
Ribollita is like a heartier version of minestrone, thickened with bread and redolent with garlic. It is a beautiful soup when it’s fresh from the pot, but it is also perhaps the most noble of leftovers. I like to take a ladleful of soup and reheat it in a hot pan with a little olive oil. When the moisture cooks down, it almost becomes an Italian bean pancake, luscious and just a touch crisp. This is a blatant rip-off, respectfully, of a version I had at Craig Stoll’s Delfina twenty years ago. It was a rainy San Francisco night and we were wedged into one of the tiny tables in the tiny restaurant, the first place that I had ever been to where they told you, upon sitting, what time they needed you to leave in order to accommodate the next reservation. Fortunately this strange instruction was totally compensated by amazingly tender and sensuous food, and we ended up loving every moment of it. We also left on time.







