Seasonal Recipes

Le Marche—the region of Italy on the Adriatic Coast east of Umbria—remains largely unknown to most Americans. Europeans and South Americans know about it and vacation there, but since a relatively small number of the millions of Italian immigrants that …

This is a very special recipe for me. In 1993, I visited my relatives near Senigallia, Italy for the first time. Lena, my dad’s cousin Fulvio Becci’s wife, prepared this dish for me. I loved it then, but had never …

I had heard of Wolf Meadow Farm and Luca Mignogna when I was writing Great Italian American Food in New England. About two hours north of my home on Cape Cod, Luca makes and sells handcrafted, totally authentic, good Italian …

We are right in the middle of the holiday season and that means we are busy.  But we still want to serve delicious and satisfying food.  What to do about dessert?  The answer is easy, elegant, ethereal and traditional – …

The Marche region of Italy is blessed with 180 km of fertile coastline, so the seafood available is deeply ingrained into Marche’s food culture. In a small marchigiano cookbook I purchased during our last trip to Italy, there are 10 …

With the holidays upon us, sometimes you simply need a good stiff cocktail to ease the stress or wait, perhaps a soothing dessert would better calm the nerves?  Alas, simplify your life by combining the two! These boozy Campari spiked …

The whirl of the holidays means lots of parties and lots of visitors to feed, but when I was a kid my main concern was feeding two very special guests – Santa and La Befana. My sister made the hot …

Potacchio refers to a traditional style of cooking originating from Le Marche, which involves tomato, garlic, white wine and rosemary.  Variations in the region include the additions of onions and in some cases, potatoes and can be used to prepare …

When I set out to sell a publisher on the idea of writing a book about Umbrian cooking some years ago, I was asked to sum up the cuisine in a short paragraph. Having just returned from one of my …

The first snow clings to the splashes of stricken marigolds outside my kitchen window. Only yesterday, their little mop-heads bobbed undaunted, taunting winter, as a cold wind whipped my little garden. Even in November of 2016, to see them in …