Posted by Amanda Clarke, April 24, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Last week, in the midst of an all-too-short, all-too-ambitious itinerary amongst various points in northern Italy, I managed to spend one full day wandering around stylish Milan, checking out stores, scouting for interesting kitchen and tableware. Though my abbreviated stay made it impossible to visit all of the promising shops on my list during business hours (which are generally much shorter in Italy than here, owing to the one- to three-hour midday prandial break, and, often, earlier closing hours), I did manage to make it to a few noteworthy establishments.
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Posted by Gina DePalma, April 1, 2008 at 3:00 PM
1. Butchers
I love Italian butchers. I have never met an unfriendly macellaio, anywhere. Most Italian food purveyors are happy and even eager to talk about their goods, but my butcher has an amazing amount of interest in what I will do with the 1/2 kilo of whatever I just ordered. This is especially true when I demonstrate an inadequate thirst for his knowledge. If the right questions about my veal or lamb or sausages aren’t posed, my butcher will ask me what he suspects I need to know, then gallantly and gently coming to the rescue when I have revealed exactly how clueless I am, and showing genuine happiness if I prove to be on the right track.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, March 12, 2008 at 7:15 PM
Sara Rosso of Ms. Adventures in Italy has a tendency to take mouthwatering photos of food that make you look at your own meal and cry. Take this orecchiette-making session in Puglia, Italy, for instance. When will I ever be faced with an army of freshly made orecchiette? Probably next to never. But now I'll long for such a moment every day for the rest of my life.
Previously:
Tour of a Pugliese Bakery
Ms. Adventures in India
Photo of the Day: Pear and Nutella for World Nutella Day
Photo of the Day: Caramel Macaron from Ladurée
Posted by Gina DePalma, February 26, 2008 at 9:45 AM
I've been cheating on Signore Nutella.
If Nutella is like a familiar pair of comfy jeans, then lately I've been trying on evening gowns, taking it up a notch or two on the gianduja scale with crema di gianduja from some of Italy's finest confectioners.
Last week, I popped over to the gastronomic emporium Volpetti in the Testaccio section of Rome on a sworn mission to just browse (the rent is due soon). Willpower dissolved when I spotted a jar of Giacometta, the crema di gianduja by Piemontese chocolate producer Giraudi. The little card attached proclaimed the percentage of Piemontese hazelnuts at a respectable 32 percent. Sold. Rent, be damned!
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Pitchforks are raised. The battle is on: Italian farmers fight cloned food.
You can't visit Bologna without eating tortellini, the local specialty, but why not learn how to make it too? The New York Times lists pasta-making classes in Bologna—perhaps it'll give you an idea for your next vacation.
Sara Rosso of Ms. Adventures in Italy visited her favorite breadmaker in Puglia and took lots of mouthwatering photos of giant, perfectly formed dough balls to educate us on the art of baking. And to make us feel jealous.
An artisanal food tradition has been quietly taking hold in Tuscany in the last two and a half decades: chocolate-making. And the chocolate in this region of central Italy has two defining characteristics: It uses the flavors of the area (lavender, olive oil, balsamic, rosemary) and "is made in handcrafted batches in small factories."
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 17, 2007 at 6:30 PM
I never took much notice of supermarket meat counters until I saw this display of cured hams in all their fat-marbled glory at PAM, a major supermarket chain in Bologna. The meat shimmered like jewels. Pork-based jewels.
When I came back home from my vacation in Italy I went back to ignoring supermarket meat counters. They're not the same here. Not even close.
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 3, 2007 at 6:45 PM
- Food safety concerns may stall farm bill: "Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said she will block the Senate bill if it includes a House-passed provision that would allow some smaller meat processing plants to opt out of federal meat inspections in favor of state inspections. The bill hasn't even emerged from committee yet." [Associated Press]
- Food crises in Zimbabwe deepens: Bakeries are closing for lack of flour in the country once known as the "breadbasket of Africa." [Voice of America]
- Italians plan "vote" against genetically modified food: As opposition wanes in North and South American, Italy is hoping to renew Europe's stand against "Frankenfoods." [Reuters]
- U.K. egg supply threatened: If prices aren't raised, farmers say they won't have incentive to produce the incredible edible item. [farminguk.com]
- Kids don't like Jamie Oliver's school food: "One teenager told inspectors that he had become far fitter as a result of regular walks to a nearby chip shop." [The Guardian]
- Play with your food: Cooking Mama 2 for the Nintendo DS portable game system to include more Western foods, like apple pie, chili dogs, and pizza. [Wired]
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 13, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Italian consumers associations are asking their countrymen to boycott pasta today in a largely symbolic effort to draw attention to the rising costs of noodles.
As is the case with most of these food-price stories these days, biofuel production is being blamed for the high cost of durum wheat, more of which is being diverted into ethanol-making.
Says the BBC: "Pasta is a national dish in Italy, with each Italian eating on average 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta every year."
And perhaps the most apt analogy was the one I just heard on BBC World Service radio: "An Italian without pasta is like an American without hamburgers."
Photograph from iStockphoto.com
Posted by Robyn Lee, August 28, 2007 at 2:00 PM
In her latest blog post, Ms. Adventures in Italy describes the process of catching and eating fresh sea urchins from the seaside in Puglia, Italy, accompanied by beautiful photos of the spiky creatures. Who wants sea urchin gonads now? I DO!
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 3, 2007 at 6:30 PM
Up until today, I only knew of one type of deep-fried pizza: that of the battered kind, in which the slice is encased in a shell of golden, crisp, artery-clogging goodness. While I would like to try it someday (or just a bite of it), higher on my list is the Neapolitan street food pizza fritta, which is something like a filled flat bread dunked into the fryer, unbattered. FX's Kitchen Adventures takes us into Antonio's kitchen as he prepares the first fried pizza of the day, resulting in a beautiful, glistening, bubbled crust whose cheese oozes out between the slices. If only I had a deep-fryer to make Neapolitan pizza fritti with. Would anyone care to experiment?
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 21, 2007 at 8:57 AM
Kim Severson of the New York Times visited her grandmother's hometown in Italy to discover the secret of her family's spaghetti sauce, only to find the secret wasn't in Italy at all: "In fact, only two things in the village reminded me of anything I grew up with. The fat pork sausages were cooked and served the same way, and my Italian cousins looked just like my brothers. To understand why I made my sauce the way I did, I needed to start closer to home, with my mother. She has been making spaghetti sauce for almost 60 years, from a recipe she learned from her mother, who had been making it with American ingredients since the early 1900s." Severson delves into how adaptation and nostalgia go hand in hand and shares two recipes, one for Italian meatballs and the other the Zappa Family spaghetti sauce.
