Rethinking zucchini : Lombrichelli with zucchini and guanciale

I told my friend, Sarah, I was working on a post about my favorite summer pasta dish with squash. “Send it my way,” she said. “Squash is always so drab.” It can be true, particularly with certain varieties of zucchini, whose unusually high water content render them almost flavorless. Water-logged vegetables like zucchini and radishes……

Topping and tailing : Fagioli lessi

“I’m gonna grab an espresso. Any else want one?” Sam’s raises his hand, then continues dragging a giant crate of string beans over to one of the long wooden tables in the cortile. He lifts the crate and dumps them out in front of Cybelle, who is sitting and waiting patiently for us to join……

A Italian affair to remember

This September I’ll be leading a group of ten people on a food tour through Rome and Tuscany. I’ve had the tremendous good fortune to live in both regions for long stretches of time, and I designed this tour to highlight my favorite aspects of Roman and Tuscan food culture. This is my Love Letter……

Why I run

At the end of the October, I will run my second marathon. I’ve spent the past couple months reflecting on why I’ve continued running for almost twenty years. Here’s what I came up with: I run to be nicer to people and to myself I run to step out of my own head and back……

To Rome, With Love : Eggplant parm

I moved to Rome in the fall of 2015.  I had finished culinary school and was there to intern in a kitchen at an academy for American scholars. My first visit was three years earlier while I was living in Florence. I was there to meet a lover for the weekend. Together we trounced through……

Feasting on Life

On sunny Saturday mornings like these I’m reminded of Rome. I remember sitting in a café in Prati, crumbs of shortbread cookie caught in my sweater, an Italian newspaper sprawled across the bar. I remember the simplicity of such intentionality, rooting myself in a place to observe. Sometimes I’d bring my notebook and write. Mostly……

To Wander

To wander: intransitive verb, to move about without a fixed course, aim, or goal; to go idly about; to go astray *** My two travel partners and I were sitting at a table tucked in the back of Il Bacaro, a small trattoria close to the Pantheon in Rome. Dim, romantic lighting almost hid a……

When in Roma

Mr. Five, my dinner companion, crossed his hands across his stomach and smiled at me from across the table. We were tucked into an intimate two-top nestled at the end of a short banquet, our legs tangled messily under the table as we tried to negotiate the tiny economy of space. The trattoria was the……