Certain recipes bring me back in time, to cooking in Andrea’s mom’s kitchen. Tina was great. She was a simple but fabulous cook and I learned a lot from her and her sister Vivetta who owned a restaurant at the sea. I do several of her recipes often and the Tuscan fried baby artichokes are…
Sweet Home- Toscana
Flying to California a month ago, I had an epiphany. I am the matriarch of my family AND I have no HOME in California. Thirty-two years ago, I bought a one way ticket to France. Little did I know that Italy would become my home. This trip back to California was hard. I was going…
Artichoke Season
One of the things I love most about living in Italy is eating seasonally. It isn’t always easy waiting, but we are always rewarded with exceptional flavor and joy. Spring comes in with a bang, artichokes, asparagus, fava beans and peas. When you get the first products, we tend to enjoy then raw. Raw Artichokes?…
Out of the Kitchen into the World- Sicilian Artichokes
I began my culinary professional life in the kitchen of a 5 star hotel in San Francisco, the Stanford Court Hotel. They were open to training me for the position when I told them I wanted to be a pastry chef. While traveling, I always found a job in a restaurant, either waiting tables or…
Artichokes- Leaf to Stalk
I hate waste. We often talk about nose-to-tail cooking meat, but as an ex-vegetarian, often what we clean away from a vegetable is wasted. Last spring, while cleaning fava beans, the bag of the pods was much larger than the bowl I had of the tiny fava beans. I began to do research. In one…
Leo’s Artichokes
I adore shopping at Leo Piazzesi’s stand in the Mercato Centrale. He carries only a few products, all displayed as if at Tiffany’s, each tomato shining, melons cut open for tasting, their profume calling out “Assaggiami…taste me” and the season’s best. Right now, I go to Leo for carciofi, artichokes, layed out like rare flowers on…
Artichokes: The Italian Way
I cannot tell you how excited I am at the market in Spring in Italy. We have so many incredible seasonal treats which are all at their peak. Often people are surprised at the flavors of the food in Italy. I think in the USA often our food is grown in greenhouses and sent miles…
Primavera?
It seems like Spring has arrived in Tuscany. The hills are green, in my garden the violets are already blooming and my roses never stopped blooming all winter. The foto is from the hillside near my home, a new farmer has started raising goats and soon will be producing goat cheese. I can’t wait. Last…