Cicchetti

06 Apr 2012 10 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Video Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The most wonderful thing about Venice is you can get completely lost, and yet never be completely lost. The city is essentially a big round island of canals and narrow pedestrian streets that all fold in on one another, leading nowhere and everywhere at once. And if you wander long enough, you’ll eventually wind up someplace you recognize — sometimes even back at the place where you started.

I remember wandering like that once through a maze of alleyways on an eerily quiet and foggy March afternoon in Venice with my sister, trying to find our way back to our penzione. Eventually frustrated in our efforts, we tucked into one of the city’s ubiquitous bàcari wine bars for refueling — a welcome glass of wine and a few plates of blissful cecchitti. More

Lovely Bones

02 Mar 2012 9 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes Tags: , , , , , , ,

When I was a younger man, one of my favorite dishes was osso bucco. It seemed tantalizingly exotic and exclusive, especially the most carnal part — the scooping of the marrow from the center bone. It was only later that I realized you could have that experience without the meat, tomato sauce and risotto.

Recently while browsing the meat section of one of our local upscale markets, I stumbled upon a package of marrow bones. More

Crustaceans in Oz

17 Feb 2012 4 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I do a lot of shopping. I go to farmers markets, Japanese markets, Persian markets, Vietnamese supermarkets, Indian spice stores, Mexican carnicerias, Chinese poultry shops… And on the way home, I usually stop at the regular old grocery store. It’s where I get staples — sugar, cheese for the kids, bananas, hamburger buns, etc. Our local one has reasonably good produce, an excellent wine department and a nice view of the Pacific Ocean across the street.

Butter-poached Australian lobster with saffron risotto and lobster sauce

On Valentine’s Day afternoon, I dropped by the local overpriced seafood market to see if anything caught my eye to serve with the bottle of Perrier Jouet I had chilling in the fridge. And everything was, well, overpriced. More

Niçoise Redux

31 Jan 2012 10 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Sensational Salads Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sometimes a salad is just so good you have to blog about it twice. And so, my friends, I invite you to join me on a virtual journey back to the French Riviera as we revisit the Niçoise, deconstructed and put back together.

Deconstructed Niçoise

I’ve been known to grumble on this blog about food trends. I never want to see another red velvet cupcake or Korean beef taco again. More

The American Series, Pt. V — Buffalo Chicken Wings

20 Jan 2012 7 Comments

by scolgin in American Series, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , ,

In the sacred domain of Sunday sports, the holiest day of them all is Super Bowl Sunday. And if there is a culinary sacrament most cherished by its practitioners, it would be the Buffalo wing.

Buffalos don’t have wings. But chickens do, and the story goes that a guy with a bar in Buffalo, New York stumbled upon the fabled recipe while either trying to stimulate his patrons to buy more drinks, or trying to use up a mistaken delivery of chicken wings. Whatever the truth, we say thank you.

You could veer from tradition and try this recipe with Tabasco or some other spicy red sauce rather than Frank’s Red Hot (available online or in most well-stocked grocery stores); you could use margarine or olive oil rather than butter, or bake your wings instead of frying them. People do all sorts of crazy things in life. More

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