Of Empanadas and Goliaths: Señora Rosenda and the Soy Barons

 Posted by at 4:01 pm  4 Responses »
Mar 082013
 
Of Empanadas and Goliaths: Señora Rosenda and the Soy Barons

I’ve never met Señora Rosenda, the master empanadera of my last post, nor eaten her empanadas, but she’s the stuff of legend in her corner of Santiago del Estero, on the northern steppes of Argentina. I heard about her from my daughter, Celina, who went to stay with the campesina one recent winter in the scrubby northern flatlands, called the mato, which were once in the shadow of the Incas. When I asked Celina what went into Señora Rosenda’s empanadas, she didn’t know. Instead, she told me this story. Today, this corner of the world is in the shadows of a different […more…]

In case you missed it: “The ultimate in literary food porn”

 Posted by at 2:51 pm  6 Responses »
Mar 062013
 
In case you missed it: "The ultimate in literary food porn"

Well, this morning I “googled” myself and what pops up?  a New York Times “Diner’s Journal” entry dated April 2012 calling my post, An Unordinary Cooking Lesson, “The ultimate in literary food porn”! I’m flattered, I guess! If you missed that one, read it HERE. The ultimate in literary food porn: photos of a day spent cooking with the Duchess of Palma in her Sicilian palazzo. Click to find the connection to “Il Gattopardo,” the great novel of the end of European aristocracy. — Julia Moskin

Travels with Julia: Tango Hambre–Working Up an Appetite in Buenos Aires

 Posted by at 2:33 am  21 Responses »
Feb 142013
 
Travels with Julia: Tango Hambre--Working Up an Appetite in Buenos Aires

Travels with Julia || Argentina Read up on travel guides to Buenos Aires and eat your heart out. “Incredible food,” they trumpet. “The city sizzles,” one of them blares. “The South American Paris,” gushed a friend when I told her I was going, comparing its cafes to those of Paris, its fashions to Milano style, its nightlife to nowhere else. Most alluring and most true of all of the city’s seductions is the tango, that sultry dance born in the seamy districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, which you might very well find on any street corner today while you […more…]

Travels with Julia: Under the Swabian Sun

 Posted by at 2:33 pm  4 Responses »
Dec 102012
 
Travels with Julia: Under the Swabian Sun

Travels with Julia || Southern Germany Traveling through southwestern Germany recently, I thought I could have been in France or Italy’s wine-growing regions. But then, Baden-Württemberg (the two states merged to form one in 1952), the region’s official name, was once in the duchy of Swabia, a swathe of land that included parts of France and Switzerland. Today, it shares its borders with both countries and the French connection endures. There are nine Michelin-starred restaurant-hotels in this important fruit- and wine-growing region and they are all family-owned (as such establishments have been for centuries–tradition is important here). But if the chefs […more…]

Feasting with Leopards: An Unordinary Cooking Lesson

 Posted by at 11:51 am  23 Responses »
Apr 062012
 
Feasting with Leopards: An Unordinary Cooking Lesson

On a recent morning in Palermo, I found myself a guest at the historic Lanza Tomasi palazzo, where Nicoletta Polo, the Duchess of Palma, was planning a cooking lesson for American students who would arrive after breakfast. I first met Nicoletta some twenty years ago when she was living in New York City. Originally from Venice and an excellent cook, she versed me on the food of the Veneto for research on a book I was writing then, which includes some of her recipes. Today the Duchess lives in the ancestral palace that her husband, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, has restored. […more…]

About that Stracotto: Italian for Very, Very Slow-Cooked, Sublime Stew

 Posted by at 2:53 pm  9 Responses »
Feb 062012
 
About that Stracotto: Italian for Very, Very Slow-Cooked, Sublime Stew

And for which I promised a recipe in a recent post (December 15). Just the remedy for February’s chill.  Go to RECIPE> After I finished off producer Piero Catalano’s bottle of Suavis, the aged vinegar from Sicily’s desert island (“The Other Face of Balsamic” [December 15 post]), a small flask of Modena aged balsamic vinegar took its place in my cupboard. Unlike the Suavis, a souvenir from my September in Trapani (I drank it as a cordial, an “amen” to the day, blissful thimbleful by thimbleful and it was gone by January), aged Modena balsamico can be more easily replaced. […more…]

FOR THE NEW YEAR: Lentils for Luck and Sausages for Plenty, Infused with Holy Oil

 Posted by at 5:24 pm  10 Responses »
Dec 312011
 
FOR THE NEW YEAR: Lentils for Luck and Sausages for Plenty, Infused with Holy Oil

Put them together for the quintessential Italian New Year dish, lenticchie di capodanno (lentils for the new year). Lentils, round and copper-colored, should remind you of money; pork shouts fatness and increase. And the olive oil? Nectar of the gods. “A drop of olive oil on the head, a drop of wine on the lips” remembers writer Bill Marsano, was an infant’s blessing in Italian households. It anoints the breasts of monarchs at their coronations and marks the foreheads of the dying in their final breath of life. In your food, it’s no less a benediction. New Year is an […more…]

Piero’s “Better Than Balsamic,” Postscript with Pictures

 Posted by at 2:42 pm  6 Responses »
Dec 152011
 
Piero's "Better Than Balsamic," Postscript with Pictures

Frost has snuffed out the last breath of Indian summer in New York, but warm up with these images of Sicily.  From Piero Catalano, the artisan food producer and master vinegar maker I met in Trapani province this past September (see “A New Vinegar is Born,” 26 October post), a postscript in pictures.  Next, go make yourself some stracotto (Italian extra slow-simmered meat stew) with aged vinegar…stay tuned for the recipe…. Piero Catalano’s sun-dried tomatoes and other local products on the shelves in his Trapani shop, KusKus. The most precious item is his vinegar. Since then he has picked all […more…]

Pantelleria, Sicily: A New Vinegar is Born

 Posted by at 8:09 am  1 Response »
Oct 262011
 
Pantelleria, Sicily: A New Vinegar is Born

Day 4   I don’t think there is a place in the world more ideal than Pantelleria to think of the Moon. And Pantelleria is much more beautiful. The endless plains of volcanic rock, the calm sea, the dammusi (traditional volcanic rock houses) where you can see African lighthouses through their windows on windless nights… the bottom of the sea asleep… an ancient amphora with stone garlands and the remains of some wine corroded over the years… bathing in a vaporous bowl in water so thick with minerals you can walk on it… –Gabriel Garcia Marquez, describing the Sicilian island […more…]

Revisiting Fontanasalsa, Trapani

 Posted by at 12:07 am  5 Responses »
Oct 042011
 
Revisiting Fontanasalsa, Trapani

If yesterday’s post has left you hungry, here is a description of the excellent lunch I had at the Fontanasalsa agritourism when I visited in the spring. The table was filled with the fruits of the fields and woods nearby–platters piled high with sweet or peppered cheeses and salamis from the countryside, sweet-and-sour eggplant and zucchini compotes, tender glazed veal rolls stuffed with caciocavallo cheese and herbs, and baby cuttlefish coddled in pungent tomato sauce, as tender as they could be. There was hand-made pasta stuffed like a jelly roll with freshly made sheep’s milk ricotta and tender greens, and […more…]

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