Tag: Italy

Basics & Tips

BOO!! It’s Halloween!

The last time we were in London, England in October, darned if we didn’t see Halloween stuff all over the place! I couldn’t believe it.  One afternoon we saw people in costumes heading into some kind of afternoon event not far from the Victoria and Albert Museum. I think it’s safe to say it was a […]

Basics & Tips

Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

Over last weekend we were sitting by our little antique electric fireplace with its glowing glass “coals” reminiscing, sipping wine and reading the entries in my Rome journal from last October.  We spent our Thanksgiving  there wandering the Jewish Ghetto and having lunch at Da Giggetto.  Quite honestly, we are missing being there so much. […]

Basics & Tips, Fall Harvest

A Canadian Thanksgiving

2008 was our first Thanksgiving away from home!   We had travelled to Italy with two friends and our plan was to celebrate Thanksgiving by cooking dinner in the “villa” near Lago Trasimeno in Umbria.   My husband and I had  grocery shopped in Tuscany and Umbria two years earlier and knew beforehand that Italians […]

Basics & Tips

Pesto: What’s in a Name?

It seems to be everywhere…and not just the molto famoso “Ligurian” pasta with potato and green beans or with trofie pasta but dribbled or drizzled on anything you can imagine. But is that really “pesto?” Or, has the term “pesto,” which derives from the Italian pestare, meaning to pound or grind using a mortar and […]

Basics & Tips

Then There Was Cheese!

Have you ever had a thought that keeps popping up every now and again? Well…in my case one of these is “daddy, where does cheese come from?” Or should I say “how did we come to have this wonderful stuff called cheese?” Every time I watch someone making cheese on a T.V. programme I just […]

Basics & Tips, Fall Harvest

Our “New” Oil

Just got the word…the shipment of extra virgin olive oil from Amelia in Umbria has arrived in Vancouver! And I’ve been told it’s extremely good this year. The 2014 harvest was hit particularly hard. Either the oil was in short supply or not available at all due to terrible weather conditions at the most crucial […]

Fall Pasta, Spring Pasta, Summer Pasta, Winter Pasta

Cacio e Pepe

This is the best version of Cacio e Pepe I have made so far, although in Rome, where the dish originates, we found that they used tonnarelli, a  thick spaghetti, instead of regular spaghetti.   I would recommend the Spaghetti alla Chitarra pasta made by either GiGi or La Molisana. I use it as a substitute for the tonnarelli which,  I […]

Basics & Tips

The Rome Food Diary, 2015 – Part 4

La Carbonara 1906 – Via Panisperna, 214 Once upon a time, in 2010, during our very first visit to Rome we were out and about in Monti, we decided to go for lunch…after the usual getting lost bit, we somehow stumbled upon where we wanted to go. And although we arrived 10 minutes after the […]