March 20th marked the first day of Spring in the US (the 21st in Italy) and with the passing of the winter season comes renewed food ambitions.  Our Penne with Peas, Onions, and Pecorino Romano is an ode to Spring and your waiting taste-buds. In our view, peas have two food soul-mates; that is, fish and pasta.  On the pasta pairing […]

If there’s a single, universal, fried dessert treat in Italy it would have to be cenci or chiacchiere – fried ribbons (sometimes called nastrini, stracci, cenci, or frappe).  Cenci are crispy sugared strips of scented dough, fried and then coated in confectioner’s sugar. During Carnivale in Tuscany this sweet treat is made in most homes and are consumed before the Lenten […]

Leave the beautiful region of Calabria and travel north to the much beloved Tuscany or Toscana and you’ll find biroldo or sanguinaccio – a traditional blood-based salumi.  Biroldo is a pork blood sausage and you’ll often find it infused with raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon or flavored with fennel (blood sausage is also referred to sanguinaccio in many part of […]