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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…