(photo: cauliflower carrot soup finished with extra virgin olive oil, parsley, and Sriracha sauce). One of the prized crops on the small Calabrian family farm Nonno Lattella worked until a a few years ago was Cauliflower and like many Italian farmers he respected the vegetable for both it’s taste and value.  In fact, Italy is the top producer of Cauliflower […]

One of the tricks to eating well, in my humble opinion, is to eat simple meals comprised of high quality ingredients. The high quality ingredients will allow you to “cheat” because they’re, A priori, spectacular food items to begin with and the simple meal part will ensure you (read me) won’t screw up the cooking process because simple means little manipulation or […]

(photo: chicken soup with tortellini) 1. Pasta e Fagioli Pasta e fagioli is found in every region of Italy and the only two common ingredients tend to be beans and pasta.  In northern Italy, you’ll find cranberry beans used for the dish while in some southern provinces you’ll often see cannellini beans.  You’ll also hear folks refer to it incorrectly […]

Recently, we’ve developed quite the craving for hearty greens such as Swiss chard, red chard, bitter dandelions, kale, and escarole.  Maybe it’s a function of aging or my body telling me to eat less salumi and rice balls (arancini) and more naturally occurring, and unmanipulated, food types. Whatever the rationale, my craving has our home fridge stocked with fresh escarole.  […]