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…]

Lost Recipe, Mother of Spaghetti al Pomodoro, Found in Brooklyn

 Posted by at 2:36 pm  8 Responses »
Aug 232013
 
Lost Recipe, Mother of Spaghetti al Pomodoro, Found in Brooklyn

It’s not every day that you find a missing link to history–in this case, pasta history. Read about how I found a lost recipe, progenitor of the union of pasta and the tomato in, of all places, Brooklyn, New York. Then again, the site of the find was D. Coluccio & Sons, the iconic Bensonhurst Italian grocery. Maybe not such a surprise after all. After reading the new article, you may never again take for granted spaghetti and meatballs, or any other variation on the theme of pasta and tomato sauce. You wouldn’t imagine such a simple dish could be so splendid–and […more…]

Zucchini Need Live Up to Their Name: “ini” Means Small, Very Small

 Posted by at 1:30 pm  10 Responses »
Aug 152013
 
Zucchini Need Live Up to Their Name: "ini" Means Small, Very Small

  Zucca, in Italian, means squash; zucchini, the diminutive, “small squash” (the Italians snap them off the mother vine at three-and-a-half inches). So why are zucchini so often the size of baseball bats? You’ll have to ask the British about that, who call them “marrows,” and win the world records for growing giant vegetables at the Great Yorkshire Showground every summer. To read about the long and short of it, and learn to look forward  to a bumper baby zucchini crop every summer, go to my new article for Zester Daily. There you’ll find the whole story of America’s gift to Italy, and the recipe […more…]

Julia on NPR Radio and Zester Daily: Global Warming Leads to Pine Nut Plagues

 Posted by at 9:00 am  2 Responses »
Aug 092013
 
Julia on NPR Radio and Zester Daily: Global Warming Leads to Pine Nut Plagues

If making basil pesto is a rite of summer for you, you’ll want to check out my most recent stories on Zester Daily and NPR radio about the disappearing pine nut and substituting pistachios for pesto instead. As our planet warms, we’re losing our pine forests. Everyone I spoke to, from the American pine nut gatherers in the southwest dustbowl, to the pesto makers in Genoa who have relied on the Mediterranean fir forests for centuries, said the same thing: the nut-bearing conifers are an endangered species. It was a tough story to digest, but digest it I did. Because I write about food […more…]

Secrets of Italian Tomato Sauce

 Posted by at 6:40 pm  1 Response »
Jul 022013
 
Secrets of Italian Tomato Sauce

If you’re like me and love a good tomato sauce, you’ll want to read my new article in Zester Daily, “How to Master the Tomato Sauces of Italy” for tomato sauce wisdom and maybe, just maybe, my favorite “red sauce” recipe.   I wrote it because—I kid you not–even after having written thirteen cookbooks about Italian food—four of them about pasta and the sauces it wears–and one about how to make tomato sauce specifically*, people still ask me what prepared tomato sauce I buy! My answer, “I wouldn’t dream of eating tomato sauce from a bottle!” The response, inevitably: “You make tomato sauce from […more…]

A Sweet Remembrance: Love Knots for Papà

 Posted by at 6:51 pm  5 Responses »
Jun 142013
 
A Sweet Remembrance: Love Knots for Papà

Actually, I never called my father “Papà.” I know he would have preferred it, but at some point after “Giulia” was changed to “Julia,” unofficially but permanently at the insistence of an elementary school teacher, he became “Daddy.” His name had also been anglicized, much earlier, at Ellis Island, from Giovanni della Croce to John Dellacroce. Still, he was more Giovanni than John when it came to most things. Born in Toritto, Provincia di Bari, Regione di Puglia, Italy, on April 13, 1908, he died a couple of months shy of 100, on my birthday. My father had an extraordinary […more…]

A Lentil Soup for Christopher Peacock’s Kitchen

 Posted by at 10:25 pm  No Responses »
May 032013
 
A Lentil Soup for Christopher Peacock's Kitchen

My formative years were spent not only cooking alongside my Italian mother and aunts, immersed in beautiful food, but also, studying art. I love design especially–interior, graphic and fashion design, architecture… all of it.  And so I feel excited to be teaming up with celebrated designer, Christopher Peacock, to kick off this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House, a quintessentially New York spectacle. Every year, the most acclaimed interior designers transform a grand Manhattan home into an exhibition of state-of-the- art interiors for the show. The idea was hatched in 1973 when several dedicated advocates of the Kips Bay Boys […more…]

Pistachio Pesto: A Sauce Fit for a Prince

 Posted by at 1:44 am  4 Responses »
Apr 082013
 
Pistachio Pesto: A Sauce Fit for a Prince

Last year nearly to the day, I wrote a post about A Day Cooking with the Duchess at the ancestral Lampedusa palace in Palermo, where I spent a weekend that was spectacular indeed. With so many photos to post there was no room for a recipe. Here, you’ll find a version of the Duchess’s pistachio pesto that I adapted for American kitchens. (And by the way, if you live anywhere near Westchester County, New York, the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville will be showing Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation of Il Gattopardo, The Leopard, in this year’s Italian Film Festival on May 19, […more…]

A Whiff of Spring, a Waft of Rome

 Posted by at 9:47 am  3 Responses »
Mar 312013
 
A Whiff of Spring, a Waft of Rome

At long last, a streak of warm sunlight beams through my kitchen window. The day brings to mind Easters in Rome and the city’s abbacchio, butter-tender baby lamb, and the first artichokes of spring. No one, but no one, makes lamb and artichokes taste better than the Romans, though my mother would disagree. Being from Sardinia (Sardegna) where some of the best artichokes in the world grow under that island’s blazing sun, the thistles are a religion in her house. In a region where there are nearly twice as many sheep as people (some 3,000,000 of them to about 1,675,000 Sards), you know […more…]

Hey Mark! Whoa Mario! About Those Potato Gnocchi…

 Posted by at 11:21 pm  16 Responses »
Mar 212013
 
Hey Mark! Whoa Mario! About Those Potato Gnocchi...

If you had a look at Mark Bittman’s recent New York Times column about potato gnocchi, this post is for you. Mark and I are old friends from his Cook’s magazine days when we worked on some stories together. Since then, you and I have seen him on a dazzling journey in the world of food. He’s no slouch when it comes to cooking Italian. But about gnocchi specifically, and his recent article with Mario Batali… some input and insights—I’ve been on my own journey with the little dumpling. Continue reading and you’ll find how my own potato gnocchi (gnocchi di […more…]

 Older Entries  Newer Entries