School started in Calistoga this past Monday. I couldn’t believe it. As I drove past the high school I saw students gathering in the parking lot, and the telltale “Welcome Back Wildcats!” message hanging across the front of the building. I was a bit sad – we start school early here in Northern California, no doubt, but no matter how early it is school still means one thing: summer’s almost over and fall is about to begin. So, in honor of the end of summer (that luscious season filled with juicy sweet stone fruits, berries and endless sweet melons) Kathrin and I have chosen to dedicate this week’s post to that fantastic “sauce of summer”, salsa. Continue reading “Summer Salsa”
Category: Featured Fruit and Vegetable
What’s in season and sounds good
A Love for Lentils
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 70s, the food I ate was standard for an Italian kid from Bay Ridge: almost always prepared by my grandmother, and generally assigned to a day (chicken soup on Monday, pizza on Friday, meatballs and macaroni on Sunday, and a rotation of five or six other dishes in between), it was the food we and all the other Italian American families around us ate. One particular dish my grandmother made that survived the transition into my daily repertoire is lentils and macaroni. And, it is from that dish that I began to understand and explore these fantastic legumes. Continue reading “A Love for Lentils”
Garbanzo, Garbanzo, Garbanzo
Chickpeas were not a staple in Northern Italy, where beans and legumes tended to be of the white variety. New traditions are made with every generation, however, and when I now think of chickpeas, I think of my son who had his first chickpeas when he was two. Great Jones, the New York City burger joint around the corner from where we lived, happened to serve the best green salads with chickpeas. Finn gobbled up this salad, loving every bite, and while he liked the flavor and consistency of the beans, I suspect his particular childhood memory was cemented when he proudly added a funny new word to his vocabulary: garbanzo, garbanzo, garbanzo… Continue reading “Garbanzo, Garbanzo, Garbanzo”
Raspberries, Anyone?
There were many food related advantages to growing up in northern Italy including a varied cuisine, with Austrian, Italian, German and French influences, lots of fresh meats and cheeses, and delicious baked goods, but one of the best things about food in Südtirol was that it was fresh. It was made in the moment, for the meal we were sitting down to eat, and this was not only cultural, but also by necessity as we did not, and still do not, have fast food establishments in our town.
Another thing is, we always had vegetable gardens and orchards growing up, which meant that every fruit or vegetable we ate was just picked, and ripe for the season, in that moment. In fact, my mom does not visit a fruit and vegetable store from May through October, growing all her tomatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, cabbage (turned into home-made Sauerkraut), apricots, apples, figs, grapes, and plums, as well as every kind of berry that will grow at our altitude: red, white and black currants, strawberries and plenty of raspberries. So, the chief way that I have tried to transfer this northern Italian freshness to my family is through serving fresh fruits and vegetables in the height of the season. And right now, there’s no better fruit to eat than raspberries. Continue reading “Raspberries, Anyone?”
Greens
I love salads. They are my kind of dish. Growing up in northern Italy, salads were a mainstay of our food culture, and were usually made up of vegetables rather than lettuce. When I arrived in the US it didn’t take long for me to add the lettuce variety to my repertoire, and combine the vegetables of my youth into easy, fresh and colorful meals. This week, let’s give these fantastic creations center stage! Continue reading “Greens”
Come and Cook with Us 