Contessa of Tequesta: Lenore Pinello features recipes from her family cookbook in her cooking classes at her homey space at In The Kitchen. (Libby Volgyes/The Palm Beach Post)

The kitchen in Lenore Pinello’s shop is so homey it often attracts visitors and hangers on, lured by its scents and happy bustle. It’s an ample kitchen with white wood cabinets, jade marble counters, small ceramic pitchers brimming with bouquets of basil and thick chopping blocks upon which garlic is smashed and herbs minced, their aromas released into the shop.

Pinello, shopkeeper, cooking instructor and catering chef, is the Barefoot Contessa of Tequesta. I concluded this on a recent evening during one of her popular cooking classes. She’s a woman whose warm, broad smile instantly makes you feel welcome. And when she cooks, she radiates all those qualities of people who love to cook – really love to cook. She cooks in that unhurried way of natural cooks, stopping to reminisce about the way her late mother, Anne Roberto, loved to add finely diced tomatoes to her linguine with clams.

“She prepared it in a ‘marechiara,’ which means clear water, with just a hint of tomato,” she mused as she prepared a menu of her Italian-American family’s favorite dishes. The recipe lineup read like a trattoria dream meal: an abundant antipasto, linguine with middleneck clams, thin pork loin cutlets in a Milanese crust and cappuccino gelato with homemade (and still warm) pistachio biscotti.

The recipes are immortalized in Mangia Mama, a self-published family cookbook Pinello wrote in 2006 with her sister, Barbara Roberto De Vita.

“Our family had no recipes written down. We all cooked intuitively. My sister and I decided we had to write these recipes down,” says Pinello, who lost her sister to cancer in 2007.

Clam linguine prepared by Lenore Pinello, owner of In the Kitchen. (Libby Volgyes/The Palm Beach Post)

The book is a popular item at In The Kitchen, the shop Pinello opened four years ago after retiring from a 28-year career in publishing.

“This is her dream come true,” says Pinello’s friend Ilonka Croke, who works in the shop. “She wanted her customers to feel like they were coming into her kitchen. And that’s just how it is.”

THE MENU

Cold Antipasto Plate

Linguine with Clams

Loin of Pork Milanese

with Tricolor Salad and Vine-Ripened Tomatoes

Pistachio Biscotti with

Cappuccino Gelato

THE SHOP: In The Kitchen,

Gallery Square North,

389 Tequesta Drive, Tequesta;

(561) 747-7117; InTheKitchenNow.com

LINGUINE WITH CLAMS

(Serves 8)

1/2 cup olive oil

10 large garlic cloves, smashed

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 large bunch fresh parsley

16 ounces clam juice

2 cups white wine

3 small plum tomatoes, diced

8 dozen clams, little neck, scrubbed

2 pounds linguine, cooked

In a very large stock pot, heat oil and lightly brown garlic. Add red pepper, parsley, clam juice and wine. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add clams and diced tomatoes. Cook until all clams steam open. Serve over linguine.

CLASS NOTES:

• To clean the clams, Pinello soaks them in a large bowl of cornmeal-dusted water. She allows the cornmeal and grit to settle at the bottom and is careful not to agitate the water. She plucks each clam, pulling it gently through the clear top water to rid it of whatever grit may remain.

COLD ANTIPASTO PLATE

(Serves 6)

2 red bell peppers

1 zucchini

Fresh basil, sliced into thin ribbons

Salt and pepper, to taste

6 large leaves of hydroponic “living” lettuce, or Boston lettuce

1 6-ounce jar artichoke hearts, chopped

1/4 red onion, finely chopped

1/2 pound fresh mozzarella balls (boconcini)

1/4 pound salami or sopressata, thin sliced

Assorted olives

Basil olive oil (see class notes, above right)

Balsamic vinegar reduction, to taste (see class notes)

Cross cut 1-inch slices of zucchini. Place on baking pan, brush with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast in a 400º oven for 20 minutes. Let cool.

Roast peppers in oven at 400º until skin blackens and peels. Place in container, cover with plastic wrap and set aside. Once peppers have cooled, peel the skins and remove seeds. Cut each pepper into thirds.

To assemble the antipasto, take a leaf of lettuce and layer it with rolled salami slices, mozzarella balls, chopped artichokes, onions, peppers, olives, herbs and a drizzle of basil olive oil. If you’d like, also drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

CLASS NOTES:

• Pinello likes to add small cubes of slightly sharp, aged Auricchio provolone to this antipasto for extra zing.
• To make basil olive oil, Pinello lightly pulses 1 bunch of basil and about 2 cups olive oil in the food processor with salt to taste. She places the mixture in a saucepan and simmers over low heat to allow the oil to be fully infused with the basil without burning. Then she pours the mixture through a sieve to extract the oil. See steps on Page 7D.
• Pinello makes a balsamic vinegar reduction by simmering the vinegar with a little molasses (to taste). The mixture reduces to a sweet, acidic glaze.

LOIN OF PORK MILANESE WITH TRI-COLORED SALAD AND VINE-RIPENED TOMATOES

(Serves 4)

2 large eggs

1/2 cups Parmesan cheese

2 cups flour, for dredging

2 cups plain dry bread crumbs

2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 pound thinly sliced pork from the loin

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups olive oil

1 lemon, cut into wedges

Preheat oven to 175°. In a shallow dish, beat eggs and season with salt and pepper. Pour flour into another shallow dish. Mix together the bread crumbs, Parmesan, basil and thyme in a third shallow dish. Have ready one large plate. Season the pork with salt and pepper. Working with 1 piece of pork at a time, dip it first in the flour, shaking off excess. Next, place the floured pork into the beaten eggs, coating completely. Place the pork into the bread crumb mixture and gently press crumbs into the pork. Set aside on large plate and continue with remaining pork slices.

In a large skillet with high sides, heat the oil to 375°. Have ready a baking sheet fitted with a rack. Carefully place 2 pieces of breaded pork in the hot oil and fry until golden brown on both sides, about 6 to 8 minutes total. Place cooked pork on rack, season with salt and place in oven to keep warm. Continue with remaining pork. Serve with lemon wedges, tricolor salad, chopped tomatoes and basil.

FOR THE TRICOLOR SALAD:

2 cups arugula, chopped

2 cups radicchio, chopped

2 cups bibb lettuce, torn in bite-size pieces

2 shallot cloves, finely diced and sautéed in olive oil

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

Fresh lemon juice, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

Make a dressing by whisking together shallots, olive oil, vinegar, lemon, salt and pepper. In a salad bowl, toss the arugula, radicchio and bibb lettuce with the dressing. Serve a small mound of salad over the pork cutlets. The lemony dressing will contrast beautifully with the crispy Milanese breading on the pork.

CLASS NOTES:

• Pinello buys the pork loin whole and slices it herself. She places the slices between sheets of plastic wrap and pounds out the cutlets so they are very thin.
• You can make these cutlets hours – or even a day – ahead, drain them on a rack and cover them. Reheat them in the oven.

PISTACHIO BISCOTTI

(Makes about 32 biscotti)

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 stick butter, softened

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 large eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup toasted pistachios, chopped

1 tablespoon cinnamon/sugar mixture for topping

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a large cookie sheet. Mix all ingredients by hand (except cinnamon/sugar mixture) and form dough into 4 loaves (like small baguettes). Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until bottom is lightly toasted. Remove from oven and slice each loaf into 8 slices. Lay slices flat on the cookie sheet. Bake 5 more minutes on each side to toast. Allow cookies to cool fully.

CLASS NOTES:

• These biscotti are delicious with a scoop of cappuccino gelato. Pinello makes her own quick version by adding a pint of softened chocolate sorbet to a quart of softened ice cream. Then she folds in a little Kahlua and mixes until smooth.

AN AROMATIC TOUCH: Lenore Pinello’s homemade basil oil

Step 1: Put one bunch of basil in a food processor.

Step 2: Add salt.

Step 3: Add 2 cups of oil.

Step 4: Pulse the oil and basil.

Step 5: Heat the oil.

Step 6: Run the basil oil through a sieve and remove the basil.