sorry for bad news twice in a row— My friend Kyle Phillips just passed away on Monday. Kyle was a food and wine writer and a gentle soul He left us his translation of Artusi’s ” The Art of Eating Well” one of Italy’s treasures of cooking. He also maintained two sites, one on food –…
Ciao Marcella
Marcella Hazan passed away yesterday. She was my Julia Child. I never really liked Italian food, until I discovered Larry Mindel’s restaurant Ciao in San Francisco. It was like stepping into Italy. There is no way to really cook Italian style without having come to Italy. Marcella was my first Italian teacher, through her cookbooks….
The Big Scoop!
The Big Scoop is out…. David L’s new book The Perfect Scoop has been released! Filled with incredible recipes for not only ice cream, gelato, sorbet and granita but also toppings, what David calls “vessels” to serve your ice cream in such as crepes profiterols etc and a wild selection of things to stir in…
Italian Eye Candy
Lucky me… on the train ride back from Florence to Certaldo.. I spotted one of Italy’s new hot chef’s. foto from book: Se in Cucina c’e Simone Simone Rugiati, is a bomb of energy. He has a 10 minute recipe show on the Gambero Rosso Channel is a guest chef on a well known morning…
Shop Local… Eye Candy
In my cooking classes in Florence, Italy where I moved in 1984, there was no other way to shop than daily… and local. Florence has two fixed market places, built in the late 1800’s when Florence was made the capital of united Italy. The Central Market, which is right outside my kitchen-studio window, is a…
Tuscan Treasures- Roberta
When I first started teaching classes for Syracuse University here in Florence in 1988, one of my first teachers at the San Lorenzo market was Roberta. She had the largest fruit stand upstairs with her oldest son. Roberta would always give me huge bags of ripe fruit for 5,000 lira to make huge bowls of…
Metello
My neighbor Metello and his San Giovese Today is the beginning of the vendemmia. All my neighbors have been giving me grapes, seems to be a competition on who’s are the best. My real next door neighbors. Vasco and Donatella, gave me some fabulous table grapes. Metello, who sold me his aunt’s house, took time…
Bye Bye Julia
I think Julia Childs taught us all to cook and to have a sense of humor while we cook! Thank you Julia. I am so glad she left us with lovely volumes of recipe and great video from her tv show. She will live on in our kitchens. My favorite memory of Julia is her…