Sicilian Girl

Tweet When I was  living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I could easily find fresh fish and seafood just about any time of the year. The fish counter in my neighborhood market carried a good supply, but the place to go was Race Street Fish and Poultry, a little local market that had the [...]

Tweet Okra, also known as “gumbo” or “lady fingers,” is a highly nutritious edible green pod vegetable. It’s available fresh just about year-round in the South and from May-October in other areas. Fresh is best for breaded and fried but you can usually find it frozen in the market, which works fine in soups, gumbos [...]

Tweet Lasagna has been a part of my family’s Christmas dinner for as long as I can remember and it’s the only time I really ever make it anymore. This past year I didn’t even make it, my son did (molto squisito). My mother used to make enough for all of us to enjoy on [...]

Tweet For many folks, soup is the original comfort food, whether it’s a soothing light stracciatella or a hearty pasta e fagioli. This full bodied fennel soup falls somewhere in between. An easy to prepare recipe with only a few ingredients, this soup is so thick and creamy that you’d never guess it has no [...]

Tweet Onion soups have been popular since Roman times, so it seems to me that French onion soup might not be so French after all! As you may recall from your history class, Henry II, future king of France, married a lovely Italian girl from Florence named Catherine de Medici. What you might not remember [...]

Tweet It seems to me that no sooner have the last of the trick-or-treaters gone home to sort out their bounty and I have polished off any remaining Halloween candy, that the holiday season is standing (rudely) at the front door. Whether you are in a state of quiet calm or crazy chaos when you [...]

Tweet The combination of pasta and eggplant is exclusively associated with southern Italy and principally Sicily, a combination I have been using for years. I love eggplant and I love pasta so this is a normal pairing that makes perfect sense to me. There are numerous versions of pasta alla norma, which I just assumed [...]

Tweet This sauce is a lighter version of the American fettuccine Alfredo, I say “American”  because if you ask for this dish in a restaurant in Italy, they will look at you as if to say, “Who is this Alfredo?” Now, if you were to order pasta al burro or pasta bianco, the “real”  Alfredo, [...]

Tweet Caramelized onions, crimini mushrooms and mostaccioli pasta, all smothered in a rich Marsala cream sauce is a recipe for satisfying comfort food. I usually prepare this when I have leftover steak or chicken. It’s an easy meal to fix, even easier to eat and with the addition of the protein, a one dish meal. [...]

Tweet This dish has three ingredients and hardly needs a recipe, the ingredients, however, may need a bit of explanation. Orzo, is shaped like a grain of rice, is the Italian word for barley and is neither rice nor barley, orzo is pasta. A Shallot, although thought of as an elongated onion, is not an [...]