Cook
Cooking at Home
Cooking Simply: The Italian Way! Goodie Basket Giveaway
Click here for the post with all the details for our Goodie Giveaway.
Read More
12 Cookbooks Good Enough to Give
‘Tis that gift giving season again, and nothing warms a cooking person’s heart like a new cookbook. Here is my completely subjective list, in no particular order, but arranged by delicately nuanced categories, of favorite books to give to deserving friends.
Read More
Making Food Videos: All Bright Lights & Glamour
Feeling restless at 4:00 am, I get out of bed and step on… a huge pile of grit. What on earth…it’s everywhere! It feels like kitty litter embedded on the soles of my feet…only…wait a minute! It’s cous cous! The floor is literally covered in cous cous. What??
Read More
Fish, Flowers & the Art of Frying
Fried fish tastes goooood.
Fried flowers taste goooood.
I know fried food has a bad rap, but it tastes so good. Would it be alright in moderation? Would it be alright when there are sparkling fresh little tiny fishes in the market and the zucchini flowers are prepubescently perfect?
When to Eat A Caprese Salad
When the tomatoes are ripe on the vine and you bring them home still warm from the sun.
When the buffala mozzarella is so fresh that each slice of the cheese releases a creamy surge of goodness.
Read More
Crackling Prosciutto Wrapped Potatoes: Perfect for a Party
“What can I bring?”
It is the holiday season after all! As the words are coming out of your mouth, your brain is flipping thorough your stockpile of recipes. Crackling Prosciutto Wrapped Roasted Potatoes to the rescue. Tasty, simple to make, pretty and transportable. What more could you ask for?
Let the Season Begin! Oven Roasted Tomato & Onion Pasta
My man knows the way to my heart.
Yesterday I came home to the peace and quiet of Montone, and there were stunning roses in the living room and a full sideboard of vegetables in the kitchen. I haven’t had time to go to the grocery store yet, so it meant putting something together with what was on hand. The first decent tomatoes of the season were sitting there, just begging to be roasted, along side some of those onions, so it was pasta with roasted vegetables for lunch.
Love in the Spring: Asparagus 4-Ways
You have to like asparagus if you are in Italy in the spring. There is no escaping the spears, they are in every mercato, every supermarket, on every menu. Occasionally you’ll spot an exotic white or purple asparagus display, but for every day eating, it’s green asparagus.
In our mercato, you get a tightly rubber banded “mazze” or bundle of asparagus and it has spears from slender and tender to stocky and woody. Which means you can’t cook them all at once, on the same night, in the same dish, because each spear of asparagus deserves to be treated according to its girth.
Addicted to Love & Eggplant
TeenBrideWe have a plant in our orto that I call our “Teen Bride”. She keeps having babies, is totally unsupported, and when you pluck a fruit from her, she shudders as if to say, “Thank you!”. Then she stands a little straighter, brazenly sprouting even more fruit.
I like eggplant, don’t get me wrong. I just didn’t LOVE eggplant, until recently. Now, we’re addicted. But this eggplant dip is the cause of our addiction.
Read More
Kitchen Garden Lunch: Spaghetti Ortolana
Is it any wonder, when the world feels baked to a crisp, why three showers a day might not be enough, and the urge to howl at the full moon seems like a perfectly good idea, that a walk to our garden, and a chat with friends, seems like a mini-vacation after the torrid heat we’ve endured?
We’ve reached the harvesting point where lunch can be made by just visiting the orto, our kitchen garden. It’s so deliciously easy now, to walk over to the garden, with no plan in mind, just a “let’s see what needs to be eaten” attitude.
Archive Post
