La Buona Tavola

Carnevale in Italy is a farewell to winter and a delirious celebration of Spring and all things delicious and forbidden. Every city or town has its own emblematic festival foods that are imbued with symbolic meaning. Naples is devoted to …

The medium-soft pecorino cheese certified DOP from Tuscany is considered as one of the oldest cheese on record: indeeed, Pliny the Elder wrote about it in Natural History, whereas nowadays it is one of the few Tuscan pecorino cheeses to be recognized …

If you are like me, the frenzy over kale has left me ignoring other delicious greens that I used to cook with on a more frequent basis.   Beautiful, slightly bitter escarole falls into this category.  My mother put escarole …

Pasquetta, “Little Easter,” Easter Monday, is as much a holiday for Italians as Easter itself. If its liturgical significance is to commemorate the women who gathered at Christ’s tomb only to find it vacated, it has become a national picnic …

Nonna Romana’s Baked Ziti… the perfect dish for a Dinner, a festivity or when you have company over.   Ingredients Serves 4-6   For the Sauce: 1 Lb Ground meat, 2 – 28 Oz Cans crushed tomatoes, 4 Cloves garlic, …

Historically and until the present day, enormous quantities of abbacchio, milk-fed baby lamb, have been consumed in Rome and its outlying region from Easter until June 24, the feast of San Giovanni. For example, in 1629, the city alone recorded selling 165 …

Spring is here, and how about greeting it with a Meringata? This simple dessert is composed of two disks of ethereal meringue, baked to a delicate crispiness, and filled with a layer of sweetened, chocolate-flecked whipped cream. The technique is …

What is the Difference Between All Those Names?   The “pressed” method means that no heat or chemical additives were used to extract the oil from the olives, which can alter and destroy the flavor and aroma of the oil …

Ingredients   2 Sticks Butter (room temperature), 2/3 Cup Granulated Sugar, 1/2 Tsp Almond Extract, Zest of 1 lemon, 3oz Almonds, 2 Cups All Purpose Flour, 1 Cup Raspberry Preserves   For the Lemon Glaze: 1 Cup Confectioners Sugar, 2-3 …

I was utterly charmed by Palermo when I was there less than a week ago. I admit to have been somewhat wary of it last time I visited. It was a combination of the bumper-to-bumper traffic; the accommodation (which although …