Memorie di Angelina

I love chicken, but I find it a shame that so many people overlook all the other edible birds out there: duck, goose, turkey, pigeon, guinea fowl, Cornish hens and—last but not least—quail, just to name a few. Most of these can be hard to find these days, as supermarkets have, for the most part, […]

This dish brings back some of my fondest childhood food memories. Calzone di cipolla, or onion pie, is one of the signature dishes of the cuisine of Puglia. My grandfather Lorenzo hailed from a small town outside of Bari, the capital of Puglia, called Grumo Appula. His sister, whom we called Zia Angelina (not to […]

This stew has a long history. The story goes that it was invented by the furnace workers (fornaciai) who baked the terracotta tiles for the Brunelleschi’s famous Duomo in Florence. They mixed roughly cut up beef shank, salt, lots of black pepper and red wine—Chianti, of course—in terracotta pots and let it all bake slowly […]

Apart from lasagna, nothing says Sunday dinner to me like a roast bird, sitting on the dining room table golden brown, with crispy skin, tender, juicy meat and—for special occasions—a savory stuffing. It’s a dish that was almost a universal feature of family dinners back in the day but, sadly, has become a rarity. Well, […]

I like to think that I have a good knowledge of Italian cookery but, every once in a while, I stumble on a dish that I’ve never heard of, let alone tried. So it was with a recent blog post from fellow blogger Judy Witts, whose blog Over a Tuscan Stove is one of my […]

A sformato, which literally means ‘unmolded’ is something like a soufflé without the puff: the main ingredient is mixed with a very stiff béchamel sauce and eggs, then baked in a mold until set. But since the eggs are left whole rather than separated and the whites whipped, a sformato only rises ever so slightly […]

Turkey is a popular meat in Italy, often providing a less expensive alternative to veal in dishes ranging from scalloppine to ossobuco. But a whole roast bird, Thanksgiving style, is a rarity. Back in Rome, I remember we had to special order our bird from a local butcher and presented it with much flourish, and […]