briciole

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 →

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 →

zuppa di pomodori e peperoni arrosto / roasted tomato and pepper soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] bright red and deeply flavored Some recipes (ricette) come out perfect the first time I make them and the following renditions serve to confirm the initial evaluation. Most recipes require a few tries before they are deemed ready to be shared. Each time I make an adjustment and compare the amended version with the previous one. I repeat the process until I am satisfied with the result. A small number of recipes are not worth investigating further than the first try. Finally, there are the rare cases, the recipes that I am... Read more →

maltagliati con petali di fiori / "stained glass" maltagliati

delicate petals within pasta On May 8, 1999, at the San Francisco Center for the Book, I had my first experience with letterpress printing. I learned about the California job case, how to set type and prepare the press, and together with the other class participants, printed a chapbook under the imprint of the "created for the day" Tiramisu Press. In the years that followed, I took a few other printing classes in the same location, and every time I was reminded how much I like the blend of boundless creativity and tight concentration that goes into printing. Mary Dern's short... Read more →

zuppa di zucca / winter squash soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] creamy winter squash soup Being a winter squash hoarder means I still have "raw material" (materia prima) for soup, though the calendar says it's spring (primavera). Am I really the only one still drawing from a stash of squashes carefully stored during the winter? I suspect not. In any case, let's face it: it's time to use them. If you live on the other hemisphere, then you have squashes from the new crop to work with. I met this recipe in the waiting room of my doctor's office. A quick look at... Read more →

zuppa stile caldo verde / caldo verde-inspired soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] green goodness With a name as sensuous as caldo verde (literally, green broth), a soup's future is secure. Who doesn't want to eat some caldo verde? I certainly wanted to, but there was a little glitch: I don't eat sausages, I stopped eating them years ago, for various reasons. I have nothing against chouriço or linguiça, which are called for in the recipe for caldo verde, a traditional Portuguese soup, often referred to as Portuguese kale soup. And I don't like to eat "imitation" something, so I set about making a soup... Read more →

zimino di fagioli / bean, mushroom and chard soup

comfort food for rough days For the current edition of Cook the Books, we are reading Heartburn by Nora Ephron (1983). I had heard about the book, so I was glad to see it on the Club's list. The writing is witty and engaging, and as a reader, you really want to know how the story will unfold. It was easy to go from cover to cover, chuckling here and there, and cheering at the final scene, when a lime pie is sacrified on the altar of justice. While I don't want to diminish in any way the importance of the... Read more →

zuppa di castagne, fagioli e patate / chestnut, bean and potato soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] portrait of a soup The smell of roasted chestnuts (caldarroste) more than anything else means autumn (autunno) to me. Every year, my mother would buy a large case of chestnuts from someone in Casperia, the village in central Italy where she grew up. We would then consume them over the span of several weeks: she would roast some one day and boil them another, and we always ate them at the end of dinner, as a special dessert. She never used them as an ingredient. caldarrostaio in Perugia Street sellers of roasted... Read more →

jota / bean, sauerkraut and potato soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] jota is a traditional soup from Trieste Region after region, via a representative city for each one, in our Abbecedario culinario d'Italia (Italian Culinary ABC) tour, we have reached the northeastern Italian city of Trieste, capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. I have been to Trieste only once, many years ago, on the way back from a family trip to Croatia. When we reached Trieste, it was raining so hard, we could not get out of the car to walk around. I guess Trieste in another one of the famous Italian cities... Read more →

zuppa di zucchine e cipolle rosse arrosto / roasted zucchini red onion soup

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] with pretty garlic chive flowers We are approaching the end of zucchini season. Pretty soon we will switch from summer squashes to winter ones, marking the transition to a new fall season. But before that happens, try this nice soup with zucchini and fresh red onions. The recipe makes a fairly large batch: if you have some leftover soup, you can freeze it for enjoyment later in the year. The idea for this soup came to me one day that I had three rather large zucchini that would be a bit too... Read more →