briciole

chia pudding with blueberries / budino ai semi di chia con mirtilli

breakfast treat or dessert? The novel Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor is set in Cape Hudson, a coastal town in Virginia. I have never visited that part of the US, so reading descriptions of the landscape was one of the book's attractions. I also liked how the three connected stories unfolded chapter by chapter. In the present, Lucy Kincaid, still grieving for the recent death of her mother, Beth, inherits Winter Cottage and upon arriving discovers that it is actually a mansion. In a relatively recent past, Beth, then a senior in high school, interviews Mrs. Buchanan, the owner and... Read more →

fruit salad with fresh dates / macedonia di frutta con datteri freschi

fruit fresh from the farmers market makes a great post-run salad (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The story told by Daniel Stone in his book The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats1 is fascinating, at times riveting, and I found myself staying up late some evenings to read what would happen next. Before reading the book, I didn't know who David Fairchild was. Also, I didn't know who Frank Meyer was, though I am a great fan of the Meyer lemon, named after him; had never read the full story behind the... Read more →

pan-fried banana with macadamia nuts / banana in padella e noci di macadamia

crunchy, soft and sweet I read the novel Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers1 by Sara Ackerman, the current selection of the Cook the Books club, in just a few days: the story is interesting, at the level both of the individual characters and of the historical background. To the tragedies of World War II and of the internment of Japanese-Americans, the novel, set on the Big Island of Hawaii, adds the personal tragedies of Violet, whose husband disappeared a year before the story starts, and of their daughter, Ella, whose distress hints at a devastating secret she cannot share. The... Read more →

celery omelette / omelette con sedano

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] celery omelette topped with some mashed avocado (tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO) Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson called out at me from a table at a library book sale and just like the country in which is it set, Norway, it grabbed me immediately. The sky, the woods, the water, everything is expansive in Norway, majestic, yet quiet. Petterson's prose is like that. Life's familiar themes—friendship, love, loss, betrayal, coming of age, aging—play a role in the story of Trond Sander, the 67-year-old protagonist. I imagined to be sitting in... Read more →

ćevapčići / ćevapi (sausages / polpette)

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Ćevapi (or ćevapčići) are Balkan caseless sausages (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The 26th country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Croatia (Croazia). It is the last stop of our world tour and I find it nice to end home. My maternal grandmother (nonna materna) was Croatian, from a village near Split (Spalato in Italian). I have been in the country only once, many years ago, before the war, and have many special memories. I am looking forward to visiting it again one day. Those memories include the taste of foods... Read more →

mote pillo: ecuadorian hominy egg scramble / uova strapazzate con mais gigante

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] mote pillo, version with golden corn (Italian linen from La FABBRICA del LINO) The seventeenth country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Ecuador. To celebrate this stop, I chose to make my version of mote pillo (or motepillo), an egg scramble with cooked corn.2 As explained in this excerpt of the chapter on Ecuador in the book Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia, This is not the sweet corn with which North Americans are familiar but instead choclo, a huge-grained, chewy, and very flavorsome variety that is used extensively in soups and... Read more →

blueberry varenyky / varenyky con ripieno di mirtilli

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] making blueberry varenyky In our World Culinary ABC1 we have arrived in Ukraine (Ucraina), represented by the port city of Odessa. By a series of coincidences, my husband and I recently hiked to, and spent a night at, Odessa Lake2 in Rocky Mountain National Park3. So, while I have no personal images of Odessa to share, I can show you how beautiful Odessa Lake is. arriving at Odessa Lake Odessa Lake and Notchtop Mountain in the evening To celebrate our virtual visit to Ukraine, I chose to make my version of blueberry... Read more →

panzanella (bread and tomato)

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] a bright plate Panzanella is a way of dressing up bread that is no longer fresh (pane raffermo). There are many variations of this traditional dish, which you can find (and eat) throughout central Italy, but I like my father's recipe the best. During my childhood, every August my family would spend three weeks in Poggio Catino, my father's native village, located in the historic region of Sabina, north of Rome1. In the morning, my father and I would often go for a walk in the woods of the Monti Sabini above... Read more →

Minneapolis and a recipe for aebleskiver / Minneapolis e una ricetta per aebleskiver

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] aebleskiver, why haven't I met you before? The thirteenth stop of our World Culinary ABC1 , which I am hosting, is the United States (Stati Uniti), my adoptive country. The city chosen to represent the US is Minneapolis, the largest city of the state of Minnesota.2 Together with the state capital, Saint Paul, Minneapolis forms the metropolitan area called the Twin Cities. google map of Minneapolis I have been to Minneapolis a few times, as my husband has friends there (all my visits occurred in the summer: winter in the Twin Cities... Read more →

scone alle fragole / strawberry scones

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] not your typical strawberry scones In The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, the author tells the story of how she built a new life for herself in a lakeside cabin in Michigan after back-to-back divorce and lay-off. Following the seasons of one year, she describes her food sources, meal plans and preservation efforts, and provides some recipes. I already do a fair amount of food preservation in the form of freezing and fruit preserves. I also bake bread, make cheese, kefir and broth.... Read more →