It's that delightful time of the year when our vegetable garden is exploding and yielding scrumptious produce in spades. We always plant lots of varieties of tomatoes; it's the true staple in Italian cuisine and we won't settle for anything but the best in the tomato department. Our favorite snack is bread, tomato and olive...
Appetizer
Baked Fresh Anchovies with Capers & Parmesan Cheese
It's time to toss away all your preconceived notions about anchovies and give them a second chance. The anchovy in your Caesar salad or on top of a pizza..packed in oil and salt...is not the same thing as a fresh anchovy. A fresh anchovy is a tiny, delicately flavored oily white fish. And there's more....
Marinated anchovies with spaccasassi, Le Marche
We spend time in Portonovo along the Conero Riviera every year, usually for brief weekend trips of a few days. Some of our closest friends live there and an additional benefit is the spectacular beauty of the area: the lush mountains of the Monte Conero spill dramatically into the Adriatic Sea. The beach is covered...
Red Snapper Ceviche
Yesterday we spent the day fishing in Belize. Cagey, a local fisherman, took us out for the day on his small boat and we hit all his top fishing spots. I'd really hoped to catch a tuna and we nearly did. We had a barracuda on the line that broke away and even managed to bend...
Merangola Orange Bruschetta
Yesterday Isabella della Ragione's book, L'Occhio Ammira e Rimane Incantato, was presented in Terni. Isabella Dalla Ragione has spent her career as an agronomist protecting rare fruit tree varietals, many that she and her father located and began to propagate with care. Together they dedicated their time to scouring the Italian countryside searching out these rare...
Beet, arugula, goat cheese and toasted walnut salad
Before you even take a bite of this beet salad you'll be impressed. Just the colors alone make it wonderful. The paper thin sliced beets, walnuts, cheese and arugula create a flavor combination that works in spades. Ingredients (for two people): Procedure: Sometimes the simplest ingredients that can be put together in two seconds produce some...
Tomino Cheese
Braised radicchio with pan seared tomino cheese (radicchio brasato con tomino appena sfuso, saltato in padella). It's a perfect meal served with a nice crusty bread.
How to smoke salmon
A wood burning pizza oven is a perfect way to smoke salmon. For two days before the actual smoking process place the salmon under a mixture of two parts salt to one part sugar. Weigh the salmon down using a baking sheet with heavier objects placed on top. Twice a day baste the salmon with...
Pea Soup topped with Crunchy Guanciale
I love pea soup in the winter, and in the spring when peas are fresh and in season, and what really makes it tasty is the addition of crunchy guanciale on the top.So what exactly is guanciale and what differentiates it from pancetta? Guanciale is pork jowl or cheek: guancia is the Italian word for...