It’s been a big week for bugs. Nordic Food Lab, a nonprofit research organization started by Rene Redzepi, famed chef of Copenhagen’s Noma restaurant, announced a project aimed at getting more people to eat insects. Bugs are known to be a good source of protein and fiber. But the lab’s project focuses on making insects …
Domenica Marchetti calculates that she has spent at least half her waking hours at the stove or dinner table. She grew up in an Italian family, with a mother who had her shaping gnocchi and ravioli before she could walk. She is the author of four books on Italian home cooking: The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy; Big Night In: More Than 100 Wonderful Recipes for Feeding Family and Friends Italian-Style; The Glorious Pasta of Italy; and Williams-Sonoma Rustic Italian: Simple, Authentic Recipes for Everyday Cooking. Her fifth book, The Glorious Vegetables of Italy, will be published in 2013. She is a graduate of Columbia School of Journalism and worked as a reporter at newspapers in New Jersey, Detroit and Washington, D.C., covering everything from school board elections to billionaire philanthropists. She has never attended culinary school and has no intention of doing so.
By Domenica Marchetti
Potluck: A roundup of what we’re reading on the web
It’s strawberry season here in D.C. Sure, we could make another batch of strawberry jam but why not make something fresh, something fun, something with a little fizz? Why not make homemade strawberry soda? Spring also signals the start of the entertaining season. For those of us who need a little help pulling off the …
Little Rhode Island has big local food scene
Rhode Island is a few steps closer to its local food scene than other states. “Because we’re the smallest state, we have an advantage when it comes to getting great products from our farms,” says native Rhode Islander David Dadekian. “When we say local, we’re talking farms that are just 15 miles outside of Providence.” …
American lamb moving from pasture to plate
Like most Americans, Marjorie Meeks-Bradley did not grow up eating lamb. Although her mother was an early proponent of the Slow Food movement and cooked from Alice Waters’ cookbooks, Meeks-Bradley, a northern California native, says that this mostly pasture-raised meat just wasn’t in the picture—or on the plate. “It always seemed a little exotic,” says …
Americans could use a salumi primer
Once upon a time in America there was salami and bologna (pronounced boloney). Now we have pancetta and prosciutto, lardo and lonza, coppa and culatello. We could go on (and we will). The Italian art and craft of making salumi—cured meats—dates back centuries. But it is only in recent years that most Americans really have begun …
Cured meats a 4th-generation family business
It’s no surprise that Oliviero Colmignoli got into making salami and other cured meats. He is the fourth generation in a family of famous Italian salumi makers — great-grandson of Cesare Fiorucci, who founded Norcineria Fiorucci in Umbria, in 1850. What is surprising is the latest addition to the line of artisan salami that Colmignoli (Col-meen-YO-li) …
Mexican chicken tinga made for ‘monsters’
You could say that Patricia Jinich’s recipe for chicken tinga is famous. It has, after all, been featured on the “Today” show, as well as on Jinich’s own PBS show, “Pati’s Mexican Table.” But that’s not why Jinich loves the recipe. She loves it because her “monsters” love it. “Monsters” is how Jinich affectionately refers …
A slice of Abruzzo in South Philly
Joe Cicala was born in Washington, D.C. to Sicilian-American parents and raised in suburban Maryland. He honed his culinary skills at a small, family-owned restaurant in Salerno, on Italy’s Amalfi coast. Now, at age 30, Cicala runs the kitchen at Le Virtù, where he is cooking authentic Abruzzese cuisine—in a corner of South Philadelphia. Somehow, …
Crazy pasta inspires love at first bite
In 2009, I went to Italy to research “The Glorious Pasta of Italy,” the book I was working on at the time. I targeted Abruzzo, not only because it is the region where my mother was born and raised and where I spent my summers growing up, but also because it is one of the …
Feast of the Seven Fishes: only in America
Ask Gabriella Marchetti about the Feast of the Seven Fishes and she’ll probably give you a look like you just served her a bad clam. My mother, who was born and raised in Italy’s Abruzzo region but has lived in the U.S. since the 1950s, has always maintained a distance between her own Italian culinary …
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