About eating Italian wherever you are
Seems like time to give a shout-out to Alice Waters’ method of making pizza dough, a favorite of mine for more than 40 years. It was published in Chez Panisse Pasta Pizza & Calzone, a slim volume co-written by Waters with Patricia Curtan and Martine Labro in 1984. The jacket of my copy is tattered…
The price of Italian pasta brands may soar as a result of 107% tariffs scheduled to kick in January 2026, I learned this week from the Wall Street Journal and other sources. If those products are even available, that is. Italian marketers are threatening to halt shipments, saying the dazi USA will make it impossible to…
I live in Boston, far from Alaska’s fishing grounds, but in summer I can count on wild salmon from our 49th state showing up on local seafood counters. King salmon, also known as chinook, is prized for its buttery flavor and coho salmon for its delicate taste and texture. Sockeye salmon, with a deep red-orange…
In Italy’s olive-growing regions, the festivals begin in November or even earlier in places like Sicily. Everyone’s eager to taste the olio nuovo at its freshly pressed peak, when flavors are most intense. That party is over. But here in the U.S., new oil from the 2024-2025 harvest is just making its way into…
Bollito misto, a boiled meat and vegetable dinner, is taken seriously in northern regions such as Emilia Romagna and Piemonte. Typically, a server rolls a cart to your table and dishes up boiled meats and side dishes from covered containers according to each diner’s preferences. In Parma I once overheard a large party enter into…
A Florentine gelato maker once told me that crema (also known as fior di latte, flower of milk) has the pure flavor ideal for judging the quality of a gelateria. In Italy vanilla gelato is considered a particular flavor that an establishment may or may not offer. Though vanilla tops every list of favorite American…
Fresh herbs are welcome any time but I have a special fondness for them in spring, early summer and fall, when they are tender and less likely to have turned bitter from heat. Thanks to our daughter Kate, our condo building’s shared patio has three containers overflowing with a mix of flowers and herbs….
Spending a few days in Milan last winter, my husband and I immersed ourselves in art—the immense Duomo built over a period of 600 years, Leonardo’s Last Supper, masterworks at The Brera. It happened to be Fashion Week. So we wandered through the Galleria, stopping for cocktails at Camparino and admiring elegantly dressed inhabitants…
In my dreams, a proper pantry is a closet or a shelf-lined room. In my actual condo kitchen, a cupboard serves this purpose–so I’m picky about the staples stored there. Among the grains, beans, nuts, dried fruit and canned tomatoes, you’ll always find a stack of canned and jarred seafood: tuna, sardines, mussels, mackerel, clams,…