Scordo's Profile

Good recipe. In our Italian household we like to use fennel in a salad along with fresh parsley and thinly sliced (winter) apples. Our dressing is comprised of good extra virgin olive oil, Italian red wine vinegar, dry oregano, Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper. At times, we'll also add / sub radishes, feta, etc.

Great topic! We love lentil soup with a few thinly sliced pieces of pane Pugliese with a tomato-olive tapenade!

The soup and bruschetta are a great combination and very filling.

In our Italian tradition we make many soups without broth (and certainly without cream in the southern Italian tradition). Many of our bean soups (including minestrone, Pasta e Fagioli, and lentil soup) have good, filtered, water as a base.

I like the advice coming from the author of the article. Our personal recommendation, and something we tell our readers, is to simply ignore the food experts and the media. Eating unprocessed foods, cooking from scratch meals, and avoiding restaurants and prepared foods is the food philosophy we try and live by each and very day.

Farro is a great grain and one of the most ancient on the planet; it also contains a ton of protein, fiber, and vitamin B. We make a farro dish that contains tomato as well but we don't apply a risotto technique, rather we simply cook the farro (like standard rice) and then add red onion, tomatoes, high quality feta, plenty of extra virgin olive oil, etc.

I think one, maybe, not so obvious tip to make cooking easier (read more enjoyable) is to buy the best possible ingredients one can afford. Good ingredients make recipes taste better and contribute to the idea of enjoying to cook. Most folks don't like cooking because of the work required versus the end product. So, for example, if one spends a ton of time preparing a dish and it turns out average then the individual will probably see cooking as a hard and tedious thing (regardless of cooking technique, kitchen gadget, etc.).

By great ingredients and the cooking process (and end result) will be that much more pleasant and enjoyable.

My favorite food moment is associated with arancini or rice balls and specifically having them in Calabria (at the sea in Bagnara Calabra). There's something about spending a few hours in the water and working up an appetite and thereafter having a cold beer and a hot rice balls with melted cheese, peas, ground beef, etc.

The very best sun dried tomatoes are truly sun dried; if you don't have the environment to dry them outside I would purchase sun dried tomatoes from Europe.

sorry the food personality is Alton Brown!

Here's our pesto recipe inspired by our Italian neighbor from Genoa: homemade pesto sauce recipe