There are a few dishes that ever fail to save the day. The first one is “Spaghetti Oil & Garlic, ” from there it can be upgraded to “spaghetti oil & garlic AND peperoncino” the spicy one 🌶, best if fresh; then “spaghetti with the above + anchovies.” Eventually, add capers, and freshhly chopped parsley […]
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What can we do with all those zucchini now that the season of plenty is coming up? A Tart We can’t feed the ducks with the overproduction, therefore I always look for new ways to cook them, and if I do not find a new one, then I adapt liberally from others, substituting one ingredient […]
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Another Easter in Lockdown Per se it is not that bad, it is just Easter but less pretentious. More intimate, no travel to fashionable places, nothing much. It is even less stressful. I recall I thought the same about Christmas, and NY Eve. Some traditions can be maintained nevertheless, like having the typical “Colomba Pasquale” […]
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Italy and the EU is struggling with high numbers of infected people, hospital emergency rooms are full, and the vaccine is not coming in fast enough.We are living last year situation all over again, and we are expecting even more restricted rules for the upcoming Easter weekend. Roaming the Empty Streets We still can go […]
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Cheeses Made in Italy It was not easy at all to write about cheese. There are so many that i was at loss. I didn’t know if I should list them alphabetically, by region, by type, by the level of likability, or popularity. There are about 487 varieties of cheeses in Italy (but Wikipedia lists […]
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Giovanni Rana is the grandfather that all marketing students would like, the real savvy of the “large-scale retail trade” hype. Here is his new product Sweet chocolate ravioli by Giovanni Rana, a limited edition from the famous supermarket pasta factory. The product that was first launched in 2009 (with little success), but now in the […]
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Because of Social Media there are soo many recipes out there, and with COVID Restrictions, even more surfaced. I always thought that I do not want to compete with all that, instead to talk about a more general indication on the food habits in Italy, and culinary products. I also thought that all those were […]
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With the closure of regular restaurants because of COVID there is a flourishing of Take-Out, Home-Delivery and the like. What was once a novelty and an extravagant way of life for most Italians, now it is a de facto thing! The choices are plentiful! Pizza, which it was always a Take-Out thing, but now one can […]
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There is more than Christmas Day in Italy. We also have St. Stephen Day, a full-fledged holiday. In pre-COVID days it would be still a day with family, maybe the less immediate family. A good day, less stressful. Although this COVID year (after all our past complaining about a too much commercialized Christmas), with the […]
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Last week while having an aperitif with a friend, I was served a small bruschetta with prosciutto, but I was puzzled by the bread; it was golden yellow and delicious. I had to know more about it. The server told me that it was bread with curcumin. He said that the bread not only tastes […]
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For all those “I Don’t know what to cook” moments… I think we all have those moments, maybe even the great chefs have them. Usually the spaghetti garlic, oil, and hot pepper solve a hot meal adequately. Eventually we can solve it with the “let’s get a pizza“ moment. But aside from those solutions, when […]
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And Other Complications From now to the 21st we are granted a little more freedom. Restaurants and caffees are open; just until 6:30 pm, but that is good enough. Stores are also open. The season of shopping is now, and that is why there are these somewhat looser rules now. Unfortunately the number of contagions […]
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