Gina is back in Italy for an overdue vacanza, so for the next few weeks, Seriously Italian is morphing back into Snapshots from Italy as she shares with you some of her favorite food outings. [Photographs: Gina DePalma] Autumn, or l'autunno, is my absolute favorite food season in Rome. At no other time of year will I find all of my favorites converging upon the market, at their peak, simultaneously. Puntarella and broccoli romanesco, porcini and ovoli, zucca and chestnuts, pears, apples and clementines-each one is enough to make me swoon with happiness. But then persimmons come along in the midst of all the bounty and put me right over the top. If you've never sunk a spoon into a...
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Note: On Mondays, one of our various Market Scene correspondents checks in with what's fresh at farmstands, what's coming up, and what you better get while the gettin's good. This week, we hear from Los Angeles correspondent Leah Greenstein of SpicySaltySweet. Take us to the market, Leah! Persimmons from Peacock Family Farm. If fall had an official color—like poppies are the official flower of California, Humuhumunukunukuapua`a is the official fish of Hawaii and Crocs are the official shoe of Mario Batali—it would have to be orange. Vibrant, warm and evocative of piles of crisp leaves perfect for jumping in, or the jack-o-lantern shrapnel you wade through the morning after Halloween, orange permeates the season. Here are some of my favorite...
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The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read all her mission reports here. Hundreds and thousands! Photograph from Shenghung Lin on Flickr Drying hachiyas. Photograph from nineblue on Flickr Hoshigaki are tender, succulent, and moist. These are Hachiya (acorn-shaped) persimmons dried the traditional Japanese way—in the sun, with nary a preservative in sight. The taste is intense—concentrated persimmon flavor with honeyed overtones and perhaps the barest hint of cinnamon—but it's definitely the texture that gets to me. Hoshigaki have chewy, almost jelly-like insides that I distinctly remember my mom trying to con me of when I was a kid ("Sweetie, those dried-up persimmons don't look very good, why...
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A pomegranate bursting at the seams. In most states, you know it's fall because the leaves change colors, turning golden, crimson and persimmon, until the tops of trees look aflame. Here in Southern California you know it's fall when everything is actually on fire and the Santa Ana winds are blowing hard enough to knock down small children. While our crisp hills smolder and turn brown like burnt cakes from Ventura County to Fontana to the Sepulveda Pass, there's the upside in knowing that fall weather also means ton of marvelous fall produce at the Hollywood Farmers' Market (map). Aw, Nuts The new crop of pistachios has finally arrived! The Santa Barbara Pistachio Company, located in Sierra Madre Mountains...
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