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Calabrian Food
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Calabria from Scratch
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Melanzane arrostite (Marinated Grilled Eggplant with Garlic and Mint)
One of my favorite ways to eat eggplant during the summer months is to grill and marinate them with a simple sauce of olive oil, vinegar, garlic and fresh mint, a minty vinaigrette.
These are so good and easy to make that you will make them all the time, just as I do. Please read last [...]
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Pasta con crema di zucchine
Here is one more recipe for you to use up all your zucchini. I created it back in the summer of 1983 for the first Zucchini Festival in Hayward, California. I knew that my pasta with zucchini and ricotta salata wouldn’t be a good choice so I came up with a recipe made with pureed [...]
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My book is at the printer!
I can’t believe it! After all these years I finally have my own book in my hands. I received what is known in the publishing business as a “bindery copy” last week. Here it is sitting on my table:
A sneak preview of the back cover:
and a page in the book:
By the way, My Calabria is [...]
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Pasta con Zucchine e Ricotta Salata
Here is another recipe where you can put your zucchini to use. We made this pasta dish at the all-zucchini cooking class on Saturday.
You can prepare everything while the pasta cooks. The key ingredients are zucchini and a flurry of grated ricotta salata. I was lucky to have a nice ricotta affumicata that my parents [...]
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Today’s pick from my “orto” (vegetable garden)
Someone asked me the other day how much food I typically get from my Oakland orto. Of course it varies depending on the time of the year, but during the summer I typically pick enough for family dinner every night. As an example I thought I’d show you what I picked from my garden today, [...]
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Zucchini coming out of my ears!
July is the month when my eight zucchini plants produces more zucchini that I can keep up with. I pick quite a few of them each day; as you can see below, each plant produces lots of them.
A typical daily pick of zucchini:
My parents never pick zucchini when they are small. That would be wasteful! [...]
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My garden at the end of June
Last month I was worrying that my garden wasn’t doing as well as last year since the weather had been unsually cold for the Bay Area. But after taking some pictures today and comparing them to last year’s, I was amazed at how similar the garden is. After all that cold weather everything seems to [...]
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Nocino (Walnut Liqueur)
June 24 is the day when people in Calabria and throughout Italy start the process of making nocino. June 24 happens to be San Giovanni’s day (St John’s day) and tradition has it that the green walnuts must be picked on this day to make the best nocino.
Nocino is a dark-colored liqueur with a [...]
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Cipolle di Tropea (The Sweet Red Onions of Tropea)
Calabria is famous for its sweet red onions named after the glamorous beach town of Tropea. During the month of May and June you can buy them freshly harvested at roadside farm stands.
Later, in June and July, they are sold at markets strung in a ristra.
The main growing area is south of Tropea, around Ricardi [...]
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Our first egg!
I found our first egg yesterday!
It was such a surprise as it wasn’t laid in the nesting box and we were not expecting eggs yet. Chickens start laying their first eggs after five and half months so the eggs were due next week. When we let the chickens out this morning we found our second [...]
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Foraging for and cooking wild fennel
This is the time of the year for wild fennel fronds. Thank goodness that my parents moved to Northern California. I don’t know what we would have done without our wild fennel!
The wild fennel that grows here in Northern California is the same variety, finocchietto selvatico, as the one that grows on the coastal areas [...]
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My garden in May means lots of fava beans
My garden is a little behind from last May. The weather has been unusual for California this year, with lots of rain and cold. We have planted all the tomatoes, eggplant and romano beans, but have not planted our peppers yet. Fresh peas are still on the vines because they were late coming out this [...]
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Bocconotti calabresi
The Calabrian town of Mormanno is famous for sweet pastry tartlets called bocconotti, a word that literally means “small bites”, because they can be eaten in one bite. They are traditionally filled with grape jam or cherry preserves and covered with pastry dough. I baked a couple of them with grape jam (mostarda d’uva) so [...]
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My book is available for pre-order!
You can pre-order my cookbook from Amazon. The official publication date is November 8, 2010. I will post my schedule for book signings and events as we get closer to the date.
Spread the word and let’s put Calabria on the map!
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Chickens in my backyard
According to my mother, the only thing that was missing from my backyard was chickens. I am always talking about the eggs that I used to eat when I grew up in Calabria: the yolk was as orange as the sunrise and the eggs were so tasty that she would often whip a raw egg [...]
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Calabrian Easter bread
At Easter time, in my town of Verbicaro everybody baked a sweet bread that we called buccellati, also called cuzzupe, cuculi or cudduraci in other parts of Calabria. These symbolic breads are decorated with whole eggs still in the shell. The eggs are nestled into the surface of the dough, held in place with criss-crossed [...]
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Crema di Limoncello
What do you do when life gives you lemons? I make limoncello with the Meyer lemons from my tree.
Last week I made a batch of limoncello and crema di limoncello, which I learned to make from my cousins. In Calabria people make all types of liqueurs, infusing grain alcohol with different fruit, herbs, flowers, even [...]
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A sneak preview of “My Calabria” cookbook
Take a look at the sales blad for my cookbook! “Blad” stands for “book, layout and design” and is used by a publisher’s sales and marketing department to sell into their various markets. Once you are at the website click below the cover page to browse through the 12 pages of the blad. This will [...]
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It’s time to start your seeds!
If you are planning to start your vegetable plants from seeds, this is the time to begin, so that they will be ready for planting in 6 to 8 weeks.
This last week was when my parents started all the seeds for our vegetable garden. My parents never buy seeds; they always keep seeds [...]
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Cooking fresh sardines
This is the third week in a row that I have found fresh sardines at Monterey Fish Market in Berkeley so I decided it was time to write about them. Every time I put fresh sardines on the menu for my cooking classes not many people sign up! If you’re like these students, then I [...]
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Calabrian Food
