briciole

sweet pepper, onion and zucchini tart / torta salata con peperoni dolci, cipolle e zucchine

a favorite dinner fare (linen by La FABBRICA del LINO) At a conference this past February I met author Anne Perry and a few days later to I found myself in a bookstore that had a copy of The Cater Street Hangman, first book of the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series1. The coincidence was too tempting to resist. I liked the book so much that I read the following three novels in the series: Callander Square, Paragon Walk and Resurrection Row. Besides being good mysteries, the novels attract me because of their setting: Victorian England. They look at the life of... Read more →

sourdough whole-wheat cheese crackers / cracker integrali al formaggio

one by one, they will soon be all gone (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The August-September selection of the Cook the Books club is the novel Sourdough by Robin Sloan1. Intriguing title, I thought immediately, but did not know what to expect: I rarely read reviews before I read a book (sometimes do so after turning over the last page2). Being familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area contributed to the story's appeal, but even if you don't know the island of Alameda or the San Francisco Ferry Building, you will enjoy the twists and turns of Lois Clary's adventures... Read more →

stuffed zucchini / zucchine ripiene

a delicious pair on a plate (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) The June-July selection of the Cook the Books club was Garlic and Sapphires, The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl1. The author is well known for her sparkling prose and engaging way of talking about food—the latter skill honed during her career as food critic, which is the subject of this memoir. Readers interested in restaurants in NYC and the life of a restaurant reviewer will find the book entertaining. To be honest, I am neither. I think that her first memoir, Tender at the... Read more →

pecan parcels (apricots stuffed with pecans and pancetta) / albicocche ripiene con noci pecan e pancetta

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] sweet, salty, soft, crunchy: the best of all worlds It is stone fruit season! There are plums (prugne) and apricots (albicocche) and then plumcots, pluots and apriums. More than a century ago, horticulturalist Luther Burbank bred the plumcot with a 50-50 plum and apricot split. However, it was Floyd Zaiger who revolutionized the fruit and made it widely available. Zaiger bred the plumcot with a plum to create the pluot — three-fifths plum and two-fifths apricot — and coined the trademarked moniker. While the plumcot is a simple plum and apricot cross,... Read more →

chocolate and walnut whole-wheat dinner rolls / panini integrali al cioccolato e noci

everything is better with chocolate, including bread (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) On a recent visit to a local bookstore, I purchased Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout1. A friend had told me the movie was really good, but I rarely watch TV, so the recommendation made me buy the book. I loved every page of it. The writing is superb and the characters of the stories are drawn with delicacy, precision and empathy. I also like the author's choice in writing a collection of short stories, rather than a novel. In some of them Olive is the protagonist, in others... Read more →

sugar snap peas with pancetta and pine nuts / piselli mangiatutto con pancetta e pinoli

sugar snap peas with pancetta and pine nuts (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) Opening a book and starting to read it is one the sweetest of life pleasures. Planning and executing a recipe is another. When I am invited to do both, I cannot refuse. Jenna Blum's The Lost Family1,2,3 is a novel rich in strong characters. Not only the main ones, Peter, June and their daughter Elsbeth, but also those in their lives, from Masha, the wife Peter lost, to Ruth and Sol, the cousins who took in Peter when he emigrated to the US, to Gregg, June's first... Read more →

mild chili oil / olio al pepe di Sichuan

pretty in red (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) While I was reading the current selection of the Cook the Books club, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop1 we spent a couple of days in Ashland, OR, to watch three plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. One of my stops during our visit was The Spice and Tea Exchange2, a favorite store, where I like to explore shelves of spices (spezie), custom blends, and teas. In the pepper section, a glass jar labeled Szechuan Pepper Berry introduced me to the spice of... Read more →

chocolate love: mole poblano

a vegan version of mole poblano that goes with vegetables (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) In September 2014, I attended LongHouse, where I met Carlos Gaytan, chef of the restaurant Mexique in Chicago1. He brought his mole sauce to the event and I fell in love with something I had not tasted before. Since then, I have kept alive a desire to make a version of mole poblano and finally the current selection of the Cook the Books club, The Discovery of Chocolate by James Runcie2 gave me the necessary nudge. In this historical novel, young Diego travels to the... Read more →

"empty the crisper" side dish / contorno "svuota frigorifero"

there is no secret, though there is a sauce (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) I enjoyed reading the novel Among the Lesser Gods by Margo Catts1 more than I expected. I read Deb of Kahakai Kitchen's review2 tried my luck at her giveaway and won a copy. Once I started reading the book, it was hard to put it down: I wanted to know whether Elena would sort out her life, how the children she takes care of would adjust to their new life, whether the truth of Elena's aunt's disappearance decades earlier would eventually emerge. Everything in the book... Read more →

braised celery and leeks / sedano e porri stufati

a plateful of flavor (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The historical novel Feast of Sorrow by Crystal King, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, was quite an interesting read. While the narrator is a slave named Thrasius, the protagonist is his owner, Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived in the 1st century during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius and became famous for his love of food and his sumptuous dinners. Rich and ambitious, he is driven by the desire to become culinary advisor to the emperor. The pact with the devil (Sejanus) he makes exacts a high... Read more →