From my house to yours- happy holidays It is that time of year when everyone starts baking cookies and getting ready for the holidays- here are some past recipes to bring a little Italy to our holiday table!Enjoy- Buon Appetito e Buon Natale Virtual Cookie Swap – Sienese Almond Cookies, RicciarelliHot Chocolate– Italian style! Thick…
Good Grappa is a Wonderful Thing
It is not only Americans that think that drinking grappa is like drinking lighter fluid; even my Italian husband is not a great fan of grappa, until he tried the grappa I was sent as part of a tasting panel. I was asked try to participate by my friend at Studio Cru. How did he…
Divina Cucina Tours- Almost like being here!
Here is a small taste of what we do on our tours in Tuscany and Sicily- to me it is as important for you to be part of the everyday life here and to visit Italy like a local. I hope you can come and join me in Tuscany or Sicily or where ever you…
A Passion for Heat- Fruit Mostarda
Whole clementines at the end of the three day process I adore all sorts of spicy sauces and the heat that chili gives to food.When I tasted the Mostarda di Cremona, it was love at first bite. Sweet, syrupy candied fruit with a wasabi like kick to it- hot and sweet together. Not only great…
Strange but Wonderful
I adore when the seasons change in Italy, it is present in the colors on the trees, the dropping of the temperature, but most of all in the markets. This weeks market treat was this strange but lovely Chicory plant, Cicoria, which is a speciality in Rome. I have seen it already cut and cleaned…
13 at the Table
Cinta Senese pigs are not the only ones pigging out in Tuscany In Italy, thirteen at the table is unlucky as it is the same number Jesus had at the last supper and look what happened to him! However, for me thirteen has always been my lucky number and this week myself and twelve other…
Falling Back
my room with a view, where I write Today we fall back one hour- sleeping in a little extra and waking to an incredible fall day.When I am working at my computer upstairs in our tiny 1/3 of a old stone farmhouse in the hills outside of Certaldo, the songbirds are soundtrack during the day….
Domenica da Dario
Just another Sunday lunch with friends but at the Officina della Bistecca-you leave with more friends than you came with! I feel really blessed to have worked for several years with Dario, before he became such a media star, when only a few journalists like Faith Willinger were writing about artisans in Tuscany. Thanks to…