Some recipes just happen. Without a plan in mind or a grocery list in hand, all of a sudden ingredients that never seemed to make a match, become a perfect pair. While researching the wooden tables at the farmers market this week, a box of black currants caught my eye. I knew these intensely purple berries would be put to good use, but had no idea at the time that they would become the dressing for a summer salad.
With a bag full of cherries, a handful of arugula, a small goat’s cheese, bunches of carrots, yellow zucchini, oddly shaped tomatoes, white eggplant, purple basil, flowering oregano and the fascinating black currants all packed up, I bicycled my way into the weekend.
While arranging my groceries in the kitchen, I considered the possibilities for the intriguing berries. The following recipe takes advantage of their startling tartness in a new favorite for the season.
Picnic baskets filled with bowls of potato salad, marinated green beans, fried chicken and carrot cake. Those are the family food treasures that come to mind when I recall summer visits to the Lago di Garda. As a child I remember being mildly surprised by the detailed questions my Mom’s friends inevitably asked her about just how she made her potato salad. To me it was as constant as the sunrise and brown-bag lunches for school every morning. Obviously potato salad was meant to taste like my Mom’s, and it was something she was pretty famous for.
The beautiful purple eggplant is one of Italy’s most popular vegetables. Next to endless varieties of tomatoes, eggplants are to be found piled high on market stalls from Parma to Palermo. I often make “melanzane alla parmigiana” for dinner and dream of Italy.
Some dishes are not made up of exactly measured ingredients because the recipe is an intuitive part of family history. Certain foods define a mood or trace memories shared. In my family zucchini soup is the definitive comfort food. It is not just a simple, thick Italian vegetable soup. It is the soup served at family get togethers. It’s fragrance serves as an unconscious reminder of the good life in Italy, of camping trips and of the entire family talking at the dinner table. It is one of the foods we always asked my Mom to make.
A frittata is like a pancake filled with vegetables or a quiche without the crust. I make frittata when pressed for time on a busy weeknight, using up the vegetables available in my kitchen at the same time. On just one of those kinds of days, I discovered that oven-baked fennel frittata topped with wild spinach salad makes a straightforward and satisfying dinner
In the Veneto, a bowl of risotto for lunch is more common than a plate of pasta. I learned how to make it inadvertently, sitting at the kitchen table reading books as a teenager, while my mother and her best friend Melia prepared Sunday “pranzo”. The preparation of a good risotto is intuitive in this part of Italy. It comes with the territory, like Palladian villas and purple mountains framing the northern horizon.
Beautiful Food Stories 