Memorie di Angelina

Chicory (cicoria in Italian) is one of my very favorite greens. It brings back memories of Angelina for whom cicoria and escarole were almost daily staples. Maybe that’s why she lived well into her 90s… A great weeknight dinner option, the recipe for this soup is very fast, very simple and very healthy. (If you […]

Eggplant isn’t the only vegetable that you can make alla parmigiana, fried and baked in layers with a light tomato sauce, mozzarella and grated parmesan cheese. Zucchini, another typical summer vegetable, also enjoys the same treatment. It is a fine way to exalt the sometimes rather bland vegetable. While the delicate taste of zucchini can […]

Not sure about you, but the weather here has crossed the line from pleasantly crisp to downright cold at night. That’s as good an excuse as any for some good, stick to the ribs eating. It may sound eastern European, but Italians, too, like their cabbage, especially in colder weather, and like to combine it […]

A staple of summer picnics and tavole calde, pomodori ripieni di riso, tomatoes stuffed with rice and oven roasted, make for a simple and relatively quick weekend dinner, part of a buffet or a tasty antipasto for a summer dinner for guests. Here’s the recipe: Take as many tomatoes as you have dining companions, cut […]

One of the guilty pleasures that I have never, up to now, revealed to a living soul is my penchant for late-night pasta snacks. But not just any pasta, but pastina of the kind usually used for soups, cooked in just enough liquid (usually a mixture of water and milk) so that by the time […]

  Italian cuisine is known for pasta and risotto and polenta and, to a lesser extent, for farro. But did you know that Italians also enjoy barley? Here is a simple, basic barley soup that is both healthy, appetizing and, if made in a pressure cooker, can be prepared in under 30 minutes.   Begin […]

Even though my paternal grandfather was from Grumo Appula, a small town outside Bari in the southeastern Italian region of Puglia, I don’t remember eating much pugliese food growing up. Other than a few dishes—orcecchiette with cime di rape (also known as broccoletti), that wonderful calzone di cipolla (onion pie) that I just recently rediscovered, […]