"The notion of cucicna povera, or poor cooking, carries through Southern Italian cooking today." A few years ago, my fiancé and I went on a trip to Italy. It was no mere European vacation—we spent a year working two jobs to save enough to live in Italy for as long as possible. Finally, when we reached our desired sum, we gave our landlord notice, got rid of basically every single thing we owned, and packed our remaining belongings into two oversize backpacks that were too heavy for us to even carry. Upon arriving at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, we quickly realized that our Italian phrasebook—and the three Italian language classes that I had taken—weren't going to do us any good....
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[Photograph: Robyn Lee] I'm going to 'fess up here. I don't fast the way you're supposed to on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of repentance that begins on Sunday night. Not that I don't have plenty to repent for—it's just that I've decided to repent while eating. But even though I don't fast I still look forward to a traditional (or even untraditional) Break Fast meal. On Monday night we were invited to break the fast with some good friends of ours who live in our apartment building. They'll have a fantastic platter of smoked fish, bagels, and cream cheese, which is the traditional break fast meal in my experience. But to kick it up a notch, Jewish-style, we're...
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[Photograph: Arthur Schwartz] I don't know how, why, or when Jews started making brisket for holiday meals, but it's one ritualized aspect of the Jewish culinary tradition I wholeheartedly embrace. My friend Arthur Schwartz has written many, many wonderful cookbooks, including Jewish Home Cooking. Arthur set out in a wonderfully obsessive way to come up with the definitive, most seriously delicious potted brisket recipe. He experimented with cooking first cut and whole briskets, using liquid and not using liquid, and here's what he eventually came up with. Over on his website Food Maven, he shares all of the great and gory brisket experiment details. And what better way to top off a belly full of beef than with two...
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If there are two cuisines Arthur "The Food Maven" Schwartz knows best, they're Jewish and Italian. He's already done an Italian book, so he tackles the likes of latkes, kreplach, knishes, and kugel in Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking. If you're not lucky enough to have grown up with a bubbe fussing over you and cooking you some of the most amazing comfort food ever, then this book can help you approximate the experience yourself. Win 'Jewish Home Cooking' We'll be excerpting a recipe a day this week as part of our ongoing Cook the Book feature. The first of those will be up shortly, but for now it's time to let you in on how you can enter to...
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