and Osteria 57, another local place with good Italian food. This team recently took over the big Sammy’s Noodle Shop space that went dark during Covid, renaming it Travelers, Poets & Friends, and turned it sophisticated Italian. I do have to say I think the name is terrible, both pretentious and sort of stupid. It reminds me of the old kids’ vomitorium on lower Seventh Avenue called Jekyll & Hyde, a Club for Explorers and Mad Scientists. Maybe the new place’s name would sound less dopey in Italian—Viaggiatori, Poeti e Amici? It doesn’t sound like a place that sells food in any language. One of the owners told me he thought it felt literary.

The name might be dumb, but the food is very good. I’m not going to give you a full-on review, since they just opened and I’d like them to settle in, but I will point out some highlights, as I see them, and some facts. For instance, if you’re looking to buy a quarter pound of thin-sliced prosciutto di San Danieli, you won’t find it here. The market and restaurant offer no meat whatever. I was told it’s a sustainability choice by the owners. That’s fine with me. They serve fish and sell anchovies.

A few Hispanic ladies fashion freshly made pasta out in the open. So far I’ve tried their busiate, which they call fusilli but to me is the same as the Sicilian pasta that’s hand-coiled around a knitting needle. I bought fresh paccheri, the Neapolitan oversized rigatoni. I also tried their saffron bucatini. All were excellent. These and other fresh pastas, such as ravioli cacia e pepe, show up on the dinner menu too.  

They’ve got all sorts of thick-slab pizza, such as an escarole, anchovy, and stracciatella square that I recently ordered as I sat at the bar with a glass of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi. There’s booze, too, so you can have a negroni if you like. You can also sit down for a real dinner, and so far the menu looks wonderful. A few of the dishes that stand out for me are salt cod fritters (which I tried for lunch), grilled octopus with braised escarole and ricotta, mafalde with sea urchin and breadcrumbs, lasagna with wild mushrooms and walnuts, Sicilian red shrimp, and oysters with Calabrian chili. There’s a whole roasted dorade. I always love a whole fish.  

And they have a piano. Not sure what they’re planning to do with it, but in any case if you’re in the neighborhood the place is definitely worth a visit. It could even turn into a hangout for me, if it doesn’t get too packed. Oh, and they also have a gelateria, which must be good since there’s often a line there.

Travelers, Poets & Friends is at 461 Sixth Avenue, at 11th Street, (212) 420-0057.

For now they’re closed Mondays. I don’t know if that is for good or just until they get settled in. Maybe call first and ask.