In the land of the trinacria

In November, we spent a week in the southeastern part of Sicily, one of my favorite parts of Italy.

Crowd pleasing

We were invited to a holiday potluck, and after receiving my assignment (something meaty), I struggled for a few days with what to make — devils on horseback, meatballs, wings, pâté — but just wasn’t feeling it.

When in Rome

 

The tonnarelli cacio e pepe at Flavio al Velovevodetto in Testaccio has left us pining for this dish days and weeks afterward.

Seeing red

A five-pound version of the hong shao rou from the excellent Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking. Fed us for a week.

Greek to me

An amalgam of two recipes I found online: shrimp with tomato sauce and feta.

Compounded

My friend Lillian came up with this recipe for the much-lamented Gourmet back in 2007, but I only just discovered it a few weeks ago, which means that there were seven long years that I missed out on this.

XS (Or, how the Christmas cakes stacked up)

I’m not big on the winter holidays, but over the last couple of years, compelled by the magical Massari panettone that my ever-generous friend Anna turned me on to, I have fully embraced Christmas cakes.

Sometime this year

August and September:

Apricots poached with riesling and vanilla bean (from Molly). A snowstorm is purportedly on the way tomorrow. Apricots seem like such a distant memory now.

Sometime last year

I had a couple of weeks where I was really on a roll with dinner, and I remembered to pull out the Bronica to document these rare events. But all the dust accumulating in the apartment thwarted my efforts to scan the negatives myself, so the developed rolls just sat. And sat. And sat. Until! Last week, on a very good tip from Brian, I found a guy who could fix my problem. (In this town, there is always a guy who can fix your problem.) (Thanks, Brian!)

Chowder head

I took the heap of shells leftover from making the delicious pan-barbecued shrimp from The Essential New York Times Cookbook and made shrimp stock.