briciole

onion and ricotta tart / torta salata con cipolle e ricotta

onion and ricotta tart in good company (tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO) In her memoir Unearthed: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden1 author Alexandra Risen2 tells two stories of discovery: one pertains the garden around the house into which she moves with her husband and young son and the other pertains her Ukrainian-born parents, who were displaced by WWII and finally migrated to Edmonton, Canada, in 1953. The book is a pleasure to read. Each chapter moves forward both the story of the garden's restoration / development and Risen's personal journey through her earlier life and her... Read more →

broccoli al Parmigiano-Reggiano (à la Angelo Pellegrini)

a simple, flavorful side dish (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The current selection of our Cook the Books Club is The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life by Angelo Pellegrini1 (1948). At the beginning, the author declares what his book is about: I concluded that what America needs is not another cookbook, but a book on bread and wine in relation to life. As Greg Atkinson states in his West Coast Soup: [Pellegrini's] book did not provide any recipes per se. Instead, it provided an alternate perspective on cooking. Such perspective is profoundly influenced by his... Read more →

cocoa tagliatelle with ricotta, raspberry coulis and chocolate sauce / tagliatelle al cacao con ricotta, salsa di lamponi e salsa di cioccolato

pasta for dessert Author Patricia V. Davis is writing a trilogy set on the Queen Mary1, the retired ocean liner moored in the harbor of Long Beach, CA. In anticipation of the first book of The Secret Spice Cafe Trilogy2, titled Cooking for Ghosts and Lost Lovers, Patricia has launched a contest that runs until August 15. The idea is to prepare a personal interpretation of one of two dishes that appear in the book: Cristiano's Spiced Shrimp Rohini or Angela's Raspberry Chocolate Truffle Tarts. I thought about various ways of deconstructing the dessert and created this recipe. If I were... 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 →

cecamariti (handmade pasta shape)

spindle-shaped, delicate cecamariti (literally, husband blinders) No husband was hurt in the making of this pasta. Blinding here is used in the sense of dazzling. Cecare is a dialectal form of the verb accecare. Mariti is the plural of marito, husband. In Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, there is a good amount of one person trying to dazzle another (not necessarily a husband). While reading the book, I remembered seeing an entry for cecamariti 1 in the Encyclopedia of Pasta by Oretta Zanini De Vita: it was time to learn... Read more →

panda (pasta fatta a mano) / panda (handmade pasta shape)

la pastasciutta con quello che c'è The poem by George Bradley La past'asciutta con quello che c'è is included in the anthology Sustenance and Desire: A Food Lover's Anthology of Sensuality and Humor by Bascove, which is the current selection of our Cook the Books Club. (The book included a number of inspiring pieces and I may well go back to another one or two later.) In his poem Bradley captures perfectly my approach to pasta: I sometimes plan ahead, but often I simply create a dressing with what I have available. Dried pasta's how a cook accommodates the facts. No... Read more →

focaccia alla zucca con formaggio / pumpkin and cheese focaccia

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] homemade focaccia and cheese on Hawaiian board on Italian linen (from La FABBRICA del LINO) In the fall, I hoard pumpkins and winter squashes: they keep well and are a source of nourishment and inspiration for months. One specimen, once roasted, yielded enough pulp for several dampers (Australian bread) and focacce (Italian plural of focaccia). I got the general idea from this recipe, then mostly followed my taste and my recent recipe for pear and rosemary focaccia. The pumpkin (zucca) gives the focaccia a nice golden color, the cheese offsets the pumpkin's... Read more →

raita ai cachi / persimmon raita

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] something sweet & something sour come together in the bowl To celebrate the second stop of our World Culinary ABC, India, I prepared a raita using my favorite fall fruit. Raita is a condiment made with yogurt seasoned with herbs and/or spices (erbe aromatiche e/o spezie). Cucumber (cetriolo) is often added, but I've seen also versions with fruit. I think delicately sweet Fuyu persimmons perfectly balance yogurt's sourness and only a light touch of spices is needed to support the marriage. Print-friendly version of briciole's recipe for Persimmon raita Ingredients: 2 ripe... Read more →

semifreddo alla fragola / strawberry parfait

sweet elegance Parfait, which means perfect in French, is used to describe two different types of desserts: a dessert consisting of layers of ice cream, fruit, etc., served in a tall glass a rich cold dessert made with whipped cream, eggs, and often fruit American readers will be more familiar with the first meaning and French readers with the second. When I received the suggestion to create a strawberry parfait, I immediately consulted my favorite resource Frozen Dessert by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir, and under its guidance, I created a dessert in the French tradition. Their basic recipe for parfait,... Read more →

torta salata con carote e fromage blanc / savory carrot and fromage blanc tart

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] brilliant Did you read Carrot Top (Pel di carota) by Jules Renard when you were a child? Published in 1894, the autobiographical story recounts the childhood and the trials of a red-headed child. I don't remember anything about the book, except that it made me want to have red hair (capelli rossi). I was reminded of that episode from my childhood when, in the novel A Share in Death, author Deborah Crombie describes Gemma James as having red hair. This physical trait is one of the reasons I like that character of... Read more →