John Placko is a Toronto gourmet chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy. So it was rather odd to see him on stage at Nella Cucina last month simmering dried split peas with water flavoured with a quarter of a stock cube for lunch and tossing instant ramen noodles with mini meatballs for dinner. But it … Continue reading »
Get ready for spargel season
Toronto Star, April 19, 2013 While we quietly await the start of the Ontario asparagus season, expected around Mother’s Day, the rest of the world is celebrating these tasty spears with gusto. Residents of Stockton, California, are gearing up for the city’s annual asparagus festival starting April 26. Last year, cooks in Asparagus Alley deep-fried … Continue reading »
Papaya 101
ripe papaya Published in Fresh Bites, Toronto Star April 5, 2013 I met Homero Levy de Barros on a lava-scorched plantation on Hawaii’s Big Island, where we gazed at rows of scrawny trees, green papayas clustered at the top like pendulous breasts shaded by a parasol of splayed palm leaves. I was a papaya newbie … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia – Arrivederci
All of Agrate knows when I come to visit. I’m the stranger who sets the dogs barking when I walk by their gated homes. Most of the time I don’t even see them until there’s a sudden surge of furred energy toward the gate and the roar begins from some Doberman or mutt, lab or … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia: On the road
We left first thing in the morning and set the Tom Tom for Borgo d’Ale, home of asparagus. At 130 km an hour and hardly any traffic, we arrived in 35 minutes via the autostrada. The 5-euro toll was a bargain Toronto should consider. We passed perfect rows of fruit trees and grapes, perhaps table … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia: radicchio to riso
As I ate breakfast, at a lazy 9:30, Remo was already busy preparing lunch, chopping leftover cooked veal for his tomato sauce and wandering out to the garden to collect a firm savoy cabbage and leaves of dark red radicchio, chopping them in a fine julienne for salad. At 10:30 we had our first cappuccino … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia: Pasqua to Pasquetta
Another cool grey day, but the forsythia are blooming and the magnolia buds are swelling, so spring is definitely in the works. We did make it to church in yesterday’s glorious sunshine. The streets flowing into the central roundabout turned into a parking lot and every pew was filled, though there can’t be more than … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia: Village life
The rain has stopped, for now, leaving the fields green and the daffodils blooming in time for Pasqua, though it’s still cold enough for a winter jacket. Twelve degrees tomorrow, they promise, but it may be short-lived. Inside, by the stuffa, the enclosed wood stove that heats the main floor of Remo’s sprawling split-level house, … Continue reading »
Letters from Italia
March 28 Arriving in Agrate When I showed my 75-year-old brother-in-law my blog, with its photo of fennel, he looked bemused. I can’t blame him; when fennel is part of your DNA and grows in your garden, why would you write an article about it? Even after a night in business class, day 1 was … Continue reading »
Fennel packs a licorice surprise
By: Cynthia David Published in the Toronto Star March 22, 2013 With its frothy green fronds and shapely body, fennel is the coquette of vegetables. Bite into the crisp white bulb, however, and its deep licorice flavour may knock your socks off. If you don’t like black licorice, chances are you won’t be serving this … Continue reading »
