Category: Food

OK, so this is not strictly about Italy. What it is about is the respect for ingredients that goes into good cooking – and for me that means Italian cooking. Well, the French and Spanish are pretty good if they don’t get carried away with thinking that food is art or a science experiment. And […]

We tend to think of pesto as just the Ligurian stuff with basil, nuts, garlic,etc. But really the word “pesto” simply means ground or crushed. It is the past participle of “pestare”, to grind, pound or crush. It comes from the same word root as pestle as in “mortar and pestle”. But so much for […]

“Lighter fluid”. That’s the way I used to describe grappa. Between getting better stuff and my taste developing, I’ve  come to really  love it. If anyone is at a loss of what to buy me for a birthday or Christmas present there is always that answer. I really don’t know why it should be expensive […]

I ate baccala at a place in Rome that a friend turned me on to. I really couldn’t remember the name of the place but I knew that it was close to Campo di Fiori. I used Google Maps to get oriented and then went looking around using the Street View feature and, mamma mia!, there it […]