Sicilian Girl

Tweet Little onions, (cipollini) look like ping-pong balls that have been slightly flattened. These little bulbing onions originated in Italy and are harvested 100 days after planting. They have a pale yellow and gold-colored thin papery skin and a translucent white flesh. They have more residual sugar than your average onion and no harsh onion […]

Tweet   “I don’t think you can find a poorer dish than this one,” says Sofia Loren of this stale bread salad. “As a child during the war, when I’d see my grandmother busy preparing panzanella, I’d know right away that our household had run out of money. But I loved this kind of food […]

Tweet By law and tradition, Gorgonzola is made exclusively with milk from cows raised in the Piedmont and Lombardy regions (borders Switzerland) of Northern Italy. This blue-marbled cheese (similar to a blue cheese) dates back to the Roman Ages. Italians refer to the blueing as “erborinato” (meaning “parsley-ed”) relating to the color and appearance. This […]

Tweet In Italy, watermelon is the most prominent fruit of the summer. After spending a day in the hot summer sun, there is nothing quite so refreshing as a cold juicy slice. Because watermelon is such a great thirst quencher, you will find a proliferation of fruit stands selling it by the slice or in […]

Tweet Sur La Table is a national cookware store that also offers cooking classes. Last month for our “date night” Jack and I attended a class in Scottsdale, Arizona, called “An Evening in Venice”. We were a fun group of people (16) as we worked side-by-side preparing dishes we would all get to taste. A […]

Tweet “A table without bread is like a day without sunshine.” This Sicilian saying refers to the poverty of the past (faded but not forgotten) where a loaf of bread was the only thing keeping you from starvation. Perhaps, this is why many of us have grown up being taught to never waste a crumb. […]

Tweet Christians the world over recognize this line from the Lord’s prayer, a prayer I learned in catechism (the Gospel of Matthew version) many years ago and continue to pray to this day. Rev. Dr. Robert Hansel wrote an eight-part series exploring the meaning of this prayer, line by line. I believe the very essence […]

Tweet This is the mini version of my Orzo-Stuffed Peppers. Just the right size for merenda (snack). Serve them as a delicious first course or bring a tray of peppers to a cocktail party and watch them disappear (use red, green, yellow and orange  peppers for a colorful presentation). Mini-stuffed peppers are a welcome addition […]

Tweet There are four major groups of cauliflower and hundreds of varieties used around the world. Of these groups: Italian, Northwest European biennial, Northern European annual and Asian, the Italian is the ancestral form from which the others are derived. This recipe calls for the white variety you find most often in the market. Actually, […]

Tweet As Pellegrino Artusi, the best-selling nineteenth century Italian cookbook author said, “everyone knows how to cook artichokes on a grill”. Well, if you haven’t attempted it yet, here’s your opportunity with this easy recipe. Artichokes are a marine climate vegetable and thrive in the cooler coastal climates. The main European producers are Italy, Spain and […]