La Buona Tavola

Eating in Italy is one of life’s greatest pleasures. And eating seasonally in Italy is off the charts delicious. Bright red, ripe tomatoes. Sweet, ripe strawberries picked at their peak. Melanzane pa0cked with a smoky punch. MAMMA MIA, ma quanto è buono! …

If you like pasta – and who doesn’t? – and if you like cake -and again, who doesn’t? – then you’re sure to like timballo di pasta, pasta baked in a mold then served as a kind of pasta cake. Italian …

As everyone knows, zucchini (aka courgettes) are a staple of modern Italian cookery. Italians have come up with a nearly endless variety of recipes for their beloved cucurbita pepo: They can be sautéed in garlic and olive oil, stewed in tomato sauce, stuffed, fried …

Here in Umbria spring does not want to arrive this year: it’s cold and wet. The countryside however, is dotted with marvelous flowers. Wisterias and lilac adorn edges and walls, cherry and almond trees look like heavenly clouds. Poppies make …

In Italy, a well-prepared sformato is revered almost as much as a good plate of pasta, especially in the summer.  A sformato is a typical Italian savory flan, somewhere in between a French soufflé and a frittata. It has the same creamy …

In Italy, humble sagra (plural sagre) is a festival that celebrates a specific type of food, drink, or product from a town. Sagre have become such popular events that almost every village in Umbria, and probably in the whole of …

One usually associates Roman cuisine with hearty and robustly flavored dishes and, by and large, the image holds true. But there are some exceptions, like today’s offering: stracciatella, a light, and delicately flavored “egg drop soup.” Stracciatella is utterly simple and—if you have …

When temperatures reach astronomical highs as they have done lately, I often turn to salads for sustenance. To me, they’re the ideal hot weather food. Not only do you generally serve them chilled or at room temperature, but they’re quickly thrown together …

Umbria explodes with a kaleidoscope of wildflowers from April until well into June. If you walk through any of Umbria’s pretty hill towns like Assisi, Spello, or Perugia, you will notice buildings adorned with huge bushes of blossoming rosemary and lilac. Walk outside the town …

Growing up in a Sicilian-American family, holidays were always an event to savor. As a child, days leading up to a special event were spent with my nonna and her sisters in the kitchen preparing each dish. These dishes were never …