Archive for the 'recipes' Category

Culinary Interlude: Caponata … err … ratatouille

I love food — Mediterranean-sourced food in particular (though I won’t turn down anything tasty no matter where it’s from). And one of life’s great mysteries is: Is ratatouille or caponata the better dish? The answer of course is “yes.” Actually, sometimes when I start cooking, I’m not sure whether I’m on my way to […]

Culinary Interlude: Home is where the pizzeria is

I love pizza, but I can’t stand cheese. If this sounds like a contradiction to you, you’ve been eating too much of that goopy American abomination sold as “pizza,” but which represents a significant devolution from the real thing. In Italy, pizza might or might not contain cheese. If it has cheese, it’s always a […]

Culinary Interlude: Bread day

I can get truly mediocre baguette at Safeway for under a buck — it has a decent crust that seems to surround cotton batting. Or I can get top-notch loaves at an independent bakery in town — at about four bucks a pop. We eat a lot of bread with our meals, dipped in olive […]

Culinary Interlude: Roasted vegetable spread

I don’t eat dairy, so I don’t put butter on my bread. My wife’s cholesterol spikes if she even looks at butter, so she (regretfully) follows my example to avoid emulating her mother’s triple bypass, or her younger brother’s doctor-mandated Lipitor dependence. This used to mean that we used olive oil, usually with some garlic […]

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