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Vacation from cooking: Pinna, Italian traiteur
By Ann | August 25, 2009
You know I love cooking, and I especially love cooking in Provence. For the past few summers, our vacation has consisted of renting a house in the hill village of Bonnieux, in the Luberon region of Provence. There’s a big kitchen, which means I can chop, stir, season, and concoct to my heart’s content. But just because I love experimenting with all that luscious, local produce doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a cooking vacation every once in a while. Enter: Pinna, traiteur Italien, located just outside of Apt.
Traiteur translates loosely as “take-out” and indeed Pinna is a haven for the lazy gourmand. Run by a father-daughter team who hail from Liguria but have settled in the Luberon, the shop sells dried pasta, fresh lasagna, jars of preserved fruit, canned sauces, charcuterie, sundried tomatoes (photo above) and more — all grown, cooked and/or cured on site by the father.
Indeed, a trip to Pinna is a bit like visiting your Italian grandma’s pantry — if you are lucky enough to have an Italian granny, that is. Jars of compote, preserved cherries, and tomato sauce neatly line the shelves, each labelled in an old-fashioned hand.
I wish I knew the secret to the canned sauce aux cêpes — the mushroom flavor was so profoundly rich and deep, hearty. I had to settle for buying extra cans to bring back to Paris with me.
These tomatoes will eventually turn into some of the most delicious, full-flavored, delicately herbed, jarred tomato sauce — called “Napolitaine” — known to man.
Pinna is located outside the Vaucluse town of Apt, up a narrow, winding (frankly, scary) road. The owners live and work on the site — the shop is located in an annex that might have been a garage — and they have enough land to grow tomatoes and raise a few pigs, which they make into delicious, supple, raw-cured ham. They also sell fresh lasagne (lots of varieties from mushroom, to seafood, to tomato sauce with ground lamb), ravioli (made to order — call ahead), and house-made dried pasta (an ideal foil for their delectable sauces) — in other words, a plethora of perfect ready-made meals for the vacationing cook!
Maison Pinna
Route de Buoux, Chemin de St-Massian
84400 Apt
tel: 04 90 74 39 60
Topics: Sur ma table |
8 Responses to “Vacation from cooking: Pinna, Italian traiteur”
Comments
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August 25th, 2009 at 5:11 am
I never had an Italian grandma and hope never to have one like the ones I knew growing up in Fresno! Those always wore black (widowed) and were fierce. But, boy could they cook! I still have fond food memories of Mrs Greco’s spaghetti sauce with hunks of Italian sausage and chicken and veal swimming in tomato and red wine meat sauce which simmered all morning starting at dawn.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I made my own oven dried tomatoes last summer, which were good, but not nearly as authentic and lovely as the photo above. Wow! Beautiful scenery, beautiful food.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Chris actually had an Italian Great Grandmother–Grammy Molly’s spaghetti sauce endures (with ground fennel seed), her green peppers (sauteed in a little butter)served warm on bread and her special version of pizza bread (made with ricotta, pork sausage and fennel seed) are wonderful. Her family was from Northern Italy–We’ll try to replicate her pizza bread sometime.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:51 am
Pinna comes spiced with controversy, too. The municipality of Apt will not let the father sell the original store, located downtown, to a toy seller; apparently there are zoning rules dictating that only another food-oriented business can inhabit the site. Angry, the father has taken the city to court — and even conducted a hunger strike for a week in 2007! The court should render a decision September 14; I’ll be checking La Provence (the local paper) for news!
August 26th, 2009 at 4:52 am
PS — I do love Grammy Molly’s sauce!
August 29th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Dad — Love your descriptions of the Fresno Italian granny mafia! If only you were interested in cooking back then… the sauce sounds wonderful!
Alison — Oven-dried tomatoes sound VERY impressive. How did you cook with them? I like sundried tomatoes, but am always a little bit stumped on how to use them.
Janet — Grammy Molly’s pizza bread sounds delicious. Do you have a recipe?
Chris — No wonder Pinna’s owner (Monsieur Pinna?) looked so thin!
December 21st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I would like to say a very important thing: Mr. Pinna doesn’t come from Liguria, but he comes from the north of Sardinia. Everything in the shop is delicius and above all during the winther time, he does hand-made “Panettone”, they are amazing!
June 11th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
je suis la fille pinna qui travaille avec mon pere,je viens de decouvrir les beaux compliments que l’on nous a faits a moi et mon pere sur notre travail,je remercie les personnes qui ont pris de sibelles photos de notre travail,juste quelques rectifications: mon pere n’a pas fait une grève de lafaim contre la mairie D’apt mais pour protester contre notre proprietaire des murs de notre commerce qui nous empechait de vendre,malgres de nombreux acheteurs.La ville nous a soutenu et la population aussi ,plus de 3000 signatures de petitions.A ce jour,le 12 juin 2010 la proprietaire a perdu son 3 eme proces et nous avons obtenu gains de cause.Je confirme que nous sommes originaires de la Sardaigne et mon pere installe en france depuis 1967.L’amour de notre metier ,et la reconnaissance de notre clientèle, nous pousse toujours a travaille mieux avec des produits toujours fabriques dans les regles de la simplicite et beaucoup de passion.Merci a Ann Mah.,et a cet été peut ètre.