Happy Holidays! This Christmas Eve Salad is a new favorite in our house. Bringing a little Southern Italy into Tuscany. I can’t get enough cauliflower which is in season now, we have had it in so many ways. Baked, boiled, battered and roasted. The Markets are filled with such a variety. Have you seen the…
Panzanella – Why Tuscan bread is Saltless
One of the things everyone comments on in Tuscany is how tasteless the bread is. There is a reason, there is no salt in the dough. In the past, salt was a commodity. Florence bought their salt from Pisa. Pisa put a salt tax so high, that normal people couldn’t use salt for things like…
New Year- Old Recipes
I adore new beginnings. They don’t always have to be the beginning of a new year, but any new adventure. When I first left the USA in 1984,I had no idea I would end up living in Italy. It was real culture shock actually living here rather than being a tourist. Learning to function in…
Eating in Summer| Shopping not Cooking
This summer we are having a drought and record breaking heat wave. The hills around my house we have a lot of hay for the animals, which turns the them golden. A touch of green from the woods, chestnut and oak trees and then grape vines and olive trees. This year the grapes and olives…
Winter Recipes: Sicilian Orange Salad
When the skies are grey in winter we wait until the temperatures drop and the blood oranges come into season to bring sunshine to the table in the form of a savory salad. Traditionally, it is served with fennel as an insalata di finocchio e arance. But for me, I never have enough oranges in the…
Ingredients- Radicchio Variegato Bean Soup
When I meet someone from a different region in Italy, I always love for them to share a recipe with me. Some of the simplest recipes and my favorites are home cooking. Sitting at the Dario+ restaurant for a burger at lunch, as I often do, we were seated next to a family from Verona….
Favorite Fridays – Radicchio di Treviso
Often when traveling around in Italy, you find foods you don’t see at home. Not speaking the language it is hard to ask questions. I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite ingredients and how I use them. This is Radicchio di Treviso. Long thin leaves are pretty as well as…
Tomatoes “Tonnati”
The horrible heat wave and drought we have been having has finally been broken but a couple of days of rain. Not really enough, but enough to drop the temps down to something more livable. As we feel summer slipping away, I am enjoying the last tomatoes. These huge tomatoes are more like a steak,…