When Brian and I took the boys to Italy, we wanted to eat lunch at a place near the Vatican that a lot of these Italian travelers recommended. It was a lunch we never forgot. We still talk about it and laugh. The place is Dino and Tony's and it is run by two brothers – Dino out front and Tony in the kitchen, neither of whom speak English.
When we arrived for lunch, we were not offered menus at all. Dino told us he was going to bring out special antipasti for us and then asked if we like pasta. Well, sure, we said. Before we knew what was happening, he disappeared into the kitchen and then brought out two pizzas, a platter of prosciutto and salami, a platter of grilled vegetables, a platter of potato croquettes, fried olives stuffed with meat and a bottle of Chianti. This was just the antipasti!
Then he delivered large bowls of radicchio risotto. "Where is the pasta?" I asked him. "After the risotto," he said. I knew we were in trouble. The risotto was so good, I couldn't believe it. Then the pasta came - Rigatoni Amatraciana. Delicious and perfectly cooked.
This past weekend, it was a bit cold. After Levi’s flag football game, I came home, grabbed 4 cooking magazines and got under the covers. I earmarked half of each issue and not only did I read each and every one of them but I spent almost the entire next day in the kitchen.
Salads don't always have to contain green lettuces, like basic iceberg or bibb, other colors, textures, and flavors can make an interesting combination. I love bitter lettuces, such as purple radicchio and white endive. Add pungent cheese, sweet and juicy pears, and crunchy walnuts to the mix, dress it in a Dijon-maple vinaigrette, and it becomes a festive fall salad that can be enjoyed as an elegant appetizer. Roasting the pears with a drizzle of maple syrup creates another level of flavor and intensifies their sweetness. I use Seckel pears, which are a small and quite firm variety of pear. They work extremely well when cooked and don't lose their texture at all, making them ideal in this salad.
Plump, sweet, and juicy—these are the best-tasting plums. Late summer brings with it all the different types of plums—colors of white, black, red and shapes of round and oval. There are too many varieties to list here. And don't forget pluots, a cross between plums and apricots. I love to eat them fresh—and you know they're good when the juices run down your arm. But as you've seen by reading here, I also adore plums in simple, homey desserts.
Beets are like paint bombs. Deliciously sweet, red, flavored paint bombs, so intensely colored they stain your fingers, bleed into the sink, tint the cutting board, you name it. When cooked, they aren't so much red as deep magenta. When mixed with sour cream they turn paler shades of magenta to pink. The color, like the flavor is either something you love or you hate.