briciole

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 →

tomato and date chutney / chutney di pomodori e datteri

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] Earthy and sweet condiment for many uses (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Making a chutney had been on my wish list for a while and the chance materialized recently when, wanting to prepare a savory dish using dates, I came across recipes for Bengali tomato and date chutney (Tomato Khejur Chutney), each one a bit different.1 Below I give you my version, adapted to my taste and influenced by my Italian roots. For my first try, I had tomatoes from the farmers' market. We spent a few days in Central California and visited the... Read more →

red beet pkhali / pkhali di barbabietole rosse

jump to Recipe [versione in italiano] ready to spoon some? (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the novel The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan1 which tells the story of four women in Kent, UK, during WWII. The food rations in effect at that time play a central role: they affected everyone and cooks in particular, tasked as they were to prepare nourishing and tasty meals with what the rations provided. (Vegetable gardens and foraging enriched the limited availability of ingredients.) The novel's title refers to a BBC program devised to provide ideas on... Read more →

pear tart / crostata di pere

jump to Recipe the simple elegance of a crostata always wins at the table (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The current Cook the Books Club selection is Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber.1 On her website, the author explains: The inspiration for this novel came years ago in a song. After hearing the Beatles' "Blackbird" for the first time, it haunted me... I was captivated with the concept of broken wings and how emotional wounds can keep many from being able to metaphorically fly... Blackbird research led me quickly to the Song of Sixpence with its “four and... Read more →

Persian herb and greens frittata / frittata persiana di verdure ed erbe

green to celebrate spring (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Our Cook the Books Club selection this time brings us to Ireland (Irlanda), yet the flavors are those of Iran (whose cuisine we savored also in a recent edition1). The novel Pomegranate Soup, by Marsha Mehran2 (zuppa di melograno), follows the adventures of the three Aminpour sisters, who escape from political turmoil in their native country to the UK and ultimately settle in the small Irish town of Ballinacroagh, where they open a small café serving dishes from their home country. The novel's cast includes the sisters' landlady, the town's priest,... Read more →

Sicilian long zucchini and its greens with tomatoes / cucuzza e tenerumi al pomodoro

flavors of Sicily: cucuzza e tenerumi (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) Italian author Andrea Camilleri died on 17 July, 2019, aged 931. The novels he wrote narrating the adventures of detective Salvo Montalbano are one of the main reasons Novel Food came to exist and it is therefore fitting to dedicate to il maestro (the master), as he was respectfully called in Italy, this post. In the archive of briciole there are several posts dedicated to Montalbano and dishes from his (and Camilleri's) native Sicily2. Montalbano likes to eat well, though he is not a cook, so he relies on... Read more →

green bean and torpedo onion salad / insalata di fagiolini e cipolla rossa di Tropea

a simple seasonal side dish with a lot of flavor (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO, cheeseboard by BHVwoodworks1) The memoir Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton2 had been on my to-read list for a while. I had read good reviews and was intrigued by the title. Hamilton's writing and storytelling style makes for an easy reading and the events she narrates with more details are well chosen. The three parts of the title corresponds to the three parts of the book and three periods of her life: childhood-early adulthood, chef/owner of a restaurant, marriage and motherhood. My favorite part... Read more →

popiah: fresh spring rolls with jicama / involtini primavera con patata messicana

composite flavor and texture I read Crazy Rich Asians1 by Kevin Kwan, the current selection of the Cook the Books club, in just a few days. It is a modern version of a Victorian novel set mostly in Asia, particularly the island state of Singapore. When Rachel and Nick, the protagonists, arrive in Singapore, they are greeted by Nick's bet friend, Colin, and his fiancée, Araminta. Together, they go to eat at one of Singapore's hawker centers. I have never been to Singapore, but I learned about hawker centers and the characteristics of Singaporean food thanks to the paper Lucey Bowen... Read more →