Let the good times roll! inside our cab in NOLA!!!Florence also uses the Fleur du Lys Easter comes early this year, which means carnival is already here. Most people think of the fabulous costumes in Venice and the parties in palazzi, but it is also a festival of the people. Streets are filled with families…
How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….. I cook for you!!! Hot Italian Kisses: chocolate hazelnut truffles with a kick for Valentine’s Day Today is really special as there are two holidays in one-Valentine’s Day and Chinese Lunar New Year’s So I decided to celebrate both. Yesterday I made the chocolate truffles with…
Hot Italian Kisses | Truffles
Probably one of Italy’s most famous chocolate candies is called Baci, meaning kisses. When I toured the Perugina factory in Perugia, they said that the original name was actually going to be cazzotti- meaning little fists or punches. Baci is a much nicer name for something so sweet. Italy has a history of adding hazelnuts…
Sicilian Christmas Cookies
Whenever we go on a trip, I always have to search out traditional desserts, in my first trip to Sicily in 2005 for the holidays I found quite a few I loved. This cookie is made all over Sicily in different versions. Shaped like a ravioli, or the smaller cookies shown here, tube like and…
Butter as Food
Lelio Botteri and Mario Fiandino at Golosario Often, we think of butter as part of a pantry, to be used for cooking but not really standing on its own as a food. Living in Italy and France, I have had artisan butters which deserve such respect.I was recently asked to participate in a butter “tasting…
Salt- Cured Olives
The olive harvest began a little early this year, at the end of October, many people wait till November 3- something about numbers. When the olives are harvested for oil, some of them are still green, giving the oil here a peppery flavor. As we get farther into the season the olives ripen to black…
La Vendemmia- Schiacciata con L’uva
In Italy, each region has seasonal dishes which one can make once a year. September is the wine harvest, vendemmia, and in Tuscany we make the Schiacciata con l’uva. A simple bread dough, often enriched with a rosemary-infused olive oil, is rolled out into a top and bottom layer and filled with Concord…
I Adore September
September 1984- the month my life changed I wanted to title this blog post I HATE AUGUST- but decided to look on the bright side! In Italy, if anything can go wrong it will in August, when everyone one is on vacation and nothing gets done. I had paperwork in process with the Italian government…