Readers Write: Victor Hazan on Marcella’s Pumpkin Love

 Posted by at 9:13 am  4 Responses »
Oct 312013
 
Readers Write: Victor Hazan on Marcella's Pumpkin Love

In response to my story in Zester Daily, Love and Zucca: Why Venice Adores its Pumpkin, a reminiscence of Marcella Hazan, sent from her husband, Victor… Bravissima. You have shined your knowledge and intelligence on an ingredient as unfamiliar to American cooks as it is sought after by the cooks of the Veneto. And by the Emiliani as well who use it to stuff cappellacci. Marcella substituted orange-fleshed yams, which come close to the zucca’s taste, and called them Cappellacci del Nuovo Mondo. Every year, when we had not yet installed an elevator and lived 82 steps above sea level, Maurizio […more…]

There is More Than One Way to Skin a Pumpkin

 Posted by at 10:20 pm  7 Responses »
Oct 272013
 
There is More Than One Way to Skin a Pumpkin

Around this time of year the food press sounds its perennial advice on pumpkin pie, but what is usually overlooked are the endless dishes, both sweet and savory, that you can make using edible pumpkins and squashes. Probably no one reveres the pumpkin as much as the Italians, and the Venetians in particular, the subject of my most recent article for Zester Daily, “Why Venice Adores its Pumpkins.” Read about the Venetians’ love affair with zucca, and find my heirloom recipe for savory pumpkin or winter squash stew with tomato, dry-cured olives, and garlic.  

Canal House Interprets Italian Cooking–With Deft

 Posted by at 12:50 am  2 Responses »
Oct 242013
 
Canal House Interprets Italian Cooking--With Deft

This is not the first time I’ve touted Canal House Cooking, but time and again, in the midst of our burgeoning American food revolution, the remarkable talent of the two women behind this homespun, deeply felt culinary venture, inspires. I first got to know Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, the photographer-artist publishing team a few years back when they were photographing my book, Italian Home Cooking: 125 Recipes to Comfort Your Soul. While many gifted chefs are turning the American restaurant scene into a mecca that even the most discerning foreign traveler now marvels at, Christopher and Melissa have, instead, […more…]

How to Become a Food Writer

 Posted by at 10:54 pm  7 Responses »
Oct 202013
 
How to Become a Food Writer

In thirty years of writing about food and cooking, people have so often asked me how I became a food writer. A few weeks ago I was invited by my friend Carol Durst-Wertheim to talk about cooking the Italian harvest to the Pleasantville Garden Club in that bucolic village in Westchester County, NY. A few days later, Carol interviewed me on PCTV, Pleasantville’s hometown television station, about how I found my way to food writing. It was the kind of talk you’d have with a neighbor over a cup of tea at your kitchen table. How I merged a predilection for art, […more…]

Uprooted to Lancaster

 Posted by at 2:47 pm  9 Responses »
Oct 122013
 
Uprooted to Lancaster

Summer is my season. I can no more abandon my garden for a beach holiday than leave a bubbling pot on the stove to burn. I love watching my vegetables grow and the perennials exploding in the flower beds, putting on one gorgeous show after another. There are zucchini flowers to pick in the early morning, and sauces to be made when only fresh tomatoes will do; Romas to be oven-dried and frozen, and peppers to be roasted and put up for the winter. Autumn is a bittersweet time for the likes of me, invigorating and melancholy all at once, […more…]

How to Cook Rapini

 Posted by at 11:23 am  3 Responses »
Oct 072013
 
How to Cook Rapini

Some time back, I wrote a post, “When Bitter is Sweet,” about broccoli rapini, the Italian greens that have taken this country by storm since Balducci’s, the legendary Greenwich Village Italian grocery, imported them here in 1973. Because so many readers said they were relieved to finally learn how to cook them properly to soften their bitter edge, I decided to find out how and why the delicious Brassica, about which there is still such a mystique, was transplanted from the heel of the Italian boot to the farmlands of California. Here’s the update, complete with Andy and Nina Balducci’s […more…]