To Italy with Julia: Venice by Lagoon

 Posted by at 3:37 pm  7 Responses »
Mar 292014
 
To Italy with Julia: Venice by Lagoon

Almost in the very middle of this little sea, enclosed between the water and the sky, lies Venice, a fairy vision, risen as if by miracle out of the water that surrounds it and like green shining ribbons, cuts through its beautiful body. So wrote Giulio Lorenzetti, in his famous 1926 guidebook, Venice and its Lagoon: A Historical and Artistic Guide (updated in 1994 and still the most authoritative guide). Yet there it is, the ancient “Serenissima,” a glittering city decorated with gold, arising out of the lagoon, firm and fixed. We can barely grasp how architects could have imagined its plan and how […more…]

A Tipple, a Tid-Bit, and Delights Discovered at the Italian Trade Commission

 Posted by at 1:12 pm  5 Responses »
Mar 212014
 
A Tipple, a Tid-Bit, and Delights Discovered at the Italian Trade Commission

Spring is in the air everywhere, not least at the Italian Trade Commission in New York City, the Italian government agency charged with promoting and educating about Italian products abroad. Always on the job, at a special reception this week for the newly appointed Commissioner and Executive Director, Pier Paolo Celeste, I turned up some discoveries, old and new. One, panettone gastronomico, or unsweetened panettone, a fairly recent phenomenon in Italy for making little bar sandwiches, and new to most Americans. It was carved up into a layered tower of delicious “tramezzini,” triangular sandwiches with various fillings of genuine Italian products. Francine Segan, a […more…]

St. Patrick Had His Day, Today is St. Joseph’s!

 Posted by at 2:56 pm  4 Responses »
Mar 192014
 
St. Patrick Had His Day, Today is St. Joseph's!

Did you know that today is St. Joseph’s Day, or la Festa di San Giuseppe, Fathers Day for the Italians? Because my paternal grandfather’s name was Giuseppe, Joseph, there was always a celebration with special foods, and a favorite pasta dish of their region, orecchiette with rapini (rapine in Italian). Just as Irish immigrants changed the recipe for their storied St. Patrick’s Day soda bread, so my grandparents, once in America, were forced to adapt the pasta dish using broccoli. Cime di rapa, or rapini (“broccoli rabe” as it has come to be known here) were not grown in the United States […more…]

Teaching the Irish (Immigrants) How to Make Soda Bread

 Posted by at 10:16 am  4 Responses »
Mar 172014
 
Teaching the Irish (Immigrants) How to Make Soda Bread

If you think you’ve eaten real Irish soda bread, you probably haven’t. So says Darina Allen, queen of Irish cooking. “Real Irish soda bread doesn’t have any sugar or caraway seeds in it,” she said, “That’s the emigrant version.” She ought to know. Her dominion is the world-class Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, but her pupils are scattered the world over. If they haven’t been initiated into fine Irish cooking under her personal tutelage, they have learned what she calls “the forgotten skills of cooking” by virtue of her knowledgable books (her last one, Irish Traditional Cooking, when re-issued two years ago, […more…]

Upcoming Culinary Tours to Italy with Stars as Your Guides

 Posted by at 10:59 am  2 Responses »
Mar 052014
 
Upcoming Culinary Tours to Italy with Stars as Your Guides

Many a tourist has been hustled along the deep-rutted routes of Venice-Florence-Rome-home, yet some travelers got off the highways and criss-crossed the countryside, writing about the cities, small towns and byways. One such traveler is former New York Times staff writer, Zester Daily contributor, author, and Tuscany resident, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, who has savored Italy with great learning and a deep and abiding love. Today, previously overlooked regions that she has captured masterfully in her writings are popular destinations for the American traveler interested in the glorious food of Italy, and there is hardly a better guide. Nancy has announced two upcoming tours to […more…]

Heart of Nicaragua: Grace and Magic in a Corn Masa Cookie

 Posted by at 1:06 am  9 Responses »
Mar 042014
 
Heart of Nicaragua: Grace and Magic in a Corn Masa Cookie

Travels with Julia || Nicaragua Maybe because growing up in a family that endured the last world war in Italy, often hungry, my journey as a writer is concerned with food. For me, everything about it fascinates—growing it, harvesting it, cooking it, understanding its cultural trajectory. The recipes are metaphors, albeit edible ones. When I traveled to Nicaragua recently to meet up with my daughter and make our way together to a remote village in the country’s highlands, I learned such a recipe, one that has come to have meaning for me far beyond the discovery of a new dish. […more…]