19 Dec 2014 16 Comments
in Recipes, Video Tags: ciriole di farro, farro, food, heirloom tomatoes, Italian cooking, pasta, quick cooking tips, recipes
I was making lunch for my wife and myself the other day, and had settled on a simple pasta. I had a nice heirloom pineapple tomato I needed to use, and would go from there.
Ciriole di farro pasta with heirloom tomato
In the cupboard, I found an open box of ciriole di farro noodles (farro, for the uninitiated, is an ancient Roman grain related to barley) that would work beautifully as a canvas. More
22 Nov 2013 20 Comments
in Recipes Tags: food, guanciale, Italian cooking, pasta, penne, recipes, swiss chard, whole wheat penne, yoga
I love Swiss chard, it’s one of the best greens in my opinion. It cooks up velvety and has a beautiful earthy flavor.
Rainbow chard from Malibu (more glamorous than other rainbow chard)
So I was thrilled at the Friday farmer’s market here in Topanga to discover bags overstuffed with leaves of rainbow chard — white, golden and red. The chard was grown in Malibu, so they were charging $5 for it. (Usually I have rainbow chard growing in my own garden for free, but things have lately gone fallow.) Smitten, I bought the chard anyway. More
21 Jun 2013 7 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Food, Recipes Tags: green tomatoes, humor, Italian food, Mario Batali, pasta, recipes, spaghetti, Topanga Canyon
Late last fall, I was picking up my son Flynn from the home of our friends’ Lori and Gerard, where he was playing with his friend — their daughter Kiana.
Green tomatoes, herbs & squash blossom
Lori and I were standing in the yard chatting while the kids hammered on their wood projects and toddler Immy rolled around in a big plastic Smart Car-looking toy she found on the patio. We talked of the difficulty of growing vegetables in Topanga Canyon, as I admired her tall, barren tomato plants. More
20 Nov 2012 8 Comments
in Food, Humor, Recipes Tags: anchovies, bigoli in salsa, Caesar salad, Mario Batali, pasta, Rialto fish market, Saveur, Venice
Oftentimes when I have a specific ingredient I want to cook, I’ll have a vague recollection of a wonderful dish I had once, read about or made myself that uses said ingredient. And then I’ll set out — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — to remember what it was and find it.
Venetian bigoli in salsa
That was what was happening on a lazy Sunday afternoon as I contemplated what I was going to make for dinner. I felt like Italian, and moving jars, bags and boxes around in the pantry, I discovered a forgotten bag of whole wheat spaghetti. More
14 Sep 2012 6 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Recipes Tags: food, Italian cooking, Italy, Mario Batali, olive oil, pasta, penne, recipes, swiss chard
There are a lot of great drizzles in the world.
A drizzle of honey over thick Greek yogurt.
A drizzle of chocolate atop an old-fashioned buttermilk donut.
A cold drizzle on a gray Parisian day that causes you to duck into a cozy bistro for a bowl of soup and a long afternoon with a bottle of wine.
But for my money, the greatest drizzle of them all, the drizzle that makes all the difference, is the drizzle of a good, fruity olive oil over a plate of pasta.
This is one of the simplest and most important cooking tips among the many I will bestow upon you here. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 