Wood burning ovens are superb at many things including roasting meats, pizzas, breads, vegetables, etc. In fact, some of the very best food I’ve tasted has come out of our Aunt Giovanna’s olive wood fired oven in southern Italy (via her Panificio), including a wide variety of durum wheat breads. In fact, the very best breads in all of Italy […]

Leave the beautiful region of Calabria and travel north to the much beloved Tuscany or Toscana and you’ll find biroldo or sanguinaccio – a traditional blood-based salumi.  Biroldo is a pork blood sausage and you’ll often find it infused with raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon or flavored with fennel (blood sausage is also referred to sanguinaccio in many part of […]

The Best Food Season of the Year and Hot Peppers: Pickling and Drying We can assert, without much doubt, that late August through early September is the best time of the year for fresh fruit and vegetables here in the United States.  Backyard gardens, local markets and farms (including ones participating in CSAs), and even large, chain, supermarkets, for example, carry […]

An Easy Guide To Making Guanciale (Cured Pork Jowl) at Home   The following is a guest post (on homemade guanciale)  from our friend and Scordo.com super fan Dr. K. (make sure to read all of his wonderful guest posts and recipes) . All photos courtesy of Dr. K. Charcuterie originated as means of preserving meats for extended periods. Cured meats (e.g., […]

(photo: courtesy of Dr. K.; from a clockwise position: raw onions, reduced onions, water added to reduced onions, onions prior to cooking, and finished product). When our die hard fan Dr. K. mentioned he tried a new recipe from Michael Ruhlman’s excellent new cookbook Twenty I was eager to hear which dish he attempted.  And when Dr. K. sent us photos […]

The following is a guest post from our friend and loyal fan, Dr. K.  Click here for all of Dr. K.’s guest posts. You don’t have to be an Italian or of Italian descent to recognize the heralded position that the tomato holds in the pantheon of Italian cuisine.  But without some careful planning, it is not possible for most […]

To say that bread is an important part of day-to-day life in Italy would be an understatement.  In fact, it’s more likely that the Italian political and economic system will be reformed over the next couple of years than it is that Italians will change their longstanding relationship with pane or bread.   Most modern Italians still buy artisanal bread […]

(photo: lovely friends are rare in life, lovely friends who give you heirloom tomatoes are the equivalent of Saints; thank you Dr. K.)  One of the loveliest times of the year for individuals enamored with food here in the northeastern section of the United States is late August because, amongst other fruits and vegetables, the tomato crop is in full swing.  Here in New […]

  (photo: beautiful bread is a work of art and our reader Dr. K is a maestro!  photo courtesy of Dr. K.) I have to admit that I get very jealous of folks who bake with great success as I’ve been slow to experiment with baking bread, for example.   And it’s also why I’m incredibly thankful for skilled Scordo readers like […]

(photo: courtesy of Dr. K., notice the great exterior crust and color) Dr. K.’s Bread Baking and Some Detail Behind the Recipe It’s been a while since we featured a guest post from our good friend Dr. K who’s wowed us in the past with bread recipes such as Whole Wheat Pita and Coccodrillo Ciabatta.  In turn, we’re delighted to […]