briciole

Purgatory bean salad with tahini sauce and Asian pear / insalata di fagioli del Purgatorio con tahina e pera asiatica

Flavors from around the world Federico García Lorca1 is one of my favorite poets, so when I came across a novel whose protagonist's name was Lorca, I had to read it: I am glad I followed my impulse. Jessica Soffer's Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots2 is the current selection of our Cook the Books Club. The book brings together a group of people who all carry a heavy burden of pain: the pain of exile from homeland and from motherhood, the pain of an aloof mother and an absent father, the pain of loneliness, abandonment, inadequacy. Food is one way through... Read more →

rhubarb and berbere cranberry beans / borlotti con rabarbaro e berbere

garden flavors (tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO) Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather start a catering company in Dublin, Ireland, and in so doing bring together the large cast of characters in Maeve Binchy's novel Scarlet Feather, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club. Such cast includes the protagonists' families, spouse and spouse's family (for Cathy), girlfriend (for Tom), friends, clients and more. While some characters have more elements on the negative plate of the scale than on the positive, all of them have something on both, and the story for me is about how even well-intentioned, generous, good... Read more →

fagioli dall'occhio al berberé / Ethiopian-style black-eyed peas

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] a pretty combination The tenth stop of our World Culinary ABC1 is Antarctica (Antartide). Hostess Brii obtained from McMurdo Station2 the menu for one week to give us a sense of what the researchers who spend the fall and winter in Antarctica eat. Spicy Ethiopian Red Lentil Stew caught my attention because I like it and has been on my to-make list for a while. Getting berberé, the traditional Ethiopian spice blend3 to make the dish, took longer than expected and then I realized that, contrary to my belief, I didn't have... Read more →

fagiolina del Lago Trasimeno ai porri / cowpea of Lake Trasimeno with leeks

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] fagiolina comes in two varieties: white and "rainbow" (the beautiful bicolor linen tablecloth is from La FABBRICA del LINO) When I visit Perugia, the city in central Italy where I was born and grew up, I always bring back some fagiolina del Lago Trasimeno a local variety of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata)1. Besides being pretty, fagiolina is a pleasure to eat: tender, buttery and flavorful. Good things come in small packages. I buy fagiolina at the Antica Spezieria e Drogheria Eredi Bavicchi2 one of my favorite stores in the world. The owner is... Read more →

zuppa di ceci neri / black chickpea soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] a simply good soup (linen napkin from La FABBRICA del LINO) Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer1 is the protagonist of Cheap Novelties, The Pleasures of Urban Decay2 by Ben Katchor. The collection of black and white strips reads like a collection of short-short stories simple on the surface, yet haunting like the dripping of a faucet that prevents us from falling asleep. Julius is out all day in a solidly urban landscape of tall buildings grouped into blocks drawn up by roads. Instead of the sun, a myriad light bulbs (lampadine) of... Read more →

crema di fagioli / refried beans

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] painted pony beans (table runners from La FABBRICA del LINO) The seventh stop of our World Culinary ABC1 is Mexico. To celebrate our virtual visit I made a personal version of frijoles refritos. [Note that the prefix re- in this case means "very" or "well".] I had some pinto beans and that's the variety I used initially for the recipe. According to wikipedia2 "In northern Mexico and in American Tex-Mex cuisine, refried beans are usually prepared with pinto beans, but many other varieties of bean are used in other parts of Mexico,... Read more →

crema (da spalmare) di fagioli e zucca / bean and winter squash spread

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] an appealing and appetizing spread on placemat from La FABBRICA del LINO A roasted winter squash is a gift that keeps giving. In other words, roast once, use in many ways. One day that I had a small amount leftover and I had just cooked some beans, I tried to combine the two and the result is a nice spread that, as I described in my previous post, I even used to dress pasta. my idea of a candy store (negozio di caramelle) I have made this spread with various squashes (like... Read more →

zuppa di lenticchie nere e verdure / black beluga lentil and vegetable soup

a few red beets give the soup its vibrant color In her book Funny in Pharsi, the current Cook the Books club's selection, author Firoozeh Dumas tells stories about her experience as an Iranian expatriate in Southern California. Some of the stories are funny, others less so, but the author tells them all with irony, so the reader is made to smile and at times laugh. Irony, however, is also a device behind which a writer can hide and this is what happens in this book. Being an expatriate myself, I am interested in reading other people's experience. The book reminded... Read more →

gnocchetti alla farina di ceci con barbabietole rosse / chickpea flour gnocchetti with red beets

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] half semolina and half chickpea flour You have seen my latest gnocchetti in black and white and you'll learn the details. Traditional gnocchetti sardi (Sardinian gnocchi) are made with semolina flour. After making them, I came up with a version using half all-purpose and half chestnut flour. Here, I am sharing a version that uses half semolina and half chickpea flour (a.k.a., garbanzo bean flour, besan). Chickpea flour is rich in proteins and naturally gluten-free. regular (with saffron) Chickpea flour has a distinct flavor, which gets toned down in the marriage with... Read more →

curry di fagioli con pomodoro e anacardi / beans in cashew and tomato curry

before the final stirring What does life look like in a country recovering from genocide? The novel Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, which is the current Cook the Books selection, offers a fictionalized glimpse of life in Rwanda after the events of 1994. The protagonist, Angel Tungaraza, has moved from Tanzania with her husband, Pius, who works at the local university, and their five orphan grandchildren. The family lives in an apartment complex with other foreigners, who have moved to Rwanda to help with reconstruction after the genocide. Angel's home-based business baking and decorating cakes (torte) puts her in... Read more →