Tomatoes, leftover bread and a cookbook giveaway!
Except when I’ve been on duty for cooking classes, I’ve been taking it very easy in the kitchen lately. In great part, it’s due to the heat. Why cook when you can have tasty, nutritious,…
Cucina Conversations: Nonna Maria’s stuffed eggplants
My beloved Nonna Maria had a stroke almost two years ago. She never recovered. I was on holiday with TP and TT, in the Majella National Park of Abruzzo, when I got the news. My…
Nocino: an Italian midsummer walnut liqueur
Patron saints. Every Italian town has one and a local public holiday for celebrating their heavenly protector to boot. Turin, my adopted city of over ten years, is no exception. Here, San Giovanni Battista or…
Robinia flower fritters: a transient spring time treat
Another less-than-wanted obligation has suddenly piled up on my to do list. But I’m still going to go ahead with putting some thoughts about something dear to my heart anyway, as I had planned for…
Cucina conversations: valerian salad with hard-boiled eggs, anchovies and spring onions
The rosettes of dark green leaves I was admiring at the Porta Palazzo farmer’s market was valerian salad. Not that I knew that at the time, during my first few months of perusing the stands…
Cucina conversations: salame del papa
I must admit, I had a difficult time choosing which Italian Easter dish I wanted to write about for this edition of Cucina Conversations. Initially, I thought about preparing one of the ricotta-based specialties typical…
False friends, the trouble with translating and two cicoria recipes
Beware of false friends. And no, I don’t mean the kind that are nice to your face but are mean behind your back. Though, you should probably watch out for those too. What I mean…
Postcards and scones from Australia
Since moving to Italy, the month of January has always been a letdown. It’s cold. It gets dark early. And, most of all, it’s lonely, especially after all the Christmas and New Year-related festivities and…
Cucina Conversations: Bugie, Revisited…
Sometimes I question the worth of my food-blogging past-time. It takes up a lot of what little free time I have between writing, recipe testing and photographing, not to mention broadcasting what I’ve been up…