J. loves spicy food. He’s constantly looking for the crushed peppers to sprinkle onto whatever he’s eating. As a cook, I take offense when he wants to sprinkle hot peppers onto a dish I’ve created that isn’t supposed to be spicy-especially my tomato sauce. I explain that some dishes are not meant to be [...]
Archive for December, 2008
Southern Comfort-Peperoni
Posted in Italy, travel on December 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »
From The Pages Of-Barefoot Contessa Family Style
Posted in cooking, food, recipe on December 29, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I love Ina Garten. Her cookbooks are full of recipes that are easy to follow and ingredients that are readily available. I like her style and have to admit that I use her recipes mostly for inspiration as I can’t bring myself to use as much butter and cream that many of her recipes call [...]
Swiss Chard Gratin
Posted in cooking, food, recipe on December 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Cream, butter, parmigiano-reggiano. Is there anyone who doesn’t like what these ingredients can do for a dish? Didn’t I just do a gratin with my new friend the cardoon? Well, yes I did, but it is the holiday season and I’m throwing caution to the wind and doing another gratin. We eat a lot of [...]
Buon Natale…
Posted in family, friends on December 25, 2008 | 6 Comments »
May your day be filled with family, friends, delicious food and most of all, peace. Here’s hoping that at some point in the not too distant future J. and I will be celebrating the holidays somewhere in Italy. Have a very Merry Christmas!
The Calitri Connection
Posted in Calitri, Italy, family, travel on December 24, 2008 | 5 Comments »
For such a small town, everything that I write about Calitri seems to generate a lot of interest. Calitri, for those of you who haven’t read all I’ve written (hey, what’s with that?), is a small hill town in the Avellino province of Campania. My grandparents were both from this town and came to the [...]
Cardoons
Posted in cooking, food on December 22, 2008 | 3 Comments »
A friend of mine works at a well known local farm and she’s mentioned cardoons to me before, and although I had heard of them I wasn’t even sure what they looked like. I knew that they were a winter vegetable and for some reason I associated them with Italian cooking. Last week I was [...]
Roman Arch
Posted in Italy, travel on December 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I remember the day this photo was taken like it was yesterday. It was an unseasonably cold, early spring day in Rome. They told us it hadn’t been that cold in April in one hundred years. And it was raining too. The Colosseum was pretty deserted and the mist and grey skies only added to [...]
Roasted Onions Agrodolce
Posted in cooking, food, recipe on December 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I’ve always had a soft spot for onions-cooked ones that is. As a child I would beg my mother for the roasted onion that was in the pan with the Sunday roast. I loved the sweetness of a slow cooked onion and the bits that would carmelize, leaving the outside layer brown and a little [...]
Giving Gifts
Posted in cooking, food, friends on December 17, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I am not a very political person and would never use this blog to talk about my beliefs. I shy away from discussing politics at dinner parties and get togethers. I’ve seen too many friends almost come to blows at social functions during the past election and it certainly didn’t add much to the spirit [...]
The Best Bread Pudding
Posted in cooking, food, recipe on December 16, 2008 | 2 Comments »
If I was blinded folded and served this dessert and asked what it was, I’m not sure that I’d say “bread pudding”. This recipe from Suzanne Goin’s “Sunday Suppers at Lucques” was probably the biggest surprise of everything that I cooked from her book over the weekend. Maybe I haven’t eaten a lot of bread [...]
