In Umbria, we call thick spaghetti “strangozzi” but for Tuscans, they’re “pici.” And no better way to savor those thick ropes of pasta than with cacio pepe (“cheese and pepper”), but pecorino…
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In late January, our Giulia headed with journalist colleague, Sabina, to snowed-in tiny Abruzzo hilltown of Penne, to cover the tragic avalanche in nearby Farindola for EBU (European Broadcasting Union). The night…
In the years we worked the land in Umbria, the stamina of the farm women astounded me. Not only did they work the land with the men, before heading to the fields…
We had an abundant olive harvest this past October and after taking most of the olives to the mill to be pressed into our olive oil, Pino selected a few kilos of…
Time to stick near our wood stove these snowy days: Today, I cooked up pasta con le fave on the wood stove, deciding to defrost some of the fava beans from our…
We always celebrate Thanksgiving in our Assisi farmhouse…with a little italiano input. Pino’s turkey takes center stage. A winter squash dish from the island of Ustica, off Sicily, is always a side…
Every year as fall moves towards winter, I play with ways to use up our summer garden’s last gift, those green tomatoes. For Thanksgiving this year, a green tomatoes/peppers sauce was on…
…..and the aftershocks of the August 24, 2016 earthquake continue…..Epicenter of that shake-up: Accumuli and Amatrice in the region of Lazio. Benefit events for the earthquake homeless centered on pasta all’amatriciana. Epicenter…
When the rains come and the air chills, it’s time to pick all the tomatoes: those few remaining red ones and all the green ones that never made it to full ripening.…
“Prendere due piccioni con una fava” (“catch two doves with one fava bean”) certainly has a more lyrical ring than “kill two birds with one stone.” The Italian expression has a direct…