In my dreams, a proper pantry is a closet or a shelf-lined room. In my actual condo kitchen, a cupboard serves this purpose–so I’m picky about the staples stored there. Among the grains, beans, nuts, dried fruit and canned tomatoes, you’ll always find a stack of canned and jarred seafood: tuna, sardines, mussels, mackerel, clams,…
MAKING STUFFED BEEF BRACIOLE (INVOLTINI)
Wrapping meat cutlets around a filling has long been a thrifty cook’s trick, stretching a costly ingredient to feed more mouths. And I also like how the flavors of meat and filling mingle as they cook together, enhanced further by a tasty sauce. These stuffed meat rolls, known as braciole–or braciolini, or involtini–seem to be…
Quinoa Salads with European Flair
Quinoa salad: not the kind of food most of us travel to Europe for. But I ate it twice on a recent trip, once as an appetizer in a Bilbao hotel restaurant and then as an outdoor lunch in Provence. Both times, I was struck by how appetizing a quinoa salad can be. Maybe because…
Salade Niçoise, Two Ways
If you’ve been cooking as long as I have, you might remember the salade niçoise of the 1980s, which had a bit of a heyday on restaurant and home menus. Artfully arranged heaps of dressed green beans, potatoes and maybe beets, with a piece of seared rare tuna at the center of the plate, amounted…
Savory Oatmeal and Other Spicy, Herby Breakfasts
My mother loved oatmeal with butter, salt and pepper. She grew up on a farm and was also fond of bread dipped in buttermilk, always close at hand when you have cows. The buttermilk-soaked bread I disliked with a vengeance, but over time I found she was right about the oatmeal. I also learned…
Panissa: Chickpea-Flour Pizzettes and Northern Italian Risotto
Panissa is one of those Italian foods that defy a simple definition. In Liguria, it’s a fried version of the chickpea-flour polenta known as farinata. (For the record, Sicilians do similar things with their panelle and Provencal cuisine gets into the action with its socca.) On restaurant menus in Rome and elsewhere, I’ve also encountered…
Mushroom-Sage Dressing: Thanksgiving Side, Vegetarian Main Dish
I’ve been making mushroom dressing–or stuffing, depending on where you’re from–for half a century or so. And I’m just getting around to writing up my recipe. Usually I wing it, chopping vegetables while drying the bread. In addition to mushrooms, the saute always includes onions, celery and fresh herbs, mixed with the best white bread…
Italy: What’s New, What’s Not
During our month-long stay in Italy this summer, the weather was relentlessly hot and dry. It had been three years since our last visit, with the pandemic lingering like an obnoxious dinner guest who refuses to leave. So we were looking at Italy with fresh eyes. Overall, Italy is still Italy and one of the…
FIVE WAYS (AT LEAST) TO SIP YOUR SPRITZ
I’m back from a month in Italy, with record temperatures, and I have to say that every day was a good day for a spritz. The first time I spotted a spritz, 20 years ago, was on a hot summer day in the town of Reggio Emilia, when I suddenly noticed that many people…