Winter weekends are just made for hearty soups, especially on those days when you are dodging snowflakes or stuck indoors because the weather’s just too cold.  So when I found myself shut in during the Great Blizzard of ’13, I pulled out the cookbooks…

The holidays are a great time to make Meatballs! If you want to entertain royally this year, consider the meatball. Made well ahead of time, these bite-sized hors d’oeuvres are a perfect addition to your repertoire.  As a center of the plate item for dinner…

         I love pasta and I am always on the lookout for a new and different way to prepare it.   There are sauces that require hours on the stove and that are best made in huge batches. “Bolognese” falls into that camp. Whatever the recipe,…

     Di Palo’s is irresistible if you’re an Italian food lover          I think I am on to the marketing secret of DiPalo’s, the venerable Italian Market in New York’s rapidly vanishing Little Italy.  I’ll get to that but first a little about Little…

           I was recently involved in a Television program.  Every time I used a phrase that was French, (as in the expression “A certain je ne sais quoi”), the director would stop me and ask me to translate whatever I was saying into English. …

         For us, fall starts bang on Labor Day.  That’s it for Andrew being at the beach.  His real estate business in the city totally takes over his every weekend.  We will be lucky if he gets to Bridgehampton once between then and Thanksgiving.  This…

        The Emilia region of Italy has long been considered the country’s gastronomic epicenter.  Similar to the position Lyons occupies in French gastronomes’ hearts, Bologna is said to be Italy’s gastronomic capital.  Given that such universally recognizable names like Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano-Reggianohail from…

There was a time when Pino Luongo was at the top of the food chain in New York’s restaurant world.   He arrived here from his native Italy in 1981.  And after a brief stint working for other people, he opened Il Cantinori (Tel: 212 673…

        It’s been a really rough winter here so far and there are still 50 days to go.  But I found a couple of ways to conjure happier and warmer days.  This is thanks to the introduction of some delicious, ripe tomatoes that are…

Last weekend we had a post Thanksgiving dinner party.  Since everyone was pretty well stuffed with Turkey, we wanted something completely different — a crowd-pleaser on a cold night.  So we went for a dinner that’s ‘tutto italiano’ from main course to desert.  Now baked pasta…

        Eataly, in case you haven’t heard, is a 42,000 square foot grocery emporium that’s just opened at 200 Fifth Avenue.  And everything in it hails from or owes its existence to Italy from the on-premises cooking school to the rooftop beer garden.   The original…

        Who doesn’t need a weeknight supper they can get on the table in under 30 minutes?  This dish from Fine Cooking is a keeper.  It really was on the table in no time.  It’s got a lot of flavor and crunch.  It gives you…

        Whenever I get called for Jury Duty, I’m always delighted to use the midday break to try out the neighborhood restaurants.  Criminal court means visits to Chinatown and what’s left of Little Italy.  But Civil Court is bang up against Tribeca, ever a hotbed…

When I was doing some research for this post, I discovered that this method of cooking chicken is pictured in Etruscan frescoes.  Given that the Etruscan era ended roughly around 500 B.C., this is unquestionably the oldest recipe I’ve ever shared with you.  And it’s…