briciole

white tepary beans / fagioli tepary bianchi

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] tepary beans and winter vegetables (red dish & vase by @fem_pottery, placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) I grew up in a region of Italy, Umbria, famous for legumes (fagiolina del Trasimeno, lenticchia di Castelluccio and roveja, to name just a few) and I like all legumes, so it is not surprising that during a visit to Tucson, AZ, I purchased some locally grown white tepary beans. Here are some notes on this special bean (Phaseolus acutifolius): The tepary bean has been handed down for countless generations amongst my Akimel O’Odham (River People, Pima) and... Read more →

Turkish-style celeriac (celery root) / sedano rapa stile turco

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] a comforting dish with winter vegetables (dish by @fem_pottery, placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Cold weather makes me crave comforting dishes, with a solid flavor. This is my rendition of the Turkish dish Zeytinyağlı Kereviz, where kereviz means celeriac (also called celery root) and zeytinyağlı describes the cooking method, in olive oil. Celeriac is a beautiful root vegetable with a mild celery flavor and a sweet note when cooked. It is hard to miss when displayed at the farmers' market. (The photo above is from a few years ago.) As I was experimenting with... Read more →

farrecchiata: polenta di roveja

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] a personal take on a traditional Umbrian dish (dish by @fem_pottery, placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Our current Cook the Books Club selection is The City Baker's Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller1. The novel tells the story of Olivia Rawlings, pastry chef in an exclusive club in Boston, who, after losing her job, takes refuge in the town of Guthrie, Vermont. The connection to Guthrie is her friend Hannah, who lives there with her husband. Olivia is hired as pastry chef at the local inn and quickly gets involved in town's activities.... Read more →

quinoa atamalada / quinoa "tipo tamale"

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] flavorful quinoa served in a ceramic dish by @fem_pottery (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) In looking for a recipe that features quinoa1 I found one with an intriguing name: atamalada2 "tamale-like." What I like about this dish is that the quinoa is flavorful but not strongly so and accompanies well other dishes, like roasted vegetables, which I am preparing often these days. perfect as accompaniment to roasted vegetables (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) I was also intrigued by the use of aji amarillo paste3 and set about making my own. some of the... Read more →

red chimichurri / chimichurri rosso

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] red chimichurri (chopped ingredients) (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Our current Cook the Books Club selection is Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay1. The novel, set on the West Coast in the early 1960's, tells the story of the friendship between two women that develops through the exchange of letters started by Joan, who writes a fan letter to Imogen and encloses a packet of saffron (zafferano) and a recipe. From there, we follow the development of their friendship with the sharing of personal life details and... Read more →

roasted eggplant with tomato sauce and yogurt / melanzane arrosto con sugo di pomodoro e yogurt

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] eggplant and tomatoes: summer on a plate (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The combination of eggplant and tomatoes is a favorite of mine. A summer dish I particularly enjoy is my version of parmigiana di melanzane, where I roast the two main ingredients and use two types of cheese1. A few years ago, I made a Persian dish that brings together eggplant and tomatoes with yellow split pea1. Eggplant is a popular vegetable in the Middle East, as baba ganoush lovers may know. Recently I discovered a couple of eggplant recipes from Afghanistan, including... Read more →

Ethiopian red lentil stew / stufato di lenticchie rosse etiope

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] a bowl of rich flavor (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Our current Cook the Books Club selection is Food Americana by David Page1: The Remarkable People and Incredible Stories behind America’s Favorite Dishes, including pizza, barbecue, fried chicken (pollo fritto), ice cream. I found the book interesting as it draws a lively picture of each food and also lets people speak: chefs, historians, restaurants' customers and more. Each chapter ends with a recipe. Inspiration for something to make could not come from the foods described in the book as I basically don't eat any... Read more →

buckwheat blini / blini con farina di grano saraceno

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] blini are a blast to make and to eat (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Making blini, Russian pancakes, had been on my wish list for a while and it finally happened. The first source I consulted for inspiration is my copy of Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook by Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman.1 Published in 1990, the book includes recipes from a large area, from the Baltics to Uzbekistan. In the section about blini (plural of blin), the authors present a recipe for wheat blini2 (referred to as "regular" blini) and... Read more →

onion and fava bean soup / zuppa di cipolle e fave

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] simplicity at its best Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the novel Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus1 which tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a research chemist in California in the early 1960's, who becomes the host of a cooking show. Rowing plays a role in the book, referred to mostly as a a source of physical discomfort, if not downright suffering. I thought I would balance out that perspective with a photo I took recently while rowing on Richardson Bay (an arm of San Francisco Bay). I captioned it: for this... Read more →

garlic chive pancakes / frittelle di erba cipollina cinese

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] crisp, tender, savory: so good! (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) While looking up traditional recipes that use chives (Allium schoenoprasum) of which I get a nice supply from my garden, I discovered Korean pancakes (frittelle coreane) called Buchujeon1 made with garlic chives (Allium tuberosum, a.k.a., Chinese leeks, chinese chives), which also grows in my garden. While chives' leaves are tubular, those of garlic chives are flat. young garlic chives in my garden... Most of the recipes I read is vegan, made without eggs, and I adopted this format. I reduced the quantities to make... Read more →