How the Physical Environment Can Influence the Quality of Life I remember the first time I visited my then girlfriend at her college campus in the state of Indiana and the thought of my lovely sweetheart in all of her collegiate glory is still vivid in my mind’s eye.  However, I also remember the vast flatness of northern Indiana (specifically, […]

The “warm weather” hasn’t exactly arrived here in New Jersey but there are signs of spring all around. Our flowering pear trees have budded and our ancient Forsythias have yellowed and now brighten our otherwise drab landscape.  And our purple bearded Iris have come up along our narrow driveway along with a host of tullips, lillies, and crocus shots.  So, there are signs […]

A while back I wrote about my definition of the la cucina povera or the kitchen of the poor.  I view la cucina povera as a style of cooking centered on cooking with whatever, non bourgeois, ingredients are in the house.  My family in Calabria once cooked in the above manner (mostly due to economic reasons but also because what was “in […]

Food Philosophy – You Got to Be Kidding! If you’re not an avid reader of the Atlantic (or similar general interest magazines like the New Yorker) then you’ve undoubtedly missed both B.R. Meyers’ anti foodie argument/rant (in a piece called, “The Moral Crusade Against Foodies – gluttony dressed up as foodie-ism is still gluttony”) and James McWilliams’ March 1st response entitled, “B. R. Myers […]

(photo: eat more real food like tomatoes, red onion, sardines packed in olive oil, fresh whole milk mozzarella, great bread, and red wine)  The web is on fire with talk about the recently revised dietary guidelines from the USDA.  The USDA, which updates their food recommendations every five years, now suggests reducing the intake of sodium, eating less food, and consuming more fresh […]

  (photo: various Scordo family members during the late summer wheat harvest in Pellegrina, Calabria)  You can say, unequivocally, that Americans love their beef. Compared to their Mediterranean counterparts, American’s are ranked third in the world (only behind Argentina and Uruguay) when it comes to choosing beef for their dinner table (Italy is ranked 9th, per 1999 statistics).  An educated guess as to why beef […]