gastropoda/stories

Whimsy from salon

Los Angeles Times

MILAN, Italy — Think of Italy, and wild and crazy exchanges of cooking ideas are not what come to mind first. This is a country where each and every region is a world apart; the Tuscans in the center might as well be on Mars for all the interaction with the Piemontese to the northwest.

Which makes the frenzy of Identità Golose (literally “greedy identity”) all the more extraordinary. (more…)

Los Angeles Times

Back in the last century, an Italian sommelier who became a friend spent a fair amount of time in my kitchen, much of it insisting that nearly every iconic American food was made not just first but better in the country of his birth. Apple pie? They had it at crostata. Grilled cheese? Mozzarella en carrozza was the Model A. Meatloaf? They call it polpettone. (more…)

Los Angeles Times

When the retired carabiniere wedged next to me on the plane to Venice would not stop talking about the wild asparagus he forages in springtime, I figured I was on my way to the Easter promised land. (more…)

New York Times

PANTELLERIA, SICILY — My first dinner on this remote island was like waking in a dream. (more…)