briciole

radicchio and sweet corn / radicchio e mais dolce

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] a little bitter and a little sweet A short motoscafo1 ride from the Fondamente Nove of Venezia brings you to the island of Murano. Most visitors go there for a day visit. We stayed there during our most recent visit to Venice, renting a small apartment on Fondamenta dei Vetrai, a short walk from the Murano Colonna stop. Fondamenta da Mula, Murano We had never been to Murano before and enjoyed its quiet, especially early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when day visitors left, leaving a peaceful stillness in... Read more →

Kenyan vegetable curry / curry di verdure keniano

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] beginning (right) and end (left) of first rendition The fourteenth country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Kenya (Kenia). To celebrate this stop, I chose to make my version of Kenyan vegetable curry. There are multiple recipes online for this dish2. The one that inspired me includes baking the vegetables3. Fresh vegetables from the farmers' market and my CSA box and some kale from my vegetable garden went into this dish, together with a number of spices from my collection. To accommodate household's preferences, I made a dish that is mildly hot... 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 →

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 →

zucchetta al pomodoro / tromboncino squash with tomatoes

Nature's simple beauty Tromboncino squash cannot be missed when displayed on a table at the farmers' market. When I spotted it, I squealed with joy, because it is a rather rare find. I must thank The Corn Crib for growing this beauty. Besides being eye-catching with its long, curvy shape, it has a dense flesh and a delicate, pleasant flavor. Although it is harvested early and consumed as a summer squash, it does not belong to the Cucurbita pepo species like zucchini and other summer squashes, but rather to Cucurbita moschata, like butternut squash. Like its more famous relative, zucchetta has... Read more →

broccoli al vapore con salsina al miso e noci / steamed broccoli with walnut miso dressing

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] fresh from the farmers' market When vegetables are this fresh and pretty, it is almost a pity to cut them up and cook them, so I try to treat them gently. In this recipe, I steam them until tender to my liking and accompany them with a nut-based dressing. just steamed I save the water at the bottom of the pot where I steam the broccoli and use it to blend miso and lightly toasted walnuts. red miso, walnuts and the dressing Print-friendly version of briciole's recipe for steamed broccoli with walnut... Read more →

Wortelstoemp

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] comfort food from the farm The country we are currently visiting in our virtual European Community tour is Belgium (Belgio). To celebrate our stop, I came up with my version of a popular dish: Stoemp, a mixture of mashed potatoes and vegetables. The version with potatoes and carrots (patate e carote) is called Wortelstoemp. smiling for the camera I am giving you the quantities I used, but this is really a dish where you improvise with what you have, which is what I did. My immediate inspiration was not a recipe, but... Read more →

tortino di verdure stile sklandrausis / sklandrausis-inspired vegetable tart

a three-[layer/texture/flavor] tart In Latvia (Lettonia), I went down the wrong path — figuratively, of course. Having baked eight types of bread out of 20 dishes from the EU countries visited so far in our virtual tour, I decided to bake a Latvian bread. I found a recipe, I made it a couple of times, was almost ready to write about it and then decided I was not enthusiastic enough about the recipe to share it on the blog. So, I started researching Latvian dishes again and finally found one that intrigued me: sklandrausis. The sklandrausis, a small... pie made of... Read more →

broccolo da ricacci in padella / sautéed purple sprouting broccoli

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] a large raindrop like a diamond After the dry summer months, fall rains paint the California countryside bright green. But last fall, rain failed to fall. Browns became dull, grays became sad, and the sky remained brilliant blue — week after worrisome week. Finally, as January glided into February, it started to rain on the parched North Coast of California: A choral sigh rose from the earth. One morning in early February, under the thick black soles of my red rubber boots, the terrain of Redwood Roots Farm was happily muddy after... Read more →

arcobaleno e insalata di patate con avocado / rainbow and potato avocado salad

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Christmas rainbow On Christmas Day, the rainbow that appeared in front of our eyes as we crossed the Kilauea Iki Crater floor in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park was all contained within the crater and within our field of view: it felt reachable, touchable. Seeing a sliver of a rainbow brings joy: seeing the entire arc was exhilarating. I thought I could walk up to the rainbow, go through it like through a gentle waterfall and come out all colored. I walked from one end to the other and I was under it,... Read more →