Entries tagged with 'italian'
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"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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Ricotta salata is riding a wave of new popularity. I like to think of it as a punctuation mark for both the eye and the palate. Position it strategically to call attention to the juicy sweetness of peas, shallots, watermelon and tomato, or the syrupy, honey-like quality of raisins, roasted butternut squash and parsnips.
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"Usually I'm skeptical of celebrity-launched lines of anything, be they measuring cups or leggings." I know, I know. It’s so easy to make your own tomato sauce. I’ve heard everyone say it, from my mother to Rachael Ray. But the truth is, when I make spaghetti and tomato sauce, it’s the one night I take off from the kitchen. I don’t feel like doing anything but opening a box and a jar. And frankly, making tomato sauce may be easy, but making excellent tomato sauce is certainly and decidedly not. I believe strongly in jarred tomato sauce, if it's good. But I haven’t found my match on the supermarket shelves yet. I do love the pomodoro sauce from San Marzano,...
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"It's a nearly perfect Italian sandwich." [Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger] Bari Foods 1120 W Grand Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (map) The Short Order: Perfectly proportioned Italian sub with spicy giardiniera Want Fries with That? Nope. Just pick up some chips on your way to the checkout Want Ketchup? No, but definitely stock up with a jar of their homemade spicy giardiniera I went to Bari in search of an Italian sub that didn't suck. It should be a simple creation, a humble combination of cured Italian meats and a few vegetables, but I'm astonished how many bad ones I've had in Chicago. Either they stuff too much meat in or too many bland, watery vegetables. The ingredients start to weigh down...
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Melons are in their peak season right now, inexpensive, plentiful, and full of sweet promise. The cantaloupes I’ve lugged home for the last two weeks have been wondrous—intensely floral, sugar-sweet juice bombs that are an easy way to flex some Italian muscle. Italians have a particular fondness for cantaloupe and its cousins. A large platter of fragrant, sliced melone is a popular and refreshing end to a meal in just about every region. In Lombardia or Emilia Romagna it may be garnished with a grind of aromatic nutmeg or a dribble of aceto balsamico; in Rome, it might receive a shower of fresh mint, and in Sicily, a sprinkle of sea salt. The classic pairing before dinner is prosciutto...
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"What real chefs can do with red-sauce Italian." One could be forgiven for expecting very little from Basta Pasta. It sits on a traffic-heavy Cambridge street lined with bodegas and split-level homes. No waiters—just a walk-up counter whose chalkboard menu reads like the Olive Garden’s. There’s a refrigerator stocked with Pepsi and Gatorade; a flat-screen TV hangs overhead. The name’s a little corny. And the owners aren’t even Italian. But with one bite of homemade fusilli, none of this could matter less. MIT grad students, the Cambridge fire department, and Central Square denizens have been holding out on the rest of us—Basta Pasta is no ordinary red-sauce takeout. Order well, and the dishes handed over the counter will be phenomenal....
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Editor's note: On Thursdays, Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma checks in with Seriously Italian. After a stint in Rome, she's back in the States, channeling her inner Italian spirit via recipes and intel on delicious Italian eats. Take it away, Gina! Any serious student of Italian cuisine understands the relationship that Italians have with leafy greens. I can’t remember an evening meal, with my family or when I lived in Italy, without a pile of garlicky greens on the side; it could be dandelion, swiss chard, escarole, chicory, or my very favorite, spinach. Spinach in Italy is beautiful: deep green, with an almost velvety appearance, and a distinctive, mineral-rich flavor. It only needs a minimalist approach to make it completely...
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Italians and Southerners have one important thing in common, a love and respect for food. Both cultures share the belief that nothing can compare with the food that comes from your land or out of your kitchen. Think about it: Georgia peaches, San Marzano tomatoes? Frank Stitt has taken this reverence for the best ingredients and opened three definitive restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama. According to the late, great R. W. Apple, Stitt has turned Birmingham, Alabama, into a "sophisticated, easygoing showplace of enticing, Southern-accented cooking." In 1982, after studying philosophy at Berkeley and cooking all over San Francisco, and in France in Burgundy and Provence, Stitt returned to his hometown and opened the French-accented Highlands Bar and Grill. Cooking with...
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For the first time in his life, chef Andrew Carmellini found himself cooking at home every night in his three-by-nine-foot kitchen. Instead of an army of sous chefs and dishwashers, it was just him and his food-writer wife, Gwen Hyman. Carmellini has worked at establishments like Lespinasse, Cafe Boulud, and, most recent, A Voce. Faced with doing his own prep work and grocery shopping and equipped with the standard New York–sized kitchen, Carmellini found himself cooking Italian with an urban twist. And so, Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories From a Life in Food was born. This book is basically the story of my life. Well, minus the part where I'm a respected professional chef. But I, too, am...
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The colder the weather, the more I crave bold, straightforward flavors. And if they're delivered with lashings of rich, warming sauce, so much the better. This is just the sort of food that restaurateur Rick Tramonto delivers with his fifth cookbook, Osteria. Written with Mary Goodbody, it's a collection of more than 150 Italian country-style recipes from Chicago's Osteria di Tramonto, laid-back sister restaurant to the award-winning Tru. In Tramonto's kitchen, laid-back doesn't mean simplistic or slapdash. It does mean flavors that are more comforting than delicate, and portions that are meant to be ladled rather than stacked precariously. Think of the dishes in this book as very high-end family food—food, that is, for a family celebration and not a...
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