la cicoria lessa: boiled chicory

December 13, 2011  |  Altri Primi, antipasti, Contorni  |  No Comments

'So tell me, what is the biggest surprise about your job to those that don't work in the field', is the question I always ask when stumped for a good question at a dinner party, whenever there is painful lull. I like the question because it comes across as geniune,

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eating the calendar: our tomato sauce, last year, this year and the next

October 25, 2011  |  Altri Primi, Conserve, Primi  |  5 Comments

'E mo' si balla belle mie', I say to the last three remaining bottles of tomato sauce in the back recesses of the storage shelves, 'It's time to dance, my beauties'.  I crack the seal on one of them and the castle kitchen fills with the tangy, saline blood-smell of

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la capunata (detto 'la cialda pugliese): a barley-bread based salad

la capunata (detto ‘la cialda pugliese): a barley-bread based salad

August 10, 2011  |  Altri Primi, antipasti, Primi  |  10 Comments

Try it sometime. Next time folks ask what you do for a living, tell them that you run a cooking school in Italy. They'll be instantly at ease and more than pleasantly surprised, eager to talk about recipes, their favourite restaurants and wines that they've had recently. Complete strangers will

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who you’ll meet at the castle: piero, il panettiere

March 19, 2011  |  Altri Primi, antipasti, il paese, il popolo  |  2 Comments

  Just outside the castle walls- but still inside the epicentre of the city- you'll find a bread baker named Piero, a soft spoken man who just adores the local bread. While he makes several kinds, all in the Salento style, his 'pucce' are famous enough for folks to come from

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la pepata di cozze: hot pot of fragrant mussels

la pepata di cozze: hot pot of fragrant mussels

July 27, 2010  |  Altri Primi, antipasti, Primi  |  3 Comments

This is the first part in a series of posts dedicated to fish and fish cookery, and especially how it's done here in the Salento, the thin slice of gorgeous land dangling out into the middle of the seas that make up the Mediterranean. Like you, I had always tended to fall back on a handful of recipes, virtually neglecting the rest of the monger's case. This summer, all of that is going to change.

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Lu Stufatu (Sexy, Sexy Stewed Vegetables)

January 21, 2010  |  Altri Primi, Contorni, Secondi  |  1 Comment

Like many of the more wily concepts in life - lu stufatu is one of those things that is almost impossible to pin down, empirically: You can just bet your boots that you'll know it when you see it.

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La Passata Del Mezzogiorno (Tomato Sauce, Salento-Style)

January 20, 2010  |  Altri Primi, Conserve, Primi  |  11 Comments

Come late summer in these parts, you still see older folks gathering in small groups out in the countryside. Someone will have an old radio on, set to some station where all the music was recorded back when full, lush symphonies were all the rage. An old stew pot will be bubbling

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