Marisa’s Piedmontese Apple Timbale with Cinnamon and Cloves

Whenever we are in the Piedmontese town of Alba we try to have at least one meal in the cool, neat dining room of the Porta San Martino restaurant. The unlabored yet carefully prepared food of Porta San Martino has a quality I prize greatly, the perceptible presence of a real person at the stove. It is cooking that expresses the warmth and sincerity of the talented woman who produces it, Marisa Pavesi, a co-owner of the restaurant.

It’s hard to say what makes this a