That’s me – in Florence, Italy a couple of days ago. My friend Linda and I spent two weeks in that magical city. 

Have just gotten home from this trip to Italy. Suffering from jet lag (who doesn’t?). I haven’t begun to sort all the photos (way too many plates of food), but there will be stories coming up. And pictures. Stay tuned. The photo above was taken at Trattoria Zaza, a lovely upscale and extremely trendy restaurant in the heart of the city, adjacent to the Mercato Centrale, Florence’s ubiquitous central food and produce market. We liked it so much we ate at ZaZa twice.

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Lovely for a hot summer’s evening. Ideally make it ahead (overnight). It’s served cold.

Despite it being officially “fall” we’re still having very warm temps here in SoCal. My cousin Gary and his girlfriend Vici were visiting me (we went to see the Terracotta Warriors that were on loan at the Bowers Museum near where I live – amazing, by the way).

Did I start this the night before? Nope. Forgot. But that’s fine – I haven’t had it that way, but I allowed the sauce to mellow for awhile in the frig and I did make it enough ahead that the salmon had cooled to room temp. I served it with some baby bok choy (see in photo). Maybe a salad would have been better. This recipe comes from Marian Burros – maybe only people of a certain age will remember her (she has several cookbooks to her name, I believe). You can find the recipe at the New York Times. Yes, I have a subscription at the moment.

Anyway, what’s unique in this is that you put the salmon into the cold pan (preferably a pan that’s just big enough to hold the salmon and all the poaching liquid – it does need to have high enough sides to contain the liquid). Then you add the wine and broth. And then, you place a layer of waxed paper (or parchment) – cut to fit – on top of the fish. Then a lid is put on top of that while the fish gently simmers.

Meanwhile I prepped the bok choy and had it ready. Once the fish had cooked I removed it from the pan and just let it cool on a plate while I prepared the bok choy (added a jot of sesame oil to the water, then lemon juice at the end). I cooked it in the same pan I’d used for the salmon (easy cleanup!).

I’d made the mayo in the food processor – I must confess – I just put all the ingredients in and whizzed it up. I did flash blanch the green leaves, though (spinach and parsley) and drain/dried them on a black kitchen towel. Anyway, the mayo was a cinch to make, and oh so very tasty. Garlic is prominent. The only change I made to this recipe was to add some lemon zest (I just hate to waste that lovely umami flavor when I’m using a lemon anyway).

What’s GOOD: so tender and tasty. And I just loved how the herby mayo tasted. And I have quite a bit leftover – not sure what I’ll use it for as it won’t keep for very long with fresh cilantro in it. It would be lovely on green salad, I think. Kind of like ranch dressing, but not.

What’s NOT: only that there’s a bit of prep here, but none of it was difficult.

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Oh goodness, is this ever delicious! Even though I forgot to add the Parm to the green beans at the end, the combo of the chicken and green beans was off the charts.

Just a few days ago I watched an episode of America’s Test Kitchen, with this recipe being prepared. It looked so good – and easy – that I decided I’d make it soon.

It’s important here that you purchase skin-on and bone-in chicken breasts. But gosh, they were SO huge, so I ended up using only two breasts for the recipe and slicing the chicken to serve it to four people. Once you salt the chicken (underneath the skin, carefully so you don’t tear off the skin) you puncture a few little slits in the chicken skin (so the fat can breathe, I suppose?), then you put the breasts, skin side down into a COLD skillet. Talk about different, huh? It takes 7-9 minutes to brown the chicken, being careful not to dislodge the skin again, or tear it.

At that point you put the skillet (oven-proof, obviously) into a 325° oven to finish cooking, which takes about 25 minutes or so (those big breasts took nearly an hour). I tested them starting at 20 minutes so I wouldn’t over-bake them, sticking the probe in the side (but deep into the thickest part of the breast). Meanwhile, the green beans were prepped and the garlic sliced, Parmesan shredded (and, as I said, forgot to put them on the finished green beans, duh!).

Once the chicken had reached temp, I put them onto my cutting board and they rested (without tenting) while I cooked the beans. The bottom of the iron skillet I used had a lovely patina of chicken fat, a lovely golden color. You put the pan on the cooktop and to that you add the garlic, red pepper flakes and salt. After it comes to a sizzle, add the green beans and gently lift and stir (tongs worked best). After several minutes of that water is added, a cover put on and the green beans steam until they’re crisp-tender.

You could put everything out onto a serving platter (beans on the bottom, breasts on top) but because the breasts were so big, I sliced servings and plated the green beans and the breast sliced.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was delicious. For ME the garlicky green beans covered in the pan drippings/sauce was just over the top. But the sliced chicken was moist and flavorful. I have leftovers and they’ll make some nice sandwiches.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. It does take awhile to roast the chicken, but you can do green-bean-prep during it.

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A real vegetable-centric soup using ground chicken plus rutabaga and some sorghum.

Most of you probably don’t even know what sorghum is. I knew it was a grain, but decided to use it because sorghum is a resistant starch, meaning it doesn’t totally break down during digestion (so less absorbed carbohydrates). I’d had it on my shelf for a year and hadn’t used it. My cousin is coming to town to visit and I was going to make a barley soup, but he eats GF, so that was out. I looked up a substitution for barley – one of them is sorghum!

I love soups that are just chock full of vegetables. This one has rutabaga in it too (it’s also a resistant starch), plus carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms and plenty of nice herbs (coriander, fennel, thyme). First the sorghum needs to be cooked – it takes nearly an hour for sorghum to be cooked through. It’s a chewy grain anyway, but it’s less chewy once cooked, obviously.  The veggies are cooked in olive oil, with the herbs and garlic, then you add the broth. Once everything is cooked, you combine the two and bring it to a simmer, then ladle it out and serve with parsley and Parm.

Today is the first day of Fall, but here in SoCal, it’s still summer heat. But I eat soup just about 52 weeks a year. Thank goodness for air conditioning!

What’s GOOD: just a good, hearty vegetable soup, but with a different kind of grain in it, the sorghum. Very satisfying. Lots of good flavor.

What’s NOT: maybe just the cooking of the sorghum – it takes awhile. Maybe next time I’ll try making it in the instant pot – that would cut down on the cooking time.

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Oh my goodness, these are so good. I love rugelach and these may be the best I’ve ever eaten. 

It’s the cream cheese dough that makes them so tender and flaky, and it helps that I used Bonne Maman brand raspberry preserves for the filling. Listening to a podcast interview with Joan Nathan (an acclaimed cookbook author and respected chef/writer) I loved hearing about the provenance of this recipe. Joan’s mother’s recipe used a simple dough that is very Jewish-traditional . . . then she visited a Jewish bakery in Montreal, Hof Kelsten. She tried to get the baker to give her the recipe – he said no – but he did tell her the ingredients. But she had tried using a cream cheese dough on her own rugelach and had liked it a lot. But having it confirmed by the master baker – that’s when Joan decided that rugelach needs cream cheese in the dough and she’s been making them that way ever since. Joan has a new cookbook out called My Life in Recipes, which is more about her own recipe history than all of her other books have been. I have the book on hold at the library but it’ll be a long wait. This recipe was available online at The Splendid Table.

The dough (butter, cream cheese, flour, salt) is mixed up in a stand mixer, refrigerated, then divided into 4 portions, each rolled out to about a 9×12″ sheet (very thin, about 1/8″), then it’s spread with those good raspberry preserves and toasted walnuts. You roll it up the rugelach (long side) and use the side of your hand to divide each roll into 8 portions. Refrigerate them for an hour, then bake. Only thing unusual is that the oven is heated to 400, but as soon as you put the cookies in the oven you turn down the heat to 350. Easy enough.

The other thing she adds is vanilla sugar on top of each cookie. I made a half batch (2 cups sugar, a small sliced-open vanilla bean, scraping out all those tiny vanilla beans, then adding it all to the sugar container. It sat overnight before I used it to sprinkle on top of each unbaked rugelach.

It’s the using the edge of your hand to divide the dough that’s unusual. Ever since she learned that technique, she’s been doing that way ever since. It makes the rugelach almost a sealed pocket, although many of mine did not remain a pocket. But it makes no difference since it’s all about the taste. If some of the jam leaks out, oh well. You’ll love it anyway.

What’s GOOD: every little thing about the cookie was divine. The crispy, flaky pastry, to the raspberry filling. Even the caramelized jam that oozed was delicious. I can’t say enough good things about this cookie. According to Joan Nathan, raspberry rugelach are the only ones to make, not any other flavor. Period. I trust her judgment.

What’s NOT: really nothing, although if you make the vanilla sugar, you’ll need to start the day before. And you need to refrigerate the raw dough a few hours, and refrigerate the prepared cookies for an hour before baking. So you can’t just mix, roll out, fill, cut and bake.

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Hot and humid summer days call for something cold.

If you’re thinking this is like gazpacho, no, it isn’t at all. Other than having tomato in it, and being a cold soup, there’s little resemblance between the two.

Decades ago, in 1981, my DH and I took a trip to England and we befriended a delightful older couple in a tiny town in Somerset (Ilminster) and we stayed friends with them until they both passed away. Pamela taught me how to make a proper pot of tea (see post I did about that in 2007). She taught me about popovers and any number of other British culinary things. She was a chef who cooked for families in lovely homes, doing hunt dinners/weekends and banquets and such. They lavishly entertained us in their stately home many times, and over the  years we got to know their children and extended family.

Back in the late 80s and maybe early 90s (no internet then, of course, but I doubt Pamela or Jimmy would have cottoned to computer use anyway!) I wrote to Pamela and asked her if she had any recipes for cold soups. Oh my, yes she did, and she wrote me the longest letter, writing out in longhand about 6 cold soup recipes.

Just buy some green chiles (I bought a California green chile plus a pasilla/poblano) and some mushrooms and you probably have everything else on hand. The preparation is a little unusual – first you lightly sauté the garlic in olive oil, making sure it doesn’t get brown or burn, then you bloom the paprika and cinnamon in the pan with the garlic. Then the vegetables go in, the tomatoes, the citrus zest and juice. That’s it. Simmer for 30-40 minutes, cool it down, puree it (mostly, but leave it a little bit chunky) and chill for several hours or overnight. When serving it, put a dollop of Greek yogurt or sour cream on top and sprinkle some fresh mint all over.

What’s GOOD: it’s really delicious, and refreshing. Because of the mushrooms, it has a kind of meaty texture, although there isn’t, of course, any meat in it. Low calorie, for sure, just about zero carbs, although tomatoes are technically a fruit, so yes, some carbs there. You can’t really taste the cinnamon – interesting, that, as I expected to be able to note it. And the citrus juices just blend in, so you can’t exactly taste that, either. But put it all together and it’s great. Worth making.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t like soups without some meat in it.

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Ever get a craving? This was what I wanted – chicken with rice and lots of lemon. Yum.

So, the news from my end of the world is that I’ve been down with Covid-19 for almost 3 weeks. I thought all I had was a cold (odd, to get one in the middle of the summer . . . ) but days went by, with the worst sore throat I think I’ve ever had. Now I hear, in Covid terms, it’s called razor-blade sore throat. Yup, that’s what I had. The first week was just awful with the cold symptoms. Once I realized that after 7 days I still couldn’t taste or smell, that’s when I had an ah-ha moment – oh, maybe I’d better test for Covid. Positive. I still have laryngitis, a cough, and the worst part is fatigue. And no taste or smell. I didn’t test myself early enough to get Paxlovid for it – I had no idea I had Covid! Anyway, I’m better, but I’m not back to normal, by any stretch. This was my first episode of having Covid.

Meanwhile, I needed to eat, so I made two soups in the early days, still eating one of them, chicken Harira, a hearty soup with plenty of zip and healthy ingredients. Finding the energy to even make soup was a challenge – I merely went from bed to recliner, to the kitchen, to recliner and back to bed at night. I’m so tired of daytime TV! But on one of my better days I made the soup and have been eating it ever since. Several soup pouches from the freezer got me through the first days.

As the more recent days went by, I got a craving for chicken with kind of soupy lemony rice. I try not to eat rice, but I couldn’t get that out of my head, so decided I’d make it anyway. I placed an order at a local grocery store and they put everything I needed in my trunk, so I wasn’t around people. Even a few days ago I was still testing positive for Covid. Anyway, I researched a bunch of different recipes and finally settled on one, but with some changes.

Knowing that chicken has better flavor if you use the bones, I bought chicken breasts. You could use chicken thighs – I just wanted the extra flavor boost from using bone-in chicken, and I wanted the nice color of the browned skin. I used my big Dutch oven (Le Creuset). After browning the chicken (I cut the large breasts in half crosswise) I sauteed the onion, then added the garlic at the last minute.  Chicken broth, rice, lemon zest and juice, oregano AND some lemon juice powder were added, with a bit of crumbled Feta cheese, then I nestled the chicken into the simmering liquid (see photo). Then it went into the oven, covered.

You don’t want the chicken to get dry and over-done, so test it – but you do want the rice to be cooked through. There’s a fine line there. If the chicken is done and the rice isn’t, remove the chicken and tent the platter and continue cooking the rice. You could do all of this dish on the stovetop – it’s just that baking gives a gentler heat source to the rice. Sometimes on the stovetop it’s hard to find that just-right temp to keep the liquid barely bubbling.

Test after 20 minutes. Ideally the chicken is perfectly done, the rice is just right, and there’s just a bit of liquid in the pot. When serving, add chopped Italian parsley, more Feta cheese, lemon slices and capers.  Serve in a wide bowl if possible to contain the soupy rice, if it is soupy!

What’s GOOD: even though my sense of taste and smell isn’t working right, I could tell it was lemony – that’s what I was looking for and craving. My roommate Liv (have I mentioned a bestie of one of my granddaughters is living with me while she attends nursing school?) had some and thought it was wonderful. Loved the capers – somehow I could taste them, although perhaps it was sourness that I could taste!

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of – it does take about an hour of time to fix this, including the baking time.

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There’s the finished product, a green salad with this unusual sauce on it, standing in as a salad dressing.

This post has a back story – but before you dismiss this recipe without knowing, this ubiquitous Italian sauce traditionally is lapped over thin slices of a veal roast, and contains canned (jarred) tuna. Don’t ewww over it. It’s quite amazing.

Suffer along with me as I jump back in time to the late 1980s, I think. My DH (dear husband Dave) and I were on a wonderful vacation in Europe. He’d gotten acquainted with Simone, his sales counterpart in Paris. She had stayed with us when she was here in California, and on more than one occasion she issued us an invitation for us to stay with her if we wanted to visit Paris for a few days. Well, sure we would!

A year or so later, after taking a lovely, long weekend driving trip visiting wineries and castles SW of Paris with her as our tour guide, we returned to her apartment (which had a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower, by the way) and I offered to prepare a meal the following evening. She begged me to make vitello tonnato, and she wanted to invite some American friends of hers who were living for a year in Paris. I hadn’t a clue what the dish was, but she had a recipe.

It’s available at amazon.

She went off to work and Dave and I went out to buy all the ingredients. One of her caveats was to be sure to use the leaves of her basil plant, a pitiful dried-up thing she had in a window in her rather bleak kitchen. Bear with me, here, but back in the late 80s I don’t think we Americans knew much about live basil. It wasn’t available except in dried form. Vitello Tonnato, as I mentioned above, is a very classic Italian dish of a veal roast, roasted ahead, cooled, then sliced thinly, plated decoratively on a platter, then this tuna sauce is poured over it. In her recipe, she wanted the sauce poured over whole room temp roast, and then garnished with basil. It all went well – except I forgot the basil. Let’s just say, she was upset. Such an important aspect of the recipe, she felt, and I’d forgotten to garnish the dish correctly. Lesson learned.

I vaguely remembered this sauce, but because we abhor eating veal here in the U.S., it never occurred to me it would be just as tasty served on a turkey breast, or even pork tenderloin, perhaps. Or to be used as a dip for raw veggies. A week or so ago I was reading a blog post from a foodie someone who has a pretty good following, and was quite unhappy when she said in order to see the recipe, I’d need to upgrade my subscription to paid. Nope, not doing that. So I researched, and found several recipes, and utilized the few clues that blogger had mentioned.

So there is the sauce, whizzled up in a food processor. Obviously, it’s messy. It takes awhile to puree this as the tuna is a meat. You do want it to be a sauce that is smooth.

Since I eat salad a LOT, it was the sauce used as a salad dressing that intrigued me. As I write this, I’ve just about finished the jar (above), having mixed it with a variety of salad greens and raw veggies.

Some of the recipes do use canned (not imported Italian) tuna, but I had one of those jars on my pantry shelf (picture above). Perhaps you don’t have to use the Italian, but for sure use oil-packed. Tuna here that’s dry packed, is so very dry.

Interestingly enough, none of the recipes I perused contained basil. Simone had insisted it was an important aspect. After that trip, we lost touch with Simone as she retired and moved to her home in Belgium. I’m glad I remembered about tonnato, however!

What’s GOOD: I just love this sauce. For me, it became the protein and dressing for my salad. It is reminiscent of a Caesar dressing. It has tons of flavor – and unless you know it’s tuna, you might not be able to figure it out.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t have some of that good jarred tuna (it’s available on amazon, BTW). I’ll be making this again, for sure.

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I know, I know, that doesn’t look like risotto. But it – sort of – is.

One of the benefits of having your own food blog is that when you’re not at your computer, or at grocery store, or in this case, reading a magazine, your memory is jogged – hmmm – have I made this before? Reading a recipe for mushroom and cauliflower (rice) risotto made me go to the blog and sure enough, I posted this recipe about 9 years ago. I hadn’t made it in the interim. It was good then, and it’s still good! I bought a whole cauliflower and a bunch of mushrooms and decided I’d make this for myself.

What I remembered was the delicious umami flavors (in this case it’s the low-sodium soy sauce – and the mushrooms also – which give it that unctuous flavor). I made it just a bit differently this time – all of the flavor profiles are the same – it’s just that I chopped up the mushrooms (whole, fresh) and the cauliflower (whole, fresh) in the food processor. I did that separately because you cook the mushrooms longer than the cauliflower. The shallot and garlic enhanced the flavors as they’re added in with the mushrooms, plus a bunch of dried thyme. I love thyme. My favorite herb, I do believe.

There’s the pot-full of the mixture in the photo at right. Since it had been awhile since I made it, I couldn’t remember if I needed to stir it all the time (like you do with risotto). I didn’t, but I did stir it frequently as it gently simmered. I kept a spoon handy because I had to taste it frequently so I took it off the heat when it was JUST done, not over-done. You still want some texture. Of course, cauliflower doesn’t have the texture of rice, but it was close enough. Mushrooms have tons of flavor. As I added the soy sauce I thought – 4 tablespoons – wow, that might be too much. Looking at the recipe again, nope, it’s correct. Poured it in. Cream is added and some broth toward the end. When done, you need to be ready to serve it immediately. This takes about half the time as real rice risotto. Have all the ingredients ready and it goes together very quickly.

For myself, I ate it as my lunch. My complete lunch, and surprisingly, with looking at the low calorie count, it was quite satisfying. The recipe says it serves 6, but that’s as a side dish. As a main event, probably 3 servings. Nuts aren’t commonly on risotto, but you could easily add some pine nuts, perhaps. That would give the risotto some added texture.

What’s GOOD: the overall taste is really fabulous. Hard to believe the mushrooms – and the soy sauce – can make the dish so very tasty. Easy and quick to make. Leftovers need just a jot more liquid (broth, water or cream).

What’s NOT: a bit of prep with the mushrooms and cauliflower in the food processor, but once that’s done it’s easy. No other challenges.

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Surely what you’re thinking is that this is a beach read, a summer read, something light and romancy, or just plain “light.” Nope. Altogether different. If you read the Mediterranean Summer cover’s fine print, it indicates a story about the Med’s coastal destinations. Travel book, maybe? Nope. It’s a memoir and a fascinating one. About David Shalleck, an accomplished chef already, after doing a bunch of stages in Europe (where chefs work for short stints in well known restaurants, to gain experience), decides to accept a job working as the chef on a mega-yacht, cruising around the Med for a summer.

Not wanting to give away the story, I’m just going to say that IF you’re interested in food, cooking (sometimes very difficult under sail), a bit of coastal travel thrown in, and enjoy reading about the interior running of a mega-yacht, you might be interested to read this book. Once on board, the owners (wealthy couple from Italy, but the wife did all the talking) gave him direction. Always the best quality. Always fresh food. Almost everything fish and shellfish, maybe a bit of poultry. No red meat. Use inspiration from whatever seaport we’re in. Make the meals different – i.e., never serve the same thing twice. That last one would have slayed me! And to be prepared to serve a large crowd at a moment’s notice. At one of their ports he had to prepare lavish food for 100 people. That took some creativity and planning including storing some of the food in the anchor well. I laughed a bit over that!

This isn’t a cookbook, although there are a few recipes at the end – including one chocolate cake that the owner (the wife) said yes, he could make that again – but I’ll just say I didn’t copy out the recipe because it looks to be an enormous amount of work! There are recipes for some varieties of fish not available in the U.S., although I suppose you could substitute.

It’s a charming story. Zero romance. But a very interesting read. As many of you readers know, my DH (dear husband, who passed away 11 years ago) was a sailor at heart and he hoped when we got together in 1961, that we’d sail around the world together someday. I get very seasick, so that never happened. But having spent many an hour trying to cook in the tiny galley aboard our 37-foot sailboat, always on inland waters and bays, I can certainly identify with the author about the issues regarding cooking on board a boat. After Shalleck’s stint on the yacht, he returned to the U.S. and worked with Jacque Pepin for years, and with Joanne Weir, for both, though, in the background. And I was pleased to read that he’s married, with two children, and lives in the Bay Area.

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