Blood oranges, salami, carrots, olives, bread and cheese from the market made an easy lunch for a sunny day. On my mid-morning walk I bought a roasted artichoke at the panetterria/bakery near the duomo/cathedral. A simple dipping sauce of olive oil and lemon juice made the vegetables sparkle and wedges of blood orange rounded out lunch nicely.

The fruit of a blood orange may be orange flesh splashed with dots of red or be totally garnet red.  My favorite orange juice is made from blood oranges and is nearly peppermint pink in color – but not in taste.

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My son Noah and I made sushi for lunch the day before we were to fly off to Sicily for our two month adventure.

Noah cooked the rice and cut the carrots and avocado and I went to the market to get yellow tail tuna and ‘crab with a k’.  Crab with a k or krab is also called imitation crab meat or seafood sticks. Krab originated in Japan and is a type of processed seafood made of ”Surimi” or finely pulverized white fish.

Along with the fish, I found pickled ginger powered wasabi and seaweed sheets called nori in the Asian Food aisle of the well-stocked grocery.

Ella made sushi hand rolls and Dylan opted for peanut butter. Noah and I made sushi for everyone else. Here’ how we did it .

… read more

Rosie is feeling blue. Hiding in the closet didn’t work, standing outside and looking disinterested  wasn’t convincing. After an undignified trip to the car, we resorted to a pharmacologically induced calm.

After a couple of tranquilizers, her trembling and quaking disappeared along with her appetite.

On the other hand, her human traveling companions, that would be me and Charles, shared an inspired salmon salad that combined poached salmon, ripe olives, mixed greens, feta cheese, red onions and Clementine’s. Proof  that careful ordering is as important as careful cooking.
I don’t have a recipe for this salad (yet), but I look forward to combining fresh fish and citrus from the market in Siracusa as soon as I can and sharing what I learn.

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The car is packed, the fridge is empty, our on-the-road picnic is ready and Rosie is in the closet. Like most golden retrievers, she loves people and parties, swimming and fetching sticks, she is easy going and intuitive so when she saw the suitcases she headed for the closet.

Rosie knows that we are going on a trip. She hates the car. We will have to push, pull, cajole and ultimately lift her into the car where she will tremble and cower until we arrive in Virginia where she will have a holiday with her brother, our son Noah, and his family until we return in April.

Although Rosie refuses all food during a road trip, we don’t. The interstate highways are certainly engineering marvels but when it comes to food, other than the enormous array of salty, deep fried, processed, corn syrup sweetened, preservative laden and packaged foods there is NOTHING to eat. So I have packed an on-the-road picnic.

The picnic will start with a mid-mourning snack of apple slices smeared with peanut butter and topped with a generous grind of flax seeds. For lunch we will have veggie sandwiches, inspired by a room-service meal that I had when Charles and I were traveling in India. For three weeks, we had eaten nothing but traditional Indian food and had spent every minute soaking up the sites, smells, history and charm of India. The morning we checked into the very Victorian, Taj Hotel across the road from the Gate of India in Mumbai, I realized that my in-box was filled to overflowing. I needed to step back from the wonders of India for twenty-four hours, so I closed the pink chintz drapes, crawled into bed and pretended that I was at home in Vermont.

After hibernating for seven hours, I was hungry but unwilling to leave my nest. The room service menu was filled with curries and so was I. Luckily, there was a child’s menu that offered a ‘Mild Vegetarian Sandwich’. Described as English vegetables on toasted brown bread, it sounded perfect and it was. Here’s how I made it for our on-the-road picnic: … read more

A couple of weeks ago my friend Edie told me about friends who had moved to San Francisco from Vermont.  ( I’m sure that they didn’t move for the natural beauty, this Vermont sunrise was worthy of Maxfield Parish.) They created Recchiuti Confections with the idea “… once you introduce people to truly exquisite chocolates they will be won over instantly and forever.”  The next day Edie sent me a link to the Hot Chocolate Recipe Contest. I called to find out where I could buy some of the Hot Chocolate wafers and was surprised when I was told that they would send me a sample. The chocolate came a few days later – they were yummy. The wafers are meant to be used to make a perfect cup of hot chocolate but I decided to create a new cake that would feature this wonderful semisweet chocolate.

I was inspired by a package of dried mission figs in the pantry and decided that figs and chocolate would be an interesting combination. I emailed my recipe for a Chocolate Figgy Cake with coffee mousse to Recchiuti and I am waiting to see it they agree with my friends who declared it a winner. Their site says that the winning recipe will be announced before Valentine’s day.

Here’s the recipe, written in cookbook recipe style, that I sent: … read more

Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, the day that many Americans have been anticipating since this time last year. For most Americans, Super Bowl Sunday is celebrated with an all day party and an unending spread of finger food.

Pre-game activities begin after lunch, the game, liberally dotted with commercials, starts at six, is interrupted by the half-time show, then more of the game, and finally the wrap-up. It’s no wonder that most hotels offering Super Bowl packages have a four-day minimum stay – it must take at least two days to recover.

I’m not a football fan. My mind wanders with the interminable delays. I worry about mortal injuries to the referees and camera operators when I see enormous bodies, protected by even more enormous plastic helmets and shoulder pads flying through the air and landing in heaps. I’ve been told that the creative commercials that debut on Super Bowl Sunday are enough reason to watch but I’d rather be putting finishing touches on Super Bowls, Super Platters and Super Sweets to sustain Super Friends who are eating and drinking, cheering and booing in front of the television.

One Super Bowl party website suggested, “serve everyone’s favorite high fat, finger-licking snack foods. After all, your television set is the focal point, not the food.” (Those are fighting words to a cook.) Another site suggested serving “salami, pepperoni, cheese whiz, chips and dips, beer and hot sauce, zingers like salami & cheese stuffed pepperochini.” (I wonder if beer and hot sauce is new mixed drink?) Tailgate classics like Buffalo wings, chili, and layered dips are all possibilities, but I want Super Food, healthy food that is not fussy to prepare and has enough flavor to be a bit of a distraction from the game.

Chickpeas and chickpea flour, also called besan and gram flour, are on the Super Food team I’m inviting to be part of my Super Bowl menu. They taste good and are an excellent source of protein, fiber, iron, potassium and B vitamins. It takes only a minute to make the batter for Besan flatbread that can be served either hot from the oven or at room temperature. It meets my requirements for a super finger food.

Hummus, a party regular at my house, is also a Super Snack. This blend of ancient ingredients – chickpeas, sesame seeds, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil is readily available at the market but when made at home it is absolutely fresh, with a minimum number of ingredients and is preservative free. When combined with warm pita bread, it is a complete protein that will build muscles so necessary for passing and blocking on the gridiron. (Not bad for a non-sports writer!) Best of all, homemade hummus costs half as much and is at least twice as good as store bought. I took a bowl of hummus, surrounded with carrot sticks to a potluck lunch last Sunday and it disappeared before the chocolate chip cookies.

Here’s how I made Besan Flat Bread and Hummus: … read more